What Makes Your Heart Sing? Reflections on Music, Faith, and Community
A reflection on music, gratitude, Ascension Sunday, and the people who shape church community through faithful service.
Travis Wilson
5/18/20262 min read
This time of year always feels full in the life of the church. Not just busy—but full. Full of transitions. Full of endings and beginnings arriving at the same time.
At Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church in South Haven, this Sunday will be one of those meaningful moments as we celebrate and give thanks for the ministry of Jerry Jelsema and his retirement as Director of Music.
I’ve been thinking a great deal this week about how difficult it is to measure the impact of someone who quietly shapes the emotional and spiritual life of a congregation over many years.
Because music does something words alone often cannot.
Long after most people forget the details of a sermon, they remember how something felt when the congregation sang together. They remember the hymn at a funeral that somehow carried them when they could not carry themselves. They remember Christmas candlelight services, Easter brass, choir anthems, and the moments where music opened something inside them they did not expect.
And usually, behind those moments, there are people doing faithful work that most others never fully see.
Hours of preparation. Coordination. Practice. Listening. Adjusting. Showing up week after week so worship can become not simply something we attend, but something we experience together.
This Sunday in the church calendar is also Ascension Sunday—the day Christians remember Christ’s ascension and the disciples learning how to move forward into a new season.
And honestly, I think the disciples’ response feels deeply human.
Because even good transitions can carry grief inside them.
Even joyful change can leave us wondering what comes next.
The story of the Ascension is not really about absence so much as transformation. The disciples can no longer hold onto Jesus in the same way they once did. But that does not mean Christ is gone. The Spirit continues moving through memory, community, courage, and love.
Maybe that is true in ordinary holy moments too.
What if part of being human is learning that people can continue shaping us even after their role changes? Even after a season ends? Even after the music sounds different than it once did?
This week I keep returning to a question that has been quietly shaping my own reflections as I prepare for an upcoming sabbatical:
What makes your heart sing?
Not in the sense of achievement or productivity. But in the deeper sense of what helps you feel connected to beauty, meaning, purpose, and joy.
And I wonder how many people have discovered pieces of that here through music over the years.
A choir member rediscovering confidence. Someone humming a hymn during a difficult week. A child hearing the organ shake the sanctuary for the first time. A grieving person feeling less alone because the congregation sang anyway.
Those moments matter.
They shape us more than we realize.
As we celebrate Jerry this week, I hope we do more than simply acknowledge retirement. I hope we pause long enough to notice the countless ways one person’s gifts have helped a community breathe, pray, sing, and hope together.
And maybe this moment offers all of us an invitation too:
To ask what makes our own hearts sing.
And whether we have made enough room in our lives to listen for it lately.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Travis
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Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church gathers for worship Sundays at 9:30 a.m. in South Haven, Michigan. We welcome people of every background, identity, and life experience as we seek to reflect God’s light through love and service.
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