Wednesday Faith Formation Series

"The Echo of a Tune
Not Yet Heard"

April 10 - May 15, 2024
6PM-7PM
Room 129 (FPCF)

In a recent survey conducted in 2021, researchers found that listening to music is an important part of the lives of many Americans, with half of those surveyed saying they listen to more than four hours of music per day. 

Other studies have found the act of listening to music to be a key method in regulating emotion, cultivating hope, and reducing risky behavior. One researcher found that young adults who engage in "healthy music listening behaviors" to be more likely to be psychologically and emotionally balanced. 

You may not be someone who listens to music four hours a day, but chances are you are someone who enjoys certain songs or who engages in music listening. We know the power of music to transport us backward in time to key emotional events or moments from our past. We understand the way in which certain genres of music can inspire us to think more deeply, or to stretch our imagination.

Good music can give a voice to our most raw emotions, expressing on our behalf feelings of joy or sadness, love or longing, pain or anger.

But what about faith? How does our music listening relate to what we believe to be true about God and the nature of the created world? How might music give voice to our inner longing toward the kingdom of God?

I'm not talking about the Christian Music publishing empire whose songs are featured on Christian radio stations or played by church worship teams. Those songs have a purpose, but they are often ill-equipped to help us sort through the complex feelings or emotional experiences of our life. 

So, what about it? How are faith and music related? How can our music listening habits become part of the deeper, theological work of thinking and imagining and longing for the world God is bringing into being? 

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis works is "The Weight of Glory", a sermon delivered in 1941 and published later as an essay in 1949. In it, Lewis says this about beauty and music: 

The... music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

Beginning tonight, Wednesday, April 10, and continuing Wednesday night through May 15, we will be exploring the relationship between music and our faith, treating our favorite songs as "echoes of a tune we have not yet heard." We will be using the music we turn to to express our emotional peaks and valleys as vehicles to consider how they might also be pointing us toward the kingdom of God. 
 

Each Wednesday night will explore a different theme.

Here's the lineup.

April 10
“Blue Skies” 
Featuring songs for when you have experienced a fresh, newness of life.

April 17
“Help!” 
Featuring songs for when you’re in trouble and you need intervention.

April 24
“Talking ‘Bout a Revolution” 
Featuring songs for when you’re longing for a more just society. 

May 1
“Tears Are In Your Eyes”
Featuring songs for when you have had to let go of something or someone.

May 8
“I Will Always Love You”
Featuring songs for when you have found yourself deeply connected to another.

May 15
“Where the Streets Have No Name”
Featuring songs for when you have glimpsed the divine in the midst of the ordinary. 

Help Us! Suggest a song!

If you have a favorite song that comes to mind when you think about one of the above themes, send Joseph an e-mail with the title and artist. We'd love to include a wide range of music styles and from different decades, though we will likely avoid terribly explicit tracks. Note: you may be asked to comment on the song you suggest!