Back to the Tracks

This blog is entitled "On the tracks" because of the picture above, taken near Mount Hermon Conference Center in the Santa Cruz Mountains. There as a child of 5 or so, my heart said yes to the God who had already said yes to me, and the faith in which my parents raised me became my own.

12 days ago I fulfilled a longtime wish and revisited that place with my family. I took a walk on the tracks with ElenaClaire and with Miles.

Before we left I knelt in prayer on those tracks, and only two things tumbled out of my heart: "Thank you" and "Yes". Yes to Christ; to His gospel; to His call and plan for mylife; to whatever the future may hold.

July 25

Having returned from a very nice vacation in California, I've uploaded pics to a drop site for those of you who might enjoy seeing the Lindholtz gang's family pics. There were too many to put on the family pic blog. I just discovered this site from a friend and it's a good way to share stuff. No sign ups, no email requested.

Next week Alicia and Miles head to Cape Cod for a week with her family. I am jealous. But I'll be busy every evening working on the score for a movie.

Sunday, July 13

• I preached at CTK for the first time today. Here's the link to the podcast page.

• Tomorrow morning we're off for 10 days in California. Looking forward to time with all of my family; with some of my friends from High School; and with other friends as well.

• The link is up at Miles' page for SMILES FOR MILES on October 3.

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.