This coming Sunday our Jubilate Ringers Handbell Choir will be sharing in worship!  It really is wonderful to have this group back to enrich our liturgy; especially during this important season of Lent.

The Bell Choir always strikes me as a metaphor for our church.  No single ringer in the Bell Choir can play the entire melody alone.  There is no way any one person can hold the necessary full set of bells to play the song.  By themselves, they can offer several notes at the right time, but never the full hymn.

That’s what makes it such a powerful image of the Christian faith.  

The Apostle Paul reminds us that the body of Christ has many members, each with a different role.  In a bell choir, that truth is audible.  You can’t jump the gun and play your part first.  But when each ringer watches the director, waits for the right moment, and rings faithfully, something larger emerges: a song no single person could create.

Church life works the same way.  Some of us carry bright, high notes. Others of us provide the low, steady tones that give depth and grounding.  Some ring often while others wait patiently through long measures of rest.  Even silence has purpose.  It creates space for someone else’s sound to emerge.

The Good News for both the Bell Choir and our church as a whole?  No one has to be the whole song.

In a world that celebrates individual efforts and solo performances, our Handbell Choir reminds us that faith is shared work.  It requires attention, humility, and trust.  We may only see our own, small line of notes, but when we ring them out as part of a community, something beautiful happens.  

Your calling is simple: Ring the bell entrusted to you by God; the person you are and the calling you feel in your heart.  Ring it clearly, faithfully, and with love so that, together with others, the music of God’s restoration can be heard.

See you in church,

–Rev. Dominic