Billy Graham Center
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From Collection 462, T2
From Collection 462. Adrian Ban talks about the development, under the
direction of Aurel Tosa, of a chamber choir in his his home congregation of
Second Baptist Church of Oradea which became a means of evangelism, encourage,
and example to Christian churches throughout the country.
BAN: We didn't perform in church many times in the year. We spent a lot of times in rehearsals, because he [Tosa] wanted to have everything almost perfect, you know.... One, one day he came to our rehearsal and said, "I got the perfect verse for us." "What's that verse?" He said, "You know, I think that Paul says, "Let's think not only with our heart and sprit, but with our mind." And he was so happy, because he found a base in the Bible, you know, to develop a music not only for our sprit, for our heart, but also a music for our mind. We have to do something not only with our heart. You can't say, "if it's false, its not a problem." Or, " If it is not perfect how you sing, it's okay." He wanted to do...you know, he said, "We have to do a sacrifice for God." To be perfet, that way. Because we heard a lot of choirs that used to sing for Ceausescu. And they had a lot of time, they had a lot of months and years, for their rehearsal and to prepare themselves to sing perfect. Why? For Ceausescu? For our Communist party? And for our God, for our Lord, it's enough to sing however? And this was another start, to bring this idea in our churches, hat we need to do the best for our god. And not only our music, but we can use classical music, we can use secular music, like, you know, to bring glory to God. But how? We sing for our Lord.. And with these new ideas, we started to go around the country and starting to bring these new ideas. And God worked. A lot of new groups, they came together. A lot of people made different group to sing., you know, the choirs. And they started to work hard for quality. And they started to work hard to give the best for our Lord. It wasn't a competition, anymore. Even some people started to say, "We don't need a competition in our church." But it's not a competition. Its just that each choir wants to do the best for our God. And I think this is a good...a great thing. I think that the result...we can now see in Romania answers from those new ideas that Aurel had on his heart.