By Bob Allen
Richard Lin, a church music professor and choir director who mentored thousands of church musicians at two Southern Baptist Convention seminaries, died May 21 in Santa Rosa, Calif.
Lin, 89, was born in 1925 in Hunan Province, China. He fled communism and lived in Taiwan and Hong Kong before immigrating to the United States in 1952. He studied voice at the National Conservatory of Music in Shanghai before earning an undergraduate degree from the National Conservatory of Music in Paris; a master of church music degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
Lin taught 12 years at Oklahoma Baptist University, founding the Bison Chorale and traveled nationally and internationally presenting concert tours, before joining the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., in 1967. Under his direction the Oratorio Chorus of SBTS became one of the city’s most celebrated choral groups, performing with the Louisville Orchestra.
In 1983 he was named professor of church music at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif. He taught conducting, voice and choral and voice literature and founded the San Francisco Chinese Children’s Choir, which traveled across the U.S. and the Far East.
In 1986 Lin co-founded the Chinese Christian Church Music Institute for Worship in San Francisco, a non-denominational non-profit to promote church music ministry in local churches, presenting workshops in Canada, the Far East and U.S.A. for Chinese church musicians on various aspects of music ministry and worship.
Lin served as minister of music at churches in Hong Kong, Kentucky and California. In recent years he suffered from dementia. The cause of death was prostate cancer.
Lin is survived by his wife of 65 years, Julia See Ying Lam Lin, four children, eight grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
A memorial service is scheduled at 1:30 p.m., on Saturday, June 13, at Lakeside Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. Expressions of sympathy may be made as donations to CCCMIW, P.O. Box 6429, San Mateo, CA 94403.
Lin’s co-founder of the Chinese Christian Church Music Institute for Worship, Samuel Tang, died May 15.