The Tidings — A Christmas Concert for Troubled Times
As a high school kid, I dreamed of serving God by becoming a contemporary Christian music singer-songwriter. While my ministry has taken many unexpected turns (as this website clearly shows!), I have participated in music ministry at almost every church I have attended. But in 2016, after losing my mother to brain cancer, I found I couldn’t sing. The grief was too heavy.
It wasn’t until I began learning the music to The Tidings Cantata that I was able to begin singing again.
How can we celebrate Christmas in the midst of personal and global grief?
The Tidings is a musical meditation on an unsung aspect of the Christmas story: Herod’s slaughter of innocent children in his quest to kill the Messiah. On that first Christmas, heralds of joy co-exist with grief, fear, and loss. Choirs, musicians, and audiences have experienced the paradox of comfort and joy arising within a retelling of the whole story of Christmas. The Tidings offers us a way to into this mysterious place of comfort, joy, and healing.