September 2, 2025
Good afternoon,
For worship on Sunday, we were at Bloomingdale Mennonite with the K-W Perimeter cluster of churches. Mostly we sang. As mentioned in an earlier blog, singing was what I missed most about my self-initiated sabbatical from Sunday morning worship. We sang mostly familiar songs. During Poole Mennonite Church’s 150th anniversary celebration in 2024, we selected number 6 in the Voices Together hymnal as one of our theme songs for the year .We sang it on Sunday. I love it.
Let’s walk together Laurie Zelman 2002
Let’s walk together for awhile,
and ask where we begin
to build a world where love can grow
and hope can enter in
to be the hands of healing
and to plant the seeds of peace
Refrain
singing welcome, welcome to this place
you’re invited to come and know God’s grace
All are welcome, the love of God to share
cause all of us are welcome here
all are welcome in this place.
All Mennonite hymnals have been described , by some, as our prayer book. Mennonite love to sing, and we now write worship material, but I still think that we use our hymn singing to pray to God. At Poole, we said in a survey that we think that God loves that we sing to God. It is what we like to do in worship. We do not have to sing well, just sing to the God in whom we trust.
Another song we sang on Sunday was ” How many times we start again “( number 553 ). It was the first time for me to sing this hymn. Check out the other three verses if you have the hymnal
Verse 3
But greater than the cost we find is our expanded view
of what it means, with heart and mind, to trust and follow you
we hear a music never heard, a different light descends
and meeting strangers , we are stirred to welcome as friends. Thomas Troeger 2009
May we all sing for Gaza to have peace be brought there forever. AMEN.
Fred
black and white shadows
crush humanity’s freedom
am I complicit ?
Ponder Anew 