It’s common for churches to hire professional musicians for special music at Advent or Easter. When needed, Grace Presbyterian Church of the Northshore in Winnetka, Illinois, can pull in a professional musician from an unlikely source: its pastoral staff.
Associate Pastor Nick Swan is a Juilliard-trained oboist. Prior to becoming a pastor, he was second chair oboist in the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra in Charlotte, North Carolina. His wife, Rebecca, is a Juilliard-trained violist. The journey from orchestra pit to pulpit was circuitous, but Swan sees how God orchestrated every step of the process and the skills and patterns he honed as a musician have served him well in pastoral ministry.
Swan stumbled upon the oboe by accident. After a woodwind quintet performed at his elementary school near Muncie, Indiana, he was taken with the grandeur of the mighty bassoon, which he mistakenly thought was called an oboe. He informed his parents that he wished to play the oboe and signed up for the 5th grade band. Swan discovered his error when presented with an actual oboe, but by then his parents had invested in an instrument and refused to change course.
Swan’s talent initially outpaced his interest, and he intended to quit after middle school. But as high school approached, both the middle and high school band directors encouraged his talent for the instrument. The conversation caught his attention and impressed his parents, who agreed to buy him a new oboe if he committed to playing through high school.
The investment quickly yielded success. As a freshman, he was selected for the All-State Band, ranking among the top high school oboe players in Indiana. By junior year, he had been selected for the All-State Orchestra, introducing him to moving works like Leonard Bernstein’s “Overture to Candide.”
“It gets really big and beautiful at the end,” Swan recalled. “I got chills.”
The transcendence of the moment confirmed for Swan that he wanted to become a professional oboist, creating beautiful music from the orchestra’s sea of sound.
Around this time, Swan experienced another transformative encounter with beauty. He always considered himself a Christian, like his family, but in high school he became angry, depressed, and began acting out. An experience at a church summer camp between 10th and 11th grades changed that.
“I came back from that camp having made a profession of faith. It was clear that I had a different heart and God had regenerated me. I had new loves, new affections.” Swan said. “I was dead when I went to camp, and I was alive when I came back.”
The transformation in his life was tangible. During his freshman and sophomore years, he accrued 64 referrals to the principal’s office and in his junior and senior years, none.
His musical success continued as he approached college, but a sense of pastoral calling also began to emerge. During the 1996 Olympics, Swan’s youth group went to Atlanta for evangelism outreach, and Swan sensed a clear call to pastoral ministry.
He had a music scholarship from Ball State University, and he decided to continue in music for his undergraduate studies and then attend seminary for his Master of Divinity degree. But in the summer of 2000, he went to the Aspen Music Festival and met a teacher from the Juilliard School in New York. Swan applied and was accepted to their Master of Music program.
“Parallel to this musical success, I was still assessing pastoral ministry.” Swan said. “Music seemed to be going really well, and I was experiencing success there.”
He decided that since he loved music and saw doors opening to pursue it, he should walk through those doors. Swan thrived at Juilliard, joining the Juilliard Christian Fellowship and meeting his future wife Rebecca, who was studying the viola. After graduation, they both won positions in the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra and were married.
In Charlotte, the couple became involved with a church in the Sovereign Grace Churches network, and Swan’s sense of pastoral calling returned. The Sovereign Graces Churches network does not require a seminary education for pastoral ordination, but instead offers a year of training within their organization. Swan completed this training and served on the pastoral staff for 11 years.
In 2014, Swan wanted to broaden his theological training, and by the time he earned his degree from Reformed Theological Seminary Charlotte, he discovered that his theological convictions aligned with Presbyterian doctrine. He transitioned into the PCA with the blessing and goodwill of the church community he loved and had served for years.
“They were able to send me out in a good way. Sad, like we were, but clear that, despite differences, [I] was going to go serve God and another gospel-preaching, believing church.”
In 2018, Swan became a pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Elgin, Illinois, and in 2019 moved to Grace Presbyterian Church of the North Shore.
Musically, Swan plays with the church music ministry for services like Good Friday and Easter and is on the substitute list for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Rebecca, too, has reconnected with music as their three children have gotten older. She plays viola regularly with the church and professionally with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Grant Park Orchestra.
While pastoring takes more of Swan’s time these days, he can point to many ways that his years as a musician prepared him for ministry. He has learned to work hard and put in the effort to succeed. Being in music lessons since the fifth grade also cultivated a comfort with taking criticism. In fact, he sees criticism as a way of getting better at something. Punctuality is another value honed in musicians. If the downbeat starts at the announced rehearsal time, musicians learn to arrive early and get ready well in advance.
The collaboration of working together in an orchestra is also a powerful image of the body of Christ.
“You have 60 to 90 people, with someone conducting. You’re playing off this piece of music, but you’re constantly listening and watching. You’re watching a conductor, but if you have an entrance with another wind player, you’re breathing together and coming in together.” Swan said. “It’s a great illustration of the body passages in Corinthians and Romans of each person contributing their part. Without each person playing their part, the whole doesn’t actually work. An oboist can’t be a flute player, can’t be a violinist.”
His unique career path has also given Swan a greater appreciation for the diversity of vocations in the church and the unique ability of the arts to reflect God as a creator.
“All of the arts have the ability to point to the glory of God and illustrate the glory of God – through beauty and expression and even darkness, like the ability to convey suffering and pain and brokenness,” he said. “There is a role for music and the arts to be a means of communicating truth.”