Concerts, Community & Church

You might wonder what these three things have in common, or why they wouldn’t all go together. Let me set the scene for you.

Friday evening was the wind up concert for the Sunshine Coast Summer Celtic School of Music. The week had been full of lessons for young and old who had come to learn from some masters on violin, cello, accordion and guitar. Their fingers found new ways to make music on their instruments and their feet tapped to the beat of new tunes. Tunes that are learned by ear, not by written music. It is gaining quite the reputation. I have enjoyed quite a few of their concerts, under the concert hall roof or out in the park by the sea. Last year I went to this concert with Grandma who is 91 and she was just enjoying herself immensely. This year I accompanied a friend who had come to study for the week. She wanted to add Celtic music to her worship playing.

The concert hall is a simple structure and one side is completely open. Teachers and students alike play. No one is dressed formally – every one comes as they are. This is a community event yet it is gaining notoriety far beyond this little Sunshine Coast. Students and instructors played various new tunes, traditional tunes, avante guarde tunes in the fiddling world. It was an interesting tapestry of music, of characters, which flowed into one program. Much of it was organized but there were a few sets of tunes where the violinist, guitarist and cellist and guitarist simply played. It was nothing written – just following the lead and hearing the heart of the music. Amazing.

At intermission there was beverages and home baking and conversation with those you knew, or conversation with someone you just met.

That is concert and the community.

And in it I saw a picture of church. A variety of people with different backgrounds and thoughts, different styles. They come together and enjoy the learning, sharing the results of learning, the wealth that the more learned provides. They come, as they are – no pretense. Some of church is organized but some is simply organic and flows as you hear the sound of the music the Spirit leads with. A simple building, full, of simple ordinary people who love the music of life. People FULL of life. Music that is learned by heart.

Can this be church or does it have to wait for heaven? I am realizing that I have to live this way, in church, at work, at play. Maybe it is people with music in their soul coming together to see what the song will be and drawing others into it.