What the Mocking Bird Sang

Thank you, youth of New Hope. You led us in worship very well last Sunday. God bless you. We love you and look forward to having you lead us in worship again. Thank you Rachael Potter, Sarah Potter, Caleb Hinkle, Jaren Ford-Jones, and Toren Ford-Jones. Our thanks to your leaders: Leesa Holloway and Fred Griffith.

I am grateful to all of you who gave your time and shared your talents so readily at New Hope’s first Art Walk and Bake Sale last Sunday afternoon. Elaine Hardy conceived the idea, then, she and Kathy Stryker did a fine job of recruiting participants and organizing the event. The bake sale contributed $350 toward the Building Fund. We enjoyed being able to share our talents. We learned about each other. Some of you gave us a taste of your art or provided for us by means of your baking skills. My major contribution was buying and eating the baked goods. Thanks to all of you for your hard work.

Last Sunday morning there was a mocking bird up on at the peak of the roof of the A-Frame. That bird was singing loudly at 8:15, and I still heard him two and a half hours later as we entered worship.

According to what I have read on the Internet, male mocking birds are the most vocal. The singer last Sunday may have been a lonely bachelor looking for a mate. Maybe. But I heard that bird singing his heart out for us about what God is doing in New Hope. He was singing about our willingness to lay down our lives for one another, our desire to learn and grow together. He was singing about people coming forward at New Hope and saying, “I would like to see this ministry in our church and here is what I am willing to do to make it happen.” The mocking bird was not singing about how lonely he was. He was singing about how much God is blessing us. We are growing in every way you can measure growth: new believers in Christ, new members, new spiritual insights, dreams of the future, babies and toddlers, lives being changed toward Christ-likeness. That’s what I heard anyway.

It’s considered a sin to kill a mockingbird. Why? As Harper Lee says in To Kill a Mockingbird, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”