Declaring Faith

As Mark and I are preparing worship for Sunday, we wanted to come out of Covenant Pastor Andrew Thompson's "We've Come to Worship", which includes the line "Trading our shame for your holiness", include a short confessional piece, and move into the song "Trading my Sorrows".

Here's the confession component:


Leader: All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own.

People: I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night.

Leader: But You are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become angry, and rich in unfailing love.

People: In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace.

Leader: You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make us rich:

All: Beauty for ashes,a joyous blessing instead of mourning,festive praise instead of despair. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Isaiah 53:6 Psalm 51:3 Nehemiah 9:17 Ephesians 1:7, 2 Corinthians 8:9, 9:15, Isaiah 61:3


(into "Trading my Sorrows")



Then after "Trading my Sorrows", we wanted a brief affirmation of faith that would connect the repetition of "Yes Lord" in the song with biblical truth:



Leader: The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 40:28)

People: Yes, Lord! Amen!

Leader: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. (1 Timothy 1:15)

People: Yes, Lord! Amen!

Leader: He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. (Romans 8:11)

People: Yes, Lord! Amen!

Leader: All of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” ascends to God for his glory.
(2 Cor. 1:20)

(return to song: Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord…)

Monday, July 7

Miles and ElenaClaire are at Camp Rainbow this week. Camp Rainbow is a diabetes day camp experience. Kids like Miles can’t go to overnight camps because of their medical conditions, but Camp Rainbow is fully staffed by medical professionals and volunteers from Texas Medical Center. Miles began when he was only 4, and he has 2 more years before he hits 13, after which he can only go as a Junior counselor. ElenaClaire has been going for years as junior counselor, then as junior medical staff. This year she is the senior medical staff for the 12 and 13 year old group. Even though she’s only finished one year of college, she is the only one in that particular team of volunteers that has been to Camp Rainbow before, and besides that, of course, she’s been helping to care for a diabetic brother for 10 years. I call that the equivalent of a doctoral degree in pediatric diabetic care. (She asked the group of volunteers “Who has ever used a glucometer before?” No hands went up. So she’ll be leading and training a team of newbies.

We’re beginning to “gear up” for our annual JDRF fundraiser, SMILES FOR MILES. Every year we do a poster based on an album cover by a well-known band dear to our hearts. Here’s this year’s poster.

Our trip to California looks like the pieces will fall in place nicely next week. We expect to spend lots of time with family, and also with friends who live in the vicinity, including trying to find the place on the railroad tracks where the picture at the top of this blog was taken.

My last ministry assignment before vacation is to preach here at Christ the King – a privilege I have never been afforded. Not out of lack of confidence; but we have three pastors on staff, plus an accredited Director of Christian Education, all of whom are excellent communicators. There’s rarely a time when one of them is not available. But our Senior Pastor invited me to preach here – I regularly preach on a monthly basis at a struggling little church plant about 10 miles south of us. So it’s a blessing to have this opportunity. (I’ll also be preaching at a Vespers Service the following Sunday at University retirement Community in Davis, where my parents live.)

As I was writing this, a little spider came down on a web not more than 3 inches from my nose. THAT was interesting!

June 27

What’s happening these days in the Evangelical Covenant Church, my ordaining body? Some pretty cool things. Gary Walter, whom I consider a friend, has been elected President, succeeding Glenn Palmberg, who announced his impending retirement last year. Gary takes office on September 1. Glenn was my Superintendent in the North Pacific Conference and was an outstanding leader both there and for the whole Covenant for the past 10 years. Gary has led the Department of Church Growth and Evangelism for most of the past 10 years – a period of exceptional growth and aggressive church planting and intentional planting and adopting of multiracial churches. Under Glenn’s leadership the denomination began a new Department of Compassion, Mercy and Justice, and Gary, in addition to new church development, has brought in a sub-department of church revitalization – going to conflicted churches and helping them find a healthy path to the future – even going so far as to establish a revitalization assessment center to identify pastors gifted to help turn around struggling churches. (Talk about a call I don’t want…)

Meanwhile, I am watching the news from a distance, both geographically and – I struggle to find the right word... Ecclesiastically? No – sounds too hierarchical and theological. I really am a Covenanter at heart – but one who has been deeply touched by being reconnected to the roots of the Covenant in the Lutheran tradition. Relationally? Not really. There’s no relational break between myself and anyone in the Covenant on a personal level, and every time I attend a meeting there are those among the pastors and Superintendents who ask when I will be returning or if I am open to conversations with churches. On the other hand I ache for missing many good friends who serve in the Covenant. Emotionally? Perhaps. Part of my heart is permanently lodged in the Covenant, but an equal part of my heart is lodged in Kingwood and in the friends I have and the church I serve here. If / When I ever should leave here, I will take a confirmed Lutheran daughter and a baptized Lutheran son with me (and if I stay 3 more years, he’ll be confirmed as well). These two parts are often – almost always - at odds with what they hope for and long for. I stay because I love the people and church I am serving, because my family needs the stability, and mostly because God called me here (even if, technically, the church didn't) and God has not at all said “go” nor even given my heart the freedom to seriously consider another ministry assignment.

So, from this distance, I wish the Covenant and it’s new President-elect well, and I say to the retiring President, “Go color outside the lines”. He knows what that means – it refers back to a conversation he had with ElenaClaire when she was 5 years old and had a handful of crayons at the restaurant table. She offered him a crayon and told him it was OK if he didn’t stay inside the lines.

Meanwhile, it has been a restful week of vacation for me after finishing up a most successful run of “Annie Get your Gun” – 4 shows at the Nathaniel Center in Kingwood, and 4 more at the crown jewel of Houston’s downtown theatre District, the Hobby Center. And so life carries on.

Annie Get Your Gun TV Commercial

...and if you just HAVE to see more, I've posted the opening number "THere's no Business like Show Business" and its reprise here.

May ends and June begins

...and that makes it time for days and days of rehearsals preparing for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. We had 4 ½ hours last night and we’ll have about 9 hours on Sunday night. Next week we’ll have Wednesday; tentative Thursday and Friday rehearsals; 8 or 9 hours on Saturday; and then Sunday is load-in day, moving into the Nathaniel Center. The next week we rehearse every night until we open on Friday. 4 shows at Nathaniel and we load out on Sunday. On Monday we load in at the Hobby Center and do 3 nights of rehearsal followed by 4 performances there.

Oh, and did I mention – during that week between Nathaniel and Hobby, I am also directing all the dramatic Bible teaching at VBS? It’s very improvisational and fun, but it’s going to make for a busy week.

Saturday night at the Hobby, June 21, I have 80 friends coming to enjoy the show, as well as my sister, her husband, and Alicia’s sister.

Monday, after the wrap the show, the family is taking a well-earned short vacation to San Antonio. I’ll be off most of the rest of the week.

May 19

This from our Director of Student Ministries:

Tyson Hendrickson is one of the greatest kids I’ve ever worked with. Over the past decade we have stayed in touch as he has been living and working in the San Francisco area. Recently he left his .com position to start his own firm. He wanted his first effort to be more than a website based business, he also wanted to use it for something of which God would approve. He has started a new website. Basically the aim is this

1) Help people use discount coupon codes (those things you always see at the bottom when you order something online. 20% off, free shipping, etc.) when ordering things online.

2) At the same time you provide funding to 3^rd world entrepreneurs. Giving small loans to people to start their own businesses in order to escape the cycle of poverty. This is not charity but low or no interest loans that hopefully get paid back so that they money can be used again and again.

Please check it out. The site only came online today. So any suggestions to how to make it better are welcomed.

http://coupongood.org

Annie Get your Gun is 25 days away from opening. If you’re in the Houston area you don’t want to miss out. Alicia and I have a group of over 30 people coming to the Hobby Center on Saturday, June 21. We spent 7 hours rehearsing yesterday afternoon and evening. I think this is going to be a great show.

JDRF HOUSTON held the annual Gala Fundraiser on Saturday night, in which all four of us volunteered. It was a great evening with over 900 in attendance and 1.2 million raised.

My Commute

Tickets now Available

ANNIE GET YOUR GUN

at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts,

the Crown Jewel of Houston's Theatre District

June 20-22

Hope to see you there!

A Song for Pentecost Sunday

This is set for a tune called "Beach Spring", from the Sacred Harp (1844), the source of many well-loved hymns that feel like "early American" hymns. "Sacred Harp Singing" also goes by the name "Shape Note Singing" because of the unusual notation used:(That's not the melody for this song that's pictured above, just an example of shape notation).

The melody I wrote te text for is set to the text "As we Gather at Your Table" in the Covenant Hymnal: A Worship Book, and has also been used for the text "Come ye Sinners poor and needy". (If it doesn't ring a bell, you can hear a pretty cheesy and slightly fast MIDI arrangement of it here.) I arranged it with block chords in the key of F.

Anyway the idea here was to write a text for Pentecost Sunday that placed the ministry of the Holy Spirit in a biblical context.

Holy Spirit, sent to fill us by the Father and the Son,

You were promised by our Savior, He who died to make us one.

Come and make your home within us; come and claim us as your own,

Come reveal to all your people Jesus reigning on His throne.

Come and teach us how to follow and upon you to rely.

Show to us the face of Jesus, Christ our Savior, born to die.

He came down to dwell among us, with His mighty power to save,

Gave His life for our salvation, and is risen from the grave.

In the faith may we be guided, to the truth may we be led.

Spirit cause us to remember all the words that Jesus said.

May the Love of God our father come to us and never part;

May the beauty of the Savior enter into every heart.

© 2008 Rick Lindholtz

April 27

Chris Forbes has published an e-book called “Facebook for Pastors”, advocating that ministry leaders should be on Facebook. I agree with his premise.

 

I am in the thick of writing a seminar that combines the best parts of “Bringing my World to Christ”, which I taught for 15 years, with “Living a Life with a Mission

By Mike Breen with Bob and Mary Hopkins”. Mike, a mentor of our staff, developed “LifeShapes”, a set of ministry tools that are very useful. The key concept in the “Octagon”, his primary evangelistic teaching tool, is the concept of identifying the “Person of Peace”.

 

April 24

• A case can be made, and in fact has been made, that the Christian faith most Christians profess today — its creedal affirmations — comes from Africa. (read more on Scot's blog.)

• "America may not yet be ready to elect a black President...The fact that Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are both such impressive candidates, intelligent, sincere, articulate and in command of the issues, while John McCain does not qualify on any of these criteria only makes matters worse." (The Times)

• The new Insulin pump promotional brochure arrived yesterday from Accu-Check. It features a DVD with comments from Alicia and Miles, as well as a printed remark from Miles.

• My backyard landscaping project is moving forward.

I went with Vonage

• After fooling around with Magic Jack (which had some pretty cool features but in the end proved too much trouble) I went with Vonage. I had to re-locate a cable line so that it was right with a phone jack, which involved fishing a cable through a wall from up in the attic, but that wasn't hard. Now our phones are set up and it's pretty pleasing. It's fairly easy to set up so that if we ever experience interruption of internet service, calls are sent to one of our cell numbers; we can also set it up to relay calls to one of our phones after a given number of seconds. So it has some flexibility and it saves us 50% over what we were paying. Plus we got 2 free months - double their usual offer. And if you tell them I referred you, we'll both get 2 free months. So if you decide to make the jump, contact me and we'll both benefit.

• I spent most of the late morning and early afternoon doing landscaping in the backyard. I am tired but satisfied.

Stylin'...

We did a review of several numbers from "Annie Get Your Gun" for a group called the Madhatters - who also held a silent auction, the entire proceeds going to Centrestage. That probably brought in enough to pay for the union orchestra. Anyway, here's a snap someone took. There's no Business like Show Business!

in the order of worship this weekend

This text was written out of a desire to set the work of God in creation alongside the completed work of Christ. It is set to a very old song dating back to at least the early 1700s in Scotland, entitled "O Waly Waly". Sarah Brightman recorded a version; James Taylor (among others)recorded it under a more familiar Americanized version entitled "The Water is Wide". Many hymnals contain Hal Hopson's lyric "Though I may speak with bravest fire" set to the same melody.

I see your work, your mighty hand
as breaking waves crash on the sand,
but marvel more, thinking on when
you came, a child in Bethlehem.

I see your work as I arise
and sunrise paints the morning skies,
yet greater still, as from above,
you came to teach us how to love.

I see your work in sunsets fair.
then, lost in wonder, kneel in prayer
when thinking on your bitter loss:
you gave your life upon the cross.

I see your work as through the trees,
the eagle rises on the breeze,
then watch in awe, as from the grave,
you rose, my shattered soul to save.

Just as a sculptor's work of art,
your Spirit works yet in my heart.
I lift my hands for all my days,
and come to offer songs of praise.

© Rick Lindholtz, 2004

Incidentally...

You know, you do this blog thing where you try to write something that is of interest to you. Some are quite focused on topic, like Scot’s or Don’s; other are, as Brad says, “desultory” (“marked by lack of definite plan”). As I noted in the post on lyrics, I started out by posting the kinds of worship resources I was developing – at a time when, frankly, I thought I was entering the job market again.

So it’s just interesting to review the stats and discover that my more desultory posts (about Elephant Painting and Magic Jack) are responsible for the vast majority of traffic in the last 2-3 months. Hundreds of hits about each. Reminds me of when Brad offered an early link to a tsunami video and was getting a tsunami of hits within a few days. Bizarre thing, this…

on voting

I’m not one to wax on politics, but I began having some thoughts back in January and even before, when one heard a lot of the farthest right of evangelical leaders saying things about how they could not support or vote for John McCain for reasons of conscience. I did some thinking on that.

At one point I mentioned to my brother Tom my consideration of the strategy of simply not voting. He pointed out to me that (in my paraphrase) no one has laid down their life for my right to refrain from voting, but plenty have laid down their lives to protect my right to vote; and that further, I am not now, never have been and never will be presented with the option of voting for the perfect candidate; I am presented with selecting the person closest to my values.

As I thought about that I went back to the talk about "voting their conscience", especially this year among the conservative opponents of McCain. And I realized that elections are not and never were about, or designed for, "expressing one's conscience"; they are about selecting an imperfect candidate from a field of two or more imperfect candidates for the office.

The final reflection came as I considered (spurred by a op-ed piece in the Houston Chronicle) that Reagan (whom all self-described conservatives seemed to be looking for this year) was the one who authored the so- called 11th commandment – “thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow republican”...words that many of McCain's critics seemed to have forgotten during the primary season - along with the fact that Reagan himself compromised with the other party on a number of issues both before and during his presidency.

McCain's not the guy I would have chosen from an ideal list of potential candidates, nor from the smaller number of actual candidates who were available on January 1 of this year, whose number were fewer still when the Texas primary occurred. I would not have voted for him in a primary under the best of circumstances, but he'll all but certainly have my vote in November, because for any disagreements I have with him, in my opinion he represents less danger to the long term character of the nation than the candidate of the other party - whomever that will be.

Just a thought. As we used to say on a list I was part of for many years, I got my flameproof jammies on in case I receive some blistering comments.

Jibstay: Bad Lyrics?

Don has a wonderful post about the struggle to address the great worship music that may have lyrical "issues". His test case is "In Christ Alone" (Getty/Townend) , and the line

Til on the cross as Jesus died,
the wrath of God was satisfied.

(He asks other good questions of the text as well.)

For years we've been using the words
"My sin with him was crucified".

I haven't got anything for the "scheme of man" part.

But once a song has entered a congregation's collective memory it's pretty hard to make a change, so we vet songs pretty thoroughly before introducing a new song, and I am usually the de facto text writer if we want a change. In fact my blog was originally started 3 years ago last month, initally just to post the texts, litanies and other worship resources I wrote.

It's a matter of emphasis and priority I think. Wrath language is not totally foreign to scripture, but the emphasis is on grace and love, not wrath.

However, I think the phrase "dumbing down" is unfortunate and offensive (though I did not and do not take offense) - I find it equivalent to and on the flipside of the charge of "intellectual/cultural snobbery".

Those advocating adjustments are not necessarily dumb or removing intellectual vigor from the content of the faith; nor are those preferring the original language necassarily snobs of the intellectual or cultural variety.

In my judgment each side is advocating something I value - on the one hand, making the faith easily understandable and accessible to the exploring mind, and on the other, inviting a deep and stimulating exploration of where the truths of faith can lead.

To those who object to "lyric tampering", I often recall Charles Wesley's Christmas classic, whose original line runs thus:

"Hark, how all the welkin rings: Glory to the newborn King!"

If you've never sung that;
if you prefer "Hark the herald angels sing";
if you don't know what "the welkin" refers to (and you can look it up at merriamwebster.com)
- have you been "dumbed down"?
And if you prefer "Hark the herald angels sing", why is that?

Intellectual snobbery?
"Dumbing down"?
Preference for the familiar (to yourself or to those who will be worshiping or listening)?
In the end, does it really matter?

Thanks Don - good topic.

Indy is coming back next month

Walking to Church

...yesterday morning about 6:40 am. This is what it sounded like.

April 4

• OK, I'm a late bloomer. But we rented "Bee Movie" tonight and I cannot remember the last time I laughed out loud at a cartoon - or any other movie for that matter. This is a brilliantly written and delightful movie. Alicia and I loved it and Miles did too. ElenaClaire wasn't home but she'll love it.



• I've been customizing my PC with MAC features. I realize Apple purists like Steve and Don would be unimpressed. But I've just added a program called RocketDock and I think it's fabulous.







It gives us PC users the groovy little icon dock that rolls like a deck of cards as you mouse over them. It, along with the suggestions found here, have given me a much more satisfying interface desktop. I selected this grassy background, which may or may not be a real Mac wallpaper, but I like it.

• Snopes has ruled that the elephant painting video is real, but that the elephant has been trained to make the drawings and is probably not self-aware as to the significance of the drawing. Which is still pretty amazing. I'll go along with their conclusion, though I won't be surprised if someday this is proven to be a fake.

• Last year the "Madhatters" held an event and all the proceeds went to Houston Grand Opera. This year their chosen beneficiary was CentreStage Theatre School and Company, the group with whom I am doing "Annie Get your Gun" in June. So the principals of Annie went to their luncheon today along with the kids who are performing "101 Dalmatians" and "AristoCats" in May. It was fun to try out a couple numbers before and audience.

• My comments box got spammed by a puff piece about Magic Jack (which spam has now been deleted). I guess someone's job is to look for less-than-glowing reviews and spam the comments with an obviously scripted comment. Whatever "Tim L." is getting paid for doing that, it's probably not enough. Chill, Tim. I think Magic Jack is a pretty good product. It just wasn't the perfect fit for me.

• Drop by and say hi to my friends Paul & Laura Dokken, who are in the final stages of preparation to go to Papua New Guinea as translators. P & L were attenders of the church I served when we lived for all too brief a period of time in Washington state.

• My niece Bekah and her husband Jon, for whom I was blessed to co-officiate at their wedding in November 2005, are on their first real vacation, in Hawaii. Unfortunately their reservations were on ATA airlines, which declared bankruptcy yesterday. So my sister called knowing I had friends in the industry. Well, of course, "buddy passes" are only good where there are vacant seats, and all the other ATA passengers are scrambling to get those vacant seats too. So there aren't going to be many vacant seats. I also learned that if you're flying over water or internationally, buddy passes are only good if there's a family member of the airline employee accompanying you. My firned, the wife of a pilot, said that if there was a good likelihood, she'd fly over and accompany them back. Which was sweet. But then her husband said that the other airlines would be honoring ATA tickets. My guess is they want to increase their slice of the creditor pie so that they'll be more likely to get a piece of the settlement.

Elephant Painting

So the day after April 1 this video hits the morning TV news, and initially I am thinking, come on, hoax. And the clip shown on the news is primarily (after a long shot) mainly the trunk. You never actually see a full shot of the whole elephant while he’s painting a picture of an elephant. And I’m thinking, surely snopes will answer this one. Obviously it’s a hoax. And for the first time in my life I see a snopes page that says “research in progress”. So what do you think?

If it is real, it must be a female elephant. She makes herself look slimmer than she really is.

The Untold Story

Joel Rosenberg wrote “The Last Jihad”, a great work of fiction, and several sequels. Here’s a worthwhile read about muslims converting to faith in Jesus.

What makes a great hymn

By way of Brad, here’s a good and succinct article by David Neff.

What sticks?

Don posted recently, asking "What do we do in the church that sticks? Maybe not like gum on a shoe, but then, maybe so." He went on to recount "a dinner-time discussion with Martha about what we remember "sticking" from our days in our childhood and youth? We both remembered clearly the behaviors and attitudes of the adults around us; parents, teachers and prominent church leaders (for both good and bad). We remembered teaching incidents; while on mission trips, camping, serving, and during times of crises. We remembered learning some skills about reverence, respect, silence, prayer, Bible reading."

Let me tell the story of the single most memorable experiecne I had in Sunday School.
Classes met in various homes because our comparatively new church had no classrooms. This was probably when I was a HS sophomore and the class was in my living room.

Perhaps 12-14 of us settled down when the leader, 10 years older than ourselves, began his prayer which ran roughly as follows. I am numbering the prayer because it was very articulate and I don’t want to take up the space to write it out, but here is where it went:

1. Thank you Lord that you love us.
2. Thank you that you love us so much.
3. Thank you that you love us more than others.
4. That’s because we know you and your word and believe.
5. That makes us so much better than others.
6. We pray for those whose belief is not like ours.
7. We know that you are not pleased with them.
8. We know that we are the only ones who please you.
9. We pray that judge them for their wrongs.
10. We pray that you would pour out your wrath on them.
11. He started listing denominations. I mean, it was really outrageous.

I don’t know how much more was prepared, because I had started getting uncomfortable by abaout point 3, seriously disturbed at about point 5, and by 9 and 10, I thought “This is my house, I can’t let this go on”. So I interrupted the prayer with “Hold, it, hold it, you can’t do this” … which is exactly the response the leader had intended.

While I was the one who’d spoken up, once the disussion started virtually every other kid said they’d had the same feelings of discomfort. The particulars of the ensuing hour are lost to my memory, but what I remember is that by pushing our envelope of comfort with something like that, we were really pressed to articulate what we believed about faith and prayer, etc.

(The leader told me later that writing that prayer was the most fun he’d had in a long time, but delivering it without laughing was next to impossible.)

Wednesday April 1, 2008

• I am recalling April 1, 1978 – thirty years ago today. I was young and stupid and in college. (I’m not young or in college any more). I had finally decided that the long distance relationship that I foolishly considered a viable romance was neither viable nor romantic. It’s a shame I didn’t figure that out before the previous summer, when I spent $1352 for an airplane ticket to South Africa where she lived. Like I said – it was a long distance relationship. She’d long since quit writing to me and my Mom said “You know, there are an awful lot of cute girls at Westmont”. So thirty years ago today I asked one out on a date.

Nobody ever tells you “Listen, this is the woman you will one day marry. You might want to reconsider on this idea of asking her out on April Fools’ Day. Or at least make it something better than going to a Marx Brothers Film Festival. After all, this is going to be the story she tells her children.”

As my beloved has said many times – it sort of set the tone for the whole relationship.

• Google has announced its partnership with Virgin on the Virgle project to establish a thriving colony on Mars. And the Abbeyrd page has revealed a secret clause in the McCartney/Mills divorce agreement which gives Heather a say in forthcoming Beatles reissues. Elsewhere, Pacific Islands Bible College has acquired the University of Southern California. In other news, our senior pastor told the staff this morning that he was preparing to accept a call to a Lutheran Church in Washington. Something about today’s date makes people get very silly.

• Brad (who also authors crazy4Citrus.com) asked me about Magic Jack, about which he and I blogged, and for which I took the plunge and bought one. So Brad and everyone else: here’s the update.

Magic Jack is a device that plugs into your USB port on your computer and gives you free phone service across the US. It costs $20 for the jack itself and $20 a year for the license. It came with a 30 day money back guarantee. I probably should have sent it back but I didn’t. It works as advertised. But the phone number it assigns you may not be local enough to suit you. The software it loads on your computer is pretty invisible, but does not come with an uninstall, and your registry will be difficult to clean up. And of course it connects one phone to that number. In order to get your whole house on that number you have to acquire some additional equipment which I am told can be purchased at your typical Best Buy type store. And of course, if you lose power or internet service or turn your phone off, your phone service is gone as well. Even though the financial savings seems considerable, I suspect if you want to go with VOIP, Vonage might be a better choice – at least until a few bugs get worked out.

March 27

N.T. Wright has a great article about what comes after heaven. There’s been a lot of buzz about the fact that most American Christians thinking that heaven is the end of the story, but as Wright points out, that’s not the biblical end of the story.

 

This is another one of those great videos that assign you to watch for something, and get you to miss something that later seems obvious. Another favorite of mine is the amazing color changing card trick.

 

HEMA is a Dutch department store. Go to their page and wait to see the unique way their product page comes to life.
http://producten.hema.nl/

 

it was AWESOME

It was one of the best shows I've seen in years and probably ranks among my top 10 ever. I've wanted to see John Fogerty since about 1972. He's kept himself and his voice in great form and he plays his own lead guitar licks, surrounded by a hot band of pros.

If you knew anything about this guy's history - not just his Creedence and solo career, but about the heartbreak of his estrangement from his former bandmates and all the legal troubles that made him avoid singing, playing or hearing CCR music, then you could not help but look at this guy onstage and think "He looks so happy, like he's having so much fun". It was a fairly short set of perhaps 100 minutes or so, and Alicia and I (and the guys - Raymond and Dick - and our friend Denise) listened to the last couple songs in one of the Rodeo clubs, watching on screen. Alicia and I danced to the closing number, Proud Mary.

If John comes to your town, it's a good bet you won't be sorry you went to the show.

From the Chronicle:
All John Fogerty needed to kick off his RodeoHouston set was a simple count-off.

No slick videos, booming voices or flashing lights marked his (slightly) early entry Wednesday night inside Reliant Stadium. Just a couple of drumstick hits, and he was onstage.

It was the perfect beginning to his no-frills, all-thrills set, which was anchored by jangly guitar work and his enthusiatic, engaging stage banter.

He introduced several songs with nuggets of trivia. Green River, he said, was an ode to his childhood. And he claimed to have written the simple, effective Who'll Stop The Rain after attending Woodstock.

Fogerty looked great in button-down black, shaking his sandy-blonde hair to the furious strains of kickoff tune Good Golly Miss Molly. He sounded terrific, too, and strapped on a series of colorful guitars throughout his set. Red was switched to yellow, green and black, among other colors.

With such a wealth of material to choose from, Fogerty managed a savvy balance of solo hits and Creedence Clearwater Revival classics. The clap-clap arrangement of Centerfield kept the energy up, as did the powerful strains of Up Around The Bend and Keep On Chooglin', which turned into a searing showcase for the entire band.

CCR's Lookin' Out My Backdoor sent bristles of excitement through the crowd. And the mood turned bluesy, sly and downright sexy during Born On The Bayou and Midnight Special.
Forgerty donned a cowboy hat during the nostalgic strains of Broken Down Cowboy, a tribute to "those bad ol' days" that he said ranks among his favorite songs.

Heads bopped and hips swayed to the yearning chorus of Have You Ever Seen The Rain. Not tonight, the crowd seemed to say. Just a few welcome bolts of real rock electricty.

March 12

David Mamet writes in the Village Voice, “Why I am no longer a Brain-Dead Liberal”. Good, thoughtful stuff. (No he's not saying you are brain-dead; he's saying he was.)

Another wonderful song by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend who wrote “Speak O Lord” and “In Christ Alone”. This one’s called “The Power of the Cross”.

Oh, to see the dawn of the darkest day:
Christ on the road to Calvary.
Tried by sinful men, torn and beaten, then
Nailed to a cross of wood

Chorus
This, the pow'r of the cross:
Christ became sin for us.
Took the blame, bore the wrath,
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Oh, to see the pain written on Your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Ev'ry bitter thought, ev'ry evil deed
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

Chorus

Now the daylight flees, now the ground beneath
quakes, as its maker bows His head.
Curtain torn in two, dead are raised to life.
“Finished!” the vict'ry cry.

Chorus

Oh, to see my name written in the wounds,
for through Your suff'ring, I am free.
Death is crushed to death, life is mine to live,
won through Your selfless love.

Chorus
This the pow'r of the cross:
Son of God, slain for us.
What a love, what a cost,
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Here’s a recording from last Sunday at the end of communion - a little bit of clipping in the recording, not the greatest mix I admit, but it gives the feel. We’re using it again on Easter morning which may seem strange – but since a lot of our attenders will not have been to Good Friday services, we want to re-introduce what came before Easter so that Joy can prevail. In preparation for that moment I have been crafting a combination and Powerpoint and film to lend impact to the song.

Gotta Go – John Fogerty’s playing at the Rodeo tonight!

March 6

• We’re excited about going to see Hello Dolly this evening in the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts – the same facility where we’ll be doing ANNIE GET YOUR GUN in June (but not the same stage – we’ll be appearing on the smaller of the two stages in the Hobby Center). Leslie Uggams takes the lead in “Dolly” tonight.

• These Guys Here are playing tomorrow night at Berryhill Baja Grill in Kingwood. I hope my new Marshall Amp gets here so I can quit borrowing Adam’s.

• We’re excited about seeing John Fogerty next week at the Rodeo.

• We’re looking forward to our annual family day at the Rodeo a week from Saturday.

• Rehearsals for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN are well under way and going great.

• Slate has a delegate calculator that’s fun to play with. Hillary needs to average 62% of the remaining primaries to take the lead, and even then she’ll need at least 419 superdelegates. Barak OTOH needs to average 39% of the remaining primaries and 417 superdelegates.

Scot's Hermeneutics Quiz

Scot McKnight has a Hermeneutics Quiz - "designed to clarify how you understand the Bible and how you apply it. Some people will quibble with the categories in the quiz or insist on more than one answer. That’s okay. No test like this can reveal all the nuances needed, but broad answers are sufficient to benefit from taking the quiz."

I took it and came up with a score of 64, "moderate". (Thanks for the tip Brad, a nearly identical 62 .... no surprise there.) I read Scot's Blog almost daily, but as Scot says, Fridays are for friends, and for me, Friday's my day off - I rarely get to my reading as early in the day. Fridays are for Family and relaxation - and sometimes, for household tasks.

Wednesday

Randy Stonehill says this so well:

" I knew Larry Norman perhaps better than anyone, yet to this day I'm not sure that I really understood him completely. For as brilliant and insightful as Larry was, I'm not sure that he understood himself completely. This issue became apparent in the way he consistently seemed to "derail" relationships through out his life. Larry is the man who introduced me to Jesus. He led me to the door of eternal life, and for that singular priceless gift I am eternally in his debt.

In my relationship with Larry, I experienced the beauty of brotherhood, the richness of creative collaboration, the mystery of human brokenness, and ultimately the overshadowing wings of God's all encompassing grace.

After 20 years of friction and distance between us that began around 1980, Larry and I realized that what united us in Christ was far greater than what had separated us in our personal frailty and pride. We worked together on the re-issue of the "Welcome to Paradise" recording and talked and laughed together over the phone from our respective homes in Seal Beach California and Salem Oregon.

We stood together onstage for what would be the last time at the Cornerstone Festival in July of 2001 and it felt to me like being home. Then he "disappeared" into the mist. I wrote it off to the busy pace of life and his consuming health problems but I still couldn't help but scratch my chin and wonder.

He graciously agreed to sing with me on my song, "We Were All So Young", for the "Edge of The World" project in 2003. We accomplished that performance process long distance through computer technology. Then he was silent again. I had hoped that in these last years we might continue to build on our recent reconciliation and even get together for some song writing and recording, sharing what we had learned about life and about our craft to offer something better than ever to the world.

Death is so final..We are out of time, at least in this life. No more conversations, No more plans, No more songs. It's a strange sorrow that leaves you feeling hollow, like someone knocked the wind out of you. The light of hope, however, that lifts my spirit is the knowledge that Larry's profound contribution to the work of God's Kingdom is eternal and that his struggles with his own demons is over."

-Randy Stonehill February 25, 2008

And John Fischer, another of the first generation of what's now called CCM, opines:

The Outlaw
Wednesday, February, 27, 2008
Some say he was an outlaw, that he roamed across the land,With a band of unschooled ruffians and few old fishermen,No one knew just where he came from, or exactly what he'd done,But they said it must be something bad that kept him on the run.

Some say he was the Son of God, a man above all men--That he came to be a servant and to set us free from sin,And that's who I believe he is, cause that's what I believe;And I think we should get ready, cause it's time for us to leave.- Larry Norman

Well, maybe not time for all of us, but most certainly time for Larry to leave. He's already gone, in fact. He left this earth last Sunday morning at 2:45 a.m., and the world has lost a prophet. There are undoubtedly those who would challenge me on that last statement, but I will not recant. Sure he had enemies among his friends, and he created much of that. He was an enigma -- an iconoclast. He could be so far off you wondered if he was only visiting this planet, but he could be so on the mark that you could only credit the truth and light of the Holy Spirit for it. Indeed, the first verse of his song "Outlaw," quoted above, could have as easily been written about him. No one knew where he came from, but many wished he would go back to wherever that was. He was an outlaw to everything established, and for that he embodied the renegade nature of Christ's first coming.

When you think of it, a guy with shoulder-length blond hair who sang about "sipping whiskey from a paper cup," "gonorrhea on Valentines Day and you're still looking for the perfect lay," and "shooting junk till your half insane," is probably not going to go over very well with the 11 o'clock Sunday morning worship crowd, especially 35 years ago. But then again, he wasn't speaking to those folks anyway. And to his credit, he never adjusted, like the rest of us did, to the Christian culture that grew out of the movement he helped found. He never compromised for a living. He stayed an outlaw until his death.

For these, and other reasons, I have always likened Larry to John the Baptist -- a non-conformist living in the desert wearing funny clothes, eating weird foods and hearing voices no one else heard. After having the dubious distinction of being the one to baptize Jesus and prepare the way of the Lord, John lost his head for sticking his neck into King Herod's private life. Larry stuck his neck out lots of places where people didn't think it belonged. It's a wonder he hadn't lost his head sooner.

In a time of spiritual revolution, Larry Norman carried the torch. He was and will remain through his enigmatic music, a voice crying in the wilderness. I celebrate Larry's final one-way trip to heaven, and if I know him well enough, I would guess he would want us all to make sure we were ready to leave ourselves.One way, one way to Heaven, hold up high your hand.Follow, free and forgiven, Children of the Lamb.

February 25

Brad’s blog made me aware of yesterday’s death of Larry Norman, the “godfather’ of Christian rock music back in the 70s. I remember a great fondness for Larry when I was in high school, buying the LP pictured here and seeing Larry in concert in Sacramento in 1972 – little realizing that simultaneously, down in Dallas, a family of 7 kids were likewise loving Larry. I wound up marrying the youngest of them. We remember you with fondness and sadness today, Larry. Go in peace.

Yesterday we went to Maggiano’s Little Italy for an early celebration of my birthday next Sunday (when EC will be working and unavailable). I learned some 5 years ago that the most enjoyable way to order in restaurants is to let the server select my meal and not tell me what it will be until it arrives. I’ve never been disappointed, and yesterday was no exception.

Time Freezes at Grand Central

Here's a video about one of the coolest "happenings" I have ever seen. The actor in me loves this.

"Speak O Lord"

At tonight’s Wednesday evening Lenten service we are singing Keith Getty and Stuart Townend’s “Speak, O Lord”. These guys (who previously wrote “In Christ Alone (my hope is found)” have a calling to write new worship music that works in the world of hymns, but I find that it also speaks powerfully to those who prefer the more typical contemporary fare. The lyric quality is very high – I note especially in v2, line 7, “Your majestic love and authority” – the typical praise and worship stuff, good as I think some of it is, rarely turns at that point of the song to remind us of the authority of God in our lives. The melody is superb. I’m looking forward to leading this tonight.

Speak O Lord as we come to You
To receive the food of Your holy word
Take Your truth plant it deep in us
Shape and fashion us in Your likeness
That the light of Christ might be seen today
In our acts of love and our deeds of faith
Speak O Lord and fulfill in us
All Your purposes for Your glory

Verse 2
Teach us Lord full obedience
Holy reverence true humility
Test our thoughts and our attitudes
In the radiance of Your purity
Cause our faith to rise
Cause our eyes to see
Your majestic love and authority
Words of power that can never fail
Let their truth prevail over unbelief

Verse 3
Speak O Lord and renew our minds
Help us grasp the heights of Your plans for us
Truths unchanged from the dawn of time
That will echo down through eternity
And by grace we'll stand on Your promises
And by faith we'll walk as You walk with us
Speak O Lord till Your church is built
And the earth is filled with Your glory

© 2005 Thank You Music

The Big Story

Brad posted a link to a piece about whether the Bridge illustration has lived out its effective usefulness. I am really attracted to James Choung’s The Big Story, a simple 3 minute explanation of the gospel, which I found referenced on the comments page and then pursued by Googling James' name. (See also his follow up, Big Story Part 2, and this pdf explanation). Both Big Story links will take you to his website where you’ll find a really good 3 minute video summary. This is creative thinking.

A confession for Ash Wednesday

Note: I have written this for 2 or more leaders so that each leader begins reading almost before the previous reader is finished, so that a) it moves quickly and b) one gets the feel of a piling-up, an accumulation of sin – and increasingly so as the reading progresses.

Leader 1: God spoke all these words: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
Leader 2: "You shall have no other gods before me.

People: God – Lord and father –
We have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

(Sung) Jesus, I've forgotten the words that You have spoken
Promises that burned within my heart have now grown dim
With a doubting heart I follow the paths of earthly wisdom
Forgive me for my unbelief, Renew the fire again
Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy on me
Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy on me

Leader 3: "You shall not make an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below, nor bow down to them or worship them.
Leader 1 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God.
Leader 2 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

People Wash me clean from my guilt.Purify me from my sin.
For I recognize my rebellion;it haunts me day and night.
You're the One I've violated,
and you've seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil. You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair. I've been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born. What you're after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

Psalm 51:2-3 (NLT), 4-6 (MSG)


(Sung) I have built an altar where I worship things of men
I have taken journeys that have drawn me far from You
Now I am returning to Your mercies ever flowing
Pardon my transgressions Help me love You again
Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy on me
Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy on me

Leader 3 "Honor your father and your mother.
Leader 1 "You shall not murder.
Leader 2 "You shall not commit adultery.
Leader 3 "You shall not steal.
Leader 1 "You shall not give false testimony.
Leader 2 "You shall not covet.

People I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.
I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t.
I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;test me and know my anxious thoughts.Point out anything in me that offends you,and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Romans 7:18-19, Psalm 139:23,24 (NLT)

(Sung) I have longed to know You and all Your tender mercies
Like a river of forgiveness ever flowing without end
So I bow my heart before You in the goodness of Your presence
Your grace forever shining Like a beacon in the night
Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy on me
Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy on me

Leader 3 If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
Leader 1 He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.
Leader 2 Once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!

1 John 1:9; Psalm 103:12; Eph 5:8 (NLT)

Magic Jack

Brad tipped me to Magic Jack and I could not resist trying it out. It's a device about the size of a silver cigarette lighter, with a USB port on one end and a phone jack on the other end. Plug your regular landline phone into one end and connect to your computer using the other end. In about 3 minutes you can make free phone calls to anywhere in the US - to landline or cell phones. I called between our house and cell phones just as a quick check, then took it on a test drive, calling my brother Tom in Sacramento. Sound quality was good.

The device costs $20 and a one year license costs $20. If you take 5 minutes and do an online chat with a live tech help, you might be offered a $2 off code, as I was. The package came on Friday, after placing my order on Wednesday. There is a 30 day money back guarantee, which I will utilize if the first month doesn't go as I hoped.

At present there do not appear to be a vast number of area codes available, but as they expand they will offer a chance to reselect a phone number. There is no chance to change to your existing number. I have not yet determined whether the number I received in my area code actually is a local number if called from my house or church.

Magic Jack registration includes 911 sign up, so that in theory it will be safe in that regard. My only as yet unanswered questions have to do with connecting more than one phone. Apparently there are devices that can be bought at Best Buy or similar places, that carry phone line info over your electrical system, so that you can set one of those up, then plug any phone into a companion device that is plugged into an electrical outlet. With that, I'd be able to use 2 phones in my house. That device may cost me another $50-60. If it works as the tech guy said it would, I think we'll spring for it and say goodbye to our landline.

Will this replace my $50 a month Embarq account? If it does it will save me a lot of money.

January 23

• Faith, Hope and Pixie Dust: Disney Profits by returning to its Roots.

• Barna Reports on the Social and Moral Concerns of America as the election year rolls on.

• Please pray for our friend Janine, whose husband died last month. It continues to be a rough road for her and her children. Her blog will fill you in on details.

Rehearsals began last night for "Annie Get Your Gun", which will play for 2 weekends. The first weekend is April 4-6 at the Nathaniel Center in Kingwood. The second weekend is June 20-22 in the Hobby Center, which is the crown jewel of Houston's downtown Theatre District. I'll be in the featured role of Charlie Davenport, general manager of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. It's the role I hoped for after reviewing the options, so I am pleased.

I was sad to hear that John Stewart died this weekend, of a massive stroke. For me, before there were the Beatles, there was the Kingston Trio, whose music goes back so far in my memory, it was nearly pre-verbal. OF course John didn't join the group until later, after Dave Guard left, but he was a perfect fit to continue the trajectory of the band. He was a great songwriter; I'm humming "Chilly Winds" even though most people would recognize "Daydream Believer" better. Though John's death is sad, he had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and I am glad he was spared the ravages of that degenerative disease.

A Confession: We Neglect Your Power

God, Forgive us.
Lord Jesus, have mercy on us.
Holy Spirit, help us.
We have neglected you.
We believe in You, and in the truth of Your Word -

But in our day to day lives,
We doubt that You really have power to offer us-
Power that can make a difference in our lives
Or the lives of those around us.
We lean on our own strength, which is no strength at all.

We cry out to You:
Convince us anew
That You are here, always with us
Strong and powerful, Mighty to save us,
Faithful and able to complete the work You’ve begun in us.
Bring us to a new depth of knowing and experiencing
Your power for our lives. Amen.

A Sad Day

Here at CTK we are experiencing a deep sense of loss. A very fine man of God was taken to be with His Lord very suddenly.

Jim Eggers suffered what I understand was a tear in the aorta. He was life flighted to the hospital where he stabilized enough to begin surgery, but in the early hours of this morning the surgeon's efforts concluded. Jim crossed the finish line.

We know he is with his Lord, but he leaves a wife and 6 children ranging in age from 13 to 23. This causes me such grief.

I doubt that Jim ever had a hint of how much I admired and respected him.

December 6

ElenaClaire lost the hearing in her right ear - apparently due to nerve damage and apparently permanent. In a hearing test they were sending signal to the ear and she said she could feel the vibration so she figured they were sending signal, but she heard nothing. That was 110 decibels.

They did an MRI and found that there was no mass pressing on the nerve causing the loss - this was what we expected but was a relief nonetheless. She will continue to see a Dr., now an otologist, until he says there is no further benefit. At this point there is an unlikely possibility that the otologist might detect something that might restore functioning. In the meantime college and work as a pharmacy tech is going well for her.

Miles is continuing incremental improvement both physically and emotionally. He was in the 5th grade's performance of "The Nutcracker" and did a great job. On Dec. 19 he will be a featured player in the church Christmas program.

This weekend is the church Cantata, this year a self-selected set of songs with a narration script I composed. Alicia will narrate. Our title song is Chris Tomlin's "Glory in the Highest".

I am toying with auditioning next month for "Annie Get your Gun".

and life rolls onward...

Long-Overdue Update

Blogging has taken a back seat to other concerns of late. Let me bring you up todate.

Miles is showing signs of incremental improvement. He is on two medications for clinical depression. Since a test revealed normal gastric emptying we are operating on the assumption that gastroparesis is not the pressing G/I problem. His doctor ran out of ideas and so referred us to a colleague who decided to assume that eosinophilic duodenitis was at fault and started Miles on a medication that can help with that.

Meanwhile Miles had missed so much school that the state of Texas was (ill-advisedly) sending us boilerplate letters that inform us of heavy fines and/or prosecuting charges against us. We negotiated with the school a 3 week period in which Miles would arrive an hour later and leave an hour early, but would attend every day, no matter what his health was like. And, surprise, surprise, he actually made it to school almost every day for the past 5 weeks now.

ElenaClaire had been preparing for her first open water dive in a scuba class but was unable to do it because of a cold that turned into an inner ear infection, outer ear infection, and bronchitis. She was on several oral and injected antibiotics, several oral and injected steroids, topical treatments for the ear, nebulizer breathing treatments etc. Her health improved but the hearing in her rigth ear did not. Last week we learned that the 100% hearing loss in her right ear is probably permanent and due to nerve damage. She is still on steroids and will have an MRI to make sure nothing is pressing against the nerve but the news has been a great discouragement to her.

Smiles for Miles/Miles for Miles raised a grand total of $9,000 this year.

Alicia and I are doing well but struggling to keep our heads above water in all the stressors of our lives.

Ministry continues to go well at CTK. We have begun mentoring a small church plant who are presently without a pastor after their planting pastor left (after only 2-3 years) and part of what that means is that several of us are preaching there. We provide preaching 3 Sundays out of 4 for them. I preached on November 4 (reprising the Lost Sheep/Lost Coin piece and video, plus additional material) and am scheduled there once a month. In December I will preach at the 9:40 service at CTK. That's the weekend of the Cantata, which is presented Saturday night and at the 8:20 and 11:00 services, and for which I am writing the script.