Healing music

Lutheran, The, Sep 2003 by Hurst, Bill

Brooklyn congregation uses Sept. 11 grant to host concerts

Sept. 11, 2001, opened a new chapter for St. Jacobi Lutheran Church and its changing Brooklyn, N. Y., neighborhood.

Recognizing the healing potential of music, church leaders began offering opportunities for residents to attend vocal and instrumental events in the church's sanctuary. In the days since, the sanctuary has echoed with the sounds of Handel's Messiah, a rich variety of music from other cultures, and vocal and chamber music. Using surveys and conversation with attendees, the church built an ever-growing subscriber list for this music and healing ministry.

New York area musicians such as Thomas Schmidt of St. Peter Lutheran Church, Manhattan, and Roger and Barbara Wesby of Staten Island's Wagner College have shared both music and the gospel. Underwriting help has come from a Comfort and Renew grant from Lutheran Disaster Response of New York. This joint ministry of the ELCA and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod was formed after Sept. 11 to minister to the many needs of victims, families and neighborhoods (see page 52).

This music ministry continues the congregation's desire and ability to adapt to changing ministry needs. Just look at the signs bearing the church's name. Carved into the sandstone doorpost the name is in German; to the left and right, the same words are displayed in English and Chinese-a renewed calling to be a place of faith and healing for the contemporary neighbors of this 110-year-old congregation.

St. Jacobi is located in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn, along a strip that in the late 1800s was a center for Scandinavian and German immigrants.

In the 1990s, St. Jacobi engaged its changing neighborhood by adding ministry in Mandarin and Cantonese languages. With the arrival of Mary Chang as pastor three years ago, the English and Chinese ministries were joined into one congregation. Chang also provides pastoral care at nearby Lutheran Medical Center, as well as a translation and immigration ministry with the burgeoning Chinese community.

One lifelong St. Jacobi member, Walter Forst, puts it this way: "St. Jacobi has faced many hurdles. Becoming a multicultural congregation has been a challenge, but it has also provided us with an opportunity to offer a unique ministry. Now instead of seeing only hurdles, we see opportunities."

And, in the shadow of lower Manhattan, as the music and the voices rise above the signs, in all these many tunes and tongues, the work of healing and faith goes forward.

Hurst is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, White Plains, N.Y., and assistant to the bishop of the Metropolitan New York Synod.