By Marek Zabriskie
After not attending a rock concert in several years, I attended two this past week. Roger McGuinn, the former leader singer of The Byrds, the famous 1960s group, performed solo on Saturday night at the District Hall in Norwalk. He was fabulous.
As he sang a song called, “My Back Pages,” with the refrain, “For I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now,” his music and the stories that he told took me back in time to the days when I first began listening to him almost fifty years ago. It was great.
On Monday, I succumbed to temptation and bought a discount ticket at the last moment to hear Neil Young, another great rocker who I grew up listening to, crank out the music at the Capital Theater in Port Chester. Young’s music was like the soundtrack of my youth. This time, he chose to play more recent music, but with the same guitar flair and brilliant harmonica sound.
A month before, my wife and I were in Ireland, where I lead Christ Church members on a Celtic pilgrimage across the Emerald Island. Many of us enjoyed the pubs and listening to traditional Irish folk music, which I adore. Over the years, I have come to appreciate Anglican polyphonic music, like we offer every Sunday at Christ Church, along with classical music, jazz, bluegrass, country, and even the Portuguese music known as Fado.
Different forms of music touch us in different ways and speak to different people. Christ Church Greenwich is fortunate to have one of the strongest music programs in the Episcopal Church, which has over 6,200 hundred churches in eighteen countries. Our chorister program (children’s and teenagers singing program) is one of the finest programs in the world.
We excel at Anglican polyphonic music such as you might find in one of the cathedrals in Great Britain. Our two full-time ministers of music, Jamie Hitel and Jonny Vaughn, are top class. They excel at working with children, teenagers, and adults. We are so blessed to have them.
Now, we are branching out at Christ Church to offer something in addition that is different. We are calling it, “Joyful Noise.” It’s a new worship service that we are piloting twice a month on Sunday evenings at 5 p.m. at Christ Church.
Once a month the service will be led by well-known Greenwich native and musician Rob Mathes, who helped to found Trinity Church in Greenwich along with the Rev. Ian Cron, and who arranges music for musicians like Bruce Springsteen and Sting.
Rob has the soul of a poet. We both love poetry. The use of well-chosen words and the power of the spoken and sung words captivate us. We struck up a friendship several years ago and are delighted to be able to collaborate on this new service. We did a trial run of it last spring, which was attended by over 200 people in the Christ Church Loft and had to turn away close to 100 attendees due to lack of space.
So, we will hold Joyful Noise in the Christ Church sanctuary on the Sunday evenings, which seats 600, when Rob and his team of musicians lead our worship. On the other Sunday of the month when we offer Joyful Noise, musician Anna Leinbach Jacobson will lead our music. Anna is deeply talented and such a joy to hear perform. That service will be held in our chapel, which is an intimate and easily accessible venue.
Anna grew up at Christ Church Greenwich as a chorister. She has been helping to lead music for our fast-growing “Messy Church” service held at 8:45 a.m. in our Parish Hall every Sunday. This service is focused on families with young children. I tell folks that Anna and her musicians play the kind of music that people pay to go out to clubs and bars at night to hear.
Archbishop William Temple once famously said that “the Church is the only institution in the world that exists for the sake of those who are not its members.” At Christ Church we always try to keep that in mind.
That’s why our clergy, staff, and lay leaders experiment, take risks, and use creativity to bring the Gospel to the people and people to the Gospel. I first began speaking to leaders at Christ Church about creating a Sunday evening service more than six years ago when I was being interviewed as a finalist for the rectorship of Christ Church.
We have taken our time to reach this moment, and it took finding two amazing musicians like Rob and Anna, to put the pieces in place. If you like rock ‘n’ roll, blues, jazz, country, and bluegrass, come check out Joyful Noise. A seat will be waiting for you. No need to dress up. Bring the family or your friends. Just come as you are, and let the music and worship be a blessing to you.
The Rev. Marek Zabriskie is a husband, father of daughters, lover of books, world traveler, and student of languages. He has edited The Bible Challenge series of 11 books on the Bible for Forward Movement.
