We’re featuring playlists from different individuals across Mennonite Church USA reflecting on their top 10 most important songs. This month’s playlist comes from Jill Schlabach. Jill lives and works in Hesston, Kansas, and attends New Creation Fellowship Church in Newton, Kansas. 

You can listen to Jill’s playlist below.

1. Trent Wagler, “I’m Gonna Be Blessed”: No matter the season, this song immediately transports me back to when I lived at Camp Friedenswald in Michigan, and the walks I would take in those “Peaceful Woods” during the fall. Also, who doesn’t love some Trent Wagler (and The Steel Wheels)?

2. Ed Sheeran, “I see fire” (from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug):  This song is haunting and beautiful. And things that bring together the epic stories of J.R.R. Tolkien and the voice of Ed Sheeran are just fine with me.

3. Matisyahu, “One day”: A prayer of hope. Enjoy.

4. The Avett Brothers, “Weight of lies”: This song, and especially these lyrics—“When you run make sure you run to something and not away from”—always seemed to pop up when I was in the midst of making a decision about what to do next. It reminds me to not make decisions based on fear and to acknowledge the reality that the grass is really the same green on all sides.

5. The Civil Wars, “Poison & Wine”: I could really choose any song by The Civil Wars for this list. It’s great stuff. “Poison & Wine” made the cut for this list as it features both voices and it’s just very lovely.

6. Jars of Clay, “Oh my God”: I first heard this song after a week spent in Rwanda at the beginning of my semester abroad in Uganda during college. After seeing the aftermath of the violence that we can so quickly inflict on others, it seemed to put words to my fear and pain. When I don’t have words to respond to the suffering I see and hear about, this is a reminder that “oh my God” is sometimes all we can say. 

7. Daddy Yankee, “Limbo”: This upbeat song is one of my favorites for the cardio dance class that I teach: it certainly gets you moving. I also have vivid memories of zooming through the streets of Quito, Ecuador while this song was blaring. Nothing like not being sure you’d make it to your destination to cement something in your memory!

8. Brett Dennen, “Ain’t no reason”: I really enjoy Brett Dennen’s music. Favorite lines: “Love I try to follow. Love will come set me free.”

9. Kate Nash, “Merry Happy”: Kate Nash = music I enjoy if I’m feeling a little snarky. Her music is sometimes sarcastic and sometimes sweet, but mostly all fun.  Favorite lyrics: “But I won’t regret cause you can grow flowers from where dirt used to be.”

10. Josh Garrels, “Bread & wine”: This song was part of a playlist a friend made for me for my drive to Kansas City for the Mennonite Church USA convention this summer, and it is now connected in my brain with this church body. If we can recognize Christ as our connector, and another person as that offering of bread and wine to us and be about humbly approaching and supporting each other, that’s a beautiful image of the body of Christ. Joy will not be ours without all of our hearts woven together. It probably also wouldn’t hurt if we began more of our interactions in life with, “I was wrong.”

Listen to Jill’s playlist on Spotify: