I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with men and women half my age to sing a lunch time blessing yesterday. With Caleb (7th grade) on one side and Brooke (11th grade) on the other, we sang a song of gladness and grace, the hallways lined with young and old lifting up their voices in harmony to the One who gave us food and friendship and fellowship. It is a short song, but a strong one.

“May this meal to us be blessed. May Christ’s gift of love unite us. With these gracious gifts of food, grant us strength to love and praise you. Amen."

Beautiful lyrics these, but you have not heard them sung. Until you do, you will have to trust me. It is a moving moment: grace and thanks woven together by word and sound and melody. A vast improvement to the tradition of lunging out the door to rifle through the sack lunch for anything with trade value!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Music will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.”

Purify us, O Lord. Dissolve our perplexities. Fill us with joy overflowing in the big moments and the small. Mostly the small, O Lord.

We plan on singing this lunch time blessing every day, a thousand small moments, because we believe. We believe in a God who sings (Zephaniah 3:17) and gave us songs. We believe in the power of song to say what words alone cannot. We believe in the power of song to shape our character. We believe in the power of song to aim our hearts and compel us to action.

Come, let us stand a moment and sing!