April 13, 2005

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

I am writing to ask you to complete and return the enclosed questionnaire to the Music Commission of the Diocese of New Jersey.

This is important. Your responses will be taken seriously and will help the Commission to serve you. The Commission is eager to learn about you and your ministry so that they may be better informed about your challenges and opportunities, joys and concerns, as you lead the praises of God’s people in your congregation.

It’s a simple form and it won’t require too much of your valuable time to tell the Commission what they need to know about your ministry. Your responses will be valued and used to strengthen the music ministries of the 160 churches of our Diocese.

I am grateful for your leadership. I give thanks for all that you do, so faithfully, to “perfect the praises of [God’s] people.”  I pray that you may enjoy “glimpses of [God’s] beauty” and that you may be made “worthy to behold it unveiled for evermore”. (For Church Musicians and Artists, BCP, page 819.)

May our God continue to be glorified in your life and in the music that you offer and help others to offer.

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Faithfully yours in Christ,

The Rt. Rev. George E. Councell
XI Bishop of New Jersey
Sometime tenor.