As we live into our second year of shared ministry with City Church Greenville, I keep searching for ways of imagining our mutual ministry through what is common and what is unique. “Two congregations, one Body of Christ” helps me affirm our relationship.
It also is good to view the relationship in active ways which has me searching for a picture that I learned about some years ago.
It is a picture of the crowd at an Elvis Presley concert. There are parents and children and they are clapping to the music. But they are not clapping at the same time. One group is clapping on the downbeat and the other group is clapping on the upbeat. If there were video, in one frame the older hands would be together and the younger hands would be apart and in the next frame, they would be the other way around. If you come across the picture, please share it with me.
A great vocal example of this effect is by the group, Anointed, in their version of “Joy to the World”. Notice their emphasis on Joy to the World and Joy to the World.
Or there is this:
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip.
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
That’s right. Gilligan’s Island and Amazing Grace can be sung to each other’s tunes because they are both written using the same musical meter.
In 5th grade, I took the music aptitude tests with the only thought of playing drums. The results came back and the band director told my mom something like this, “Well, Mrs. Williams, maybe with some lessons he might be able to learn to play the drums.” I still remember lessons in flams, paradiddles and five-stroke rolls at Mr. Banning’s home studio throughout 6th grade. I returned to drum set lessons in my late 40’s for about a year.
But my greater music education has come through marriage and the Church. I married well. Beverly, my wife, has a wonderful singing voice. As a congregation, we have been blessed through the years by good musical leadership, we celebrate the current vocal/instrumental gifts of our music leaders, and anticipate the return of our choir.
Albeit under our masks these days, oftentimes we sing along with the special music songs in worship. Connecting through music deepens our experience of grace. It’s even more fun to discover relationships among the songs themselves.
Common meter is a 4-line poetic stanza with alternating lines of 8 and 6 syllables (86.86 in our United Methodist Hymnal). Amazing Grace; O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing; All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name; Gilligan’s Island; and House of the Rising Sun all use common meter.
I appreciate learning the many ways we sing the Lord’s songs in our congregations and the many ways we find to share our gifts for ministry.
Appreciating the relational power of common meter also can work theologically. As United Methodists, these are the major beliefs and affirmations we hold in common with other Christians:
- Belief in the Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit);
- Faith in the mystery of salvation in and through Jesus Christ;
- Belief that God’s redemptive love is realized in human life by the activity of the Holy Spirit, both in personal experience and in the community of believers;
- We are part of Christ’s universal church when by adoration, proclamation, and service we become conformed to Christ;
- The reign of God is both a present and future reality;
- Recognition of the authority of Scripture in matters of faith, the confession that our justification as sinners is by grace through faith, and the sober realization that the church is in need of continual reformation and renewal;
- An affirmation of the general ministry of all baptized Christians who share responsibility for building up the church and reaching out in mission and service to the world;
- The essential oneness of the church in Christ Jesus…It is also experienced in joint ventures of ministry and in various forms of ecumenical cooperation.
“Nourished by common roots of this shared Christian heritage, the branches of Christ’s church have developed diverse traditions that enlarge our store of shared understandings” (Book of Discipline 2016, Paragraph 102, Section 1).
This Easter season our worship series is “Deep & Wide.” We will celebrate and highlight the expansive ways God is present and at work in the world and how we are inspired to recover the Church as a movement, “an expanding group of people sharing a unique identity and purpose” (Andy Stanley, Deep & Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend). In partnership with City Church Greenville, let’s “enlarge our store of shared understandings” to keep learning new ways of singing together and serving God’s people in Greenville and beyond.