Sunday's Music (Dec.2)

Sunday's Choir Anthem is "The Glory of God". Oooo, I love this one. It just makes you smile! If you are singing in the tree then you should sing with us Sunday!

I'm going through e-mail withdrawal. We still can't access e-mail - coming or going! AAAAaaaaaaahhhh!!!!

See you Sunday!

Back to the Future - Links to Past Posts

You may have come here looking for something you heard about - a rehearsal time, a poster to download, etc. - but there are so many posts you are having trouble finding it. Here are some quick links to the past (that talk about the future) for you.

Orchestra rehearsal times http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2007/11/revised-and-final-orchestra-rehearsal.html

Staging rehearsals - this includes info for the Nativity scene, crucifixion scene, parade scene, getting the choir in the tree, children and youth in the aisles, etc. http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2007/11/staging-rehearsals.html

Advertising poster - http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2007/11/christmas-ad.html

Call me if you have questions. Call your internet challenged friends and remind them of rehearsal times. I still don't have church e-mail.

When Your Server Goes Bad

Welllllll..... actually, the server that went bad is the one at church (it's a computer thing), and as a result, I haven't been able to send or recieve e-mail for two days. So... if you sent me an e-mail and are awaiting a response of some sort, or if you were hoping for an e-mail update of what's happening as we draw closer to "the Tree", then you've come to the right place. As always, all of your information needs (about music and worship and Christmas and such) can be met right here on Hilldale's Worship blog.
Check back in a bit for some drama rehearsal reminders.
And if you need to know something, and wish you could e-mail to find out, please call the office and talk to me or Donna.

PSA for HBC on WCKV on CCC

OK, after yesterday's post, Cheryl thought maybe I had drifted into the crazy zone. You know, too much, stress, not enough sleep and he starts writing about Christmas camels. No, I'm not totally bonkers, just entertaining myself. : ) And I'm really not that stressed. Things are falling into place quite nicely for "the Tree". I hope you are getting excited!

So here is a plain old boring post to let you know that (and now start reading with just a touch of excitment in your voice) that tomorrow night at 6:45, (the excitment should be building now) camera men and producers from Clarksville's very own (I wish you could read this with the same excitement I am typing with) WCKV will be in our very own choir room to record a PSA! (Public Service Announcement) (really wild excitment should be in your voice by now) How cool is that? a PSA for HBC on WCKY on CCC!

So basically, we're going to sing a line or two of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and then say "Merry Christmas! from Hilldale Baptist Church" and then WCKV (AKA Channel 9 on CCC - Charter Communications Cable) will show it all during the month of December.

So wear something that says "Merry Christmas" and practice your merriest smile and I'll see you tomorrow!

The Final Stretch

I had a weird dream the other night. I was at the races, only it wasn't horses, it was Christmas camels. It was getting close to the end of the race and you could hear the announcer shouting out - in a most excited voice - which camel was in the lead. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, we're moving into the final stretch. Drama is moving up on the inside, but no, wait, orchestra is trying to cut him off. Choir is still leading by a nose but is trying to pull further ahead as they round the last turn..."

I guess the excitement of all that is happening in the next two weeks just got to me. Are you excited? You should be! "The Tree" is almost here! Woo-hoo!

So I'm certain you are planning on being in rehearsal this Wednesday night. We'll start early for those who can get here (6:15) and then we'll keep going until 8:00. See you then!

Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I am thankful for. Actually, first I want to put in here a great Bible verse.

James 1:17
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

and this one from Ecclesiates

Ec 3:13
moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor--it is the gift of God.

I read this week that if you don't give thanks then it's thanks keeping. So listing things I am thankful for is my way of giving thanks to the Father from Whom all blessings flow.

Of course I'm thankful that God loves to give. He gives grace and mercy and love and peace and joy and more. I could go on for pages listing God's abundant physical blessings like food and cothes and homes. But here are the things I am most thankful for.

I'm thankful for my wonderful family:

My lovely wife, Cheryl. (Here we are last Valentine's Day.)

My Children, Andrew and Christy.

My daughter-in law and son-in-law, Haley and Daniel.

For my grandchildren: Gibson (5), Haven (almost 4), Hannah (21 months), Elam (15 months) and Benjamin (9 months)

My parents, Bill and Dolores

For my brothers and their families.

All of Cheryl's family.

I'm thankful God called me into vocational ministry and for the joy of leading people in worship each week.

and for my church, Hilldale Baptist Church

and our choir

and my pastor, Dr. Larry Roberston

and Pastoral staff: Mike, Terry, Verlon, Tim, Paul, Tony and Steve

and all the ladies who are such great help - Donna, my assistant

and pianists/keyboard players: Michelle, Mary Beth, Mrs. Church, Gena, Debbie and for another week or two, Lewis

and the guys in the band

and for sound guys and video guys and camera men and comptuer people and all of those who make worship happen each week (I'm afraid to list them for fear of leaving someone out, but you know who they are)

for a congregation that loves to sing and worship together

for music ministers across the state who I get to spend time with at concerts and festivals and on mission trips

I guess I could go on and on, but I guess this list shows that the things I am most thankful for are relationships. Stuff comes and goes. Cars get old and rusty, houses fall apart and the plumbing goes bad or the roof leaks, clothes go in and out of style, but the people God brings into our lives, whether family or friends, are what makes life so rich and so wonderful. And for all of these listed here and more, I am most thankful.

Children and Music

Here's a great article from LifeWay. It's titled "The Power of Music in the Spritual Development of Children."

Excellent stuff.

http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/article_main_page/0%2C1703%2CA%25253D162575%252526M%25253D200824%2C00.html?

Sunday's Music (Nov. 25)

We've been so focused on Christmas music that we haven't prepared much for Sundays. My original plan was to sing "He Reigns" or one of the other not-quite-Christmas songs from "the Tree", but I think I want to wait and let everyone's first hearing of "He Reigns" to be the exciting finale of "the Tree". So...

This Sunday we are going to sing "Because We Believe". We sang it a month or so ago and then the congregation sang it once, but I think it will still be sort of new to them and easy for us.

I always like to have a picture with each post. So I went to Google and typed in "believe" and look! Who knew Shamu was having a "Believe" Tour?

Revised - and final - Orchestra Rehearsal Schedule

I can give you the long story or you can just trust me that many people were being helpful and in the end it made us need to change one of our rehearsal dates - for the second or third or fourth, no just the second time. It was the 11th then the 10th and now we are back to the 11th.

In case you didn't know, here is the traditional seating arrangement for a large orchestra. We, of course, will have to modify this just a little.

Nov. 27, 6:00 - Hilldale players in choir room

Dec. 4, 6:00 - Hilldale players in choir room

Dec. 11, 6:00 - Full orchestra in Sanctuary

Dec. 13, 6:00 - Dress rehearsal with all choirs and orchestra in Sanctuary

Dec. 14, 6:00 call, 7:00 performance

Dec. 15, 6:00 call, 7:00 performance

Dec. 16, 2:00 call, 3:00 performance

Staging Rehearsals - updated

Notice that this was updated on Nov. 20 at 12:10 AM

"Why is that?", you may ask? 1. I changed the time for the crucifixion scene and added a time for the Nativity. 2. The dog woke me up. Wanted out to do his business. I started thinking about how I needed to update this and realized I would think about it for an hour - missing much needed beauty sleep. So typing this now - theoretically - will allow me to not lay here thinking about it, but instead I will drift back into restful slumber. Wow! I hope so... 3. I added the word "costuming" because we will also assign costumes at these times. 4. Anyone want an old Maltese?

I would personally like to stage things earlier, but we have to wait until the tree is up. So... here is a staging rehearsal. If you can't make it to one of your times, please e-mail me and let me know.

Drama - Staging and Costuming Schedule

Dec. 2, 6:30 - Nativity - Mary, Joseph, baby, Shepherds, Wise men
Dec. 5, 8:15-8:45—From the Cradle to the Cross - Jesus, Guards
Dec. 8, 6:00-7:00—Glad Tidings of Joy - ALL parade people
Dec. 8, 6:00-8:30—Adult choir in Tree
Dec. 8, 7:00-8:00—Children and Youth choirs in Sanctuary
Dec. 9, 6:15-8:00—Japanese, African and Latin “storytellers”

Christmas With a Capital

I've never heard of the Go Fish Guys, but I like their singing. I'm not too sure what the pictures have to do with the song. Merry Christmas!

Hmm, I had the video here. It got lost somehow, so here's the You Tube link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAckfn8yiAQ

More Retreat Fun

Here are a few pics from the retreat. We were playing a game. Each team here is depicting a Christmas song. Can you guess them? Answers will be posted later.

Here's another game we played. Each person had to guess what was on his/her back. And no, we did not pick people or objects to match the person.

This isn't part of a game, I just thought it was a funny picture.

Christmas Ad

It's not too early to start advertising "the Tree". This is the ad we will be using around town. Didn't Julie do a great job with it?! I just e-mailed the choir a .pdf copy of it. If you don't get the e-mail, let me know and I'll try sending it to you individually. You can click this picture to get a larger version of it and then right click and save the picture to your computer. Then you can add the ad to e-mails or do other cool stuff with it.

Saint Update

I mentioned last night that I had searched all over the internet to find out why the saints in the pictures have the special "Saint" hand signal. But alas, I googled and googled and never found the answer. I was so excited Monday evening while at the Tennessee Baptist Convention that it dawned on me that a friend of mine, Dr. Jonathan Nelms, Minister of Music at FBC, Cookeville, would know the answer! In case you missed it last night, here's what happened.
(and here is the original post if you missed it http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2007/11/today-is-your-day.html )

"Dr. Nelms", I said, "you have a nice degree from an ecumenical sort of place. You will know the answer to my great dilemma that Google could not answer" (or something like that). "Tell me the meaning of the special "Saint" hand signal."

Sure enough, Dr. Nelms knows such things. (someone last night said, "and it cost him how much to know that?")
And here it is.
The second and third fingers lifted up represent the duality of the nature of Christ - fully God and fully man. That's cool!
The three fingers together in the circle represent the Trinity - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Also very cool!

So now we know. Who said you can't teach an old Baptist a thing or two?

Bonus Rehearsals and Singing Trees

This is now an edited version of this post. My lovely wife mentioned how it took me waaaay to long to get to the summary at the end, so I'm moving the summarey here - to the top. Feel free to read further down the post for more detailed information.

Summary - easier to read.
Nov. 18 - 6:30-8:00
Nov. 28 - 6:15-8:00
Dec. 5 - 6:15-8:00
Dec. 8 - 6:00-? staging night (get in the tree!)
Dec. 12 - 6:00-8:00 on stage and in the tree - all choirs and actors
Dec. 13 - 6:00-8:00 DRESS REHEARSAL
Dec. 14 - 6:00 call, 7:00 performance
Dec. 15 - 6:00 call, 7:00 performance
Dec. 16 - 2:00 call, 3:00 performance
Dec. 17 - take a nap

I thought you might like to see some other trees.

Doesn't "bonus" sound like such a great deal? Extra time with friends singing great Christmas music and it doesn't cost anything more!

The first bonus rehearsal up is this Sunday night at 6:30. If you are attending the Thanksgiving dinner then just head to the choir room after you eat. If you aren't eating here then you can get to the choir room whenever you want to. We'll rehearse until 8:00.

We WILL NOT have child care that night, so a spouse or parent or friend will need to watch your kiddos. or bring them with you. They can sing along.

The next Wednesday rehearsal will be Nov. 28.

We will "stage" the tree - meaning, put you all in the tree, actors on the stage, children and youth in the aisles for "Christmastime" and "He Reigns" on Saturday night, Dec. 8 from 6:00-8:00 pm. We will have child care this night. This is a very important time for you to be here!

Thursday, Dec. 13 is our dress rehearsal at 6:00 pm. The orchestra will be here and we need all choirs and actors and light people and sound people and camera people and anyone else that is involved to be here! There will be child care.

Performances are Dec. 14-15 at 7 with a call time (meaning that's when you need to showup) of 6:00.

The matinee performance on Dec. 16 is at 3 with a call time of 2:00.

It's going to be wonderful! I can hardly wait!

Hooray! Wednesday's Almost Here

I've really missed rehearsing on Wednesdays! First, I really like seeing you all. Second, "the Tree" is like almost tomorrow! I feel comfortable that you know the music, but that's with music. I'm a little anxious as to how comfortable we will all be without music. Sooooo. I hope you are all planning on being at rehearsal tomorrow night. We will start about 6:15 or so for a little bonus time. We will get to keep rehearsing until just a little before 8:00!

50/50

50% cotton. 50% polyester. But what really is polyester?

According to Wikipedia the synthesis of polyesters is generally achieved by a polycondensation reaction.

Azeotrope esterification
In this classical method, an alcohol and a carboxylic acid react to form a carboxylic ester. To assemble a polymer, the water formed by the reaction must be continually removed by azeotrope distillation.

For those interested, below is the chemical equation (ester-terminated oligomer + alcohol-terminated oligomer)
O
\\
C - OCH3 + OH[Oligomer2]
/
[Oligomer1]

Wow! And there are people out there in the world who actually understand that!

All I know is that a 50/50 blend t-shirt won't shrink and doesn't need to be ironed.

As we were determining if my t-shirt that I wore to rehearsal last Saturday was 100% cotton or a 50/50 blend, someone asked - I think it might have been Brenda - if Cheryl had ironed my t-shirt. Ha! I don't think Cheryl will mind telling you that she trained me 32 years ago to do my own ironing. Sorry guys.

All of this to remind you that I need your t-shirt size.

If you would like more than one shirt (so you don't have to wash and iron between performances - or so you and the whole family can go to the mall in matching shirts - your teenagers will love that idea, by the way) then let me or Donna know how many shirts you want.

If you're interested, there's an interesting article about t-shirts and some exciting controversy over when they were actually invented http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shirt

Even more fun is this video of the new world record of the most t-shirts worn at one time

The North American record for most T-shirts worn at once was set October 17, 2007 by Nick Umbs of Burke, Virginia. See the record attempt caught on video by clicking here!

By the way - I would suggest only wearing one t-shirt per performance. I understand it can be a little warm in "the tree".

See you Sunday!

t-shirts

I need t-shirt sizes. We will order the t-shrits THIS WEEK! And it could be that you want more than one shirt since you will need to wear the shirt three or four days in a row! You'll need to let me know.
I also need t-shirt sizes for youth choir and children grades 3-5. We have some sizes from last Sunday and some sizes from the Kid's Choral Connection. Send me and e-mail today!

How Great Is Our God

I hope you didn't miss last Sunday's offertory. The handbells played and did a great job! Thanks! It takes good rehearsal times and commitment to be a good bell choir. It was obvious Sunday that you all have worked hard.

Some Updates

1. Don't forget we have an extra rehearsal tomorrow morning (Saturday, Nov. 3) from 9-11 to make up for the two Wednesday rehearsals we are missing.
2. I've updated the accompaniment to "Go Reach the World" where it matches the track the trio is used to singing to.
3. I haven't forgotten about Praise Teams. Our sound guys are working on purchasing a monitor system where the Praise Teams will be able to do their own mix so they have just the right amount of piano, voice and band. This will make everyone's Sunday mornings so much easier. As soon as we get the system in we'll have a training night so everyone can try it out to see how it works. I think you'll all be very pleased with it.

Sorry, No pretty pictures on this post.

Time Change Sunday

Don't forget that this Sunday is Time Change Sunday. You'll get an extra hour of sleep if you remember to change your clock. If you want to change your clocks at the official change time then you'll need to set your alarm for 2:00 AM and change your clock then.

Sunday's Anthem - Sing to the King

Don't forget our extra make-up rehearsal this Saturday from 9-11.

Today Is Your Day!

Today is "All Saints Day".



It's a day to remember the Saints who have gone before us. (Hebrews 11 is a great place to start.) And I like to think of it as a day to remember that we are all Saints. Some of our friends in other faiths believe you have to be nominated by a really important person and then a group of folks check to see if you've had any miracles attributed to you or to your likeness (or something like that) and then somehow you get bumped up from regular heaven attendee to Saint and you get to put St. in front of your name.

Then , if people like you, they'll paint pictures of you like these and they might even pray to you.

However, if you check scripture (always the best place to go for such matters) you'll find that those of us who know Jesus as Lord are ALL saints! Yes - even you!

And there's some cool stuff about being a saint.

You are called as a saint Ro 1:7

Jesus intercedes for you Ro 8:27

You've got an inheritance Eph 1:18

There's also some responsibility with being a saint!

You need to fight (contend earnestly) for the faith Jude 1:3

Love the saints Col 1:4

Support the saints 2Co 8:4

Live without immorality, greed and other bad stuff Eph 5:3

Hebrews 12:1 (HCSB)
Therefore since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that lies before us,

Oh, and if you want your "official saint" picture painted, you might want to work on the official saint hand signal all of these guys have.

Now... go live like a saint! You are one!