Fellow musicians, the summer months open their broad arms with warm invitation to be spent in a higher level of service than music alone can offer for its own beautiful sake. We all concede that the primary purpose in establishing our own schools is to prepare young people to make a contribution to the Lord's work, according to the leanings of their own abilities, and the training they can obtain. If this be true, we should lose no opportunity in reaching our goal. What better laboratory could we have than a summer filled with evangelistic effort?
The Southern Missionary College field school of evangelism, conducted along with the Asheville, North Carolina, effort, included a variety of educational interests, some of which were classes in conducting, and evangelistic and church music. Here is how it worked out.
We met in three different auditoriums. First, there was a spearhead of three evenings in the Memorial Hall. Prior to this I held choir rehearsals two evenings before our first night in the hall. We accepted any who felt qualified to make a vocal contribution. Singers from the Asheville and Pisgah Institute churches came together for the first rehearsal. The next night I met another group at Fletcher. We practiced several simple gospel songs, arranged for the women to be robed, and requested that they be at the hall at six o'clock for a combined rehearsal. When the curtain was lifted, you should have seen the fine group of sixty, eager and ready to sing. They gave us excellent cooperation, and their singing exceeded my best hopes for a hurriedly gotten together group. Each of the three evenings the choir was on hand early for a warmup, and ready to sing.
The next platform to be used was in the high school auditorium. This was too small for so large a company, so we decided to tap the musical resources of the dozen or more students and their wives, to see what could be unearthed. It is surprising at times what people can do, who have never been encouraged to try. From this group we developed duets, women's trios, sextets, a mixed choir, a male quartet, and a male chorus.
When our next and final move took us to the local church building, we were more pleased than ever because of the homeyness and intimacy of the place. The whole music program was a pleasant revelation to me of what can be done with an apparently nonmusical group.
It was not with an apologetic tone that a brief explanation was made that the music was being furnished by our own boys and girls. They were not professionals, nor did they try to act in that capacity; but their hearts were in the work, and their voices rang with a tone of sincerity. It was better to drink the water of a fresh fountain with our bare hands, than to dip a silver cup into broken cisterns. The world has been fed on professionalism long enough to know that it does not always fill an aching void.
On Sabbaths special music from the group was provided for several of the surrounding church services and Sabbath schools. This yielded additional opportunity for practice in song leadership. Too often evangelistic effort has been viewed by the student through the large end of a theoretical telescope; but this plan put his eye to a microscope and gave him not only a close-up view, but a tangible contact with the thing in action.
The Bible admonishes us to "sing . . . a new song." When and where this is possible it lends character and interest to the effort. For instance, one evening while the soloist and I were waiting to provide a special-appeal song, I heard the evangelist say, "Satan can't take Jesus out of your heart." "There," I thought, "is a suggestion for a chorus." The next afternoon at a service of music, the words came so spontaneously that without hesitation both words and music seemed to spring into existence at one time.
"Oh, you can't take Jesus out of my heart;
Oh, you can't take Jesus out of my heart;
He is there to abide,
So I'll keep Him inside;
Oh, you can't take Jesus out of my heart."
The story of the birth of this little chorus, and the way and place of its appearance, led the congregation to feel it was their own, and they quickly learned it and sang it with gusto. A chorus need not be weighed down with profound thought or cumbered with figures of speech. Its appeal is in its spontaneity, its simplicity, and its melodic interest.
One evening during the appeal, which was customary for the evangelist to make at the close of his sermon, I felt impressed to step up beside him and wait for a pause, at which time I laid my hand on his back and said, "For this very moment this song was written." Then I sang my own setting to "Why Not Now?" I cannot tell you the deep effect it had upon the people. Our company felt the pull of the Spirit of God, and a deepened impression was made in stirring the people to do something about their conviction.
There is an attractive level of music performance that holds the world's interest, but there are heights of music's usefulness in winning souls that need not be scaled. We should take our eyes from the green field of the fertile valleys, where grow profusely the plants that feed the aesthetic sense, and lift them to the hills of music's original reason for existence. More souls will be saved through insignificant means than through important or imposing things. The final decision as to what great music is, should be based on eternal results. Each kind has its place, and we should recognize and use each when and where it is most effective for good.
