He Was Singing Again!

For years I've noticed a young man in our parish attend worship with his mom. Ten years ago, I noticed how joyfully he would sing the hymns along with his mom. Then, as he approached his junior/senior year, he started mumbling. In college, he stopped singing altogether. It was heartbreaking.

This New Year's Eve he was back. Singing. Joyfully. I can only imagine the reasons but I suspect it had to do with the attractive young lady he brought to church with him that evening.

Perhaps he just trying to make a good impression, but people don't sing like that unless they are happy - or professionals (which he is not). I know one skates on thin ice when one tries to read motivations into behaviors, so I won't try to diagnose his heart, but let's just say that it is an example of rejoicing.

I hope that in the future this young man will rejoice not only for the First Article gift of a companion who may be a potential wife, but give thanks and sing for the Gospel.

Whatever his motivation was, I'm glad he found his voice and joined in the Lord's song again. I know the Word dwelled in him richly as he did so. May that song stay in his heart and on his voice all the days of his life.

Who Has Been Good to You?!

We recently attended a concert of a local children's choir, Anima, formerly known as the Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus. It is one of the more famous of such groups around the country, making its mark during its glory years under the directorship of Dr. Doreen Rao. Some of you may have run across music from Dr. Rao's choral series, much of which is quite good. The group continues now under the leadership of Emily Ellsworth.

This may seem off-topic for this blog, but one of the things we share in common is a love for our heritage and a desire to preserve our culture and teach children well. This is primarily, of course, about the heritage we receive as Christians, and so I don't want to confuse the Two Kingdoms here. But as we are "in the world" even as we are not "of it", I think most of you also seek to be preservers of what is good in our national culture as well. Especially where it intersects with our church culture.

One of those selections is the "Johnny Appleseed Grace". I learned it at Camp Lone Star when I was in 8th grade, when I first started going to church. Lutherans love to sing it. We have slightly different versions of the tune in different parts of the country! Most of us refer to it by it's first line, as if it is a hymn: "Oh, the Lord's been good to me." It is one of my younger son's favorite mealtime graces.

Guess what? The Anima chorus sang an arrangement of this Americana standard as their closing number. But they changed the words to "The earth's been good to me." And made the audience sing that line every time. I guess such was to be expected from a group whose 'holiday concert' was themed "Voices from the Earth". Still, if you feel you have to sing something to appease the pagan kids' parents because the choir sang a couple of Christmas carols, why don't you write your own words instead of torquing with someone else's?

This is more than just abusing the lyrics. (What's next: a Gaia version of "Silent Night"?!) It is also about a community arts organization that is supposed to be nurturing cultural literacy - the reason public school allow Chrsitian choral repertoire in the curriculum - changing the core meaning of Johnny Appleseed's famous ode promotes cultural IL-literacy. It reminds me of the politically correct re-imagining of history.

Christians today are like frogs in a big kettle. Every day the world around us becomes more evil. Perversion 'mainstreamed' into our military. "Faith-based" advertisements banned from the Ft. Worth transit system. Shiny new abortuaries built 'proudly' in the middle of our communities.

This Christmas, I long even more for our Lord's return. Yea, I will merrily sing and play as we celeberate the birth of our King, and rejoice in the salvation He came to bring. But we live in a night that is getting deeper and darker every year. "E'en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come."

Happy Walter Day

Actually, today is St. Mark's Day, and I just enjoyed Matins here in St. Malo, Colorado, where I am playing for a Doxology retreat. It was a beautiful service held in the "Church on a Rock" here near Estes Park, a beautiful little RC sanctuary which was made even more beautiful by the sound of 26 Lutheran pastors singing the Lord's song this morning. I must add that it was a special blessing to hear the preaching of Rev. Hal Senkbeil this morning and to pray the liturgy under the leadership of Rev. Shawn Kumm, who chants beautifully.

So what's this about Walter, then? His commemoration was YESTERDAY. But, having been in flight to Colorado, I missed Lutheran Kantor's excellent post on the topic. I tried to comment over there, but for some reason his site is not accepting comments. You can read his Walter Day post here, which includes an inspiring poem by Walter himself.

For your listening enjoyment, you might want to listen to this motet on "Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Thy Word" by Walter, as sung by the small choir assembled for the last BJS National Conference this February.

A New Way of Fasting

This past weekend we had an "E-fast" at Bethany. As a spiritual exercise, we adapted the time-honored practice of fasting from food and instead "fasted" from all electronic devices. The thinking was that people today use electronics more often than they eat, and so an "E-fast" would provide more challenges throughout the day for people to step back from the world and focus instead on Christ and His creation.

To promote doing this together as a church family, we met at 9am on Saturday for a prayer service before heading out into our vocations and enjoying our electronics-free day. About 40 of us attended the service; dozens more participated in the E-fast on their own. Here are the basic rules we sent out to the congregation:

Rules for the 24hr E-fast

“UNPLUG from the world!”

1. There should be no use of the following electronics:

a. Computers

b. Television/DVD/DVR

c. Video games in any form. (Hand held, TV or computer)

d. I-Pods, stereo, radio in home or car, & CDs.

2. There should be no activities with the family that would involve the use of these things such as going to a movie theatre or a gaming place.

3. Phones and cell phones are to be used only in an emergency. There should be no unnecessary phone calls, texting or use of the internet, e-mail or gaming on your cell phone.

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Those were the rules. To help people take full advantage of the blessing of fasting, we offered the following ideas to help people with their devotion. I say "take full advantage" of this opportunity because fasting of all kinds is for our benefit, not to merit any favor before God - just as "the Sabbath was made for man; not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:29).

IDEAS FOR YOUR E-FAST DAY

Spiritual Exercises

* Family Devotion - extend your family devotional time by digging into one of your favorite Bible stories and then discussing together how you fit into the story – and how Christ is at the center.

* Catechism Challenge - review part or all of the Small Catechism and then focus on something you may have forgotten. Re-memorize that part and let it be your meditation throughout the day.

* Family Prayer – extend your prayer time so you can name and give thanks for all the "plugged in" things available to us in this country and in this century. Praise God for richly and daily providing all we need to support this body and life.

* Family Walk - it isn’t necessary to spend all 24 hours in non-stop prayer, but consider taking a Scripture Verse or Catechism Verse to memorize and meditate upon while you walk together as a family. Be open to letting the Spirit lead your conversation and meditation to surprising places!

* Have a Hymn Sing – have everyone in the family pick a favorite hymn and/or a favorite song and let the Word dwell in you richly through song. Start by praying a psalm together. Psalms of praise include 98, 100, 117, 136, 148, 150.

* Meditation - Pray for the Holy Spirit to speak to you through the Word, take a few minutes to clear y our mind, read a chapter from the Bible and allow your mind to go wherever the Word suggests, spend time in prayer over that which comes to mind. It may be confession of sins, prayers for the needs of others, prayers for your own concerns, and thanksgiving. Return to a key Verse from the chapter after your prayers, commit it to your memory, and let it speak to you throughout the day.

We also wanted people to enjoy the temporal blessings of being "unplugged", and so encouraged them to enjoy extra time with their family and friends as well as to spend special time in God's Word. So we came up with a list of activities for unplugged family fun, just to get people thinking about the possibilities of what they might do away from so many modern conveniences

Family Fun

*Wash Family Pet

*Clean Garage or Basement

*Go to the Zoo

*Go to a water park or an amusement Park

*Family Reading Time – read on your own, but also take time to read aloud to one another!

*Board Games

*Puzzles

*Go for a Bike Ride – this could be a chance to meditate on a Verse, too!

*Go the the park

*Have a Picnic

*Make Dinner as a Family

*Clean the House – this can be a surprisingly good time if everyone invests in it fully!

*Play Outside Yard Games (basketball, volleyball, badminton, croquet, baseball, softball)

*Go Golfing

*Remember loved ones (visit the cemetery)

*Pick Up Trash in Your Neighborhood - or even someone else’s neighborhood!

*Go to the Library – remember what we used to read before blogs???

*Look at Family Photos – and share your family history with your children.

This e-fast led into our annual Rally Day activities, which you can read about here. Do at least check out the photos, as the picture of our Johnny Steadfast booth is definitely worth the click!

One of our main themes for this year's Rally Day was to encourage all members of our congregation to find at least one thing to do regularly for the body of Christ at Bethany. The E-fast was intended to give people time to pray about how they might participate in the Lord's ministry through our congregation. Hopefully, the perspectives we got from living a day without electronics gave us time to consider much more than that: how much God wants to participate in our lives, and how we are freed in Christ to enjoy fellowship with Him and with each other.