Sunday, November 5 | 4 PM | First UMC Sanctuary, 2111 Camino del Rio S. San Diego, CA 92108
The music that we will present at this Evensong service will exemplify the feeling of hope for those who have passed on.This service is sung by First Church's Chamber Choir.
Reception before the service at 3 PM | Linder Hall
The will be a reception in Linder Hall preceding the performance, where attendees can view our Saints’ Gallery—a collection of nearly 150 posters and stories honoring Covenant Circle members who have passed before us since the Covenant Circle’s founding in 1992.
Here is how you, your family, and friends can watch the service if unable to attend the service in-person.
1. Please visit www.fumcsd.org/watch-live a few minutes before the service begins at 4 PM or direct on YouTube here
2. Note the button under the live-stream window:
- Download the WORSHIP GUIDE to use if desired
3. Then, watch the service on this watch-live page on your device.
4. If you wish to view the service on a smart TV, select your TV's YouTube app and search: First Church San Diego to begin the broadcast.
The service will be available to view after the live broadcast ends on YouTube (search First Church San Diego).
What is Evensong?
Evensong, sometimes referred to as Choral Evensong, is a service that has strong ties to the Anglican church, with roots that date back to the Catholic church c. 1000. The modern-day order of service for Evensong will include a setting of the Magnificat (song of Mary), Nunc Dimittis (song of Simeon), a set of sung responses, anthems, a sung Psalm from the lectionary, and congregational hymns. Evensong is still sung daily in many English cathedrals and collegiate chapels at historic universities such as Cambridge and Oxford.
The music that we will present at this service will exemplify the feeling of hope for those who have passed on. We begin with William Harris' "Holy is the true light," which describes those that have passed on being in the presence of Light which causes them to "rejoice with gladness evermore." The hymn, "How shall I sing that majesty," that follows the introit features a text by John Mason, a 17th-century English priest. A favorite line from Mason's text is where God is described as a “sea without a shore, a sun without a sphere.” We then move to a contemporary setting of the Preces (translates to ‘prayers’) by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, which was written in 2019 for a church in North Carolina. The setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis is written by one of the great English composers of the 20th century, Herbert Howells. Howells wrote many settings of this text for a variety of cathedrals and chapels in England. We will sing one of his most popular settings written for King’s College, Cambridge (known in Latin as ‘Collegium regale’). The anthem is a double choir setting of “Hail gladdening light,” with a text that is one of the earliest Christian hymns, with roots in the 3rd/4th century. The final hymn is the well-known “For All the Saints,” which is composed by yet another well-known 20th-century English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams.