The sound of.... music?

Throughout time has God has been incredibly good to the church.  One of his greatest gifts has been in the gift of music and musicians.  Singing is powerful, it lifts our eyes, instills truth and provides a vehicle for our expressions of trust, fear, joy, and so on in response to God's word, our lives and our hope.  A church without singing would be far poorer.

And yet I wonder if that is where we are heading.  Not wishing to seem apocalyptic but musicianship is on the wane.  If you're church has lots of gifted musicians my hunch is you are located in the city or in a locale with a university.  Be thankful, even though at times there can be tensions with having lots of musicians.

I am very grateful to God for the gifted musicians he has provided for us as a church over the last ten years.  Their faithful service has been of great benefit to us.  Yet here is my fear looking around about me and into the future about music and musicians in the church.  A fear that is especially true if you are not a university town/city church and that is exacerbated even more if you are in working class or deprived area.

Put simply there aren't many musicians and there is little prospect of there being lots of musicians n the future.  There are a number of reasons for this, one is that young people who head off to uni rarely return home.  But secondly and perhaps a greater cause for concern in the future is the sheer cost of music lessons.  Due to budget constraints our local school music service has put the cost of lessons up from £160 a year to over £400!  That puts music out of the reach of so many families.  It limits music and musicianship to the wealthy, because that is without the add on cost of instruments, music, etc...  And that will impact our churches, maybe not yours because you're church is largely middle class and fairly affluent, and so music will be an affordable priority, we ought to be thankful for that if that's us.  But for those in working class and deprived areas I wonder if it means many more churches without musicians.  There are ways around it, there are a growing range of apps, but we lose the sense of someone willingly serving the body of Christ, someone who has taken hours to craft and hone their skills.  It also means the next generation don't grow up to aspire to play and so the cycle perpetuates itself.

So what?  Ought we to be encouraging musicians to think about moving and serving in other churches, if we have a glut of them?  Could your musicians help another local church out by training their young, or not so young, people?  Are there musicians in your church who could provide free lessons to the next generation either in your church or in another to fill this void?

When life throws you a curve ball, trusting in the sovereignty of God means we aren't thrown by it

God is sovereign.  That absolute fact matters.  Nothing that I face today will take God by surprise.  Whereas life may, and frequently does, spring surprises on me all the time.  Just when you thought things were settled and you knew what the future looked like along comes a surprise.  That would be unsettling were it not for the sovereignty of God and the conviction that God is working all things for good.

The latest curve ball has come in the shape of issues with the building we meet in.  Hiring a school inevitably means that we have to make compromises, compromise over what and when and how, compromise over what we can and can't do, when and how we meet and so on.  We have been incredibly blessed with the generosity of the school and the incredible support of the headteacher, office and cleaning staff who have repeatedly gone out of their way to make us welcome.

But there have been growing pressures in terms of building use.  The area we have for Sunday school is not ideal, especially with large number of children, and we can only use the facilities as and when they are available which largely rules out the day time.  There is also a new and pressing issue, when a child is excluded from school they are excluded from the premises both during and outside of school hours.  Last week sadly this happened which means effectively we have family who are part of our wider church family who are excluded from church as one of their children is excluded from school.  So suddenly the need to find new premises becomes more urgent.  But what is reassuring is that God new even though I didn't that this issue would present itself last Thursday.  God knows even though where don't where we will meet in the future.

And so this week alongside all the usual sermon preparation, visits, assemblies, bible studies, 1-2-1's, admin and making the church family aware of this issue I'm spending time looking for a new home for Grace Church.  There are no obvious venues, the secondary school don't want to do Sunday lettings, there is no community hall in the area, not even a pub with a function room.  But still God knows and is good.  There are some available office units and commercial premises though they are a bit set apart from the residential community and they are expensive but available to buy or to let.

So whilst the future is once again somewhat uncertain our trust is that God knows and he is with us.  Someone from church text me reminding me of our first memory verse of the year this morning: "Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous.  Do not be frightened, and be not dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."  Again God's timing that one of the verses we have learnt is so relevant at this time.

So we'd value your prayers.  Prayers for quickly finding venue.  Prayers for wisdom as to whether to buy or rent and where to buy or rent.  Prayers for finance whether we buy or rent as realistically our rent needs to be as cheap as it is at the minute and if we buy we need to find external sources of finance.  And lastly prayers for unity within the church family over this issue as we move forward so that others watching on are won for the gospel.

Pressure

We live in a world full of pressure. Adverts present us with the perfect couples, immaculately dressed and beautiful, yet also with perfectly presented and behaved children complete with colgate smiles. They both have successful careers, fun hobbies, strong family ties and close friendships. Oh yes and both drive fantastic washed and polished cars and live in immaculate houses.

How do we ever attain that? It is a subtle pressure to strive to be more like them, to have the same things, to live the same lifestyle. That is one source of pressure, one set of messages that we are bombarded with day by day.

When our lives don't measure up to the ideal the consequence is guilt or a sense of failure; oh no my children are missing out, shouldn't I be able to do this and that too! There must be something wrong with me I just can't cope. Just look at so and so...

Who puts that pressure on us? The reality is that I do, I put that pressure on myself. I want to be seen as successful, I want to measure up, I want others to think I am coping, no more than that, that I am thriving. That's so often what mitigates against us stepping off the treadmill.

But the remedy to that is that gospel, that tells me I am valued because I am in the image of God and he gave his Son to save me. It tells me that I can never reach God's standard so he sent his son to do it for me and then credits me with the perfect life, whilst he willingly pays for my failure.

Such love frees me from the expectations of the world around me. If God accepts me I am truly accepted. If God loves me I am truly loved. If God promises me a future I have a future worth looking forward too.

Often my problem is that I am too wedded to this world and its definition of success and the future it sets before me. In his book Mere Christianity CS Lewis wrote this; “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”

This world is the hotel room, the new creation will be home, I need to re-orientate my life to live in the light of that reality.