Hay, That's Not Church Music!

What do you do for music when you are a small church and singing is a challenge?  Do you persist in singing and watch as the faithful try but are embarrassed by their efforts? Or is there an alternative?

At our church we have decided that there is an alternative and it is this - we hand the music over to the professionals.  Today we invited Mumford & Sons along to share their music with us.  Well, not in person. Via video.

Over the last few weeks we have had Neil Young, Carole King, Jimmy Cliff, Ed Sherrin, Bobby McFerrin, the Beatles and more join us for Sunday worship. We have listened and discussed their lyrics and reflected on the Gospel as it appears in contemporary thought and music. And it has been a blessing to all.

No longer have we had to try and sing songs and pretend that it is worship. No longer did we dread the words, ‘Now, next hymn is….’ When the video comes on we sit back and concentrate on the music and the lyrics, and receive an additional perspective on the Good News we came to hear.

For me, the process of selecting the music is now an enjoyable exploration of contemporary music. And I have discovered that theology is entwined within the lyrics of some of our most popular songwriters. It is not all God-less, much of it includes God and the Christian story, all we need to do is listen to it in the right place and space.

An added benefit is that when these songs come on the radio in the car they remind us of the Gospel and the connection we made when we put the two together in liturgy.

Try it some time. It works.

For suggestions on music to use, go to You Call That Church Music? 

ANZAC DAY - An Act of Three-way Remembering

ANZAC DAY is a day for remembering those who have given their lives, their youth and their future for our country.  ANZAC DAY is a day for remembering those who went away to foreign lands and returned different, changed, not the same, to live with rememberings they would rather forget. ANZAC DAY is a day to remember the families of those who never came back and those who did.

Remembering is an important part of personal, family and society's story. We build our story about who we are, what we believe, what we value on remembering and when we remember we do it in three ways. Or perhaps I could say remembering has three different views.

The view back, into the past. We remember back to put a story around what happened before now. Remembering back helps to make sense of situations which often are difficult to make sense of. War is one of those things and today helps us to remember the individuals, on both sides, who endure the horror unimaginable by us this far away. ANZAC DAY helps us to remember back and to bring those stories, those faces, those names forward into our memory today.  Without the remembering back we can make no sense of it at all.

The second view is the present view. We remember now. We can not change the past. We can not bring them back. We can not stop the wars which already have been fought.We can say thanks to them for the possibility of now, of what we have, freedom, hope, love, possibilities and remember. We look around us and see others just like us, perhaps ethnically and religiously different, but with the same aspirations and hopes, families and friends, wishes and dreams as us and we take note.  If we remember the now we all not revisit the past.

The third view, is remembering the future.  It is not all about the past and the present, but about what we build for the future.  We cannot build a future if we fail to remember the past and the present. All we will do is repeat our history of violence and war over and over and over again. Remembering the future reminds us that what we do now, what we value now, what we aspire to know, we will live with now and in the future.  The future is no accident, it is given birth by the past and the present.

My father-in-law came back from New Guinea and spoke very little about the war or the Japanese whom he fought. He Never never missed an ANZAC DAY march and always wore his medals. He resumed his business life and joined Rotary.  Through his work he develop a friendship with a Japanese man who had fought in the same place as he did, but on opposite sides, and was also a Rotarian. They wrote to each other, he hosted the business man and his wife when they visited Australia, and he maintained that relationship until he died. While they spoke little of the war to others, they shared openly and deeply with each other the horrors they endured on the battlefield. After he died, the letters and Christmas cards continued to my mother-in-law until they all passed away. That is three way remembering in action. They remembered the past, they shared the present and they paved away for a future where this wouldn't happen again, at least not between their nations.

The key foundation for Christians is this three-way remembering.  The mystery of the Christian faith is - 'Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again'. Something has happened, something is happening and something will happen.

Today, ANZAC DAY, is a day of remembering what has happened, let us use it to reinvigorate our present and empower our future. We owe at least that to the brave men and women who gave their lives to make it possible. It's up to you.