Wednesdays (and why I love choir)

I love Wednesdays!
Our local weather man calls them "Huuuuuuuuump day" and sounds sort of like Tony the Tiger when he says it. (It's a little embarassing.) (Leland, didn't mean to trash talk you here in front of the whole world.)
But I love Wednesdays - not because the week is half over, but because we get to sing in choir.

Singing lifts the spirit.
Singing lowers blood pressure.
Singing in a choir is fun because:
    you're with your firends
     it sounds better than just you in your car
     if (when) you hit a bad note there are others to help cover it up
     the director is wonderful (hahaha - was that too much?)
Singing in a church choir is great because:
     singing for the Lord is sooo awesome
     it's a wonderful way to worship not on ly on a Sunday morning in a worship service, but on Wednesday night too.
Singing in a church choir is great because the texts of the songs
     help tell your heart story
     help you express your love for God
     tell others of God's greatness and glory and wonder and more

OK. All that's just off the top of my head. Just think how much I could write here if I thought about it for a while.

Maybe YOU should leave a comment with why YOU think choir on Wednesday is such a great deal.

Rainy Days and Wednesdays

Karen Carpenter sang a song - "Rainy Days and Mondays" which had the phrase "rainy days and Mondays always get me down." I actually kind of like Mondays. I might as well. They come by every week.
And rainy days aren't so bad either. As someone who likes to have a beautiful yard with lots of trees and flowers I see rain as rather important.

The only thing I don't like about rainy Wednesdays is that sometimes people use the rain as an excuse to skip choir. You'll hear "Oh, I got home from work and just didn't want to get out in the rain again" or a similar phrase.

If you are a person who gets a little down on rainy days here is some exciting news you may not have realized. CHOIR perks up a rainy day!

It's true! Scientific studies have shown that - oh, hahaha. I was going to make up a bunch of stuff and put here... Let me just say I know that in OUR choir we have a great time and people leave with big smiles on their faces because we've had a great evening together.

Here's a choir having a great time with rain!

The First Wednesday

It's the first Wednesday of the new year!

That means it's the first choir rehearsal of the new year. ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫

That means it's the PERFECT time to join a choir!! ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫

♪ ♫ ♪ ♫

If you live in Clarksville and you aren't already active in another local church come by Hilldale tonight and check out our choir.

FAQ (frequently asked questions)

Do I have to audition to be in choir?

NO! Never! Maybe for a solo, but not for singing in choir.

Where do you meet?

The choir room is located directly behind the Sanctuary. There are doors on both sides of the stage area that open to a long hall that takes you back to the choir room.

What time do you meet?

6:30-7:30 (longer times when it is close to Christmas or Easter)

We have a great time in choir. We laugh, we sing, we pray together... it's a fantastic pick-me-up for the middle of the week.

I'll look for you tonight!

Merry Christmas!

We ordered our Christmas music today! Woohoo! A lot of really great music. You'll get to hear a preview of it at our Christmas party in August.

Right now, however, it's "I Sing, You Sing, We All Sing for Choir" contest time. There are more prizes to give away tonight and we'll be working on music to sing for the next few Sundays. Be sure to join us even if you are going to be gone Sunday (since we'll look at music for weeks later).

The altos are ahead right now, but the sopranos gained a little on them last week since they had new members and a lot in attendance. Here's the score as of today.

Sopranos - 1260

Altos - 1470

Men - 1140

See you tonight!!

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!

The "Star" of the Show

It's Wednesday, so as usual I'm here blogging - hoping to inspire the faithful, prod the undecided, and inform the masses of all the exciting things happening through the Worship Ministry of Hilldale.

So...... here we go!

Our drama cast is doing great. Last night's rehearsal showed what a great cast we have. Oh, by the way, I've never official announced here (the choir knows) who the leading man is in our little drama.

He's the former collegiate star of such renown shows as "No, No Nannette",

he's on TV every week, he sings, he acts...

It's funny. I "googled" his name to find a picture and here are some of the ones that came up.

So I added "Dr" in front of his name to narrow down the choices and got this picture.

(You don't get quite so many different people when you google "Lyndel Littleton.")

So I asked around the office and found this picture.

You'll want to be sure and tell all of your friends to check out today's blog, because I have a feeling I may have to delete this post when he gets back from visiting the hospital...

So, in case you haven't figured it out by now - or if you are one of our faithful readers from around the world - the star of this year's Living Christmas Tree is our own wonderful pastor, Dr. Larry D. Robertson.

He and Mrs. Beth, his lovely wife, even sing a duet in the program. I hope you are making plans to attend.

Performances are Dec. 12&13 at 7:00 and Dec. 14 at 3:00. Come early to get a good seat!

This post is not what I had in mind when I started, but I've had fun with where it ended up!

the important things

I'm typing this with just one finger, left-handed. Why? Because Haven and Hannah are asleep on top of me. I think my right arm has lost most of its feeling. I've often had choir members apologize for missing choir when they needed to be with family for one thing or another. I've always assured them and want to emphasize to you now, that it is important to be with family when you need to be. that doesn't mean you need to skip church to watch a football game, but it is important to take care of your parents or children or others when they need you.

I'm not saying that you should schedule a family gathering every Sunday at 10:30 so you don't have to show up for Sunday morning worship, but I do know that there are times when you need to miss a service or a rehearsal or some other happening. The purpose of these church things is to give you opportunity to worship, serve, be discipled or disciple someone else, but you must be careful. Jesus condemned the Pharisees for not taking care of family by saying what they had was dedicated to God.

I'll not keep on preaching. I'm sure you get the point.

So here I am in Oklahoma, wishing I could be at choir, but totally glad I'm not going to be there. With both of my brothers here at Mom's house, I'm soooo glad I'm here. With all three of us in full-time vocational ministry we rarely get to see each other. It has been great spending time with them and their children all week.

When you have those family moments available, please take them. Then be sure to be faithful to choir or teaching your Sunday School class or attending worship or whatever/however you are involved in church. That's important too.

Sorry, no picture. (My niece Alyssa only looks at the pictures.) I'm on my dad's computer.

I'm on my computer now. I found a picture you all need to see. (Alyssa probably won't care.) Pretty amazing! If you've seen posts from the past fews days you'll notice how fast a dramatic the drop in price has been! I sure hope it's doing this in Tennessee!

Commercials

I have a love/hate relationship with commercials. There are some that are so funny that I laugh out loud just thinking about them. There are some that are so annoying that I wouldn't buy anything from the advertiser. For example anything sold by that guy that yells everything. He realllly needs to lay off the caffeine!

Hahahaha! one of the ones I think is so hysterical just came on. Some ladies are in the grocery store talking about all these yummy sounding desserts and one of them mentions Boston cream (creme?) pie and Richard Simmons jumps in, "Boston creme (cream?) pie? No! Ladies, please... I believe in you, on and on...." Hahaha.

Some commercials have been on so long I want to scream when they come on again.And what is a three year old pappion anyway? and what does that have to do with plumbing? I don't even know what the lady is advertising!

Well, at the risk of annoying many, here's my Wednesday commercial.

It's Wednesday! I hope I'll see you in choir tonight!

An Old PSA Made New

When I was a little boy there was a Public Service Announcement that they played all of the time.

It's 10:00. Do you know where your children are?

If you click this link you'll find the history of the phrase and a few jokes that are take offs from this phrase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_you_know_where_your_children_are

So here's my new wording I thought up just for you. Hahaha makes it sound like it's going to be something really clever doesn't it?

It's 6:30 pm on a Wednesday. Do you know where your choir is?

If you live in Clarksville, TN the answer to that is "at the Family Life Center." Come join us tonight. We're going to sing a lot of Christmas music!

Lipstick on a Tenor

There's been a lot of interesting talk lately about lipstick and the difference it makes (or doesn't make).





So I want to ask,





If you put lipstick on a tenor...





hahaha





Well, in our choir, we actually have a tenor who wears lipstick. In fact, she happens to be the tenor section leader - Nadine. Nadine happens to like to sing tenor. Every now and then, I happen to sing soprano - although most people would ask me to please NOT do that.





All of that to remind you of a couple of things.





1. It's Wednesday! Time for choir!


2. We're happy with you just the way you are. If you're a soprano who doesn't wear lipstick or a tenor who does, if you can read the full score of Handel's Messiah or don't have a clue what all those scribbles on the sheet of music mean, if you sing like the angels or simply make a joyful noise, you can have a place of ministry through our music and worship ministry.





Or it could be that you would like to work with the sound or with a camera or work with children or youth in choir. I figure camera men can wear lipstick too. (except for Chuck. I think that would really look bad...)

And on Sundays, EVERYONE should sing - in or out of the choir - as we worship together.

As that wonderful old hymn says, "I sing for I cannot be silent, His love is the theme of my song." So sing whether you wear lipstick or not. (It's all in the vowels anyway, but that's a whole other post.)

SING!!

Say Yes! to Wednesday!

Yes! We're having choir rehearsal this Wednesday!

Yes! We'll sing some songs you love to sing!

Yes! We'll have some new songs to look at!

Yes! We need all of us to be the best we can be!

Yes! YOU are important!

Yes! I want to see you in choir - not only on Wednesdays but also on Sunday mornings!

Yes! Having a choir in worship adds a lot to the singing and the spirit of the service!

Yes! You all are the best!

See you Wednesday!

Wednesdays, Music and Hilldale

Wednesdays are busy (but fun) days in the worship/music ministry of Hilldale Baptist Church.

At 5:30 our Wind and Fire Instrumental Ensemble rehearses on the platform in the Sanctuary/Worship Center. We've talked about playing on most Sunday mornings suring the first set of songs. Just about everyone liked the idea, so I have music ready for us to look at tonight for this Sunday morning. We'll also work on another offertory to play.

Children's Choir at Kids Choral Connection

Children's Choirs meet at 6:00 on Wednesday nights. We have some directors and helpers in our children's area. They are starting on some VBS music (if I remember correctly). The children meet up in the children's area.

Adult choir members at Christmas Retreat

At 6:30 our adult choir meets in the choir room. We have a few leaving choir to go work at the Family Life Center. They will teach at 10:00 and then worship at 11:00. That means I need a few people to take their places in choir here. If you are in the 11:00 service at the FLC you won't have a choir to sing in.

Coming soon on Wednesdays as part of our Worship Ministry will be our puppet ministry. Look for details here on the blog on in Sunday's bulletin.

Wednesday!

Here we are again, cruising through a Tuesday night. My lovely wife, Cheryl, is already asleep and I've grown bored with computer games, the New Hampshire election results are only interesting for so long, so naturally my thoughts have turned to Wednesday and, YEAH, Choir Rehearsal. I LOVE Wednesdays!

I really love the music in Bow the Knee too. If you missed rehearsal last week I hope you can join us tomorrow to hear this beautiful work.

And not only are the songs beautiful, the script is excellent. It looks at the last week of Jesus' life through the eyes of the Centurion - the one who had such great faith. You can read about him here - the story of the Centurion found in Matthew 8

There is all kinds of interesting information in tomorrow night's Inchoirer so be sure and pick up a copy. I'll post most of that info here on Thursday, but it's just not the same as reading it in person with all of your choir friends at 6:30 Wednesday night.

I'll be looking for you then!

A Wednesday without Choir...

... is like Aunt Jemima Pancakes without her syrup.

I hope you all enjoy having tonight off. You all worked hard. You deserve some time off.

My lovely wife Cheryl thought the same thing and surprised me with a trip to Chattanooga. There are some great vacation spots here. You can read about some of our adventures on my Papa Lyndel blog http://www.papalyndel.blogspot.com/

I love Wednesdays!

Do you remember this nursery rhyme?

Monday's child is fair of face.

Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe.

It was that poem that inspired Gomez and Morticia Adams to name their daughter Wednesday.

But Wednesday isn't a day of woe at all. It's a great day!

It's not because the work week is half over and you can see the weekend just around the corner, and it's not because it's "take your kids out to eat for half price at that yummy restaurant across town" day. It's because Wednesday night from 6:30-7:30 is choir rehearsal time! We get to sing, laugh, pray and fellowship together. Wednesday choir rehearsal is the perfect pick-me-up for the middle of the week.

This Wednesday's rehearsal is a very special one because it is my first rehearsal as Hilldale's Worship Pastor. I'm sooooo excited. You all have been so wonderful the last two Sundays singing songs you had barely rehearsed. It will be wonderful to actually spend some time on the songs we will sing Sunday.

I'll be looking for you Wednesday - 6:30 - in the choir room. Bring someone with you.

Bro. Lyndel