Tom Trenney, a composer, conductor, organist, preacher and teacher who has blessed and wowed attendees of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship & Music Conference during multiple appearances over the past 20 years, was a recent guest on “Sounding Board,” hosted twice each month by Sarah Abushakra and Jeremy Roberts. Watch their 73-minute time together here on YouTube or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Trenney is minister of music at First-Plymouth Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, which Roberts also serves, and is an assistant professor of music at Nebraska Wesleyan University, where he also conducts choirs.
Asked about his faith formation, Trenney said he’s not sure if he fell in love with church early in life, “but I did fall in love with making music and worship at church.” He recalls aligning his stuffed animals into a choir, putting on a record of a choir singing, and conducting the makeshift choir — all while wearing a Batman cape as his choir robe.
In fourth grade, he joined a church choir for both boys and men that was affiliated with the Royal School of Church Music. As a result, celebrated conductors would come to town to do summer choir camps for young singers in the region.
“Those experiences connected me with the thrill of church music and how it makes you feel and the way your spirit can vibrate in it,” Trenney said. “I could sense that was something I wanted to be a part of for the rest of my life and career.”
“It’s a reminder,” Abushakra said, “that music draws us in and gives meaning to a lot of people’s lives.”
It was music “that brought me into the environment” of faith, Trenney said. “I started my career as a musician who happened to work in the church. I feel certain now that I am called to ministry and happen to be a musician.”
“The cart and the horse can go in different ways, it seems to me,” Trenney said, “and the Spirit will decide how that works for each of us.”
Among his mentors, Trenney cited the children’s television pioneer and Presbyterian pastor Fred Rogers.
“I loved [“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”] as a child, but I didn’t understand all the gospel I was learning in those moments. That was revealed to me later,” Trenney said. “That idea of neighboring and caring for people, allowing yourself to be creative and explore your talents rather than just comparing them to someone else’s — all of that had a strong influence on the particular way I go about being and doing the things I am and do.”
“The profession we’re in has for centuries been one that benefits from mentorship. You don’t necessarily know where Bach went to college, but you have an idea of the people he admired and sought out to help him grow and learn his craft,” Trenney said. Some people see a college degree as a signal that “you know everything,” he said, “but if we have an attitude instead that you go out and seek the people who can help you expand and grow, I think that’s why an organization like PAM can benefit us. They help us meet people who see things in a different way, who have eyes that are maybe bigger than ours and can challenge us to live into skillsets we didn’t know we needed to have at the time we went to college.”
He also relies on the work of Maya Angelou, who “had this pithy way of getting to the core of things that was really powerful,” he said. One of Angelou’s teachings is, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
“I think about that in how we relate to each other in ministry and music-making,” Trenney said. “People won’t remember your fancy repertoire … but they won’t forget what it felt like to be in that room when they sensed that presence of the people who gathered.”
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Dan Braden, Managing Editor, Publishing, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Tara Brannigan, Financial Administrative Assistant, Stony Point Center, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Let us pray:
O Jesus, feeder of the multitudes, please feed us. Open us up and lead us to where you are calling us to serve. Thank you for seeing in us someone who could be equipped to serve and be your disciple. Amen.
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