Music
Greetings!
By this time, we are indeed no longer Strangers and Aliens. Here’s some original music by my friend the Rev. Jack Davidson, to kick off today’s theme of Music. Tonight, we’ll gather for our soup potluck (hot soup, cold soup, sweet soup, savory soup, stone soup) before turning to different ways people use music in church settings. The large group meeting will involve a lot of watching music videos, so kids are welcome.
Psalm 98 gives us our inspiration for music in worship–
Psalm 98:4–6 (NET)
Shout out praises to the Lord, all the earth!
Break out in a joyful shout and sing!
Sing to the Lord accompanied by a harp,
accompanied by a harp and the sound of music!
With trumpets and the blaring of the ram’s horn,
shout out praises before the king, the Lord!
We sometimes have difficulty expressing emotion in worship. How do we show joy when we are gathered all together? How can we be excited? How do we open ourselves up to the tears? The psalmist knew. As we use our own energy to shout and to sing, and to clap and to strum, our bodies ca turn emotion outwards, leaving us changed by the presence of God in song and drum. Sing a song today, see how you feel. Ask what it is about music that moves you to a different place. What are the songs that are the soundtracks to the different parts of your lives?
In my case, college was dominated by the Greg Brown song “the Iowa Waltz,” as I found myself far away from home (as he says, “in the midst of the corn, the middle of the U-S-A”) and the Rolling Stones telling me that “You Can’t Always Get What You Want (but if you try sometime, you might find that you get what you need). Post-college, well, those songs still affect me, years later, and you’ll need to ask me. But I can still sing them for you. Many of us have particular church songs that remind us of moments when we felt God’s grace and mercy, too. What are those going to be in the next five years?
Dinner’s at 5:30, programming at 6 (or when we finish cleaning up).
Blessings,
Nathan
