OCTOBER 2023
CENTENARY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Bound Together, All of Us
I
have always been fascinated by community building. And I am always asking myself questions about how we humans organize ourselves. What brings people together? What tears them apart? What unites us? What divides us? These same questions can be asked of our own spiritual health. What conditions bring us into alignment with God? What keeps us internally divided, distorted, dis-integrated? How can we find our truest selves, hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3)? On October 15, we seek answers to these questions and bear witness to the redemptive, healing, and restoring power of unity as we welcome Grammy-winning professional choir Conspirare in worship at 11am and in a FREE concert at 4pm. Featured on the afternoon program will be a brief collaboration with nearly 100 singers from across the Triad - Centenary's Chancel Choir, our new and growing Youth Choir Collective, members of the Winston-Salem Choral Academy, and members of the Greensboro Symphony Master Chorale - singing these words, penned by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson: Most noble Light, creation's face, how should we live but joined in you? Remain within your saving grace through all we say and do; and know we are the Love that moves the sun and all the stars, O Love that dwells, O Love that burns in every human heart! This text lies at the climax of the oratorio Considering Matthew Shepard and is drawn from a movement titled “All of Us.” It reminds us of the beauty of a life lived in grace and of a love that unites our hearts, of unity and redemption that even the most horrific hate crime cannot destroy. The Washington Post writes that the piece "demonstrates music's capacity to encompass, transform, and transcend tragedy. Powerfully cathartic, it leads us from horror and grief to a higher understanding of the human condition, enabling us to endure." So won't you join us on October 15? Whether you're there to sing or to listen, come holding steadfast to the promise that you are already integrated into the Love that moves the sun and all the stars. Come knowing that the purifying force of God's Love heals our deepest wounds, integrates all that is broken within us, and realigns us with one another. Then, be prepared to be thrust into the world as a carrier of that unity, a bearer of a new reality, an agent of Centenary's missional call to transform the world. - Jonathan Emmons, Director of Music Ministries