Music is great ...

Monday, Sept 21, 2015. Do you love music? There is nearly no-one on the planet who does not love some music. Yet the way we do music or listen to music is very different from person to person.

Musical Experiences …

This weekend we have been performing some kids musical in our church, titled “Grace”. About 15 kids between 10 and 18 have been writing and practicing a musical themselves. The play took about 70 minutes, with 13 or 14 songs and various scenes in between. It was about some kids being new in school, about acceptance and ignorance, but also about faith, about commandments, about prayer and about grace.

It was my role as father of three of the kids to support the play by playing the music at the piano, together with my wife at the guitar. We joined the team just two weeks ago, for two afternoon rehearsals and the performance. It was just great, I can tell you!

May I be excited a little bit. Of course one is happy that it worked so well, but I am even more happy about all the kids expressing their excitement and their faith here, about the nice texts and songs - it was a highlight and will remain one for quite some time! And it was great to have a great audience for the afternoon performance.

Open your Heart …

Music can open our heart. Music can reach us, where mere arguments or reason don't do the job. Reason is important, yes, but reason alone will not be able to guide us. Humans are more than reason!

As a musician I am again and again amazed about the role of music in the human life. I am a professional mathematician - and I love maths. But still, it is only a part of our life. There is so much more than mathematics, so much more than philosophy, so much more! And music is in the heart of it …

In the Old Testament music plays an important role. The Psalter is the prayer book of the Old Testament, and it is full of songs. God seems to be surrounded by music - why do we always come back to this idea and image? Why is praise an important part of the New Testament as well? It is because God is a God of music, he is a god of melody, of chord, of the interplay of different lines of melody and accompanied song. We would be stupid to ignore the crucial role of music for faith. And we have experienced it this weekend, thank you, Lord! (RWEP) ... more texts