Orchestration

Neal Pollard

Like many of you, I have an eclectic taste in music.  Among those tastes I find very palatable is classical music.  Some of the recent additions in my iTunes collection include Corelli, Locatelli, Tartini, Bizet, and Grieg.  While the author of the piece is responsible for creating it, those who play the piece must work together to faithfully execute the notes and nuances intended by the one who composed it.

The word “orchestra” is from a Greek word originally meaning “to dance.”  It refers to a “a large group of musicians playing classical music, consisting of sections of string, woodwind, brass, and percussion players, and directed by a conductor” (Encarta World English Dictionary).  Have you ever watched an orchestra play?  Each musician has different skills, levels of ability, and background.  You can see their varied personalities exhibited as they play.  There is a flute player on one end of the orchestra and a violinist on the other, with perhaps a pianist somewhere in the midst.

There is a sense in which the church must function as an orchestrated group.  We do not need to worry that we are not like someone else or that we lack their charisma, personality, or talents.  Paul urged Corinth, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body–whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free–and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,’ is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,’ is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be?” (1 Cor. 12:13-19).  Let us look at ourselves as one member of this grand orchestra, important and unique.  We are not more prominent that the next member, but neither are we less essential.  Working together, we can beautifully accomplish the work of the Conductor!