By Karen Kistler

karen.kistler@salisburypost.com

 

SALISBURY — “Music speaks when words cannot.”

That’s what Dawn F. Merrell said when sharing about her years of music ministry and how music has touched her.

Merrell has been involved in music ministry for close to 57 years serving as church staff and interim positions at various churches in the Rowan County area.

A special celebration will be held Sunday at 10:30 a.m. at Union Lutheran Church, 4770 Bringle Ferry Road, Salisbury with a luncheon to follow in the Dutch Meeting Hall.

Heidi Punt, pastor of the congregation, said this is not a retirement party but a celebration of her ministry.

“She is stepping away from leading worship music with the congregation,” said Punt, and added that “because of her heart for music, we totally expect her still being available.”

Punt said that Merrell has had a big influence in the Salisbury community and would like many people to attend the special occasion and said that if people could not attend the service, they are encouraged to come to the meal and celebrate with them.

There will be a time to share your favorite story about Merrell, and attendees are asked to come prepared to tell those stories.

Merrell is married to Frank Merrell and they have two sons, their oldest, Franz Merrell, died in 2002 from cancer, and their youngest Judson Merrell is a Lutheran pastor in Lexington, S.C. He is married to Carrie and they have two daughters, Addson and Camryn.

Merrell’s love for music began at an early age as she said “it was all I ever wanted to do.”
At the age of eight, she said her mom got her into piano lessons that summer. She was a wonderful teacher, she said; however, she added that she was scared of her because she carried a ruler with her all the time, but she was also very excited about her first lesson.

The summer she started piano lessons, a little boy in her neighborhood was also taking lessons and Merrell remembered the two of them being taken to the dining room table.

“I thought my mother told me I was going to learn to play the piano,” Merrell said, “and I’m at the dining room table.”

It was there they were doing all kinds of finger exercises after which they went to the piano.

With her father being a minister, they moved around and she had several piano teachers along the way and ended up in Salisbury “with a very fine teacher, Mrs. Laura Garner,” she said. 

She was born in Newberry, S.C. and it was when her father became the minister of Union Lutheran Church in 1962 that the family made their move to Salisbury.

Merrell remains a member of Union Lutheran Church and has served as interim organist at the church for years, along with other responsibilities including leading the bell and chancel choirs, developing a children’s choir, helping with youth services, leading Sunday and midweek services, helping plan services and “helping develop a love of music in the congregation,” said Punt.

Along with playing the organ, she also plays piano and is learning to play the harp, which Merrell said is on her bucket list.

“That is something I am doing for me,” she said.

This desire to learn the harp began when she was approximately seven or eight, when “I Love Lucy” was very popular. On the show Ricky Ricardo had a band and a harpist was in the band.

“I always thought she wore this wonderful 1950s cool dress and she would play and I thought that was the most wonderful thing to be,” she said.

Then she remembered the huge Christmas concerts put on by Converse and Wofford colleges and Spartanburg’s choral group with the harpist taking front stage.

“I just thought it was the most fascinating thing” and following graduation she had the opportunity to work with various harpists and she vowed to one day she would do that and she has.

However, she said that the harp is something she is doing for herself and has no desire to be a professional harpist, but to just be able to play and it’s just her thing.

Merrell graduated from college in Greensboro, which was a women’s college and is now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It was during her college years that she started as an organist in 1968, to pay her way through school, graduating with a degree in organ.

Merrell has used her talent playing in churches for many years, with paid positions at Union Lutheran Church, Salisbury; New Hope, Kannapolis; St. Mark’s Lutheran, China Grove; and Haven Lutheran in Salisbury. 

She began filling interim positions when she first retired in 2010, or as she said, when she thought she was going to retire. These have included churches in the Rowan County area, Faith, Statesville and Albemarle. 

Serving as accompanist for a concert choir for more than 16 years, accompanying and later directing the Salisbury Choral Society and accompanying at the Lutheran Church camp in Arden are additional times Merrell has served.

And, Merrell not only plays the organ, but also teaches organ lessons and if noted that anyone is interested in taking lessons, they can contact her via email at dfmmusic@bellsouth.net.

She is teaching organ “to try to prepare young people,” she said, noting that many colleges no longer have sacred music programs and they are desperate for church musicians and are encouraging young people to enter that field.

There are lots of responsibilities involved with music ministry, she said, telling that “when you commit to something you should be there.”

Music has been a special part of Merrell’s life and she said that growing up in the church has had a lot to do with why it has touched her so deeply.

“I was always around music, and I always had piano lessons twice a week for 10 years, and I knew I always felt a strong calling to do church work,” she said.

It wasn’t her desire to be a minister, telling that her father was one and her son is one, and when she was growing up women weren’t ministers.

“I had no desire to do that. I wanted to do music,” she said. 

Paraphrasing a quote from a book that a friend gave her explains her desire to do music, she said.

“One quote is in there that really hit home to me, she said, and it is “if you’re born with music in you, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Music ministry takes lots of time that people don’t realize, Merrell commented, including duties of going through music, selecting songs, planning what songs to sing for each service, when children would sing, when bells are to be played and juggling all that with everyone’s schedules.

In stepping aside, Merrell said she was going to miss it, but there are projects that she wants to complete and things she wants to do, and she just does not have the time to do them now.

When speaking about her time in music ministry, she said she was “honestly and truthfully going to miss it,” but as found in the book of Ecclesiastes, Merrell said there is a time for everything, and “this is my time.”