Last night we were blessed to have an evening of "Spirituals". It was informative and inspiring and created and evening of joy and happiness through an evening of great music. The old negro spirituals came out of the hardest of times yet were filled with hope and foot tapping, hand clapping, heart moving rhythm. It left the people who wrote and sang it happy when they were done. So last night the people who were there left with a smile on their face and a bounce in their step.
Yet as I thought about the evening there were two things that went through my mind. The first is common to pastors and that was simply how can I convince God's people to come to our services? The attendance was good yet it could have been better. The benefit to God's people was wonderful as we learned how God used music to encourage and build up the lives of people living in the worst of conditions and times. It was an encouraging evening. I only wished more of God's people could have been blessed.
The other thing that went through my mind was how God's people have fought over music throughout the history of the church. This music was never allowed in our white churches in the days of slavery because it came from heathen Africa. Little did we know that some of these slaves had been reached with the Gospel before there were taken into slavery. It seems in every generation God's people struggle with music rather than to let music bless them and grow them in the faith.
We were blessed last night and thanking the Lord for people of faith who wrote and sang of this faith from their heart and soul. Will you let music encourage you and build you up, even if it move your foot before it moves your heart?