Summer-time Listening

(please click the images to access the music)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Gospel of John 1:1

There is no better place for a summer listening mix to begin than here.

Before sunlight through the trees. Before swallows over the churchyard. Before the first note rises from organ pipes or trumpet. Before all things, Christ.

The Church has always known that music can carry truth where ordinary speech cannot. A sermon may sharpen the mind, but a melody often reaches the heart first. Scripture itself gives song a remarkable place, with well over 400 references to singing, and more than 50 direct calls to sing. Praise is not an ornament to faith. It is one of faith’s first languages.

As Augustine of Hippo is often quoted, “He who sings prays twice.”
And the mystic Hildegard of Bingen wrote, “The soul is symphonic.”

That feels exactly right for summer.

So here is a little listening pilgrimage.

We begin with John 1 by Indiana Bible College.
Not sentiment. Not mood. Beginning.
Its insistent refrain carries the great Christian claim, that before our prayers, before our losses, before the turning of the world itself, Christ already was. And then comes the wonder at the centre of it all: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is worship with backbone. Praise that starts in eternity.

John 1 !

From there, suddenly, the pulse changes.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, as sung in Sister Act, bursts in with sheer delight. It was never written as a hymn, and yet it carries something deeply gospel-shaped: love that keeps coming, love that crosses distance, love that refuses to be shut out. It catches an echo of Epistle to the Romans 8, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Sometimes praise arrives smiling.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

Then comes Nearer, My God, to Thee by BYU Vocal Point.

A very different kind of beauty.

This hymn does not pretend life is easy. Its words know darkness, uncertainty, and the ache of long roads. Yet through all of it comes that brave, stubborn longing: nearer. Not triumph, not easy answers, simply the soul lifting itself toward God. Some hymns do not dazzle. They endure.

Nearer My God to Thee

And then, wonderfully, the feet begin to move.

Nadie Como Tú -Welcome Home brings salsa praise alive with one clear confession: there is no one like You.

The rhythm itself feels theological.

Praise was never meant to live only in the head. It belongs in hands, breath, movement, joy. Second Book of Samuel tells us that David danced before the Lord with all his might.
Sometimes the holiest thing we can do is stop worrying about dignity and let joy have its way.

Nadie Como Tu || Welcome Home 

And finally, Holy Spirit Mass: Glory by Kim André Arnesen.​

It feels less like a song than a widening of space. Something luminous. Something almost architectural. It gathers up everything that has come before, Word, incarnation, longing, movement, praise, and lifts it heavenward.

Holy Spirit Mass : Glory

How blessed we are at St John’s Church Sharow to know something of that same gift among us.

We are richly blessed by Chris, whose playing at organ and piano does far more than accompany. He steadies us, carries us, and often gives shape to prayer when words feel too small.

By Wood, whose trumpet can make the air itself feel brighter.

By Joanna, whose strings have brought such grace and warmth to our worship. As she begins life in her new town and new faith community, we send her with gratitude, affection, and every good wish.

By Caroline who works tirelessly, bringing together our church bookings and concerts and our amazing concert volunteer teams.

And by all who quietly sustain the worshipping life of this church through music.

Because music is never merely decoration.
It is memory.
It is courage.
It is proclamation.
It is joy made audible.

And sometimes, if grace is especially generous, it makes us do what David did.

​Dance.