The first trip down here Marie started looking for a church, and guessing every town had a First Presbyterian Church, she did that search on Google -- where else? The web site for First Church in Mesa really caught her attention --- WOW!! What a music program -- check it out. Well, we drove to the address one afternoon to find how to get there and on the way into the church office we followed a woman who turned out to be JoAnne Throckmorton, previously JoAnne Lancaster. I went to high school with JoAnne's brother, Raymond, and her husband's brother, Bob. Small world --- it happens again.
Again, I digress. Anyway, it turned out the church was about 20 minutes from our place and we quickly got involved in the chancel choir, two bell choirs ( a 3 octave and a 5 octave ), and a small study group. It is such a comfortable congregation and it reminds us of the churches where we grew up with a traditional service, real hymns, and the liturgy of the Southern Presbyterian tradition. We joined as Associate Members which is a designation allowed for long-term visitors who, like us, are members in another Presbyterian Church and do not wish to formally transfer membership.
We have become good friends with the Director of Music and his wife, and we have sung several times in a quartet with them. A typical service has a choir anthem, three congregational hymns, one contemporary praise song with guitars, bass, piano and drums. In addition there is special music of either a solo, duet, quartet, quintet, or instrumental. The bell choirs ( 4 of them ) each play once a month except for the little kids who play twice a year. Mark Ramsey, the Director of Music, has his PhD in organ performance and makes the $0.6MM pipe organ jump. It's easy to see why this church caught Marie's eye.
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