ad-ven-ta-geous adj
1. the benefit of fully celebrating Advent
in the quiet joy of this pre-Christmas season of of hope
and expectation
2. the infectious joy of Advent transmitted by direct contact with others
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Beth Nielsen Chapman's HYMNS CD
Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, "Make something beautiful for God." Beth Nielsen Chapman must have been listening when she produced her "Hymns" CD.. Because of B.N.C.'s experience of personal heart-ache that preceded this recording, there's a touching dose of holy sobriety in her delivery. After listening to some snippets on-line, I first bought this for my Mom who is in her 70s. Since I finally bought another copy for myself, it has dominated my car CD player. My 29 year old son, who doesn't know this pre-Vatican II repertoire, absolutely loves it. This is timeless, edifying stuff -- no artificial ingredients. Thank you, Beth. I'm so glad I found your Hymns project.
Cabbie Wisdom for the Artist
It was Friday, May 20, 1994. I can’t remember where I was headed or how much the cab fare was that day in Manhattan, but the pearl of wisdom I received from driver Hoyt Manning is priceless. When he found out I was in the music business he said, “You own the world’s supply of the sound you make.” It’s the simple truths that I find most profound. I said, “Wait! Say that again I need to write that down!” Extremely pleased to oblige he repeated but more emphatically and with space between the words, “You own ... the world’s supply … of the sound … you make.”
The following year Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddleback Church, released “The Purpose Driven Church”. It was required reading by all staff members of the Presbyterian Church of Old Greenwich including PCOG’s music minister – me. (Oddly enough, the book dislodged Catholic notions of “Church” that had lain dormant for many years. But that is another subject.)
Pastor Warren talks about your “S.H.A.P.E. for ministry” which is explained in a course offering at Saddleback’s website:
“You will learn how God can use your Spiritual Gifts, your Heart (passions), your Abilities, your Personality and your Experiences to minister to the needs of others. When you chose to follow Christ, you were given special abilities, known as Spiritual Gifts. God gave you these gifts for you to use to build up His Church. God also gave you passion for particular activities and subject. Having the heart for specific things, people or circumstances is to be used to guide us into a ministry that we really care about.”
The music artist would do well to conduct a serious personal inventory of his/her “S.H.A.P.E. for ministry”. Am I cut out for to minister to youth, the elderly, cross-generationally, in prisons, on the street, Holy Hour, Happy Hour? A friend of mine has been running a pro recording studio for over twenty years, seeing the great, the not-so-hot and everything in between. He is fond of saying, “There will always be greater and lesser.” We do not all have five talents. Some of us have one or two. We are not all endowed like Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion. But we are to employ what we have in service to the Lord and His Kingdom.
As stewards, we have been entrusted with the world’s supply of the sound we make. It’s up to us to seek clarity from the Holy Spirit-- to understand our S.H.A.P.E. for ministry.
The following year Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddleback Church, released “The Purpose Driven Church”. It was required reading by all staff members of the Presbyterian Church of Old Greenwich including PCOG’s music minister – me. (Oddly enough, the book dislodged Catholic notions of “Church” that had lain dormant for many years. But that is another subject.)
Pastor Warren talks about your “S.H.A.P.E. for ministry” which is explained in a course offering at Saddleback’s website:
“You will learn how God can use your Spiritual Gifts, your Heart (passions), your Abilities, your Personality and your Experiences to minister to the needs of others. When you chose to follow Christ, you were given special abilities, known as Spiritual Gifts. God gave you these gifts for you to use to build up His Church. God also gave you passion for particular activities and subject. Having the heart for specific things, people or circumstances is to be used to guide us into a ministry that we really care about.”
The music artist would do well to conduct a serious personal inventory of his/her “S.H.A.P.E. for ministry”. Am I cut out for to minister to youth, the elderly, cross-generationally, in prisons, on the street, Holy Hour, Happy Hour? A friend of mine has been running a pro recording studio for over twenty years, seeing the great, the not-so-hot and everything in between. He is fond of saying, “There will always be greater and lesser.” We do not all have five talents. Some of us have one or two. We are not all endowed like Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion. But we are to employ what we have in service to the Lord and His Kingdom.
As stewards, we have been entrusted with the world’s supply of the sound we make. It’s up to us to seek clarity from the Holy Spirit-- to understand our S.H.A.P.E. for ministry.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Nine Months Until Christmas
MARCH 26, 2007
Today is the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord. It is usually celebrated on March 25 to place it exactly nine months before Christmas Day (as in the nine months of human pregnancy). If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, this is a happy opportunity to hit the pause-button and give thanks for His Incarnation: the awesome fact that God the Son assumed a human nature in order to bring about our redemption in a real human body. The story goes like this:
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. (LUKE 1:26-38)
And it was as Gabriel said. Jesus of Nazareth was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The Son of God became also the Son of Man – two natures united in one Person.
Besides standing in awe of the majesty and the mystery of God there is something very practical (and challenging) that we can learn from the Incarnation: radical humility. As the Apostle Paul wrote:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. (PHILIPPIANS 2: 5-7)
Today make yourself nothing. Make it your high ambition to be nobody, a mere servant, by allowing the power of the Most High to overshadow you as the Blessed Mother did when she said, "May it be to me as you have said." Strive to be the low man on the totem pole. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant”. He knew what He was talking about. The ultimate Something made Himself nothing to give us everything.
And all God's people pray, “Pour forth, we beseech You, O Lord, Your grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ, Your Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His passion and cross be brought to the glory of His resurrection, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Today is the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord. It is usually celebrated on March 25 to place it exactly nine months before Christmas Day (as in the nine months of human pregnancy). If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, this is a happy opportunity to hit the pause-button and give thanks for His Incarnation: the awesome fact that God the Son assumed a human nature in order to bring about our redemption in a real human body. The story goes like this:
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. (LUKE 1:26-38)
And it was as Gabriel said. Jesus of Nazareth was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The Son of God became also the Son of Man – two natures united in one Person.
Besides standing in awe of the majesty and the mystery of God there is something very practical (and challenging) that we can learn from the Incarnation: radical humility. As the Apostle Paul wrote:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. (PHILIPPIANS 2: 5-7)
Today make yourself nothing. Make it your high ambition to be nobody, a mere servant, by allowing the power of the Most High to overshadow you as the Blessed Mother did when she said, "May it be to me as you have said." Strive to be the low man on the totem pole. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant”. He knew what He was talking about. The ultimate Something made Himself nothing to give us everything.
And all God's people pray, “Pour forth, we beseech You, O Lord, Your grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ, Your Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His passion and cross be brought to the glory of His resurrection, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.”
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