Sing and be happy

This month is a month of singing. We are thankful that we can help congregations in their singing. We enjoy the time together as much as they and we all learn something from one another. This has always been a part of our ministry and as long as I can sing it will remain so. God has put a song in our hearts and singing is what we all will be doing together when we finally get Home. 

This month we have several opportunities to help in singing. The congregation in Haarlem (about 2,5 hours north of us) asked me to come and help them learn new songs and learn how to sing better. We went up at the end of August and will return near the end of September. This is a mix of learning music notation - what is a fermata, what is the difference between ff and mp, why do we breathe at a comma - and remembering that singing for God is about singing with your heart and your head. 

I always want to remind people that God made us to sing. Singing is divine, built for who and what we are. It is the only thing that touches mind and soul at the same time. You can literally feel the sound in your body, but you need to pay attention to the words you are singing. So taking time to look at the words in a song, making sure we understand it, is just as important as learning the rhythm or tempo or harmony. 

The group in Haarlem was excited to learn new songs and to learn more about singing. It was also a great time of fellowship, especially for us. We do not get to see the members of this congregation very often, although many of my Dutch roots come from here. I worked as an evangelism apprentice here when I first came to the Netherlands and learned my Dutch in this city. 

This past weekend we were in Cologne, Germany for a day of singing. Every February Uli and I see each other at the Advanced Bible Study Series (ABSS) in Germany. He is from the congregation in Cologne and I am from Maastricht. We started getting together for a singing back in 2014 when we talked about including Aachen again in some way. Aachen is in the middle between the two cities. We organized a singing and have kept this up (with some exceptions during corona years) every year. We have been in Cologne twice, in Aachen twice and in Maastricht three or four times. 

This singing day n Cologne brings us together with another congregation. We had 6 members from Maastricht attend (it would have been 8, but two were incapacitated, including Shirley). The group also included a refugee couple and a visiting couple from the neighborhood. We sing and speak more in German, but this time we also sang some in French. When we started members from Liege, Maastricht, Aachen and Cologne all attended, making it quite international. This time in Cologne we remembered that in heaven we will all be able to sing together in whatever language it will be. 

This coming weekend several of the members from Maastricht will join others from around the Netherlands and Belgium at the Family Day at camp. So we will get to sing and once again enjoy the wonderful fellowship of being together. This time we will simply take part in the singing, rather than lead any of it. But a week later we will be in Eindhoven for our monthly 3rd Wednesday singing there where we also help with learning new songs. Often people simply need to learn a song and see that they can sing it. 

We enjoy singing songs that members in the Netherlands and Belgium have written, songs written by Russian brothers and translated either into English or Dutch (or German), or new songs crossing over to Europe from other areas of the world. It is exciting to see how the song that God has put in our hearts continues to pour over into words of praise to Him. 

(You can find more photos of our time in Haarlem and Cologne here.)

Remember. Celebrate.

This past weekend I saw signs of "May the 4th be with you." And sombrero's and more for "cinco de Mayo". In the Netherlands the 4th and 5th of May are special. They say: On the 4th we remember; on the 5th we celebrate. The 4th of May is to remember the soldiers who gave their lives in World War II to make the country free. The 5th of May is a celebration of Liberation Day - the day the country was freed from occupation. 
On the 4th we were together with church members during our first Friday singing day - together with members from the French-speaking church in Liege. At 8pm we spent a moment of silence (two minutes) and we thought about those who had gone before us, fighting the good fight of faith. Then we sang of the liberation brought to us through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are free! 
I thought about several people who have been influential in my growth and life as a child of God. Here in Maastricht we recently said "See you soon" to our sister, Willemien. She and her husband were two of the first visitors to the church when we arrived in Maastricht. Willemien was a grandmother to our boys and to many in the congregation. Our sister, Roos, was taken by cancer in the early years of our time here in Maastricht. She was not only a part of our team, but I had known her in my years as an apprentice in Haarlem, 10 years before. We look forward to singing with these two women soon. 
But then my thoughts went on to the family members in the congregations who support us. My father in the faith, Ron, who taught me so much, well before I was a child of God. Or the elders from 11th and Willis in Abilene who were our first experience as a married couple and what they meant to our lives in Christ together: Dub, Neil and others. 
In each of the cities we visit when we go on Home Assignment, we always have a place to stay. In Minnesota that was first always with Susan, who also helped establish a wonderful, loving family. In California it was Wanda who often made sure things were organised. Both sisters went Home quite unexpectedly. 
But it is the celebration that reminds us that we will see them all again. We will sing the new song (and even if it IS a new song, we will all know it) as we gloriously celebrate the Lamb and His victory. So we know, even now, that we are liberated. We are made free. We are made new. And we live as people who know that we do not belong here, but we will bring the liberation of the King here. That is why these and many other of our brothers and sisters have taught us. 
Remember. Celebrate. 

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.  Hebrews 11:13-16

Speak to one another

What a blessed week this is! Last Sunday afternoon we drove over to Rotselaar (near Leuven, Belgium) to sing with the church there. We are getting together with them every month or so. Last night we had our monthly singing in Maastricht and sang with our brothers and sisters from Liége again. This coming Sunday we will go to the church in Brussels again to sing with them – a collection of the English-speaking and French-speaking brothers and sisters who meet there. And we did this last month as well!

Have you ever noticed? Perhaps I have mentioned it before. Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 tell us something about singing. These are two places where we are clearly given a command to do something for one another. It is something that everyone should do, that the group is to do. They are among the ‘one another’ passages. Singing is where we speak to one another, teach one another, admonish one another, and, in harmony, praise and worship our God who is the reason for our harmony and life together. Everyone in the body can and is commanded, if you will, to do this.

I know that not everyone can sing well. That is part of why we are visiting these congregations – to help them in their singing and offer times to sing together that they usually would not organize. God presents this place – song – the only place where emotion and word meet. There is no other way to combine and communicate what we feel with what we think so clearly. We put emotion to words. We speak of our heart, from our heart even with our heart, but with words! And God has not only created this, he has commanded us to use it, knowing how valuable it is. Wow!

So we sing. We practice songs we know and learn new songs. We take time to look at the words and the melodies and talk about why they are written that way. We learn about dynamics and tempo and meter (a little bit) so that we understand this wonderful language God has given us to speak to one another. But mostly, we sing.

This is not a post about church politics, or maybe it is. I want to encourage everyone I can to join in this wonderful blessing and command that God has given us. It is at this siging that we are family. It is here that we share our hurts and joys. Last night we sang for Josette, your sister who passed away. You don’t know her and I had only recently met her, but we will see her soon and sing with her. Our singing now is not perfect, or great, or often even melodious. But it is where we can place all of our emotion in our words, together, as one body coming before the throne.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.  Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:15-17)