Hi all — thanks to all who helped make #GivingTuesday worthwhile; now, it’s #StJohnThursday, The Saint John of Damascus Society’s patronal feast. Eventually, we want to have a semi-regular public event scheduled around the Feast of St. John of Damascus, but for now, we’re using it to build awareness. Today’s video, the last for this campaign, provides a detailed picture of the current state of the biggest thing we’re doing right now, The Psalm 103 Project (LINK).

Over the last month, we’ve shown you what we’re doing. If I might sum up the vision behind it all, it’s helping to build an Orthodox musical culture in the United States that is informed about why our music is the way it is, trained in how to sing our liturgical music in a way that fully engages the depth of our musical heritage, and can take advantage of the beauty of our liturgical music to reach out to the rest of the world, both through liturgical application as well as — dare I say it — artistic application.

In other words, the Eastern Orthodox Churches have perhaps the richest sung heritage in all of Christianity. That is a gift, and it is a gift that Orthodox Christians need to share with the rest of the world. That is the vision behind the The Saint John of Damascus Society’s mission statement, “Revealing Orthodox Christianity through its sacred music”.

Your gift will help us build that musical culture. It will help future phases of The Psalm 103 Project, it will help us publish Paraklitiki, it will help us develop long-term, lasting strategies for how our children will be taught to sing in church, it will help us build a choir school, it will help us pay for travel to places and meetings where the Society needs to have a presence, and it will help us plan events that will use music to reach out to the rest of the world, like the events that got us started in the first place.

So, please, on #StJohnThursday, our patronal feast, support The Saint John of Damascus Society (LINK). Please pray for us, please give, please share links to this blog post and our videos, and please tell your friends. Help us build something beautiful and lasting. If you want to give to a specific effort or want to know more particulars about something, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me (LINK). And know that whatever you do, it’s a blessing.

Thanks very much; a blessed Nativity Fast to everybody!