Tag: worship

Singing our Faith

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 ?

I Felt God

August 1, 2025

Good afternoon

I experienced a thin place last night. A holy moment. A sacred time. And then it was gone.We attended a concert of the Janzen Boys at Rockway Mennonite Church. They are a father and his two sons. They sing folk, country and a little bluegrass. They have great harmonies and good guitar playing. They come from Winnipeg, but spent some time in Japan. Earlier this year, they made the decision to go with their music full-time. That is a step of faith.They write their own lyrics and music. But they also sing many songs from Canadian artists, like Anne Murray, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Cockburn and Barenaked Ladies. The group engaged with the audience and told some funny stories. They had sent us a small CD, with only four songs on it, by mail a few years ago… for free. Shirley saw their concert tour on the internet, and that they were in Kitchener, so we had to go.

The thin place was somewhere between when they sang ” Lovers in a Dangerous Time” by Cockburn and when they finished with ” Hard Times ” by Stephen Foster ( 1860’s ). I wanted the feeling to stay, but it left as quickly as it came. I guess you cannot live there in that moment all the time. But, it would have been nice if it stayed a day. I cannot quite describe it, but I know I touched a piece of heaven, and then Pfffffttt !!

Has this happened to you ? When was it, and how long did it stay with you ? We can only take God in small portions, I guess. Keep searching, and you will find.

Praying that God will touch God with peace, AMEN

Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ? MPL 2025