When I graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s MDiv/MSW program in 2005, theology and sacred music was not something that I had thought much about. I love music. But considering how it would be a part of my ministry was really not something that I had been challenged with during the course of my studies.
I began my ministry as a chaplain in a nursing home soon after graduation. Over the course of my five years of ministry there, I grew in my understanding of how important music is to our worship. Even though my residents were weak in body, they loved to sing. The familiar church music lifted their spirits and allowed them to join in the community of believers that they remembered from childhood, youth, and adulthood. You could watch their faces as they were transported to another time, when they were not confined to a wheel chair or a nursing home.
Those familiar words and melodies that transcended much of the rest of their memory were vital to the quality of their spiritual life in their last days. One resident in particular, Vonelle, was a Julliard-trained pianist. She had taught music her entire adult life. Vonelle, had dementia. Much of her memory was gone. But when she sat down at the piano to play familiar hymns, she led us all in glorious worship.
I know the same is true for those of us not confined to nursing homes. Whether you are living in Pennsylvania or elsewhere in the country, sacred music will enrich your worship. Music is powerful, it is how we teach our children, it is how we remember mundane things, and it gets stuck in our minds and hearts (for better or worse). My time as a chaplain in a nursing home taught me much, but one of the surprises was the importance of music for all of us.
The Rev. Erin Davenport is a 2005 alumna of the MDiv program. Through the Seminary’s joint degree program, she also earned her MSW from the University of Pittsburgh. A former chaplain, she now resides in Pittsburgh and serves as the Seminary’s Director of the Miller Summer Youth Institute.