Finding God in the tunes
Young Chang
Henry Kogler’s life goal is to serve God through music, but the
task isn’t as simple as hitting the right notes.
The new minister of music at Christ Lutheran Church has made it
his full-time job to make sure that worship services help people get
“closer to God.”
“Our goal in this is so that when people leave a worship service
here as a member or visitor, that they will be able to say that they
have been able to be in touch, I guess, with God,” said Kogler, who
joined the Costa Mesa church last month. “Music is a very powerful
tool in helping to do that.”
The minister moved to Costa Mesa recently from Southgate, Mich.,
to take his new job. He wanted to leave his Michigan church, where he
said he enjoyed much success, because he’s one to take on the
challenge of building programs more than he is one to maintain them.
Christ Lutheran, which has been without a minister of music for eight
years, hired a full-time person in the position to replace the many
volunteers who had alternated in the role.
“Worship is a very important ingredient,” said Steven Hayes, lay
minister at Christ Lutheran. “We felt the need to enhance our
worship. Henry will bring it to life.”
The 51-year-old Kogler joins the church during a time of
renovation. The congregation now worships in a gymnasium because the
worship facility is being remodeled -- a project that will last
another six to nine months -- and updated with a better sound system
and video technology.
Kogler began joining music and ministry when he was a young boy at
a Christian elementary school in San Diego. It was a phase that
influenced the rest of his life and one that introduced him to the
teacher he most admired.
“I think every child going through school has a teacher that seems
to really connect with them as this one did for me, and because of
his strong interest in music and my love for music, I felt like what
I wanted to do was use my musical ability in a church ministry
setting and do that as a career,” the minister said.
He learned to play the piano as an elementary school student and
then the organ during high school. He studied music, including
specifics in choral directing and church music, in college. In the
mid-1980s, he earned a master’s degree in church music.
Between then and now, Kogler has served at a church in St. Louis,
Mo., and at the one in Michigan, where he says he could have stayed
indefinitely.
“Another draw for me was that both myself and my wife have
extended family and our family roots are all here in California,” he
said. “It gave us a chance to move back home again.”
The minister’s goal here is to meet with the pastors on a weekly
basis, talk about the themes and Scriptures for each service and then
to find music that coordinates with the message at hand. He also
wants to make the church’s services more visitor friendly by offering
two different styles of music -- the more traditional kind led
primarily by pianos and organs, and the more contemporary style led
primarily by guitars.
“Another way we’ll do that is by having the kind of instruments
and singers that [congregants] would feel most comfortable with,”
Kogler said. “And we’ll use children and high school youth as much as
we can so that it’ll have a family atmosphere to the service.”
He believes strongly in the power of music to sway hearts. Citing
examples of Christian radio stations, Kogler said many have reported
that listeners acquainted with the music alone have gotten to know
God.
“We try and play music that would accomplish that here in a church
setting too,” he said.
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