Last Sunday our Wesley Bell Choir performed at the 9:30 service.  We played “A Christmas Carol Fantasy,” our hands clad in dark brown gloves.  I rang C, D flat, and D in the fourth octave.

We’d lugged our tables, music stands and handbells up to the balcony ahead of time.  On the Sunday before Christmas, many from the congregation join the choir in the chancel to sing the Hallelujah Chorus, leaving no room for bell tables.   Before going into the ministry, I never knew worship and logistics belonged together.

We rehearse on Wednesday nights after the midweek children’s program.  The process of learning new music always amazes me.  The discord when we first play a piece eventually yields to beauty and harmony.  The right hands will find the right bells at the right time.

Theologian Paul Tillich spoke of a new creation seeking to come to birth in all of us.  For five minutes Sunday morning, our bells nudged that reality a little further into being.