Music at Monte Hebrón: Brenda Ashcraft’s ministry and legacy

Music at Monte Hebrón brought together the local congregation, Bible institute students, and visiting pastors and missionaries. Brenda Irby Ashcraft served both at the piano and in the classroom, accompanying church services while preparing students to provide music in churches of their own. By 2011, her former pupils were serving as pianists and teaching children and young people in other congregations. Her influence traveled with the people she trained. [4, 5]

A partnership that began in Texas

Tommy and Brenda’s musical partnership began before their missionary service in Mexico. During their college years, Tommy directed music and Brenda played the piano at Lakeland Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, where they worked under Pastor A. F. Jernigan. Tommy began serving there in May 1965 while attending Arlington Baptist College; he and Brenda married in 1966. Music was therefore already part of their shared church work before they arrived in Mexico in August 1969. [7]

The division of responsibilities—one directing, the other accompanying—gave them experience in serving together within a congregation. Their later work at Monte Hebrón expanded that partnership into an undertaking involving students, church members, and another generation of their family. [6, 7]

Training musicians for church ministry

At the Instituto Bíblico Bautista Monte Hebrón, Brenda supervised the music department and taught students preparing for Christian service. By September 2011, she had trained scores of students, most of them women. Music studies formed a substantial part of the institute’s preparation: under the program described that year, music majors stayed an additional year beyond the institute’s regular course of study. [5]

The reach of that teaching extended beyond the immediate need for an accompanist at Monte Hebrón. Former students became church pianists, and many also taught music to children and young people in the congregations where they served. A student who learned from Brenda could therefore become a teacher in another church, passing those skills to a further group of musicians. [5]

Graduates also took part in larger gatherings. As Tommy traveled to preach, he regularly encountered conferences where an institute graduate directed the music or one of Brenda’s former pupils played the piano. The music department’s work was becoming audible well beyond the campus where its students had trained. [5]

A former student in El Salvador

One example of that influence took shape in Santa Ana, El Salvador. By January 2008, Héctor Sánchez and his wife had joined the ministry of Henry González. Mrs. Sánchez, who had studied piano under Brenda at Monte Hebrón, became the congregation’s music coordinator. Her responsibilities included playing for services, accompanying the church choir, and organizing singing groups. [2]

The appointment brought a trained musician into an area of the church’s work that needed strengthening. It also shows the practical range of the service Brenda’s pupils could provide. Accompanying a congregation, supporting a choir, and organizing singers were responsibilities being carried by a former student in another country. [2]

Choirs, conferences, and a shared musical life

Monte Hebrón’s annual conferences brought its different groups of singers together. At the 2005 conference, the adult church choir, youth choir, and institute choir combined into a 120-voice ensemble. They sang twice during each evening service at a gathering that joined the Fires of Evangelism conference with the church’s Faith Promise Missions Conference. [1]

The combined choir represented several parts of the ministry in one group: adults from the congregation, younger singers, and students preparing for service. Its size offers a concrete picture of the musical participation surrounding the church and institute by that period. [1]

By the February 2014 pastors’ and workers’ conference, the family’s responsibilities were clearly defined. Jonathan served as music director, Jenny directed the orchestra, and Brenda played the piano for the services. The evening meetings drew just over 1,200 people, bringing their music before a gathering of church members, visiting Christian workers, and institute graduates. [6]

Brenda’s role remained closely connected to the ordinary rhythm of church life as well. In March 2011, she was accompanying all the church services while overseeing the institute’s music program. Her work linked the regular services, the training of students, and the larger conference gatherings. [4]

Continuing through illness

Health difficulties repeatedly interrupted Brenda’s work. In August 2010, she began the institute term expecting to teach and oversee the music department on a full schedule. After teaching during the first week, she fell on August 24 and fractured her right wrist in three places. For a pianist and music teacher, the injury affected the very hand she depended on in her daily ministry. [3]

Her service continued through subsequent years of chronic illness. By March 2011, she had improved enough to accompany the church services and supervise the institute’s music program. At the February 2014 conference, she again played for the services despite severe foot pain and other health problems. [4, 6]

Those episodes place the public music ministry alongside the physical effort it required. The conference accompaniment and classroom work continued during years when pain and medical treatment were recurring parts of her life. [3, 4, 6]

A keyboard in Lubbock

Near the end of her life, Brenda returned briefly to a keyboard far from Monte Hebrón. After seven weeks in the hospital, she entered a rehabilitation center in Lubbock, Texas, on March 27, 2018. On Thursday, March 29, following a morning therapy session, she went to the activities room and played for about twenty minutes. Her first selection was “He Touched Me.” [8]

That brief return to playing came only days before her death on Easter Sunday, April 1. A keyboard in a rehabilitation center had given her another opportunity to do something that had occupied so much of her working life. [8]

A recording at her own funeral

Brenda’s music was heard again at her funeral at Monte Hebrón on April 13, 2018. Jenny sang “Faces” with the church choir, using an accompaniment recording Brenda had made earlier. Jonathan planned the service, bringing together family and congregation to remember her life. [9]

The recording gave Brenda’s own playing a place in the service held in her memory. Her musical legacy also continued through the former students who had become pianists and teachers elsewhere: people carrying into their own congregations the skills they had learned at Monte Hebrón. [5, 9]