The Friday Fix

  • Katrina and The Waves – Love Shine a Light

    by Gill

    Well, we have to have a Eurovision winning song this week don’t we?!  And what better than the last UK winner way back in 1997 when Katrina and The Waves won with ‘Love Shine a Light’.  Ah – those heady days when ‘nul points’ was a rarity for the UK entry.

    I love using popular music in worship if I can and this song works well with Matthew 5:14.  We know that Jesus was described as the Light of the World but Matthew recounts Jesus saying that we are the light of the world too.  We may be ordinary people living ordinary lives but we cannot underestimate the impact and influence that we have on others.  The way that we speak to each other and treat each other every day says everything about us and our faith. 

    In a ‘six degrees of separation’ type way, it could be said that this song even has a connection with our region. It wasn’t actually written for Eurovision originally but for The Samaritans 30th Anniversary in 1983. The founder of The Samaritans, Rev Chad Varah, was born in Barton-upon-Humber (Lincolnshire District) and went to Keble College (Northampton District). (He was educated at Worksop College which is very nearly in the Nottingham & Derby District).

    You may think it a cheesy, ‘wave your lights in the air’ type of song (as Katrina herself once described it) but the words in Matthew 5:14-16 are very close to the lyrics in the song to me:

    “And we’re all gonna shine a light together

    All shine a light to light the way

    Brothers and sisters in every little part

    Let our love shine a light in every corner of our hearts”

    You can find out more about Katrina and The Waves at www.katrinaandthewaves.com

  • Megan Henwood – Hope on the Horizon

    by Jane

    I have to confess to being a bit conflicted about Hope. It sometimes seems that all hope is lost; it sometimes feels like hope comes before the inevitable disappointment and actually makes the whole thing worse; it sometimes feels like it’s all you might have left and that’s a bit sketchy as a basis for things.

    Many of us are very familiar with Hope as an important faith concept not least because of one of our most popular readings from the book of Corinthians. “….. but now these three things remain: faith, hope and love but the greatest of these is love”. It might be argued that our hope is founded in God but it doesn’t for me always make it seem much easier to deal with as a reality.

    Megan Henwood, in this song, finds a way to articulate some sense of perpetual hope in every new day even if the alternative is being in a really tough place. This ability to embed yourself in the perpetual hope that life, nature and God might bring I find almost intangible – a bit like grappling with jelly – and yet this writer seems to suggest that its doable simply by getting out of bed and looking really carefully at the glory of the day. Maybe it’s worth a try.

    More about Megan can be found here http://www.meganhenwood.com/

  • The Friday Fix Begins

    The Friday Fix Begins

    Thank you for joining us, the East Central Team, for our Friday Fix.

    It’s a chance to share our thinking about our love for music and how “secular music” shapes who we are as people and,  in particular,  as people of faith. Each week someone will share a link to a particular song and piece of music and tell their story about why it connected with them – and maybe shaped or changed their spirituality. You can get involved too. If you have something to share and something to say, then get in touch with us and we’ll help you be part of the Friday Fix Family.

    “You know what music is? God’s little reminder that there’s something else besides us in this universe, a harmonic connection between all living beings, every where, even the stars.”     ( from the film ‘August Rush’)

    Photo by Dziubi Steenbergen on Pexels.com