ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the active and self-conscious relationship to 'tradition' and cultural memory that animates First's musical life. It explores the work of First Mennonite's singers in this continual and partial stitching-together of spaces – choral singing, hymn singing – in which it was possible to meet with one another as if the gathered singers were family. The worship leader, as is typical at least in Mennonite practice for a 'traditional' service type, collaboratively designs the order of worship and leads the service verbally, but does not, as might be the case in contemporary worship, lead musically. Hymnals articulated continuity with a shared communal past, through continuing to use a shared archive of traditional hymnody. First Mennonite Church's membership comes to the congregation from all over the city and nearby suburbs, such as Sherwood Park. The church building is situated south of the North Saskatchewan river, near the oil-related industrial edge of the city.
