The band and the body
I got my first drum kit when I was 10. It was a child sized, blue sparkle kit comprising snare, kick drum and one tom and a few cymbals. I loved it!
It was set up in our ‘playroom’ where I would hit them hard and create grooves.
I was part of our primary school orchestra and played in a few productions. This was my first experience of working with other musicians.
When I was a teenager I joined The King’s School, which was started by the church in the early 1980s.
Not long after the school opened, we performed a musical of the story of Zacchaeus (written by the talented Richard Britton), and I got to play drums for that (see photo).
After leaving school I continued drumming and played in a variety of bands. I grew in skill and ability, honing my craft as well as learning the dynamics and flow of a band.
There is something ‘magical’ when a band, made up of drums, bass, guitar, keys and singers ‘gels’. Each person doing their thing, but together the whole is far greater than the individuals.
This kind of imagery is used by Paul in one of his letters to the church in Corinth. He does not write about a band, but a body…
“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.”
Paul wrote here about the church, AKA ‘the body of Christ’. He brilliantly states that the church is made up of a variety of people, each with different skills, talents and interests.
He says that each person is unique and important: if everyone was an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?
His point is this: the church is a diverse organism, all united in Jesus. It would be terrible if everyone in it, looked, sounded, thought and acted the same.
The variety and unity is essential and that makes it work! I am often reminded of this when I drum in a band. We are all doing different things, but when we unite and play together, something special happens.
Take a moment to rejoice that God has made you in a certain way! Let me encourage you to discover the thing(s) God has made you for and get on with it.
Celebrate your uniqueness, and that of others too! Alongside that, find ways to compliment and enhance others with your gifting, learn to flow together and seek to bring the best out of each other.
God bless you :)
Gary Bastin - Hope Community Church leader