“…church musicians are…the ‘pneumatic organs’ of the body of Christ” — Bill Kervin

Quote from Rev. Dr. William Kervin in a sermon "The Breath of Life" at the RCCO College Service in First Presbyterian Church, Edmonton, August 2007 (used by permission)


Rev. Dr. William Kervin in a sermon "The Breath of Life" at the RCCO College Service in First Presbyterian Church, Edmonton, last August (2008), started off with:

  " 'The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it.' (John 3:8) – not a bad definition of a cipher." He quoted the Episcopal preacher Barbara Brown Taylor who says: "All the air that ever was is all contained within the sealed atmosphere of this fragile blue planet. The same ancient air just keeps re-circulating."

Bill continued: "We are sharing in the primordial, the breath of God, which is also the breath of extinct dinosaurs, and was somewhere, a baby's first breath, and someone's dying breath. Right now, you are sharing the air of Miriam dancing and Mozart making music – which is the same air that speaks from the mouth of a pipe when you press down on the key…. It's all connected. It is 'inspiring'."

He suggested that "church musicians are the Lungs of the Church, the 'pneumatic organs' in the Body of Christ. And the people of God need skilled and sensitive musicians to help us breathe more deeply God's breath of life in our worship and our work…Doesn't it feel good to be….breathing together with peoples of other cultures and contexts in a diversity of musical styles and genres, metaphors and languages? This is how church musicians can help the Body of Christ increase its lung capacity, and help us breathe more deeply and broadly God's breath of life."

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