Music for Sunday, May 3

I have an anniversary. It's the first Sunday in May. Years ago my family and I were going through some very difficult times. Perhaps another time I can tell that story, but for now, let me just say that after many months of praying and totally trusting God to provide for our needs - which He did! - our prayers were answered on the first Sunday in May.

So for almost every year since 1989 (sometimes preachers would want something in particular for that day so this wouldn't happen) I have led whichever congregation I have been with in singing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" on the first Sunday of May. (side note - I listened to 20 different versions of this song on youtube and 99% of them were reallllly slow. We won't sing it this slow Sunday!)

My children know that I do this and they know why. It's important for your children to see your faith through the difficult times of life and it is important for them to remember how God provided. If you don't tell them who will?

You may not have a song to sing, but you should have some reminder of God's faithfulness: Perhaps a picture, a book, a song, a tree planted... something that in years to come you and they will see it and say, "oh yeah! remember when?..." The children of Israel had a pile of stones taken from the center of the Jordan River.

There's no charge for the extra sermonette. Here's this Sunday's order of worship.

May 3, 2009 AM

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
Forever

Prayer – Bro. Lyndel Littleton

Choir Anthem – My Father’s House
Solo – Emily Moman

Welcome – Bro. Lyndel Littleton
Welcome song – Days of Elijah

Children’s Message – Bro. Tim Munoz

Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Made Me Glad

Special Music – Bro. Lyndel Littleton – I Can Only Imagine

Message – Bro. Paul Scott

Invitation – Come Just As You Are

Offertory – Gena Tate

Baptisms -

Announcements and Benediction – Bro. Tony Lewis

Family Art Project - Family Pics part 1

Our Family Art Project was several weeks ago. Somehow I had thought it wouldn't matter to do the art project a few weeks before Easter and the Passion Play. I'm not sure where my brain was when I put this on the calendar!

So now, after Easter is over and my statewide tour with the chorale is past, I actually have a little spare time to blog about it.

The Family Art Project was SOOOOO much fun! There were so many creative ideas around the room that day. While I was driving across Tennessee with the chorale I made some collages of each family that participated. You'll notice there are a few pictures of the painting in progress and then the family posing around the finished product. I'm not using names on most because I know a lot of people don't want their names published out here on the WorldWideWeb.

I love the circles on this one. One of the girls suggested they use the bottom of their cup do make them.

This family used the aluminum pan as a palette to mix their paint. They also made this dish of orange paint with gold mixed in. See it shine?!

Jerry and Phyllis really enjoy all of the art projects here. They made stained-glass windows and did water color painting with me last Summer. Now they have joined Hilldale's photography club. (You may recognize Phillis as the winner of our 20,000th hit prize see that post here )

Golden Granny Awards - Get Your Tickets

It's time to call and reserve your tickets for this year's Golden Granny Awards. Actually, you should have already, but there are about 80 of you that haven't yet.




What are the Golden Granny Awards? If you are new to our music/worship ministry you may not know yet that the Golden Grannys are like the Golden Globes, Oscars, People's Choice, CMA, GMA and other prestigious awards all rolled into one.



Last year we only had people involved in our music/worship ministry attending, but I know we have many who regularly follow us on our blog, so if you want to see first-hand the fun and excitement of the Golden Granny Awards, call the church office today and let Donna know that you want to come too.


Here are last year's winners!



Don't miss out this year. CALL US TODAY!

Foolishness and Fear

Yesterday on Fox and Friends there was a report about a school asking a church to cover up the crosses in its Sanctuary for an upcoming High School graduation. The church said it would not, so the ACLU was suing the school so it would have to hold graduation ceremonies elsewhere.

Ends up this isn’t something new. I tried to find this story on line and when searching for it I found this same kind of story in Florida from 2005.

On April 14 of this year President Obama gave an economics speech at Georgetown University. Prior to his arrival – and at the White House’s request – the cross and IHS were covered up. IHS is a centuries old monogram for the name of Jesus Christ.

The platform in Gaston Hall

Before President Obama spoke the cross and IHS were covered with a piece of plywood painted black.

Philippians 3:18 - Show Context
For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.

The point of this blog is the "why" behind this, but as a side note I must say how completely disappointed I am that our Catholic brothers would bow to this request.

Here is the opening statement of their on-line policy for use of Gaston Hall.

GASTON HALL POLICIES EXTERNAL (non-Georgetown University) organizations or individuals may rent the facilities, subject to availability, if:
* the event does not conflict with similar campus activity
* the event is appropriate to the ambiance of the facility
* the event is appropriate to the educational mission of Georgetown University
* the event is not in conflict with Georgetown University standards as a Roman Catholic institution (emphasis mine)
Gaston Hall is used for many non-religious activies. Below is a picture of a panel discussion on U.S. - Russian relationship and energy. Notice how the cross is NOT covered up.

I would hope one of the standards of a Roman Catholic institution would be to declare the message of Jesus Christ and the cross.
Georgetown should not have agreed to cover up the cross. President Obama should choose a secular place for his speeches if he is offended by - or afraid to offend others - by the cross. (Of course since almost all of the schools in the founding years of our nation were Christian in nature most will have Christian symbols in very prominent places.)


So why is the cross so offensive?
Why is the world afraid of the cross?

Because it declares many things.

The cross declares that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Americans don’t like to be reminded that they are sinners. We like to blame others for anything wrong in our lives. The cross makes each of us admit “I have sinned.”

The cross declares that Jesus Christ is the only way of Salvation. The payment for our sins was made through Jesus Christ. It is only through faith in Him that our sins are forgiven – that we find peace with God.
Colossians 1:20 - Show Context
and to reconcile everything to Himself through Him by making peace through the blood of His cross -- whether things on earth or things in heaven.

The cross shows Jesus’ demand on our lives.
Matthew 16:24 - Show Context
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.

The cross seems foolish to the world and they don’t see why the cross is a big deal to those who are followers of Jesus Christ.
1Corinthians 1:18 - Show Context
For to those who are perishing the message of the cross is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is God's power.


It’s perhaps easy to criticize Georgetown and President Obama for covering the cross, so let me help make you a little uncomfortable.
How have you covered the cross this week? I don’t mean literally. Each of us, probably every day in one way or another, “cover the cross” by what we say, where we go, what we do… We deny the power of the cross in our lives. We ignore the call to “take up our cross” and follow Him. (OK, this is the point where you preach your own sermon to yourself as the Holy Spirit shows you things in your own life.) (I can’t do everything for you.)

Go out now and live a life that doesn’t deny (cover up) the cross. Live through and because of the power of the cross.


Another angle.
Here is a quote from a blogger, Joseph Speranzella, that brings some excellent insite. Wish I had thought of this first.
"Those who call themselves Christian do not mock God. They are obligated to remember that the Holy Martyrs too were asked to "cover up the Cross". They declined knowing that he who denies God on earth will be denied by the Father in heaven. The Church has counted the cost of true belief and there is no political correctness in the blood of the martyrs."
see the full article here Excellent post.

How Can I Keep From Singing?

We're singing this song Sunday morning in worship. Practice.

This is a test to see if my phone will update my blog. How fun will that be?

Chorale Tour Update

We're having a great tour. If you are on Facebook then you probably know that I've been using Twitter to update all day every day as we travel across the State. If you're not on Facebook or on Twitter then you may not know that we've had great crowds, wonderful concerts/times of worship and it has been a great week.
Tonight is our last concert. It is at the Renaissance Center in Dickson. It's probably not too late for you to drive over and hear us. The Ladies' chorus is joining us tonight. It will be wonderful!

Sorry, no pictures. They are on my phone and it's a bit of a hassle to get them off.
and besides, I've mostly been taking pictures of the gorgeous pianos we've had all week. I've been working very hard on not coveting. I had sort of figured out how to get one under the bus (taking the legs off) but I couldn't figure out how to strap in onto the top of my PT Cruiser.

See you Sunday!

Chorale Concerts

Next week the Tennessee Baptist Men's Chorale will be on a statewide tour.

Most of our concerts will be too far away for you to attend, but the final concert, Thursday night, will be at the Renaissance Center in Dickson. The tickets are only $10.00 and you can buy them at the door. (I heard once that Excell Baptist was going to charter a bus, so you might ride over with them.) The Ladies' Chorus will be joining us in Dickson.

I'm sure I'll be Twittering during the day to update Facebook and I'll try to post a night or two on here. After all, you wouldn't want to be out of the loop on such an exciting week! hahaha.

Here's our complete schedule.

Monday, April 20, 7:00 pm - Beaver Dam Baptist Church, Knoxville http://www.bdbc.org/
Tuesday, April 21, 9:30am - Carson Newman College Chapel Service at FBC Jefferson City http://www.fbcjeff.org/
Tuesday, April 21, 7:30 pm - First Baptist Church, Paris, http://www.fbcparis.org/
Wednesday, April 22, 10:00am - Union University Chapel Concert, Jackson http://www.uu.edu/
Wednesday, April 22, 7:30pm - Community Concert, Second Baptist Church, Union City TICKETS $10 each or $15 for two. http://www.communityconcertuc.com/
Thursday, April 23, 7:00 pm - Community Concert, Renaissance Center, Dickson TICKETS $10 - order in advance by calling the Renaissance Center (615)7... http://www.rcenter.org/

Sunday's Music - April 19, 2009

April 19, 2009 AM

Crown Him with Many Crowns
All the Earth Will Sing Your Praises

Prayer – Bro. Lyndel Littleton

Choir Anthem – My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation
Duet – Tyson and Dan

Welcome – Dr. Larry D. Robertson

Welcome song – Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing)

Children’s message – Bro. Tim Munoz

There Is a Fountain
O the Blood of Jesus
You Are My King

Solo – Mark Black

Forgetting

The batteries on my camera kept running out or I would have longer segments in this video.

A Beautiful Relationship

I was out in the backyard last Monday. Spending time digging in the dirt and puttering around the yard is - as far as I am concerned - the perfect way to relax and recover from all of the time and energy that goes into putting on the Passion Play.

My little lawn tractor broke an axle last Fall. I had hoped to sell my house before I needed it again, but alas, the bad housing market is now making it where I'll have to get it fixed. (I guess I figured I could leave it as a present to the new home owners.)

All of that to say...

the early spring yard flowers (often known as weeds) are doing well this year since they haven't had to deal with my mower. So Monday afternoon I was on the back lot behind my creek and the yard there was filled with zebra butterflies flitting from flower to flower.

So why tell you about them here?

And why haven't you ever seen a field of flowers and zebra butterflies?

I'm glad you asked!

I'm telling you about it here because Zebra butterflies are a testimony to God's wonderful creativity and how His creation fits perfectly together.

You may have never seen them because there are certain conditions that have to be met for them to be around.

First off, they only live near pawpaw trees. You don't have a paw paw tree? Well, that's because they only live in the shade of other trees in "deep fertile bottomland and hilly upland habitat" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawpaw .

Well, it just so happens I've got that right here on Bear Hollow.

My backyard - notice the barn (you can see the door here) way at the back at the foot of my mountain) The pawpaws are right behind the barn.

The pawpaw has a rather unassuming flower - a small brown/green bell that hangs from the branch. I understand that they make the largest fruit in North America, but I've never seen any of my pawpaws with fruit. I don't know if the birds and squirrels get them or if they just don't make at all.

Ends up that the leaves of pawpaws are a bit toxic to bugs that like to chew on trees, but not to the zebra butterfly caterpillar. And (I read a really long article with a whole bunch of really big words that I couldn't understand - but this is what I figured out) the toxicity of the pawpaw is retained not only in the larvae but in the butterfly too! Because of this, birds don't eat them. They know they taste bad.

I think it's just really incredible that Bear Hollow is perfect for pawpaw trees, pawpaw trees are the only thing zebra butterfly larvae eat, the pawpaw protects the butterfly and my yard is full of flowers that the butterfly loves and I have a digital camera and can capture it all for you to see!

It seems to me that it would take a whole lot more "faith" to believe that the pawpaw and zebra butterfly evolved into this relationship than to believe that God was having a lot of creative fun creating this beautiful and beneficial relationship.

The Savior Is Waiting

My mom is sort of just now going through - or maybe going through again - a lot of e-mails she recieved when my Dad passed away last October. She just forwarded this to me. I think it's a really cool story. I think it shows a little what a great influence my Dad was on church music - especially back when Ministers of Music were sort of a new thing in churches. I hope you don't mind me bragging a little. The organist who wrote this is named Wally.

Olivet Baptist Church, Oklahoma City

Bill became my friend when I played on the first recording of the Singing Churchmen and he invited me to play at Olivet a few times when the organist was not there. I called him one day and said, " Bill, I just heard an invitation hymn that I think is the best to come in a long time and I called the composer in LA and asked him if it was available for choir, and he said, that it was not available, and I said, well, I am going to be playing the piano at Falls Creek and I would like to arrange it for the choir, and he replied, you may be my guest. I would enjoy hearing the choir if you do. So, I asked Bill if he would take down the dictation as I arranged it, and he said he would.

I went down to Olivet and we went in that same choir room and as I played it, he wrote the notes and then wrote the words in, and we mimeographed 200 copies of it, and I took it with me to Falls Creek and Gene passed it out to the choir and we all fell in love with, " The Savior is waiting". I had my recorder and I recorded the choir singing it, and then when I came home, I made a copy and sent it to Ralph Carmichael. He wrote me back and said that he really enjoyed it and since I had his address and phone number, I gave it to Gene and he and Ralph became fast friends.

They collaborated on many things after that, but it was Bill and me who introduced it as a choir arrangement. Ralph was then the minister of music for the Baptist Temple in Los Angeles, and he wrote it for his church as an invitation hymn. The arrangement was copied and went like a wild fire into churches in Oklahoma and Texas. I introduced it to Johnny Bisagno when I would fill in for their organist at Del City, and Johnny used it everywhere.

Bill and I shared many smiles afterwards when we would reminesce about that encounter. I played for his church in Tulsa several times also. He was a big booster of mine, and I was very proud of that.

I saw him at Olivet a few months ago at a choir concert and we decided to get together for lunch and talk about old times. I thought we had more time to do that. I liked him.



You can read more about Ralph Carmichael here http://www.ralphcarmichael.com/index.php

Where've You Been?

Is where've a proper contraction? (I don't think so.) (But we say it that way. at least here in the South.)

Anyway, wow! I don't remember ever being this long between posts on our Worship Blog. I definitely needed at least Monday off, and then Tuesday and Wednesday flew by and now... here it is Thursday already. I have to run on over to the church building for a children's handbell rehearsal in about 5 minutes, but I did want to post quickly to give you some things to look forward to on here in the next day or two.

1. We'll have a new poll to vote on your favorite scene from the Passion Play. I know - too difficult to chose just one.
2. Some pictures and comments form the Passion Play.
3. a couple of posts in my head about how cool creation is and how marvelous and creative God is in His creations - with pictures from Bear Hollow to demonstrate.
4. Sunday's order of worship. And maybe a video to help you practice before you come.

Shofar - Show Good

The title is a nice quote from today on Facebook.

I mentioned on Facebook yesterday that I needed a shofar. Here are some of the responses I received. Names have been removed to protect the guilty.


at 9:12am April 8
Shofar Sho good.

at 9:20am April 8
What, they don't have a Shofar-Mart in Nashville?

at 10:00am April 8
get on shofarshogood.com they have a great selection!

at 10:01am April 8
I just noticed someone else made that joke too, sorry to waste everyones time.

at 11:12am April 8
Ok, what the heck is a shofar????

at 12:16pm April 8
Thank you Brenda!

at 12:20pm April 8
Thank you! I was beginning to think I was the only one who didn't know what that is!

Me at 12:54pm April 8
hahaha! A shofar is a ram's horn trumpet that the Israelites would blow as a call to worship or call to battle or I suppose any time they needed a trumpet sound.



Here's what wikipedia has to say http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shofar



continuing on...
at 1:00pm April 8
oooooooooooooooohh. Brenda and are now in the Know!

at 1:14pm April 8
LOL! Hey, check the Mexican restaurants. Seems I have seen bull horns hanging around! LOL!

at 1:21pm April 8
Hey, I shot my eclectic friend an email to see if she has one. she has all kinds of weird things like this. I will call her when school lets out.

Cheryl's office helped out too!


"Think I found a shofar for you. This guy down the street has a real nice limo if you want to borry it."
"I have a powder horn."
"Thought I had one in my purse, but now I can't find it. "
"Had one right here in my hip pocket... right here... thought it was right here... well, I don't know what happened to it!"
"I have some deer antlers. you could rattle them instead of blowing through them! that would be different : - ) "

If you'd like to hear a shofar click here Listen to the three different types of shofar sounds


Then today I mentioned that I now had two shofars and a shofarist (I may have made that word up) and got this great response

at 8:31am April 9
shofar, show good.

Thankfully Rose's son-in-law actually has and plays a shofar and he will be there tonight!

Then...
The one I was expecting earlier in the week showed up at my house today. Notice how lovely it looks in the dining room. I may just have to get one of my own!

Alive Forever Amen

I sang this last Easter with an ensemble. This year the entire congregation will get to sing it. Better practice! Send your friends here to learn it.

The Making of John the Baptist

Some of you out there in blog land may need a "John the Baptist" some time for one of your church productions. So I thought I would share with you how I got ours.

I started out with a kind lovable Children's Pastor.

We had him grow out his beard and not get a haircut for a month. Then we put him in clothes made of camel hair and mussed up his hair.

Unfortunately I showed him the famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci of John the Baptist.

And ended up with this!

So I threatened to punch him in the nose and singe his eyebrows off if he EVER did anything like that again. (his wife and children all thanked me)

And so now - after "seeing the fire" - we have this!

You can see my "John the Baptist" April 9-11 at 7:00 each night at Hilldale Baptist Church in Clarksville, TN - 2001 Madison St.

Tim as John the Baptist

oh the drama! Notice it's just a week away and he's still reading his lines!