Haven’t you always wondered? Aren’t you dying to know what happens when preachers gather in the same space?
Okay then, then humor me for a moment!
When people whose livelihood is proclamation, that is, a public telling with words and deeds the true story of Jesus Christ, the in-breaking of God into our messy lives and world, we almost certainly do one thing.
We who hover in hospital rooms with quiet prayers, who wrestle for hours and hours with ancient words on a page, who beg God to show up already, gather together and sing.
We sing the old, old story that we love so much. We sing petitions for the lost stranger, the beaten-up creation, the broken governing systems that populate the world. We harmonize the same songs preachers have been singing for hundreds of years, thousands when the songs we sing are psalms.
At the Festival of Homiletics last week, I sang “Every Time I Feel the Spirit,” belting out the lyrics with preachers of a variety of denominations, part of a magical moment when music blurs doctrinal boundaries and we are one in Christ, if only for a moment.
Then we went our separate ways with songs in our hearts to carry us along. And wouldn’t you know, the sending song chosen by our Worship and Music Director on Sunday was “Every Time I Feel the Spirit.” Same song, different crowd. And I belted out the lyrics, unconcerned with hitting the notes exactly right and more caught up in the negro spiritual I had just sung with preachers from around the nation, whose work, like mine, is a constant yearning to feel the Spirit. “Every time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart, I will pray.”
When preachers get together, we sing. We sing a prayer masquerading as a song, for when the song ends, we keep feeling for the Spirit and the prayer goes on.
Lisa Lewton 