Co-Creating Melodies

The story is told of a concert pianist who was on the point of beginning a performance when there was a scream from the audience.  A child had left her seat beside her parent and was running around the auditorium.  the concert pianist stepped away from this instrument in order to maintain concentration.  The child ran up the steps onto the stage, sat herself down on the stool, and began to play discordant notes at random as she pleased.  The hushed audience gasped in horror and embarrassment.  The pianist walked toward the child and stood behind her as she played.  The pianist leaned over her hand, and without disturbing her, placed right and left hands outside her two small hands on the keyboard.  The pianist then began to play in response to her notes, weaving their discordant sounds into an improvised melody.  To have thrown the child out would have been to block; to have let her play on would have been to accept; to weave a wonderful melody around her was to receive her as a gift, to over-accept.
                                                                                               - Samuel Wells

You are never and inturruption to Divine Pianist.  Your off notes and broken rhythms are never outside the steady movements of God.  You are, after all, a gift and welcomed to play at the seat of the Great Musician.  So, do not be over-concered with the glares of others or over-whelmed that your timing and technique are fragmented. 

This is what it means to be a child.

It is not yours to orchestrate each stanza and perfect each measure.  This is the work of the Conductor, who, as you get lost in the delight of play, hems you into a bigger song.

Hearing The Music

The church has spent so much time inculcating in us the fear of making mistakes that she has made us like ill-taught piano students; we play our songs but we never really hear them because our main concern is not to make music, but to avoid some flub that will get us in dutch. - Philip Yancey

For many this has been their experience with church. A place of fear and condemnation. A place where we walk on egg shells, afraid to say the wrong things, do the wrong things, and think the wrong things. In this environment the rhythm and life of the gospel becomes tragically snuffed out. And sadly, the way of Jesus ends up becoming stale, mechanical, and forced.

Jesus lived a life and spoke in such a way that we might be freed from this kind of tyranny. That we might stop stressing over getting each "note" of religion perfect, and instead learn to feel the music of walking in a relationship with God.

Have you had experiences with church that felt more like grinding piano lessons? How can we foster creativity and movement so that people might feel the "rhythm" of the gospel?