Frasch shares ‘Quiet’ ministry with seniors

Faith Lutheran Church member Kim Frasch, 74, of Farragut is reaching out to Knox County’s and East Tennessee’s senior community through Quiet Music Ministry.

“Quiet Music Ministry is simply a one-man band,” said Frasch, who moved from Atlanta to Farragut with his wife, Karoline Frasch, in 2008. He performs contemporary Christian and some more memorable secular music for senior citizens at assisted living and other senior living facilities in the area. As he was not able to perform during the pandemic, Frasch kept the ministry alive by creating CDs for the seniors.

The idea to form Quiet Music Ministry began after he retired in 2014 from his career as a business process consultant, traveling the country and streamlining business processes for major manufacturers.

Just before retiring, a colleague said, “Kim … you’re a dinosaur… what you need to do is find something you can do that nobody can take away from you.”

“That made perfect sense to me,” Frasch said. “I prayed about it.

“Along with aging comes the ability to slow down enough to understand that when God speaks to you, He speaks to you through your heart, not through your ears,” he added. “All my life I’ve been a Christian, but my philosophy (was) ‘if it’s to be, it’s up to me.’

Well, not really.

“If you’re doing God’s work, He will give you what you need if you follow, listen, trust and obey mantra,” Frasch said. “He was very clear. He said, ‘You are going to take your guitar, and you are going to go to senior communities in East Tennessee — assisted living, memory-impaired — and go and do this work.’”

“I had saved well enough for my retirement,” he added.

Frasch went to Faith Lutheran Pastor Robert Stelter about being an outreach for the church and independent.

Frasch schedules his own “gigs,” selling his services to activities directors, making just enough to pay expenses.

“It did work out very well; but when I first started doing it I was terrified,” he recalled.

Although Frasch had performed in a small band in high school, he said facing the seniors was more intimate than facing a club crowd.

Moreover, “When you play in a club nobody’s listening,” he said. “So when I went into these senior communities, here are all these people in their wheelchairs and they’re staring at you … and I only knew 40 songs.”

He told that to Camie Entrekin, activities director at Morning Pointe in Lenoir City.

“She said, ‘Look, what you do is you tell the residents to tell me what song do you want Kim to learn — name of the artist and the song,” Frasch recalled her telling him.

“That’s what I need,” he added. “I’ll find the music and words, learn it and I’ll have it ready by the next month.”

Frasch now has 339 songs under his belt.

For more information, visit kim@quietmusicministry.com