Our conversations regarding this Advent season continue with a phone call I had with Jessica Koch. Jessica serves as Director of Music Ministries for St. John of the Cross Parish in Western Springs, Illinois, a vibrant parish of 4,000 families in the Archdiocese of Chicago. I wanted to chat with Jessica because I watched her Mass religiously (pun intended, I suppose) in the first weeks of the somewhat nationwide shutdown in March 2020. Her parish didn’t skip a beat! They live streamed seamlessly, and did a great job, might I add.
Jessica’s thoughts on self-care have been echoing through my mind, as she had mentioned to me previously that she is writing a book on self-care for pastoral musicians. The topic of self-care is an elusive one for pastoral musicians, as our calling is to serve others. It is a charism that extends to all that we do in ministry. We sacrifice our weekends, our holidays, our days off to play an unexpected funeral of someone we so value in our parish, and so on. I know that many of us are happy to do it because, again, we are pastoral ministers! But what are the unique needs for us, as ministers, in 2020? How does “taking care of ourselves” look like this year?
SHOW NOTES
BIO- Jessica Koch
Jessica Koch serves as Director of Music Ministries for St. John of the Cross Parish in Western Springs, Illinois, a vibrant parish of 4,000 families in the Archdiocese of Chicago. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in piano performance from Saint Xavier University and a Master of Music Education degree with a choral emphasis from VanderCook College of Music where she also worked as Graduate Choral Assistant and Adjunct Professor. She is an active member of NPM: The National Association of Pastoral Musicians, having served both locally as the founding Chapter Director of the Chicago chapter, and nationally as a member of the Council and various task forces and committees. Jessica’s interests include ministry burnout, composing and arranging liturgical music and working as a choral clinician and guest conductor.
For more information about St. John of the Cross parish, visit their website here.
St. John of the Cross’s live streamed Masses can be found via their YouTube channel.
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