Change: it's the only sure thing. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad, but we know it will happen. Or, as Zoe Ann Brown so aptly puts it in her article about the search committee for a new full-time Organist/Choir Director, for every thing there is a season. We will be sad to lose Todd, although he has promised me to come back for a concert during our centennial. Still, we rejoice with him at his new position; his invitation to that post says all the more about the great music tradition at Covenant. And yes, it will continue! (And no, contrary to rumors, we are not covering the reredos with a PowerPoint screen so you can follow the bouncing ball on new "happy clappy" hymns.) We will seek only the highest of quality. God and this community deserve nothing less.  

Our search committee is top of the mark. They have been carefully chosen for experience and representation. Among the six persons we have direct connection to experience with searches, our choir, the bell choir, CIM, the worship and music committee, the Cleveland School of the Arts, our Christian Education program, the organ committee, students, the personnel committee, trustees, and session. All of them have a deep love of this church, an understanding of our tradition, and both knowledge of and commitment to great music and worship. Once again I thank Covenant leaders for leading!  

Likewise Karen Holtkamp will be missed. Karen and I discovered early on we go way back with a mutual friend, the Rev. Dr. Earnest T. Campbell, former senior minister of Riverside Church in New York. I've known Ernie since about the time Karen's grown daughter was a little girl playing under his desk. Institutions like ours will always do their part to support and present the finest arts in worship. So Karen, have no fear, your spirit will be with us always, and the commitment you and I both have to excellence will keep us in the same stream with Riverside and all of our like-minded friends.  

Our Choir is to be commended as well! The Brahms was superb! The last movement that so often gets lost even by the best choirs—because by that point they are "out of gas"—was at its top. With two of our singers having just lost a loved one and Karen and Todd experiencing this last great performance, it is appropriate that, unlike most choral requiems, Brahms celebrates life and immortality, and not judgment and death. It was said to me from an outside source and without solicitation that Covenant's choir may be the best church choir in Cleveland. I don't know many other choirs in this city, given that I work on Sundays, but I still think the person was pretty much on target.  

I was recently invited to a University Circle celebration of the "return of Euclid Ave" (well, maybe not quite yet given the orange barrels, but it is getting there). The event was to be held at a Tavern and I assumed it would be the historic Dunham Tavern near town. No one was there. I called and was told "No, it was a Euclid Tavern" up the street from us, next to Mi Pueblo. I remembered that dive. But to my surprise it is an exciting new place in spite of the barrels. In conversation with the owners I discovered it opened in the fall of 1909, and they would be thrilled to celebrate our centennial with us. They will also soon be serving Sunday brunch. Imagine, a short walk up Euclid for two more restaurants. The membership committee may start having an easier time of it when it comes to planning our gathering events—by the way, something we are all thankful to them for spearheading.  

Two more new things on the horizon: Our own David Shriver is the interim executive director of United Protestant Campus Ministries, and has convinced me to sit on the transition team along with other folks from the Covenant. We will soon begin to search for a new director, while at the same time Covenant has a task group looking at the possibilities of beginning our own student-centered ministry and perhaps keeping Eileen around for a while.  

All of which says to me, these are exciting times to be at this church where a great past influences our future. The Rev. Dr. Gary Dorrien will be our inaugural Henry Sloan Coffin preacher, and his thrust will be on the future of progressive churches. This unique "church with a conscience" is in fact one of the great examples of that and we are now being given the opportunity to again be on the edge of the future. We dare not miss the chance!  

Lots to do now; see you in church. And I do mean I hope to see you there.

Love, Peace, and Great Joy,

Rev. Dr. Robert J. Campbell, D.Min., D.D.