At the Bay Chamber Concerts, Pastor Chantel Renee Wright, Director of the Songs of Solomon Gospel Choir from Harlem, started with a question. “Do you want to be a different person? Raise your hand.” She went on to lead a concert/worship service that was concert, performance, worship, self-help, community building and peace making.
In the faces of the young choir, I saw the power of God as they sang (and danced) their hearts out. In Maine’s mainline church, we’ve earned the nickname, the frozen chosen. How do we sing God’s song in this place? How do we open our hearts to God’s love so that we sing and dance and live and worship in ways that fill us and those whose lives we touch with a divine love that is deep and powerful and transforming? Is our worship and song filled with the holy spirit? Is it worthy of God?
Two thousand years ago, Mary sang her song. Let us sing it with her–with all that God has given us. May our lives and our worship magnify God’s earth shaking love.
“And Mary said,
I’m bursting with God-news;
I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
beginning with Abraham and right up to now.” (The Message)
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