Lifting the spirit

SpiritWorks Center for Spiritual Living is using music to draw crowds and spread its message.

The “Light It Up! ’09” Positive Music Concerts will feature original works by Mary Powers, Bill Haller, Gary Weinberg and Jaynee Thorne. Powers and Haller, the SpiritWorks Orchestra, the Traveling Spiritburys and the jazz vocal quartet Four Spirit will perform.

Powers, a Burbank resident, fronts the Powers and Haller group, which is accompanied by the SpiritWorks Orchestra.

“This is our first community concert,” Powers said. “A lot of the songs were written by Bill Haller and me.”

The orchestra includes guitars, base and tablas, which are like bongos but are less percussive, Powers said.

The music is uplifting to coincide with the congregation’s philosophy of positive thinking, and is presented in many genres, said Haller, who is the congregation’s music minister.

“Each composer has taken their own tact,” he said. “The songs are rock ’n’ roll, pop. Mary does harder rock and we have folk people, so it’s a unique combination.”

The composers have been working for eight months on the music and have played them for the Sunday services, Powers said.

“We thought a community concert would be a great outreach to the community so the public can know what our congregation is all about,” Haller said.

The philosophy is spiritually based, believing in a higher power accessible to all people, said Harry Morgan Moses, senior minister and spiritual director.

“We teach the power of right attitude and right thinking,” Moses said.

The congregation was formerly called the Church of Religious Science. The name changed three years ago, he said, but the message is the same one the congregation has been teaching since it moved to Burbank in 1948, he said.

“Now the ideas of self-improvement and self-empowerment and right attitude are very popular and what happened is we needed to create a living music ministry,” Moses said.

The proximity of the studios avails the congregation to a great talent pool, he said.

“The composers have been listening to the lessons we’ve been delivering and turning them around and making songs out of the themes,” Moses said. “And out of this we end up with a universal musical concert that belongs to everyone.”

When people hear congregation and spirituality, Powers said, they think religion.

“It’s not,” she said. “Religion isn’t bad, but I have to explain it a little more. Since we’re a spiritual center, we are devoted to the positive side of life and like law of attraction, and what I believe is what I’ve become.”

It’s not about people coming into the church, it’s more about community, she added.

“I want them to know about this place. It’s changed my life. Going there and hearing Dr. Harry’s talks and getting to know the people there, I leave with a better sense of who I am. I have a better focus on my life today and where I’m going.”