speaker-0: Faith Baptist Church in Taylor's presents This Week in the Word. Well, welcome back to This Week in the Word at Faith Baptist and Taylors. Again, you can find us anywhere you get your podcast by simply looking up This Week in the Word at FBC Taylors. And today I'm so thankful to be joined by the longest tenured pastoral staff member at our church, Pastor Tim Fisher. You feel old. But when I gave you that introduction, I didn't tell him I was gonna introduce him. ⁓ but you've been doing our music here at Faith for

speaker-1: Yeah. Since nineteen ninety nine, August of nineteen ninety nine

speaker-0: August nineteen ninety-nine. And that is a vital ministry to any church is the the worship and music ministry. And that's why we brought you on. Behind you I've got our screen name and ⁓ I wanted to address the elephant in the room. We we've called this We Killed the Church Choir. Now what? Now we have not killed the church choir. We still have a church choir, but I'm I'm speaking in terms broadly speaking, in terms of churches, it is for us to have a church choir, we are unique. And we're okay with being unique in that regard, but collectively within churches, this is becoming not the norm.

speaker-1: You have to plan to succeed. Not that we are the model church, but I do think that we have a track record that says we value the music program. I remember when I first came on here, the pastor who hired me said, Tim, what do you want to see changed in our church? And I said, if we are going to have a success successful music program, the five o'clock hour, service started at six, the five o'clock hour has to be dedicated to music. No deacons meetings, no no other meetings. just music. We can start we at that point we really didn't have much of a children's choir. We had a teen choir that consisted of about six girls that was done by a graduate student over at Bob Jones, about six girls. And our regular choir was about, I would say 40. ⁓ and I said if we're going to be successful, we have to commit together as leadership that this is going to take place. And they all committed. And within five, six, seven years we began to grow exponentially to the point, again, where we have a number of our people, a a good third or s or more of our evening congregation has c has also participated in some kind of music. Right. And that's that's what you want. It's it's stewardship, it's getting the people to participate.

speaker-0: But and by God's grace that continues to be our goal. But again, we've called it We Killed the Church Choir. Well, because that is choir loss if they were built are in t are continually and increasingly empty in churches across the state.

speaker-1: And even here in Greenville, churches that when I came here in nineteen ninety-nine had large church choirs, there are probably a third, probably a quarter of those churches even have a choir anymore. ⁓ churches that we know. And it's it's been an amazing transformation. Mainly because ⁓ I would say of the modern worship ⁓ I don't know if I call it philosophy, but pr definitely practice. Right. Where you have a few up there. ⁓ it's more of a spectator, it's more of an entertainment. We have the church worship team, it's a few people and everyone just kind of gets gets up and participates and ⁓ in and singing and I I I think that's the dangerous model for many reasons.

speaker-0: Music is unquestionably in the Bible. Right. In every book of the Bible. And it's we are commanded to sing and worship our God. And yet when we're talking about killing the church choir, it's increasingly difficult to find churches that have any kind of musical acumen to be able to worship as we've been commanded, just on a basic rudimentary level.

speaker-1: Right. It's interesting. Driving down Whitehampton Boulevard here last year, there was a a more modern worship church with a sign on their on their marquee sign, we're looking for a professional drummer. They're willing to hire anybody that they can. Whereas we have the model that we're trying to produce our musicians from within to train our people. And it's just a whole difference of philosophy based on how we look how we view ⁓ music and worship.

speaker-0: And and just so folks know, we're not just sucking these ideas out of our thumb, right? Th there are s there are statistics to do that, and and we can even broaden our scope to get some of these statistics. Here is a study that was done in 2022. This is done by the Southern Baptist churches. Of course, we're not a Southern Baptist church, but it's ⁓ unique in its own rara. It was conducted by Will Bill Bishop is his name. Here's what he came to discover. ⁓ of the 127 Southern Baptist churches that he sub s ⁓ studied, Only 44 of them had an active children's choir, and fewer than 10% had a youth choir. And he was just studying it. And this was his observation based on that statistic. Here was his observation: quote, churches have not prioritized training young people to do worship ministry. That was his conclusion based on studying his demographics.

speaker-1: Absolutely. And I I agree with that totally. And you've got to remember, probably the Southern Baptists, not not talking about philosophy here, but just talking about the overall picture. The Southern Baptists have done more in worship and training ⁓ in their colleges and their seminaries than any other group has done. And still they're facing this. Now imagine some of the other denominations and independent Baptists who have very few resources to pull on. If they're having that problem, we've got to be far worse.

speaker-0: Right. We we we use this podcast format to speak of things ⁓ specific to ministry happening in our church. And towards the end of this podcast, stay tuned because we do actually have a very exciting announcement related to something happening in our ministry. But I also recognize that there may be other listeners outside of our ministry and and or perhaps people that are in our ministry that are familiar with what I'm about to say, and that is think of any church, medium, small, large, and ask any pastor. What is one of your concerns in 10, 15 years from now? And somewhere on that on his list is probably going to be: I'm concerned about who is going to help lead our congregation in worship in the future. Because frankly, I look around and I don't see our young people learning music. And they're going to become adults who don't know music. And then what are we going to do when it comes to actually leading our congregation in worship? Frankly, one of the most golden things any church member can have or any church can have amongst their membership is someone capable enough to play the piano for congregational singing. Right. And there are so many churches that don't even have that, let alone someone that could rudimentarily strum a guitar or sing and carry a tune to lead music. There we're we're increasingly that that That pool is getting smaller and smaller.

speaker-1: Yes, and and frankly here at Faith we are we are blessed beyond measure with with qualified musicians. I get calls regularly. I won't say daily or weekly, but but every few weeks from pastors who say, Who can you recommend for a music pastor? We need someone to come in and help train our people. And the Bible colleges, bless their hearts. There's just a small handful of guys that are coming out. And most of them have two or three churches on them their senior year waiting for them to come to their church. They're they're pretty much hired. So finding someone is becoming more and more difficult. ⁓ and it's a it's a tough it's a tough field.

speaker-0: It is not tough to argue from scripture that this is needed.

speaker-1: No, it's not. In fact, ⁓ I'll put a plug in here for a booklet that I have written. Now we've given this out to many families called Harmony at Home. And it's only three dollars in the bookstore. But here's the point that I wrote towards the end of the first quar ⁓ the first ⁓ chapter. It's called Why All This Fuss? And and here's a here's something I wrote. If music were merely a product of man's imagination, then this discussion would be moot. But since God created music, and since it is a part of human nature by God's design, then we must discuss it and in a reverential manner. Since God is musical, and since music plays a role in his heavenly environment, then we need to understand what that role is and what he expects of those created in his image. Since we know that music has been ordained by God to be an integral part of worship, can we neglect knowledge or reflection upon it? And finally, Since all believers are believers are commanded to utilize the gift of music to praise God, we dare not treat it as unimportant or optional. ⁓ I mean I I I that's that I believe.

speaker-0: Dogmatic about there's been a a shift even ⁓ in the last I don't know what date we want to put on it, but I was gonna put this on the screen and we can speak to this. For for much of church history, churches didn't simply recruit musicians, they cultivated musicians, and that has changed.

speaker-1: Yes. That's true. Lil Mason, who, ⁓ I have I mentioned before in earlier podcasts, did more for music education than anyone else in America did it from a local church perspective. Wanted to train people in the area of music. The music school was ⁓ and this was the I the music school was nothing different than what we call the music academy here at Faith. He started that in the late eighteen hundreds in churches that he was involved with in Savannah, Boston, New York. Started the music school for this very purpose, training musicians in the church.

speaker-0: Right. But something changed. Obviously. Yes. Now we can point to many some things that changed, but we're living in twenty twenty six and we're looking around and going, This isn't happening. I mean, when it comes to even pret potentially the the good and all the good that came out of ⁓ there were good and bad that came out of the Christian school movement, a lot of the music training and organization of that training shifted during that time from churches doing it to schools doing it. And now we look at that same Christian school movement and even the schools aren't doing it.

speaker-1: Yeah, now I I'll express my own opinion on that. I I think you are right. Yeah. But I think there's a deeper cause. And that is the older generation said, We're going to let the Christian school do all the cultivating and training with our children, and they took their hands off of that process. Parents were not involved with the training of their children. So parents lost the ability in music training. They didn't want to go through the hassle. ⁓ children lost it. And then those children Have now grown up and they are the present parents. They have no training, so what are they going to give to their children? At the same time, Christian schools don't offer training because budgets don't allow. Very few people offer lessons anymore. The public high schools, if you do get any music, it's jazz choir, it's rock music, it's pop music. Very few will get music in a classical environment, training skills and abilities to play the piano. So I would lay the blame more on the older generation not making it an effort to train the younger generation.

speaker-0: It's a discipleship issue.

speaker-1: Exactly. Exactly.

speaker-0: It's a discipleship issue. And to that end at our church, we have re we have begun drumming up a lot of loud it's starting to reverberate in my dreams now that who is the primary disciple maker? Yep. Parents. Parents are. But there's been a shift to that end. There was for much of church history there was this push to recruit and train even amongst the younger generation. ⁓ the parents were helping in this skin and then that changed.

speaker-1: And I think I think w to to credit the parents, we have many families in our church who are beginning to see the need and who are taking advantage of the music academy and saying, you know, we we really ha don't have the ability to do this. Would you help us? Would to That's a great relationship. That's what we want to do.

speaker-0: ⁓ to our end we say we're a partnership ministry.

speaker-1: Right. And I want to read one more paragraph that I close that first chapter with. It says, Music education improves you no matter what your vacation vacation. No matter what your vocation may be. Our families and churches would be much stronger with nurses, engineers, mathematicians, and construction workers able to express themselves in praise. Individuals equipped to sing praises with the spirit and the understanding also. would enhance the church's mission of edification, evangelization, and discipleship. The growth resulting from music education spills over into all areas of Christian life. We cannot overstate its importance.

speaker-0: All areas. Yeah. I've heard you speak to this. I and I I it was an eye opener for me when you first introduced it to my thinking. The Bible commands us to sing praises to God. Does that mean we can all sing?

speaker-1: I believe so. Yes. I believe that God I b I don't scripture teaches that God will never give a command if he does not give us the ability to carry out his command. Problem is he says that we are to sing, but some people have not been trained. But as soon as you train someone to sing, it's not hard. They they are equipped then. ⁓ so yes, I believe everyone unless there's a physical disability, I understand that. But every person that God created Has been created with the ability and the command to sing. We need to draw it out of them.

speaker-0: This was, again, a historical understanding. You can go back and read we there's many quotes to that end. I want to give you a couple of fun ones that I found from Luther. Here's what he said next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise. The gift of language combined with the gift of song, it should say, was given to man that he should proclaim the word of God through music.

speaker-1: I can't say it any better than that. Except spelling song.

speaker-0: Son. He did give us the gift of his son. That's what we meant to Yes, he did. Now I use that to introduce this next quote, because this one really got me thinking about training the next generation and the importance of the the church should have on training the next generation of music musicians. And Luther obviously was maybe as passionate as we may be today, Luther took it to another level. Here's what he said. We must teach, must teach. Music in schools. A schoolmaster ought to have skill in music, or I would not regard him. Neither should we ordain young men as preachers unless they have been well exercised in music.

speaker-1: ⁓ yes. ⁓ you're you're hitting one of my notes here that I like to play off and I I I some of the Yes. ⁓ some of the people in church n may know or if not, I I spent years of my life traveling ⁓ and speaking in conferences, speaking in churches, speaking in the Christian colleges. And if I ever came back to one thing, it was this. The music struggles that we are facing in our culture today. Does everybody realize that we're facing music struggles?

speaker-0: Unintended. ⁓ I I didn't know.

speaker-1: Absolutely, one of the biggest areas of disagreement is not ⁓

speaker-0: people disagree over this? I'm sure I'm shocked. I'm just kidding.

speaker-1: But this this struggle is not the result of a lack of music appreciation. This struggle is a lack of music theology. And the leadership in a church has to be with the pastor. If the pastor, if a pastor calls me and says, We need some good musicians in our church, can you help us? My I ⁓ honestly, my first answer to that is when's the last time in your church you've preached. on music and its value and the the the worship aspect, taking that from scripture and teaching your people. And most of them say, Well, I'm not a musician. I don't preach on music. And I said, That's your problem. Your people don't see it as a theological issue. They see it as, hey, we can do with it, do with it or do without it. Doesn't really matter. I said, you have to be convinced first. I've been telling this to preachers for forty years.

speaker-0: And he's be I'm gonna give a personal story that I haven't shared often. You know this one where I'm gonna go with it. But in in Florida, that was the first church I pastored in Florida. And it was a struggling church at the time they asked me to candidate. And one of the conversations was toward music and I'm was committed as I am now to a conservative music philosophy. Now they weren't so sure about that. ⁓ but they had done a lot of their choir numbers through tracks. You ever it before I came? You hit play and you sing along and it's like Christian karaoke. And one of the things that I mentioned is if I'm gonna come to this church, I would ask that all of those tracks be thrown away. Well, that's a pretty big ask, because they didn't do it any other way. And the reason I did that was because the tracks were contemporary, at least some of them. And I figured we're not gonna do that. Well, they said, Well, we don't have any pianists. We got only one pianist, a sweet, godly lady. And ⁓ that's a lot. I don't know if we can do anything beyond that. Well, as it so happened, ⁓ few hours before we'd been having a conversation about God's grace on this church, and over the years they had not had a paved parking lot, which in Florida is becomes a muddy mess. And they had built the building and they had decided as a congregation we're gonna be debt free for the foreseeable future, so they they weren't gonna take out any loans. Well, they needed a parking lot, something awful. And they'd already decided we're not going to take out any loans, and they wanted to be true to that commitment. We want to be debt-free for this period of time, but we need a parking lot. We got a mud pit out here. And by God's providence, and you can get all the details. Basically, the city needed a bus stop and picked the church location as that bus stop and ended up paving the parking lot for the church, no cost. And God took care of the parking lot. Well, praise the Lord. That's an amazing story. We get to this music thing and they said, Well, we have no pianists. If we get rid of the tracks, we'll never have a church choir. And to which I just said, Don't you think God cares more about the worship of Himself in the congregation than He does our parking lots? And if God can pave our parking lots, surely He can provide us with the musicians necessary to worship Him in our church service.

speaker-1: Amen.

speaker-0: And by God's grace. That's exactly what happened. And that can happen here. And that's what Luther's saying. It this is what John Wesley added. Singing is as much the language of holy joy as praying is for holy desire.

speaker-1: Yes. Yeah, I I I also think theologically, when when Paul is having discussion of spiritual gifts in ⁓ First Corinthians fourteen, he he he talks about the church prophesying. He says if everybody c speaks in tongues and there comes in somebody from the outside and they hear you speaking in tongues. Now you know this because you just had a podcast on tongues. ⁓ we did? Yeah. But he said if everybody speaks in tongues, unbelievers will come into the service and say, You're mad. Mm-hmm. But if everybody prophesies as a church, unbelievers will come in, they'll be convicted, and they'll say, Who is this God? And some of them will be saved. Now, you may disagree with me, but when is the only time in our services that congregations prophesy? And prophesy means to tell forth the word of God. When do we as a congregation together tell forth the word of God? It's congregational singing.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: And I believe that congregational singing has a powerful language of prayer. Absolutely. And telling forth the word of God. And it is undeniable when someone comes in and hears our congregation sing well. We don't always do it, but many times we do. What a blessing it is. And I, as a music pastor, get, and you as the pastor, get comments from people who come in and say, wow, that was that was unbelievable. the congregational singing. It spoke to my heart. ⁓ I've I've heard of people getting saved just through the congregational singing. They've come forward after the service and said, I need what this congregation has. That is exciting. That's what this is.

speaker-0: Yeah, the teaching and music ministries are not two separate parts. Right. They are together. Here's why Isaac Watts put it this way: good music is intended to make doctrine descend into the heart.

speaker-1: As I have said before, people don't leave humming your sermons. No. They leave singing the songs. So if we we need to teach them doctrine and the music so they can take that home. I grew up in the pop music world. When I was in junior high, the Beatles were number one. So I have been through that entire scene. I remember being immersed in that music and growing up as a teenager, and for every little situation that came up, I had a song that came to my mind. And I remember when I gave my life to the Lord, I said, I need to memorize good hymns so that when things come up in my life, a hymn comes up, a line from a song comes up, and I could sit here and tell you forever those lines and what they have meant to me. But that is the doctrine coming into my heart through music. Right. Not that music will never replace scripture, but good music will always be full of scripture. Right. And they're going to complement each other.

speaker-0: But as we come full circle, there's still this ongoing lingering concern. I've talked to, and I know you have too, many pastors, my myself included. Here's the concern. Well, what next? Where's the generation of young musicians that are being trained to help lead the congregation in worship?

speaker-1: And praise the Lord, we have an answer. We

speaker-0: After all, recruiting asks who can play, training asks, who can I teach to play? And we've made a conscious choice to step out by faith as a ministry and do something.

speaker-1: Amen. Yes. And I think we have made one of the most influential decisions for our future that we could possibly make right now. And that is the music academy. ⁓ Lord willing, if this continues. I mean, the fact that we have thirty seven young people, children learning, and now we're gonna have the adult class, we're gonna have another ⁓ I think six are are are checking into enrollment right now and and I really ur urge

speaker-0: You broke the vote wall speaks to the camera.

speaker-1: camera congregation get involved in this ⁓ get excited about it see what the kids are learning yeah ⁓ I I'm just I'm just very excited about this. I I I can't well I won't see the results but in 10 years fifteen years what this could mean to her.

speaker-0: I mean we're only a month in and we got thirty six students. So let's just praise the Lord for all.

speaker-1: That's incredible. I am so happy.

speaker-0: ⁓ it it is ex it is beyond exciting. It it it brings tears to your eyes if you really think about it.

speaker-1: And to all the people in our church who were saying, Well, Tim, if this is so simple, why didn't we do it before? And I'm not here to criticize the earlier ⁓ administrations of this church, but this administration we have a senior pastor who within the first f two weeks of your ⁓ time here called me into your office and said to me

speaker-0: I think I came to York.

speaker-1: Yeah, when are we gonna start a music academy? And I just said, okay when Chris Hendries came, that was his number one question. Mark Herbster came. every everybody who has come in is not only interested but committed. And when we were able to make this happen without even an increase in the church budget, this doesn't cost the church anything. Folks, I I am thrilled because of the present administration and the resourcefulness. That that you folks ha ha that we all, but primarily you the leadership here has put together to allow us to do this.

speaker-0: Can we just ⁓ I mean it's podcast format, I love this format to be able to say without raising the church budget. Th we're we're taking God's resources that otherwise we could have been spending on parties and gift card raffles, which we were spending, to be honest with you, we were spending on parties and gift card raffles, and we're saying, Hey, let's not spend it that way. Let's spend it on investment in young people training for worship. Let's spend it on discipleship ministries that grow worship to God. Let's pour into the lives of these young children. That's where we're spending our resources. And if you can't get excited about that, I don't know what you're getting excited about. Because that's worth getting excited about.

speaker-1: I love it when Christ talks about the purity of praise coming from children. And there's there's just something about that that I I can't wait as this begins to to blossom.

speaker-0: Now I gave a radio tease on purpose earlier in this podcast. Because I said, you know, our podcast, we called it, you know, okay, we killed the church choir. Now what? We didn't kill the church choir. We still have a church choir. But church choirs are kinda dying. They're a dying breed. And we want to invest in that. And we wanted to start this music academy. And you've seen as a congregation the investment in music under this man, Pastor Fisher, for all these years, including Some hymn history things which will come into this conversation. Yes. And we have reached out to others that we thought would also share our passion. And and we want to tell you about one of them because what what Pastor Fisher about to share with you, we could never have lined up ourselves. Right. But by the grace of God, we're even making this announcement.

speaker-1: That's right. Yeah, so give me a little time to prepare you on this. And I hope you'll be excited as as I am. As you know, about four years ago, I believe, we started some videos of him stories. First one we did was Amazing Grace. ⁓ we've done several over the years. Our folks have seen these. I get calls regularly from people who have seen the live streams saying, Where can I get these? And I have to say, I'm sorry they're not available because the music that we use is copyrighted. But when I s we started these, I contract I contacted an office, the American office, of a man named Jan Mulder, ⁓ who is a Dutch musician who has a number of recordings of just beautiful arrangements of hymns and orchestra. I wanted to ask him if we could use it, his music just as background music for these videos that we've done. He was very gracious. gave us permission royalty-free to use it just for our church. He was very gracious to us. So we have produced these videos around, I think about a dozen have we have produced before, and we hope to do more. This past fall, when we ⁓ showed the last one that we did, Pastor Phelps, Pastor Endries, and I were in his office discussing this, and I and I don't remember maybe it was you who said, Why can't we get these out to other churches? And I said, well, all the music is copyrighted, but let me call, contact the guy who owns the copyrights, Mr. Mulder. And so we had decided what we would thought thinking we were going to do is put these all on a national website where people go to get these kind of videos for the services. We use it all the time for the short videos that we show in our services. And All the money that comes in from that will go to the music academy. This is a way we can regularly finance the music academy. So I contacted Mr. Mulder, got his address, sent him an email about telling him about the Hymn history stories, telling him that any money ⁓ from a financial arrangement that we could work out with him, any money that came in from those, we would pay his royalty rights, and then we would put the music the money towards a music academy. And I just told him very briefly what we were doing with the music academy. A week later he sent me the kindest email and said, Tim, this is wonderful what you're doing with the Music Academy. He said, I want you to use our music royalty-free. You can you anything that's we own the copyright of, you can sell anywhere in the world, and I want you to be able to use it. And then at the end of the note, he said something that shocked me. He said, By the way, I would be more than willing if we could work out a date to come and do a free benefit concert. For the Music Academy. Well, that blew me away. I I spoke with you about it and just blew us all away. So we checked into this and we were able to set a date with him of November 1st, Sunday evening, November 1st. ⁓ Now, I'll explain to you in just a couple minutes why I think he this Music Academy got that response from him. But within just a few weeks after we set the date, we had a few people in our church come forward with donations that will make this concert possible. We have to hire an orchestra, we have to bring in a professional sound person. This they these are our costs, major costs.

speaker-0: Well back up for a second. Because even for me when you're saying it, it was like wow, I could tell you were over the moon excitement. Yes. I don't I don't swim in the, you know, illustrious musical waters of the men like Pastor Fisher. So I was I was familiar enough with the sound of Jan Mulder, having seen those videos. I don't know if I knew as much about him as what you later told me. And it it adds a layer to this that I I I don't know if people's socks have been sufficiently blown off. Okay. I I think they need to know just what kind of man we are now having who graciously volunteered to do this for us.

speaker-1: Mr. Mulder grew up in the Netherlands. I I believe he was a teenager when he accepted the Lord. He's a classically trained musician and he he's he has done some some if you want to call them secular works, they're beautiful. But he did a lot of his ministry went or work went towards arranging familiar hymns. And he played them all over Europe. and I I if my reading is correct, ⁓ his his concerts were very successful around Europe. But the first time he got invited to America to play at a large church, he did the program. And the American church loved it. And they all went up to him and and said, Thank you for playing these hymns that we've known for so long. The thing that shocked Mr. Mulder was in Europe nobody knew the songs. Right. In America, people knew the songs. And he comm he committed himself to coming to America and doing concerts. His office is actually near Hendersonville, North Carolina. And he stays here about six months a year. He lives in London the other six months. And he does concerts here. ⁓ let me give you some interesting facts about Mr. He has sold more than eleven million recordings worldwide. So we're not comparing him with ⁓

speaker-0: That's what I'm looking for.

speaker-1: The the the the pop musicians, even that are Christians, were putting him in a category where he is still outselling many of people in the Christian pop era. He has an extensive composing career. His official biography lists more than 1,000 published compositions and more than 210 recorded albums since 1992. He works with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. And a neat thing is he play he conducts while playing the piano. When he does his concert here with the orchestra, his back will actually be the audience, the orchestra will be around him. He will be playing and conducting at the same time. He loves to do things that way. And it's kind of his trademark, conducting simultaneously. Fairly unusual, but very nice. ⁓ he his official biography lists six gold albums and three platinum albums, some we sell in our bookstore right now. ⁓ his orchestra and he have appeared on U.S. public television more than 400 times. if he is well known in America, he performed at the Royal Albert Albert Hall in London for the ⁓ coronation ⁓ of King Charles in ⁓ 2023. And ⁓ I I saw that. It was wonderful. His music is dis now. This is the last thing. His music is distributed and broadcast internationally. His biography says it reaches listeners in 162 countries. Spotify ident identifies him as a best-selling artist in more than 20 countries.

speaker-0: All right, so listeners, watchers, are your socks sufficiently blown off? I I I I So again, to recap, this guy you reached out to and said, We're we're we're making these ham history videos, we've been using your things in the background music for them. Can we use them? The proceeds would go to the music academy. His reply was absolutely, we'd love that. Tell me more about this music academy idea.

speaker-1: Yes, yes. And here's the reason why I think he he he made that offer. One thing that I haven't mentioned yet, he is the founder of the Beethoven Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization that provides pianos and to talented young musicians, including scholarship-related support. So he is looking families who are getting their children involved with music can apply to the Beethoven Foundation. for either a free or refurbished a new or refurbished piano that will be donated to their home if their children are interested in developing their ability.

speaker-0: So when he heard there's a ministry looking to cultivate and develop the ministry capabilities and music of young children, his interest was immediately peaked.

speaker-1: I think that's what drew him to our church.

speaker-0: And he's saying on Sunday.

speaker-1: Sunday evening, November the 1st, he will be here with the orchestra doing a benefit concert. And I am so excited. It will all be sacred music. It will all be arrangements of hymns. They are beautiful. And if you have bought some of his recordings in the bookstore and we carry them all, ⁓ you will you will hear exactly why. And by the way, they're they're characterized by their simplicity. Sometimes we really over-arrange, but he plays beautifully. He plays well. I think our church will be thrilled. We are going to be really reaching out to the community. ⁓ This is something we want to fill the auditorium with people. I hope you're inviting folks. We'll let you know more, but but just mark on your calendar November the first in the evening.

speaker-0: Here's the amazing, amazing thing. I you've been thinking as you're talking about this. Ecclesiastes chapter 11, 1 and 2. Solomon writes and says, Cast your bread upon the waters, give a portion to seven and also to eight. And what is Solomon saying? Well, Solomon is reaching the climax of his book. And he's saying the command is to cast and to give. And he's saying, We cannot see God's whole plan, and there's nothing in this world we can build on. To find satisfaction or key to meaning. He's discovered that. He's tried all these things. I can't build lasting satisfaction through all these other things the world has to offer. Yet we are to fulfill God's purpose by accepting our daily law in life as from Him and pleasing to Him as we follow and trust Him. And there is great potential in following God by casting your bread upon your waters. Giving a portion to seven and eight, what is Solomon saying? Hey, listen, I've wasted my life investing in things that didn't matter. Mm-hmm. And there's a lot of people, even in this conversation, when we're talking about children, how much money is poured into sports and how many of them actually become professional athletes? ⁓ yeah. And Solomon's saying, No, I could take that to mean just don't take risks. No Solomon says, I did cast do a do geed, good geed, throw it into the river, ship your grain across the sea, is how the NIV said it. And after many days you will receive a return. This ministry, with Pastor Fisher's leadership, has cast some bread upon the waters and said, We want to see God work. We believe God has it for us to start a music academy. And it didn't take long for some ships to come back across the ocean, in this case from Europe. Yeah. With Jan Moulder saying, Hey, I I would like to participate in what you're trying to do over there in Taylor, South Carolina.

speaker-1: We had n we had nobody knew this was coming.

speaker-0: No clue. No clue. And it gets better the more we can tell this story because Jan Mulder wanted a ⁓ orchestra. A full orchestra. We have an orchestra, not a full orchestra. How are we gonna get a full orchestra? That was remarkable too, in and of itself.

speaker-1: We have several players from Bob Jones University and and ⁓ also ⁓ alumni and members. We have a guy that's getting them already together. I just got an email from him ⁓ Saturday saying or Friday, Friday, saying the orchestra is coming together really well. I'm very excited. That's all I need to hear.

speaker-0: We got a full orchestra with ⁓

speaker-1: It'll be it'll be strings, woodwinds, horn, and percussion. Amazing. ⁓ it's gonna be wonderful. ⁓ and I want to say one more thing you said about casting bread upon the waters, investing. Right. And a wise investment will will bring a return. Let me remind the folks in our church, anybody watching this, the purpose for this concert, it is a benefit concert for the music academy. We will be taking an offering, and one hundred percent of the offering that is coming in.

speaker-0: That's a ⁓

speaker-1: Will go for these young people and their future for our children. And I I hope that that folks in our church will really make an effort to support this. This could provide scholarship money for years to come for our children. Many folks in our church have come up to me ⁓ ever since we announced this music academy and said, How can I sponsor? Is there a way I can sponsor kids? Well We haven't gone to a specific sponsorship of children. Although if you really want that, we could probably set something up for the future. But here is your opportunity to give. This year, our church has already provided enough scholarship. We have the whole year for those who needed financial help, they are taken care of. Praise the Lord. But from this offering, we will draw future years of scholarship money for our children. So I hope you'll come prepared to give and make a sacrifice. Cast your bread on the water. Right. Do do what this church has done. Make an investment. Let's all see how God grows this thing. Let's see how he brings that back to us. It will come again.

speaker-0: Yeah. And it's all I mean, to recap, thirty six students already, praise the Lord. And we're just getting started. Yes. And then we've got this guy coming in. That was not something y you know, y we give out the calendar in January. November first wasn't highlighted like that. And now it's about to be Really highlighted and I don't want people to miss this. So here's what I'm gonna ask folks that are listening. If you've made it all the way to the end of this podcast, please share this with someone else. Yes. Please take the time to to send the link to what you are hearing from myself and Pastor Fisher to someone else who would likewise be benefited. To hear our passion about the music academy and this particular announcement rel regarding the concert coming up, ⁓ share that with others and then go a step further and begin praying about how you can cast your bread upon the waters and be a part of what is intended to be a benefit concert. That is the goal of this. The goal is to raise funds for children to take music lessons. So that we can do as we've already put on the screen, right? Recruiting asks who can play, training asks, who can I teach to play. And sometimes there are some children that we we we don't want finances to be the reason that they can't be involved in the music academy. And that is the goal of this concert. Yes. So we're gonna close with, you may be wondering, I don't know if I've ever heard this fellow, some of you maybe had.

speaker-1: Yes.

speaker-0: And so we're gonna go ahead and close the podcast out by allowing you an opportunity to listen to some of ⁓ Jan Mulder and his plane. And I trust you'll be blessed by it even as we close out this podcast.

speaker-1: Thank you for joining us today. For more information about Faith Baptist Church, visit us at www.fbcttailors.org.