A Beautiful Story on the Power of Music

Caught this moving story in WSJ, the magazine of the Wall Street Journal.  It’s from Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora, the online personalized radio program:

Music is a tremendously powerful medium. I was in a Pandora town-hall meeting in New York. Near the end, this fellow got up. He had lost his hearing about eight years ago and was reading our lips while we were talking. He said Pandora had changed his life. As a song starts playing, he finds the lyrics, puts them up on the screen, puts his hands on the speakers and feels the music pulse through his body. People there were spellbound. I was choked up. That night, I couldn’t sleep.

This is just a powerful thing to read, firstly.  In God’s economy, the way He has created the world, music has a certain ineffable quality.

Secondly, it seems to me in some way a metaphor of the gospel.  I don’t have it all worked out, but there’s something here.

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Have you heard about the book The Strategically Small Church by Leadership Journal writer Brandon O’Brien?  If not, you’ll want to look for it when it comes out in the fall.  Though the market on church books is dominated by megachurch thinking, most churches are small.  How refreshing to see a book that reflects this and works from it to strengthen and equip all local churches, not just the massive ones.  Brandon is a gifted writer and thinker, so you might want to look for this.

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This is a great (and unexpected) story from the Southern Poverty Law Center on how the gospel is transforming race relations in some PCA churches in the south.  The article mentions Chris Hutchinson, a faithful pastor in beautiful Asheville, NC who pastors a strong church called Trinity Presbyterian.