Sharing something she loved to do

It all began with a casual comment to a neighbor. Marguerite Blue, a lifelong church accompanist, often practiced the piano with the doors and windows open as a way of sharing her music with her neighbors. In early March, 2020, she was planning to play with the praise team at church, but Covid hit, shutting down churches. Disappointed, she mentioned it to her neighbor, N, who responded, “Why don’t you play for us?”

The question planted a seed in Marguerite’s heart. The following day at exercise class she asked her neighbor J what she thought of the idea to play for the neighbors. J encouraged her to do it. So Marguerite prepared a prelude and played it the next Sunday for N and J.

The week after that N had to work but J and G came to the concert. And so did several others in the weeks that followed— G’s friends/neighbors, T&C; Marguerite’s cousins, B&J; friends from a former church, D&C; and neighbor C. One day as C was walking home she saw L, another neighbor, who asked where C had been. “At Marguerite’s house, listening to hymns!” she said. At the next week’s concert, L and wife C were present. One Sunday T&C invited their daughter and her boyfriend to ride their bikes up the hill to join them for the concert.

There were usually 14-16 people present (plus a couple more who listened from their home across the street) for the 3:00 Sunday Songs of Faith that ended up as a 28-week “concert series.”

Even pigeons congregate on the power lines and often “attended” the concert, so one week Marguerite added the gospel song, All God’s Creatures Got a Place in the Choir to her playlist.

Blessing the neighbors

By Mother’s Day, Marguerite was preparing a weekly playlist, giving an introduction and a list of the songs she would be playing, and on the back of the page she usually shared the words of one or two of the hymns for the day. (See the sample below.) Most weeks the playlist had a theme. She covered all the holidays through the summer and included a week to Thanksgiving (with hymns of praise) and two weeks for Christmas. Sometimes she chose a hymn writer to feature (such as  Fannie Crosby) or shared some of her favorites. That is what happened as people came together week after week for these times of music. Marguerite was amazed to see how the Holy Spirit used songs of faith to speak to people, even without the words before them. “God was using what I love—expressing worship—to reach other people.”

Among the comments heard after the concerts were:
– “I needed that song,” after hearing Blessed Assurance.
– One man saw the playlist and said, “I’ve been singing #8 all the way here.” The song was Great is Thy Faithfulness.
– “This is the few moments of peace I have in the week just now.”
– When one neighbor was in the hospital and could not attend his wife told Marguerite, “The music means so much to him.”
– After playing The Lord’s Prayer, Marguerite was told, “That one came from your heart!”

Something completely unexpected was happening in the neighborhood, something no one had planned and no one controlled. Jesus himself took a woman who loves hymns and loves her neighbors and gave her the opportunity to use her gifts to bless her neighbors at 3:00 for 28 Sundays. I’m pretty sure he still walks the streets of that neighborhood.

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Marguerite’s son Eric dropped by his parents’ home recently to take this video of his mom playing a few hymns, to give us a sense of being at one of the Sunday Songs of Faith concerts. Thanks to you both, Marguerite and Eric. Her playlist includes: Blessed Assurance, How Firm a Foundation, Jesus Loves Me, and Wonderful Peace.