A Service of Lessons & Carols – The John Tyner Chorale

The Tyner Chorale will present its annual concert of Lessons and Carols at 7:30 p.m. Friday December 20, 2024 at First Presbyterian Church, 108 Washington St., Monroe. The event is free.

Since 2008, the Monroe, Mich.-based John Tyner Chorale has performed a version of a Christmas Eve service that has been done in numerous variations since Christmas Eve in 1918, at a prestigious college in England and all over the world.

The Festival of Carols and Nine Lessons made its debut at King’s College Cambridge a little more than a month after World War I ended.

Since 1919, revisions were made in the hymns and the carols, but, in a news release, Tyner said that the backbone of the service, the lessons and prayers, has remained unchanged.

The service was created by ex-army chaplain Dean Milner-White, a Cambridge dean, who stressed the lessons instead of the music. However, the music is not lacking, with the opening hymn usually “Once in Royal David’s City.”

“No matter the time period or place, the center of the service is still found by those who ‘go in heart and mind’ and who consent to follow where the story leads,” the release states.