we live downtown, and there are several old churches…most have bells.
every sunday morning around noon, one starts to chime. it’s lovely. you can sometimes make out the melody of old hymns.
a few minutes later, another church’s bell starts ringing. another old hymn.
the problem? they’re ringing at the same time.
two beautiful bells.
two beautiful hymns.
one giant mess.
stuff like this reminds me of the importance of unity – celebrating our differences in love and humble respect.
more oft’ than not, we just like doing our own thing aggressively, loudly, clanging…one layer of belief on top of another on top of another, trying to be the loudest so our particular voice can be heard.
the dissonance is tragic…
Comments
27 responses to “kick in the bells”
great post. i really couldn’t agree more with the idea of unity.
Great analogy…and so true. Instead of competing or trying be louder, I wish we could embrace differences and all move forward together.
a great analogy…maybe the 2 churches could get together and one take the melody and one take the harmony part…that would sound cool…unless they fight over who gets to sing the melody :) …mike.
Great post Anne. The other sad thing is that this can not only occur between churches, but with the differing ministries in the church itself.
PERFECT! That is exactly the image of the church(body of christ). We are so busy ringing our own bells, we forget about the most important things. “they will know us by our love”.
Whoa. That was GOOD.
What a marvellous picture you paint there and so true.
Anne, you couldn’t be more perfectly right! The question is: what are we going to do about it? It grieves my soul.
I disagree.
TRUTH is what matters.
Not Unity.
It sometimes reminds me of “Rush” with the sororities and Frats during my collegiate years…The churches are trying to show which one is the “Best” and vie for the favor of the “Rushies”…I love the bell analogy!
great post, especially from a musical perspective!
for jud – TRUTH does matter, but if unity didn’t then why did Christ pray for that in His last prayer for all believers? John 17:21-23 “I pray that they will all be one, just as You and I are one…I am in them and You are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that You sent Me and that You love them as much as You love Me.” (NLT)
this tends to prove anne’s point in my opinion?
if we stick to a musical perspective on this…all of us could be playing a great song(truth) at the same time (just like the bells) and each of our songs could sound equally amazing…but how much more amazing could the effect be if we were all singing the same song at the same time. more people would hear that one song and more people would be able to understand. who’s to say that we couldn’t eventually sing each of our songs (as long as they were truth)…
I love your analogy however, the first thing it made me think of, in huge contrast, was experiencing the call to prayer while on mission in Indonesia. The call was not beautiful or moving, but when 5 mosques started their call via loud speaker, all at the same time, all proclaiming different things, in arabic, the mess I heard made me think of cries from hell. Praise the Lord that we in the US get to listen to the lovely sounds of praise and not the hopeless cries of a religion void of redeeming love.
Sorry to be a downer, this is just what I am thinking.
agreed…the Lord really seems to have me reflecting of late on Kindom-mindedness, not my-church-mindedness (quite certain that is not a word). :)
good grief…meant to type “Kingdom-mindedness”
great observation.
great point.
So what are we going to do about it? It is one thing to say these things it is another to do it.
How is your community working with other communities for a common purpose?
love this (as usual).
I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you above the mellifluous sound of my own voice! :)
They should get rid of the bells and install DJ tables and scratch back & forth every hour.
That’d wake people up.
oh so true… wow
You are right Jon. I should have said that unity without TRUTH doesn’t matter. Sorry.Not knocking unity at all but I fear that MANY churches have placed Unity above Truth.
Probably the most unified church in my hometown is a Unitarian Universalist Church.
The scripture is pretty clear about God’s Word and how it divides. The problem in most churches is not what is taught so much as what is not. I think it’s pretty clear that you can exponentially grow a church numerically this way, but what do you end up with?
I left a church because a man who had been there almost 4 years before leaving the church (he was moving across the country) told me in leaving that he loved our church so much because “this kind of Christianity” didn’t interfere with his study and practice of Zen Bhuddism. The church abounded in unity but had forsaken the mission of CLEARLY proclaiming the Gospel.
i see where you are coming from…
good word, my friend.
Wow…that’s a great illustration. Are you sure you didn’t just make that up? (just kidding)
It really is a good reminder that when we’re trying to outshout each other rather than working together we limit our effectiveness.
Brad Ruggles
http://www.braruggles.com
That is indeed a great analogy. You should become a writer or something. =)
Great point. Unity without Truth is pointless. I wasn’t thinking of the current, and dangerous way of accepting any idea as right when it is not way of thinking that is becoming more prevalent. I was thinking about unity(read lack of strife) within the body of Christ. …about how we treat each other person to person, church to church, denomination to denomination. I think change begins with ourselves (always). Making a decision to really confront the motives behind our decisions. Making a decision to serve rather than be served. Making a decision to forgive and not be easily offended. I hate strife.
Like one of your other commentors I was reminded of being in Indonesia by this post, where I could hear the call to prayer from at least 3 different mosques. However, unlike the previous comment I’m not so sure the noise coming from competing church bells is really so much better. It might not sound as discordant to Western ears but it could be just as much about gaining attention and shouting the loudest amongst all the noise, rather than genuiely being designed to point us to God.