Where Life Meets Love

During my time at Northwest Missouri State, I was privileged to meet Deena Poynter and perform with her church several times. In the winter of 2015, I was asked to write an original piece to honor the church's pastor, Dale Stewart. His retirement was early January, so I only had a couple weeks to write it. So I sat down, came up with the text and melody that night, and finished the piece in about 3 days. The biggest challenge was expressing what Dale had expressed to his church for so many years. The text is of sermons that Dale gave to give a more personal feel to the work.

The work with this piece was not finished after Dale's retirement, however. This past summer (2017), I was asked to use this same work, but adapt it to the organ for the 150th Anniversary of the Christ Episcopal Church organ and their anniversary concert.