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When in Our Music God Is Glorified
For two hundred years, Perry Methodist Church has been a singing church.
That should not surprise us, because Methodists have been known as a singing people almost from the beginning of the Methodist movement. There is an old saying that “Methodism was born in song.” John Wesley instructed the early Methodists to sing heartily and courageously, while his brother Charles gave the church thousands of hymns through which generations of Christians learned not only to sing their faith, but to understand it.
Perry Methodist inherited that tradition.
Long before microphones, livestreams, screens, praise bands, or even the instruments we now take for granted, generations of Methodists in Perry gathered to sing the faith. They sang the great hymns of the church. They sang at weddings and funerals, revivals and Christmas celebrations, Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. Music has never simply decorated our worship. It has helped carry the faith from one generation to the next.
And what a remarkable musical heritage this church has.
Miss Willie Ryles served as organist for an extraordinary 37 years. In 1973, the congregation formally honored her for that faithful service.
Then there was Francis Nunn, who served as volunteer choir director for an astonishing 46 years, retiring in 1983. Under his leadership, Perry Methodist became especially known for beautiful sacred music and its Christmas cantatas. His legacy was so significant that a grand piano was later given to the church in his honor.
In 1983, under Music Director Tom Flick, the church purchased and dedicated a three-octave set of handbells and a four-octave set of Choirchimes. Forty years later, in December 2023, our Sanctuary Bells rang again in worship to celebrate four decades of handbell ministry.
In 1986, under Chris Murrell, the J.O.Y. Choir—“Just Older Youth”—was organized. That ministry is celebrating 40 years of singing in 2026 and continues to share music not only in worship but in assisted-living communities throughout our area.
Over the years, the musical life of Perry Methodist has also been shaped by leaders including Joe McNutt, Tom Flick, Chris Murrell, Don Hutchinson, Marc Foster, Alan Parker, Grace Daniel, Deborah Walker, Miriam Marchetti Smith, Sheryl McDaniel, Carol Goff, Tammara Shipes, and many, many faithful choir members, accompanists, handbell ringers, soloists, instrumentalists, children, and volunteers whose names could fill pages.
And then, in July 2006, Jane Kimbrel came to Perry.
For more than twenty years, Jane has stood at the heart of our worship life as Director of Music Ministries and organist. She has led choirs and played for countless worship services, funerals, weddings, Holy Weeks, Christmases, Easter mornings, concerts, and special celebrations. Week after week, season after season, she has helped this congregation pray, grieve, celebrate, remember, and praise through music.
This Sunday, August 30, will be Jane’s final Sunday at the helm of our music ministry before her retirement.
I hope you will make every effort to be here.
We will worship. We will sing. We will give thanks. And we will honor a woman whose ministry has helped give voice to the faith of this congregation for more than two decades.
The title of my sermon Sunday is “When in Our Music God Is Glorified.” It comes from the wonderful hymn by Fred Pratt Green—a Methodist minister who wrote the hymn more than fifty years ago for a gathering of the Methodist Church Music Society.
There is something beautifully appropriate about those words for this Sunday.
Jane did not begin the musical story of Perry Methodist, and the story will not end with her retirement. She received a musical heritage handed down through Willie Ryles, Francis Nunn, Joe McNutt, Tom Flick, Chris Murrell, and generations before them. She has tended that inheritance faithfully, strengthened it, and now hands it to another generation.
That is what the church does.
We receive what others faithfully built. We tend it for a season. And then we entrust it to those who come after us.
But the hymn reminds us of something even more important: ultimately, none of this is about the musician.
It is about the One to whom the music is offered.
“Let every instrument be tuned for praise!”
That has been the calling of Perry Methodist’s musicians across generations. It has been Jane’s calling for these twenty years. And it remains ours.
So come this Sunday.
Come sing loudly.
Come remember.
Come celebrate Jane and give thanks for an extraordinary season of ministry.
But above all, come worship.
Because when in our music God is glorified, the song becomes larger than any one musician, any one generation, or even any two hundred years of history.
And by the grace of God, Perry Methodist still has a song to sing.
“When in our music God is glorified,
and adoration leaves no room for pride,
it is as though the whole creation cried:
Alleluia!”
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