“Before a young man is ordained into the ministry, he should practise music in school,” said Martin Luther. I’m not sure what Martin Luther might have thought about the controversy surrounding Hockey Night in Canada’s theme song, but I do think he was on to something regarding music and ordained ministry. My musical teeth were cut in The Salvation Army and my vows of ordination have been lived out within that same expression of the Church. Music and The Salvation Army have been inseparable in my life. But the way they have interacted invites some comment.

As a young boy growing up in Hamilton, Ont., I learned to appreciate good instrumental music. Each Sunday evening the Hamilton Citadel Band marched up James Street toward an outdoor service. Striding along the sidewalk beside my dad in the trombone section, I took two steps for every one of his. Before long I, too, was given a trombone to play, even though my young arms could barely reach the sixth position. Without knowing it, I had entered the world not only of Salvation Army musicianship, but the greater world of Western music.

A few decades later, I commenced a vocation as a Salvation Army officer with my wife, Cathie. This calling has taken us from the Oil Sands in Alberta to Signal Hill in St. John’s, N.L. It has also taken us from pastoral privileges of corps officership to the educational privileges at CFOT and Booth College. Music has never been far from these appointments, whether choosing some of Charles Wesley’s great hymns for worship or conducting cadet ensembles in our training colleges.

Both music and The Salvation Army have their own integrity. But I’m convinced that my practise of music has better enabled me to carry out my tasks as an officer. Let me explain.

Finding Balance
First of all, I am convinced that Salvation Army musicianship has helped me hold together the sacred and secular. The Church often struggles with this polarization. In recent decades, a whole industry has developed around the notion of “sacred music,” with its too easy dismissal of “secular music.” One difficulty with this is that we end up dividing what God has joined together. That polarization did not confront me as a Salvationist bandsman. I learned to play not only Dean Goffin and Bramwell Coles but Tchaikovsky and Mozart. There was a richness to my musical world, and I believe this helped me view the whole world as belonging to God. As the Psalmist put it, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1, emphasis mine). Our own Salvation Army songbook expresses a similar conviction:

So shall no part of day or night
From sacredness be free;
But all my life, in every step,
Be fellowship with thee.
– Horatius Bonar, SASB 7

Salvation Army music refuses to put the sacred and secular in separate compartments. As the song says, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”

Exploring Depth
Salvation Army musicianship has also nurtured in me a commitment to depth. I appreciate good instrumental music, whether it’s the Canadian Brass, the Winnipeg Symphony or the Scruncheons Percussion Ensemble in St. John’s, N.L. I recall one occasion with the Hamilton Citadel Band when we returned from an engagement. I thought we had played well, but the bandmaster pulled out the same piece of music at the next rehearsal and said, “OK, let’s start to work at the depths of this music.”

In his book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster laments a characteristic of North American spirituality: “Superficiality is the curse of our age…. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”

During my officership there have been those who pushed me to greater depths in pastoral care, teaching and administration. And I realize that Salvation Army music has contributed to this. In my view, there is a strong connection between interpreting the depths of music and interpreting the depths of biblical, human and cultural texts. Our musical tradition, with its commitment to practising its depths, has helped me with that aspect of Christian faith and life.

Learning New Concepts
This note of interpretation leads me to a third observation: Salvation Army musicianship has helped to arm me with metaphors and analogies for my work as an officer. (Some might say, “Too much so!”) For instance, when teaching theology, I struggle to help students and cadets grasp the concept of the Trinity. To speak of God as “three in one” only begs the question: “Three what? And one what?”

The notion of polyphonic music has helped me when thinking of God as trinitarian. Polyphonic music in the Western tradition involves several independent melodies weaving together in a creative unity. Campfire songs sometimes do that (remember “Fish ’n’ chips and vinegar…”?). One of my favourites is the ending of Benjamin Britten’s The Young People’s Guide to the Orchestra. It’s a Christian conviction that God is trinitarian—Father, Son and Holy Spirit weave their separate “persons” together in a creative unity. Polyphonic!

At a personal level, Salvation Army officers can feel fragmented because of the different demands of ministry. Yet 20th-century Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from his Nazi prison cell of the “polyphony of life.” Rather than letting the varied demands of leadership fragment, “Christianity puts us into many different dimensions of life at the same time,” he declared. “Life isn’t pushed back into a single dimension, but is kept multi-dimensional and polyphonous.” Life can be viewed as polyphonic because God is trinitarian.

Discovering Grace
Finally, Salvation Army musicianship has helped me understand what poet Rainer Maria Rilke has called “the grace of great things.” The consumer mentality of the West reduces people and events to commodities, with the result that they are viewed as objects. The Christian faith, however, claims we are caught up in a huge story, involving the greatness of God’s grace.

Through Army music camps, weekly rehearsals, Sunday worship, Calgary Stampede parades, carolling in psychiatric wards and prisons, I have come to realize that there truly is “the grace of great things” at work in our world. The band is greater than any one musician; the music is greater still; and music itself points to something still greater.

It has been my privilege to accompany people in moments of personal tragedy and to rejoice in moments of superb accomplishment. In the beginnings and endings, the pain and the laughter, I have discovered “the grace of great things.” I am indebted to Salvation Army musicianship for opening my life up to that expression of grace.

The journey from the obligatory tune of Duke Street to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring has been fascinating. Along the way I have appreciated Bill Haley and the Comets, Simon and Garfunkel, the Cantus Vocum Chamber Choir of St. John’s, N.L., and Japanese Taiko drumming. Although tempted, I’m not prepared to make mastery of a brass instrument a requirement for ordination as a Salvation Army officer! However, it’s difficult for me to imagine my vocation as an officer without good music; and it’s difficult for me to imagine good music without The Salvation Army.

Now, if I can just locate my old Arban’s Tutor….