Dear St Lukes | One Last Call for ‘Why We Sing’~ Matt Way

This week the newsletter, this blog, and just about everything else we’ve been doing has had mention of our ‘Why We Sing’ weekend, and unabashedly so.

Along with a whole host of volunteers, I have put a lot of time and effort into making preparations for our time together, and I want to make sure all the right people are able to make it along, so excuse me if it seems a little OTT, like I’m gushing.

I wanted to use this opportunity to share a bit about why this weekend means so much to me, and to give you a little taster of some of the things we might be exploring together. So, if you’re already signed up, I hope this whets the appetite; and if you are on the fence, maybe this will help you come on down and join the fun.

First though, a little background for the uninitiated. The ‘Why We Sing’ weekend was born on the back of our Autumn vision sermon series, Being St Luke’s. During that three-week tour of scripture’s most common commands I spent some time wondering why the Bible has such a strong insistence on us raising our voices in song, and began to see that the answer might have much more to do with unity than Handel, Matt Redman, or the Top of the Pops. And unity, it strikes me, is something worth thinking about a little more.

Here in early 2026 you don’t have to look far to find stories of disunity. Actually, if you go by what’s featured in the news, sometimes it feels hard to believe there is anything other than division. While it feels important to resist the temptation to give in to the narrative that all is lost, it also seems wise to remain alert to the forces that quietly pull us apart.

I believe the church has an opportunity in this generation to offer a counter-story, to step into a way of being marked by love, joy, truth, and a deep sense of shared humanity. But, in the week of Sarah Mullally’s confirmation as the first female archbishop, in an institution that is still not of one mind about women's ministry, you don’t need me to point out that the water we swim in is perilous. And that really is only for starters.

Which is where ‘Why We Sing’ comes in. My hope for our time together this weekend is not to smooth over all the cracks, but to open our minds to some of the shifting cultural and historical forces that helped form them. We’re going to wonder together about what Henry VIII, the East India Trading Company, the rise of ChatGPT, and even Spiderman might reveal about the stories that have shaped how we see ourselves, our communities, and one another, and what steps we might take next.

But this won’t be a weekend of lectures and neat conclusions. The hope of Why We Sing is not to have it out and settle issues that have raged in the church for generations, but to ask how we live with, and even thrive in, their presence. And we won’t do that from a purely heady distance, but from the inside out.

This weekend will be participatory and practical as well as reflective. With the help of our resident choir master, Jane Gibb, we’re going to return to the simple, slightly vulnerable act of singing together and see what it actually does to us. We’ll notice what it feels like for disparate voices to be joined as one, and reflect on the empathy required, the courage summoned, and the humility practised when we lend our voices to something shared. Together we’ll be listening, singing, reflecting, and experimenting- discovering, in our own lungs and voices, a different way of being together than the one the world often rehearses.

So, one last appeal from me: join us, if you can. We’ve got a really great group of almost 40 coming along, but I have a sense there may be one or two more who’ve been thinking about it and haven’t signed up yet. If that’s you, let me take this moment to encourage you to take the step. I know we’ll all be richer for it.