Katie is a great singer/songwriter and worship leader. I love to write and record with her. We finished a CD called "The Isaiah Project" to raise funds for Rafiki Orphanage which Katie supports. She'll be heading back there July 11th for a month of brainstorming and planning for future ministry. And I am hoping to get over there maybe next Summer to deepen my own participation.
Music has the potential to work best in small settings as a way to create room where participants can enter into the stories together through song and sharing. Something I've been thinking about more this past month as we were traveling is the idea of music as a form of hospitality. I am not terribly interested in 'making it' in the music industry or drawing big crowds. I am interested in connecting to personal stories and together with those people connecting (or re-membering) to God's Story.
Some of my favorite times of music sharing have been with less than ten people in someone's living room. The best large concerts I've been to were the ones that felt small in spite of their size.
If music can become a place where people can be welcomed to share their stories and where God himself meets us and integrates us into His Story, then we may have a real point of contact in the home to honor the dignity and 'common sense' of following Jesus as a thing accessible to everyone, not just the professionals.
One last story. I remember someone telling me about agrarian cultures where a family would spend their precious time, energy, and resources to farm the land, to cultivate nearly every aspect of their livelihood by pouring out their lives to put food on their table. So when the family would invite you to sit at their table they were really saying "Come take my very life into yourself. All this family's energy, time, sweat, and blood." The table was where you entered into the result of their life and joined yourself to them.
When Jesus hosts the last supper with his disciples, he lifts up the bread and cup as his very body and blood and invites them to take his own life down into the very core of themselves. In this way, they are being joined to the new covenant life, this transforming and fulfilling Kingdom life. The culmination of Jesus' labour is this act of invitation, of hospitality and incorporation of their lives into His great life, story, and work.
I pray that any music I make, and any time of music sharing might somehow incarnate again that act of divine hospitality. I pray that my whole life, in fact, would be an ongoing act of hospitality where Jesus' invitation to repentance and acceptance of his mighty acts of salvation would dwell and make a Living Room where the weary can find rest.
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