
Fanny Crosby Presentation
Prairie Chapel Methodist Church announces a day of special music and a living history presentation of Fanny Crosby on Sunday March 10th. Music plays a vital role in how we experience faith and it connects us from generation to generation. We aim to create space for our community to experience both the transformative power of music and the resilient power of faith and love.
We will begin our day of special music in our 10:30am Sunday morning worship service. We are delighted to have the Main Street Brass Quintet who will be giving us a preview of special selections of Fanny Crosby throughout the worship service. Featured selections include, “I am Thine O Lord”, “Rescue the Perishing”, “Blessed Assurance” and “To God Be the Glory”. On the trumpet will be Tim Vance and George Clark. The French horn features Kristine Ferris and on trombone is Keith Watson. To round out the quintet, on tuba is Jonathan Stuck.
The Main Street Brass, founded in 1995 is a classical brass quintet from Coshocton performing for area organizations, churches, weddings and other special events. The repertoire ranges from transcriptions of traditional and classical music, to pop, Dixieland, and jazz. In addition to performances in many area churches, The Main Street Brass has performed for the Festival of Trees, the Roscoe Hillside Concerts, the Canal Festival Queen Contest, and was a featured guest with the Coshocton Community Band.
Beginning at 3:00pm Howard Russell, current pastor at Sullivan, Ohio Church of the Nazarene will lead us in a powerful time of music and will be accompanied by Larry Adams on piano who was the form minister of music at the Cathedral of Tomorrow in Akron Ohio. At 3:30pm Music Evangelist Darlene Neptune will portray Fanny Crosby in an original, living history, first person interpretation. Evangelist and dramatist Darlene Neptune is determined to reintroduce Crosby to today’s congregations. Many know the hymns, but not the hymn writer.
Neptune spent seven years tracking down Fanny’s story. Her research took her on a personal pilgrimage of discovery that she says changed her life forever. She traveled to Fanny’s birthplace, visited her home and her school, read diaries, and studied newspaper accounts. Neptune heard firsthand, from relatives and friends, of Fanny’s remarkable journey as poet, writer, and activist for the blind.
Donning wire-rimmed sunglasses, gray hair and an 1800s-style dress, Neptune performs a drama about Crosby’s life. She sits in a wooden rocking chair (where Fanny wrote most of her hymns), bringing to life the personality of Crosby, drawing from the hymn writer’s autobiography and newspaper interviews for dialogue. She discusses Crosby’s childhood, the inspiration for many of Crosby’s hymns and Crosby’s passion for the homeless.
Join us for a free program open to everyone and allow Darlene to reintroduce Crosby to today’s congregations. Come with us as we go back in time and learn more about the prolific hymn writer who wrote the words to over 8,000 hymns. Light refreshments will be served after the living history presentation.