Music crosses borders update

Last fall the Prophets were practicing on Tuesday evening as they do. (Read my first post on this here.) During the rehearsal a couple of folks walked into rehearsal. They had been in a meeting in the facility and had heard us working on a couple of Hispanic songs. They were from our partner church in Guatemala! We finally got some photos. Enjoy.

Edwin Gelista is playing guitar with Mark and Perrin above; Cesar Taracena is singing in the picture below. The Western North Carolina Presbytery has a pretty extensive ongoing relationship with church in Guatemala, the whole of which I haven't quite put together. You can read about it beginning here. Edwin is pastor of our sister church and coordinator between Suchitepequez Presbytery in Guatemala and our Presbytery; Cesar is an elder in a church partnered with First Pres. Asheville, and coordinator with Sur Occidente Presbytery.

The Prophets are seriously wondering if they/we could pull off a musical mission to our sister church, combined perhaps with other mission workers from our church and Presbytery.

Music crosses borders

You kind of had to be there, but...our band was playing "Alabare" in rehearsal last night. Unbeknownst to the band, our regional committee on outreach in Central and South America was in the building, including guests from our sister churches in Guatamala. They heard the song and came running into the rehearsal room, started singing with us! One of the fellows even grabbed a guitar and played along! It was an awesome Holy Spirit moment with lots of laughter, clapping and great joy. We played another couple of songs together and took a couple of pictures.

In Kenya

Lisle G. (who sings with Prophets when she is home from school at Davidson College) is on a two-week mission with folks from Davidson College Presbyterian Church. The group has an on-going blog which currently is featuring posts from the smaller mission team on the ground in Kenya. You can see what they are doing here.

What do you think about church

I recall an article sometime ago that researched the general impressions non-church folks had of church. The rather ambiguous question was something like, "what comes to mind when you think of church?" Among the top three answers was something like, "they hate gay people." Also up there was a sense that churches fret over money too much. All of the replies were negatives: "they're against..." "they don't..." You get the idea.

There is a neat article at Church Marketing Sucks that adds another layer: "churches are tax-exempt." The imaginary dialogue goes one, "I don't ever really think about churches." The corollary is, when "they" do think about church, it's negatively.

None of those impressions of church really makes me excited about church, and I suspect that not many members of BMPCNC would claim any of these three as taking pride of place at our congregation. Yet this is the impression that all too many folks have of church. What are we doing about it? The adage, "actions speak louder than words" comes to mind. Is it time for the dramatic, extravagant expression of love of neighbor that will begin to change our public image?