“His master replied, ‘Well done! You are a good and faithful servant. You’ve been faithful over a little. I’ll put you in charge of much. Come, celebrate with me.’

Matthew 25:23

First, I don’t often write posts when people die. The more years that go by, the more people who we love pass on into eternity. Rebekah and I are only 67, but we understand this is only going to increase in the coming years.

That said, today’s post is absolutely something that I have to write. Mark Prater, one of my favorite people and member of Rebekah’s Dream Team FPCBrandon church staff (more on that later) completed his earthly journey Thursday morning. He was just a year younger than me.

Mark came to our church in Brandon – First Presbyterian – as organist. Later he assumed responsibilities as music director. Mark was a fine organist – one of those rare people with the ability to coax magic from a traditional pipe organ – and he was a remarkably sensitive accompanist on the piano.

His great gift, in my judgement, was that of listening to the instruments around him and adapting his keyboard to exactly what was needed. The other part of that gift – and clearly related – was his sensitivity to people, his generous heart, and his deep understanding that what we were doing was never performance and always worship.

Mark Made Us All Better:

I had the privilege of playing with Mark in our Praise Orchestra, featuring sometimes as many as 20 instruments. Everything Mark contributed made all the rest of us sound better.

My absolute favorite, and I wish I had some audio to go with this, was playing duets together – piano and acoustic guitar – whenever communion was served at the First Presbyterian Church of Brandon. The experience was always, without fail, beautiful and inspirational and worshipful and encouraging. We would select something simple – like “Be Thou My Vision”, plan a roadmap using guitar chords I could manage, improvise around that, then agree on an end point chord progression based on a nod from either one of us.

Healing:

I still have this very specific memory, from a time of profound struggle with one of our children. Mark and I were playing “Amazing Grace” during the serving of The Lord’s Supper. I happened to glance up at the exact moment the child in question paused in prayer and took the bread and the wine – Christ’s body broken for us, Christ’s blood spilled for each and every one of us, no exceptions – and I felt the tears stream down my face, and there was nothing I could do to mop them up, because both hands were busy playing Amazing Grace with Mark.

And Mark looked my way, as if knowing exactly why my heart was broken (and he did), and our eyes met in understanding, and I simply sobbed my way through the next several measures until every hungry soul in the church was served…

That was Mark.

Dream Team Staff:

The other story I have to share about Mark is his part in the “Dream Team” staff we enjoyed for a glorious season during Rebekah’s last decade in Florida. There were many configurations over 17 years, and even more positions (youth, financial, nursery, pre-school, custodial etc.) but this was the heart of what made the beginning of “The Two-thousands” so strong and so good.

It was Tim Black (associate pastor), Rebekah, Mark Prater (music ministry director), Don Zegal (Praise Band director), Joyce Allen (“The Boss” and pastor’s secretary), Lynn Pabst (and others, youth) and of course a variety of other support staff.

This was the very best: The. Best. And Mark’s contribution was that of a quiet, accomplished, deeply humble, unwaveringly faithful, disarmingly sensitive, completely authentic leader in terms of an open spirit and a beautiful heart.

An open spirit and a beautiful heart.

I understand, both intellectually and spiritually, that these few decades each of us dance and then stumble on this Good Earth are necessarily a combination of fleeting, and brief and complete. But that does not mean our emotions are not torn to shreds by the fact that our hearts belong in eternity and we cannot contain the love.

But we must not avoid the beauty and the cost of love because it engenders such pain. Instead, love is the connecting power that draws us beyond this temporal journey and into the Great Arc of Forever.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

John 11:25-26

I believe this, with every ounce of hope and promise in my soul. Until that day, Mark, until that day… – DEREK