Sunday is Pentecost

Baptists have a tendency to kind of ignore Pentecost. I guess we're a little nervous - afraid someone will "get in the Spirit" and start dancing and singing and speaking in tongues.
We reallllly need to get over that.

Here are just a few things Scripture teaches us about the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is an equal part of the Trinity. As Jesus was telling His followers that He wouldn't be around anymore He made a promise.

John 14: 16. (HCSB) And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. 17. He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive Him because it doesn't see Him or know Him. But you do know Him, because He remains with you and will be in you. 18. I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.
26. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit-the Father will send Him in My name-will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

The Holy Spirit is given to us when we become followers of Jesus.

Ephesians 1:13 (HCSB) Read This Chapter
In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation--in Him when you believed--were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit produces "fruit" in our lives. (I mentioned this in yesterday's post.)

Galatians 5 (HCSB) Read This Chapter
5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

There's much more. Go to your favorite Bible study web site and do a search. I usually go to http://www.crosswalk.com/

Here's Sunday's order of worship. Notice the songs about the Holy Spirit.

May 31, 2009 AM

Revive Us Again
Days of Elijah

Prayer – Bro. Lyndel Littleton

Choir Anthem – Cover Me
Duet – Traci and Mark

Welcome – Bro. Lyndel Littleton

Welcome song – How Can I Keep from Singing
Children’s sermon – Bro. Tim Munoz

Holy Spirit, Rain Down
Sweet, Sweet Spirit
Breathe on Me

Special music – Jackie Newman

It Happened Again

I was at lunch today and saw one of my choir members who has been dealing with cancer (She's doing well by the way) and when I turned from talking to her and her husband there were a couple of young ladies who had been watching us. They looked a little embarrassed but then spoke up. "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Joel Osteen?"

Hahaha.

Last week when Cheryl and I were in Gatlinburg we walked into one of the art shops and the lady there was reading one of Joel Osteen's books. She looked up and gasped. "Oh! Has anyone ever told you that you look like Joel Osteen?" I laughed and told her "yes" and that I too was a pastor. I gave her one of my business cards and she is using it as a book mark for her book.

A month or so ago it was the hostess at Red Lobster asking the same question.

Here's something I wrote over a year ago.
I've been accused a few times - or flattered - of looking like Joel Osteen. There's a lady at the meat and three in Joelton who asks me to pray for her every time I go in there because she thinks I'm him.


Here's a note Bro. Tony got a few weeks ago from one of his friends who was here for our DiscipleNow weekend.




"Lyndel Littleton Joel Osteen

coincidence? i think not. i believe your music minister is joel osteen in disguise!

i hope you get as much of a kick out of this as i did.

kurt"

Actually, I'm very thankful that I look like Joel Osteen and not some serial killer. Even more importantly than resembling Bro. Osteen I hope that when people see me they see a resemblance - a reflection - of Jesus. I want to live my life where they see His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faith, gentleness and self-control (see Galatians 5:22-23 )

Now... who do you look like? Will someone flatter you by saying "Has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Jesus?" I hope they can.

The followers of Christ were first called Christians in Antioch Ac 11:26 - Show Context because they acted like Christ. My prayer is that you and I will live up to that name - Christian - this week.

Family Television Repost

I first posted this in March of 2008. I wanted to give you the opportunity to see it again - in case you missed it.

Family Television


I’m happy to report that I have now seen an episode of “Hannah Montana.” My granddaughter loves the Disney channel. After a week in Oklahoma I’ve actually seen many new things on TV.

We watched some show with Alton the cook on the food channel where he was in Minnesota eating nasty things like rotten fish head jelly. My son loves to watch the food network.



My daughter-in-law likes to watch Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America”, but she likes to see it around 10:00, so it’s on the TiVO schedule.
Now and then they watched Fox News with me. But most of the time we watched Gibson bowl and play tennis on Wii.

It was nice, in this day of every room having its own TV, for us to be together as a family. Would I have watched Hannah or Alton or Diane if I had been home by myself? Nope. I guess I could have gone to a different room and watched what I wanted to watch all day long, but then I wouldn’t have been with my son and grandchildren and we wouldn’t have those shared – even if it was TV – experiences together.

Guess where I’m going with this: Sunday morning worship. Our congregation is blessed to have people of all ages worshipping together. How nice it is that when we gather together on a Sunday morning that we sing a great variety of music that speaks to all generations. How nice it is that grandparents, parents and children are singing God’s praises together. They may not sit together (It’s definitely not cool to sit with mom when you are 16.) but they have that same shared experience that helps make a family.
It would be quite sad for grandma to go to one service, mom and dad to another, teenage brother go to another and kid sister to a fourth service. In that situation, where is the common bond, the shared experience, the give and take of loving someone and giving up some of your own wants to meet the needs of another?

The Apostle Pauls' words apply to worship too.
Philippians 2:3-4 NASB
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves ; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Bottom line.
I hope that when I am 70 and my grandchildren are 25, 24, 22, 21, 21 and 19 that we will go to church together. I hope that they will sing “old” songs that I like, like “How Great Is Our God” and that I will want to sing whatever “new” songs are written in 2028 and that we will worship together because we are “family!” I also hope that we’ll still be singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” which was written in 1861. It’s part of our Christian heritage and it connects us with all of the saints who have gone before us (but that is a whole other post).

Who knows, by then we may have rediscovered the grandeur of a pipe organ and how well it expresses the greatness of God and they’ll be replacing guitars and drums…

It's Wednesday - Do You Know Where Your Choir is?

If you go to Hilldale Baptist Church in Clarksville, TN then you probably remember that we will NOT have choir rehearsal tonight. I'm attending the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference at LifeWay's gorgeous Ridgecrest Conference Center . It has been a very inspiring and refreshing week.

If you are in the choir at just about any other Southern Baptist Church my guess is YES, you do have choir rehearsal tonight. You need to be there. Your Minister of Music or Worship Pastor or Song Leader or whatever you call your music guy needs you.

Even if you are going to be out of town Sunday you need to be in rehearsal. Your attendance encourages others in the choir, you'll work on other music too - not just what you're singing Sunday, the art of singing in an ensemble (your choir) is something you all need to do together week after week so you can be your very best.

And besides... CHOIR IS FUN! It's the perfect pick-me-up for the middle of the week.

See you Sunday.

Inspiration

I'm attending a wonderful conference at Ridgecrest this week - the Blueridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. From the keynote speaker last night through the classes and seminars and speakers and devotions and lunches with faculty and on and on it has already been incredible. All of my creative juices are being renewed and invigorated. There's a bounce back in my step that I had almost lost.

We have a time of worship in the morning and in the evening before a devotion and a keynote speaker. The lady leading it is Lynn DeShazo. She's an alto. It's kind of nice singing with an alto instead of a loud high tenor - no offense intended to loud high tenors. :-)

Last night we sang the beautiful new hymn Ancient Words. What I didn't realize until tonight was Ms. DeShazo is the writer of this beautiful song! You can read what she has to say about writing it here - http://www.lynndeshazo.com/articles/AncientWords.pdf

It's going to be a wonderful week. I hope Cheryl can stand being with me as I get all wound up this week! I'll try to keep Twittering so you can get some of the highlights. You can see my reaction to tonight's supper over there on the sidebar with Twitter updates. The food will be the only thing that will make this seem like a long week.

In the Mountains

I'm at LifeWay's Ridgecrest Conference Center this week for a writers conference. I guess someone who has three blogs is a writer of sorts. My plan is to work on script writing for Passion Plays and Christmas Trees but I think I'll be getting a lot more out of it than that.

I'll probably be able to Tweet now and then which will update my Facebook and put a note on here as well as update Twitter. I'm sure you all are just dying to know what the food is like here and other exciting things. :-)

The Blueridge Mountains here in the Smokies are beautiful. However, I don't want to write about them, I want to get out my oil paints and paint. But since I didn't bring paints and won't have time anyway I guess I'll write about them later.

I'll be adding a little poll over there - to the left. Which mountains are your favorite? If you want to tell why you can leave a comment here.

Ps 90:2 - Show Context
Before the mountains were born,before You gave birth to the earth and the world,
from eternity to eternity, You are God.

Homeschool Handbells Play

Last weekend was the CHARA talent show. CHARA is Hilldale's homeschool association.
There was singing, and recitation of long passages of scripture (very impressive), piano playing, dancing, karate and - my favorite - the new homeschool handbell choir. Everyone did a great job.

This was a fun part. Mr. Brown is getting these two boys in place for the next part of their demonstration.

"Don't look up!" was his instructions.

Oh! Here's why!

The handbell choir did a great job. Aren't they cute? They've only been playing for a few months.

After they played I told a little about English handbells as the stage was being rearranged.

Here's a video of their playing. My video card ran out before the song did.

Wednesday the 13th

There's an old superstition about Friday the 13th being an unlucky day.

But what you may not know is that when the 13th is on a Wednesday it is a LUCKY day! How cool is that?

That's because Wednesday night choir rehearsal is the perfect middle-of-the-week type of thing to be a part of. There are friends to see and great music to sing.

And at Hilldale tonight you'll get to be one of the first ones to sing some great songs from a new book called "Let the Worshippers Arise" from WORD music.

I'll be looking for you at 6:30!

Be On the Alert

Not everything is nice on Bear Hollow.

Black Racer by the back door. These are beautiful snakes and really aren't interested in people. Every time I see one I think what a nice looking belt a black racer would make.

There are things that eat your roses.

I took this picture just before this guy's untimely death.

:-)

There are things that pinch.


Things that sting.

Things that make you itch.

The darker green leaves with the Roundup on them is the poison ivy.

Things that bite!

What? You don't see it? Here's a close up of the picture above.

It's mate dropped out of the tree when they heard me coming. I of course had my fancy new phone that I got for Cheryl's birthday with me so I snapped a picture before this one dropped down and quickly slithered away into the grasses along the creek.

So why am I sharing this here?

It reminded me of scripture that warns us to be on the alert.

1 Peter 5:
8.
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
9.
Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

I'm not trying to compare a couple of copperheads in the tree or a caterpillar munching on my roses with Satan working to devour us, but even when I am out enjoying the beauty of Bear Hollow I have to be watchful for the things that could harm me.

We have to be the same way in the world. As we are out living our lives we must be "self-controlled and alert." There are things out there that can and will harm us - physically, emotionally and spiritually. Some of the ways we keep ourselves alert are by knowing scripture, spending time in prayer, attending worship and Bible study, encouraging and being encouraged by other followers of Christ.

Much more could be said, but I know many of my readers have short attention spans, so perhaps we'll continue this in another post.

Now go out there into the world and "be on the alert!"

Sunday's Music - May 10

Happy Mothers' Day!

This is my momma and my two oldest grandbabies. I guess they aren't babies any more. They all need to move to Tennessee. Or I guess we need to move to Oklahoma (Christy and family would have to move too).

Here's our order of worship for
Sunday, May 10, 2009 – Mother’s Day

Parent/Child Dedication

O God Our Help in Ages Past

Prayer – Bro. Lyndel Littleton

Choir anthem – I Will Rise
Solo – Brenda Radford

Welcome – Dr. Larry D. Robertson

Welcome song – Lord, Reign in Me

Children’s sermon – Bro. Tim Muñoz

In Christ Alone
My Hope

Special Music – Ramona Ambrose

Message – Dr. Larry D. Robertson

Invitation – Have Thine Own Way, Lord

Offertory – Mary Beth Mathews

Baptism – (1) 10:30

Announcements & Benediction

Beautiful Bear Hollow

I've tried three different ways to start this post. None of them worked.

I'll let this collage of what I saw in my yard today speak for itself and then let scripture speak for itself. I think sometimes we mess all of that up when we try to do the explaining.


Here is the Apostle Paul describing our Lord Jesus Christ. You should really read the entire chapter,

(it's incredible) Read This Chapter

These verses describe His roll in creation.

Colossians 1:16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

The Family Art Project - The Rest of the Pictures

This pictures had many changes made to it as the morning went along. It turned out great!


I blogged about Johnny earlier http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2009/03/artist-is-born-johnny.html He had a WONDERFUL time painting.


My lovely wife and I had our painting turn out a lot different than it started. I think the final painting is really cool. Cheryl doesn't really like it. Hahaha.

Names and hand prints were poplar in several of the family paintings. The hand prints give them a very personal touch.

This one is really great. The colors on this one - actually, on all of them - were brighter in person. But you can still see how great all of them were.

Maybe the next time we do one of these events you'll sign up!

The Family Art Project - Pictures part 2

More pictures from "The Family Art Project."

The Tates made a big "T" with their handprints.


I lost track of how many times this picture changed. You can see how the background color was blue at one time.



The Munoz family wanted something that represented their family so they made a big cross and ten each member of the family painted one of the squares around the cross with things they like.