For Wilshire Baptist Church
Music always has had a mystical way of reminding me that we are created by a God greater than us and bound together in ways that celebrate our common humanity. Sometimes it happens in silly ways, like me talking classic rock this morning in our kitchen with a plumber who looked like 1980s pop music icon Michael McDonald. But then other times it happens in a holy moment such as the two we experienced last Sunday.
The first moment came Sunday morning at Wilshire during the installation service for Timothy Peoples, our new senior pastor. It happened when soloist Nancy Naff and members of the Garden Addition Baptist Church Brotherhood took to the chancel and sang a roof-raising rendition of “I Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody/ Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around.” Those are songs I didn’t know, and if that was true for people around me, you couldn’t tell because we all were bound together in the moment. The words of the singers — and more than that their energy and spirit — spread across the room and for a holy moment we were one people worshiping one God.
The second moment came that evening at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church, where John Rutter, the great British composer and arranger of sacred music, conducted that church’s choir and orchestra in a program of his own compositions. I didn’t know any of the pieces they performed, and maybe others in the audience didn’t either, but it was all gorgeous and holy and it bound us all together.
The program ended with Rutter’s “The Lord Bless You and Keep You,” and that’s one I know well, because an ensemble of friends sang it when LeAnn and I married at Wilshire – the ultimate binding moment. That alone would have made the moment special for us, but before the choir sang, the audience was asked how many had sung that benediction. The air was filled with raised hands, and all were invited to sing along. Those who knew it did, including LeAnn, and I switched places with her so she could lean out into the aisle and sing with Rutter conducting her face-to-face.
“Now that was a moment,” LeAnn said afterward. Yes, it was. In fact, like the moment earlier that morning at Wilshire, it was a holy moment. And it wasn’t the soaring music or the beautiful words that made it holy; it was the way it bound everyone together in one spirit before one God.