Music of the Community

Yesterday was a strange Sunday. I had to interrupt a meeting early Sunday morning to inform a church member her sister had passed away. An hour later, the rescue squad arrives to take another elderly church member to the hospital, and our church pianist/organist goes with her. So we were without music on Sunday; which is interesting because this post is about a musical request I received after a little chaotic Sunday morning.

After the service ended, one of our younger families stopped me and asked who was in charge of music on Sundays. I told them myself and the choir director. She then asked if we would consider playing or using one contemporary song in the current worship service. I told her we will definitely talk about it but my post isn't about which worship style is the best. I am not a worship music elitist who thinks one is superior to the other. There are wonderful praise/modern worship songs just as there are hymns as well as horrid ones as there are horrid hymns (I'm looking at you "Onward Christian Soldiers"). This post is about the request.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, "Because it is completely bound to the Word, the singing of the congregation in its worship service, especially the singing of the house church, is essentially singing in unison." (Bonhoeffer, Life Together pg 66-67).

Usually when someone requests a change in style of music they request either to remove the current style of music from worship or create an entirely new worship service specific to that style of music. This request was not like that. It was a request to incorporate a style of music into an existing style of music. It was a request to incorporate the new in with the old. It's not a blended style or a blended service, it was an incorporation of young and old together. I was taken back. I was excited. I was proud!

Our focus these past few Sundays has been on the Christian community and what it means to live in community together. I spoke about how interconnected we are and how we cannot escape one another and how we are called to work and live together because the community was formed in and held together by Christ alone. And now, someone was making a request to incorporate another style of music that represented a portion of the community. It was a statement that said, "We're not asking to exile the others. We are asking to be included. We are asking that our style be honored as well."

They wanted to remain a part of the community and they wanted to give their talents to the community. Being in Christian community means that we listen to one another and what I heard Sunday was a person saying, "My family and I love it here and we would like to incorporate our style of worship into the style of worship of the community." For the first time, a request was made that was not an either/or request. It was not a request to separate but a request to be included, to be incorporated.

There are some logistically issues that need to be addressed and some commitments made; and of course we could argue/debate/discuss whether or not we would be able to do it well. Those are topics for another conversation; for now I am resting in the watershed moment of a family's desire to incorporate into the existing community by adding to and not taking away.