This summer, Faith’s Chamber Choir took the gospel across the Atlantic by spending three weeks singing in Germany and the Netherlands as part of a missions trip organized by Dr. Christopher Ellis. With more than 15 scheduled concerts, plus impromptu performances, it was a full and demanding trip of music and ministry.
Two students from the trip, Seth Mayer and Shelby Schrepfer, shared what God did in and through them along the way.
When God Works Through Weakness
For Seth Mayer, one concert stood out above the rest, not because everything went well, but because it didn’t.
By that point in the trip, the combination of constant travel and concert after concert had taken a toll. Seth found himself sick, his voice gone, and fighting the urge to cough at the worst possible moments. “My voice was shot,” he said, “and coughing was close to unavoidable at times.”
He prayed for strength and resolved to give what he had as the choir sang their theme of marvelous redemption to the audience gathered that night.
What happened next surprised him. Even mouthing the words through stretches he couldn’t sing, he found himself watching the faces of the people listening and what he saw stopped him. Emotions were visible. Something was happening in the room that had nothing to do with his contribution to the sound.
“From an outward perspective, that concert was a failure on my part,” Seth said. “But instead, that concert reminded me that God works through my weakness in a way that only He can.” He stood there, smiling through the occasional tear, singing of marvelous redemption to people who needed to hear it, and letting God handle the rest. “Praise God that those in attendance didn’t just leave the concert hearing beautiful music, but hearing the gospel made clear through song.”
The Church Is Not a Building
Shelby Schrepfer’s most memorable moment came on a day that had been building for weeks.
By that point, the choir had sung in multiple cathedrals across Germany and the Netherlands in beautiful, centuries-old spaces that carried the weight of deep religious devotion. On one particular day, they had the opportunity to sing inside St. John’s Cathedral in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. Before they performed, missionary David Boyd walked the group through the cathedral and explained elements of the Catholic faith.
David acknowledged the time and devotion that had gone into building the cathedral, but his point cut deeper than the architecture. No matter how beautiful the building, he reminded them, and no matter how sincere someone’s worship might be, without an understanding of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, it is ultimately empty.
The church is God’s people— not a building.
Standing in that space, the choir sang “In Christ Alone,” and when they reached the verse, “No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me… No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand…” Shelby felt the weight of it differently than she ever had before.
She looked around. People nearby were praying at images of Mary or lighting candles. “What we were singing to them was blasphemy,” she said. It was sobering in a way she hadn’t expected.
“I think experiences like that are good for us as believers,” Shelby reflected. “We can become so familiar with the gospel that we lose sight of both our own unworthiness of this grace and the desperate need for others to hear the good news of Christ.”
She came home grateful for Dr. Ellis and the program he built, for a semester and three weeks spent meditating on salvation through music, and for the chance to share personal testimonies during concerts. “I pray that seeds were planted in the hearts of those who heard us,” she said, “but I also know that God used those songs to work in the hearts of many of us in the choir.”
Music as Ministry
That’s what a missions trip like this is really about. Faith’s Chamber Choir went to Europe to bring the message of marvelous redemption to people who needed to hear it.
The concerts are the vehicle, but the gospel is the point, whether it’s God working through a choir member who can barely sing, or a familiar hymn landing differently in a centuries-old cathedral.
