Come Together Starkville
“Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.”
Come Together Starkville was a spirit-led opportunity for First Baptist Starkville to reach across cultural and racial boundaries to celebrate the common tenets of our Christian faith through music. The goal was not just to meet for a worship service, but also to unite in rehearsing, working, and learning new music, side by side. On May 15th at 6 pm that opportunity came to fruition as First Baptist Church, Second Baptist Church, and 16th Section Baptist came together in praise and worship.
The weeks before were filled with rehearsals as Desmond Henderson, the pianist from Second Baptist, met with the FBC Choir on Wednesdays to teach new music. Tom Jenkins and Jennifer Davis met with the Second Baptist Choir to rehearse new music and learn from Melvin Perkins, their choir director. It all came together on a Saturday night rehearsal on May 14th, when we all met, worked, sang, and had a dessert fellowship. Friendships and connections were made, and the Christian bond of fellowship was strengthened.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is quoted often when he wrote, "Music is the universal language of mankind." What we've come to realize, however, is that though all mankind has music, the language differs from tribe to tribe. The use of music is universal, but the language is not. We have different musical language preferences in our own small congregation, let alone the differences from one church to another. It is not easy to move out of the comfort zone of our favorite musical language and experience another.
The quote at the beginning of this article is from Just Listen, a young adult fiction novel by Sarah Dessen. It's the story of a young girl who encounters a new musician friend. He helps her with his music and his strong belief in the power of music to unite. Music defines our culture just as much or more than the clothes we wear or the cars we drive. People who like the same music are instantly united. That is the great purpose of church music! People from every walk of life can be united under the banner of a song well selected, well placed, and well sung. "How Great is our God" is sung over the world in hundreds of languages. I've felt the uniting power of music on a remote mountain top in Peru as we boldly sang "How Great Thou Art!" in at least two languages simultaneously.
Sometimes it takes work. We must be willing to let go of our specific church culture (not our theology – there's a big difference!) and be willing to embrace another. We found that First Baptist didn't have a lot of common songs with 2nd Baptist or 16th Section. They learned a few new songs like "The Blessing" and "God You're So Good," and we learned a few new songs like "God is My Everything." Together we worked and rehearsed and were united in the praise and worship of Jesus who prayed for us, as Pastor Le'Roy Davenport reminded us, in John 17:21 "That they may all be one … so that the world may believe that you have sent me."