What's music for? Entertainment and recreation? Expressing a wide range of emotions about life and the human condition, such as joy, sorrow, grief, love? So what's music for in church? What is its role? Well, forget the entertainment and recreation bit. But keep the rest. Music in services should help us express praise and worship. It should never be an end in itself, but support us in our worship, devotion and meditation.

Music is an incredibly powerful tool. Properly handled, it can indeed communicate language, intellectual concepts (revelation and the multiplicity of creation) and emotion. Well done, it can support, deepen and uplift our experience of God. It must be as inclusive as possible.
A parish's music should be an integrated part of the parish's mission action policy, in the same way as all other aspects of its activities, such as on outreach and growth/nurture. A parish needs to take a look at its activities every now and again and ask itself whether they are succeeding in, for example, attracting people into the church and giving those who are already in the church the spiritual growth that they need. There's nothing new in any of this: all of the above has been expressed, for example, eloquently and in greater detail by successive Directors of the Royal School of Church Music in their stimulating articles. The Archbishop set up a Commission to see what could be done. The Commission's 1992 Report "In Tune with Heaven" makes depressing reading but made a number of useful suggestions that the RSCM has been busily implementing and developing, such as training for young aspiring organists and supporting initiatives to encourage more children and young people into church through music.

We are fortunate at St. James's that we have many advantages in our music. We have a fine organ, a number of competent singers and instrumentalists, a band and several potential leaders. We can provide a range of musical support to worship. We also have two buildings (church and hall) that are attractive and used as concert venues, bringing people into church. Can we do more? Should we be doing some things differently? A number of exciting ideas for how we might use music have come out of this summer's mission review. We are holding a Music Review on Saturday 24th November lead by Huw Williams, Assistant Organist at St. Paul's Cathedral. This is open to all in our congregation who are interested in music as part of mission: do come along. Christopher Hodges

Review of Church Music - 2001
Some 26 members of the PCC and congregation, including band and choir, met on 24th November 2001 to review our approach to and use of music. We had a most stimulating morning, led by Brian and Huw Williams, the Sub-Organist of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Why Music in Church?
Huw reminded us that the function of music in liturgy, like movement and images, is to assist our emotional response to the "highs and lows" both within the church's year and within each service. He recommended a policy of "pick 'n' mix" towards musical styles - one should not say that, "only such and such a style" or approach is right, but be open to good ideas from anywhere (and any tradition or historical period) and use them within the resources available to us. Huw delighted us with a wide variety of examples, expressed with infectious enthusiasm! He advised that "tradition" is organic and growing, and that one should not be reluctant to embrace new ways of doing things, as circumstances change.

Our Way Forward
We noted that we have a number of musical resources, including a fine organ, a lively band, a choir with potential, and a number of talented musicians. Huw drew to our attention the model of combining different resources so that they work together, and afford variety and overlap. As emerged earlier in the year during our Mission Review, there was strong support for developing opportunities to attract children into musical activities - and offer them and their parents opportunities to become more closely involved in the church. We should examine the exciting possibilities which arise here.

Review of Church Music - 2003
The Review of Parish Music conducted by Huw Williams on 24th November 2001 advised making use of all available musical talents and seeking to adopt a wide variety of musical styles. That review began to set our style of music, which then grew in accordance with our Parish Mission that was developed subsequently. It addressed two key aspects of the Parish Mission: outreach, to attract people towards the Word of God; and nurture, to help people to grow closer to God.

On 1st March 2003, we held a further review of our Parish music and its relationship to our mission. Thirty people spent their Saturday morning focussed on music in the life of the parish. The initial small group discussion was about what musical and what non-musical experience had been inspirational during the last year, and what is the purpose of music in worship.

Chris Hodges reviewed our musical activity in the last year, based on a paper that he has produced reviewing our music policy. It is very clear that there has been considerable growth and diversification in our music, nurtured by the considerable talents of a number of musicians who have worked very hard to stimulate the development of music in the parish as part of worship. The growth of the choir, the development of the children's choir, the blossoming of the Travellers (now called the St. James's Palyers), the performances of many styles of music in church, and the concerts and recitals, as well as the music as part of services, has greatly increased the breadth of music at St. James's. This process continues and has been supported strongly and sustained by the Music Committee's members, who have acted both as performers and leaders. Chris Hodges, Martin Hinckley and Christopher Cromar have all provided enormous musical talent and a spectrum of directions to the use of music in worship.

Christopher Cromar discussed the role of improvisation in worship, with illustrations, reflecting that this is a form of musicianship practised by all the great composers, and something that provides continuity linking the musical and spiritual themes of the service and joining up its parts to make it a seamless experience.

Martin Hinckley drew together the themes, ideas and musical principles that he had used in used in composing a new setting of the music for the Eucharist for St. James's. He has written about these in more detail in the Spire in articles published from January to April 2003. It was very clear that these settings have considerable spiritual and symbolic depths as well as their musical beauty. We listened to excerpts and to Martin's explanation of their meaning, and then sang them.

The last part of the review was spent in group discussion of the questions of whether our music has met our aims in the Mission Action Plan and how can we meet them better. This was followed by asking how can we progress together in breadth of musical style in worship, and finally and more personally, how can music deepen our sense of worship. Discussion was lively and open. Though many of the participants are involved in music and enjoy it, many diverse opinions were expressed, yet there were many similar views occurring in the individual groups.

The main conclusions and the way ahead were seen to be:
1. For most people some music is an important part of worship, whether it be from just enjoying singing the hymns, to feeling that the music added greatly to the spirituality of worship.
2. There were some who thought that there was too little music and some too much, some valued silence, others found that music - in a style and volume to their taste - greatly enhanced their experience. There were some who liked the traditional old favourites and others who liked something new and different.
3. It was very clear that there was a great diversity of taste for style, quantity and prominence of music in worship and in the church generally.
4. There was also recognition that music does contribute to spirituality of worship and is furthering our Mission Action Plan.

It was accepted that we cannot please all of the people all of the time, but we can aim to please as many as possible as much of the time as we can, by taking the following actions:
• Having as much diversity as possible in music, and therefore as much choice as possible for all the congregation and the parish,
• Encouraging tolerance, sympathy and listening, in order to understand each other's tastes and styles as part of worship and of our mission, and how music can enhance faith,
• Cultivating and using all the talents that are available to us, of every sort, whatever they are. Rodney Taylor