Recently in Worship Category

There's a song that we sing at our church during Advent Season called "Behold the Star". It's an old spiritual that I found in the African American Heritage Hymnal. We play it with a nice Motown cha-cha groove instead of the more traditional swing.

I like the song, but it doesn't have much to say about the incarnation other than to tell some details about the story. It also has this awkward 3rd verse that doesn't rhyme even though the other verses do rhyme. Today, I thought, why don't I write my own little verse to add to the song a little bit of God's plan of redemption being brought to fruition.

Here's the original text:

Chorus
Behold the star
Behold the star up yonder
Behold the star
It is the star of Bethlehem

1.There was no room found in the inn
It is the star of Bethlehem
For He who was born free from sin
It is the star of Bethlehem

2.The wise men came from the East
It is the star of Bethlehem
To worship Him the Prince of Peace
It is the star of Bethlehem

3.A song broke forth upon the night
It is the star of Bethlehem
Peace on Earth, goodwill to men
It is the star of Bethlehem

Here's a couple of verses that I came up with:

It draws the nations to the Lamb

It is the star of Bethlehem
The King of kings; the great "I AM"
It is the star of Bethlehem

The Father's plan is now revealed
It is the star of Bethlehem
through His Son we can be healed
It is the star of Bethlehem

These two verses are ok, but I'm not entirely satisfied. For one thing, they lack the vibe of a spiritual. They come off a little too Presbyterian if you know what I mean. Spirituals are characterized by a lot of biblical language, symbolism, and themes of trials and promised liberation. My verses have a little too much of a "systematic theology" thing going on.

Help me out. The 2 lines need to be eight syllables long, and they need to rhyme. Give me your ideas and maybe we'll incorporate your verses into what we sing at church.

Here's a cool video. We'll be broke at Christmas this year so you can still give us presents; we'll qualify as "needy."

Here's the website.

One of the occupational quirks of being a church musician is that we have to spend time in September and October listening to Christmas music to be prepared for choir rehearsals to start in November to be ready for December. So if you walk by my office these days, you might hear a lot of yule tide cheer pouring out.

The good thing about it is that it keeps me focused on the incarnation and the immanence of our Emmanuel. The bad thing is that by the time the Advent season rolls around, I'm already getting tired of Christmas music.

This year we're going to sing a spiritual arranged by William Dawson called, "Mary Had A Baby" and we're going to sing an arrangement of "O Holy Night" done by Richard Smallwood. My dad has a ton of excellent original choir songs for Christmas, but I decided not to do one this year because we did "Angel Carol" last year. Maybe I'll do "Child of Bethlehem" with the congregation instead.

I'm also going to try pulling out a few neglected hymns this year. Here's a few that our church doesn't seem to have ever done:
As With Gladness Men of Old
Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne
In the Bleak Mid-Winter
Of the Father's Love Begotten
What do you think?

This week in staff meeting, our pastor shared a concept that helps clear up a lot of issues about ministry time and resource commitment for me. To get the context, first read this story about how Jesus fed the 5000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.

Need Driven
The disciples see all the hungry people, the distance from food sources, the cost of supplying food for all of them, and they come up with a common sense plan: "send them away." In need driven ministry, when we let the 'need' drive how we operate. We look at the huge problems related to being in a fallen, broken society, then look at the limitations of our resources of time, people, money, facilities, or whatever and we despair. With this perspective, we go in one of two directions: either we become slaves to ministry or we become closed off and protective. This can also be viewed as the legalism and licentiousness pendulum. If we are not driven too suicidal exhaustion by a legalistic burden, then we are driven to a self-protective licentiousness that shuts out the cries of those in need. In any case, need driven ministry is the result of a lack of faith in Jesus to be able to deliver on His promises to be the Messiah.

Kingdom Driven
In the story, Jesus graciously looks past the disciples lack of faith. He says, "you feed them." How are they supposed to feed all these people? They don't have the resources. It forces them to look at what they do have, give it to Jesus, and let Him make something miraculous out of it. Does this mean that we spend every penny and commit every second to ministry? By no means! In fact it gives us freedom to say, "Jesus, I don't have enough resources to fix all these problems. You see the needs, you hear my prayers, and you will never fail to keep you Word. So, I give you what I have (my 5 loaves and 2 fishes) and I will trust that you will accomplish your will with it."

As a church musician, how does this apply?
Many times have I looked at our all white band and despaired that I was failing to meet the needs of representing our vision of reconciliation in worship. Sometimes, when I see the lack of leadership in an area, I compensate by adopting the "if you want it done right, you got to do it yourself" mentality even though that extra work sucks time and energy from my family time. Sometimes, I see how impossible it is to cross the cultural gaps between American and African worship traditions, and I just turn my back on pursuing changes. These are the effect of being need driven in my heart. I look at our limitations in skill, time, volunteers, leadership, and diversity and like the disciples I want to say to Jesus, "Lord, we can't do this; it would be easier to do ministry if you would just send them away so we can stick to the basics."

Being a kingdom driven church musician means that I focus on my 5 loaves and 2 fish. Last year, I had 3 2-hour rehearsals every Saturday. I learned that 3 rehearsals is too much for me. I had to say, I don't have 3 rehearsals to give, I only have 2. So I needed to trust that Jesus could take what I have to give and multiply it. For me, this has been a matter of delegation or cancellation. If I can't find people to take the ball and run with a leadership role, then I am going to cut out the ministry and trust that Jesus can do His work without that ministry.

My mantra in this has been, "Lord, it's your church." In other words, Jesus loves people and is more committed to His kingdom then I could ever be. If I see a need, I can lift it up in prayer, give my 5 loaves and 2 fish, and trust that Jesus can supply the rest.

This morning we sang my dad's modern take on Charles Westley's "O For a Thousand". This time, I was particularly struck by the second verse:

The name of Jesus charms our fears

It bids our sorrows cease
It's music in the sinner's ears
It's life and health and peace

I've been afraid a lot lately. Particularly about house shopping. This past Friday night, we put in an offer on a house. Yikes! That was scary. I've also be afraid of my pain lately. I have been afraid that I will lose the ability to play guitar, to play with my kids, and to protect and provide for my family.

This Sunday, we had a documentary film crew in our service at New City Fellowship in South City. They were following a man named Justin who has been worshiping with us who is from the western Congo. The documentary is about victims of trauma. Justin has lost his whole family because of wars.

This Sunday was the return of a familiar sound that many of us have come to miss. A woman in our church named Donna who sings with us in the music team began shouting praise at the end of "Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross." Donna's shouting has not been heard since last Thanksgiving when her 21 year old son, Gary, was murdered.

Life.

Health.

Peace.

Come, Lord Jesus.

So what does this illustrate?
-It's not hard to posture like you have something significant to say without actually saying anything.
-Toddlers have amazing powers of absorbing behavior.

I could write for a long time about the symposium this weekend. There was a lot that happened and a lot of things to think about that I need to process. Instead of spending my precious time here at work doing that, I will just share a few pictures. This is Gabriel. He's from Venezuela, and he was fun to play with this weekend. He has great blues, R&B, and rock chops, so it was a lot of fun to experiment with the 2 guitar sound without just defaulting to the lead/rhythm roles.

Tanya and Chioma came from St Louis as well as our friends, Parker and Nicole, who just moved from St Louis to Athens, GA. We had a great time hanging out with these friends and getting to know them better. It's funny how sometimes you have get out of town with someone in order to get to know them better.

I miss worshiping at NCF Chattanooga. It will always be the standard by which I judge all other experiences because it was the place where I first experienced the joy of worshiping the Lord using my music gifts. However, I came home refreshed and excited about what God is doing here in St Louis. I can't wait to share some of the new songs that we learned there, and I can't wait until the musicians on our team can host a symposium so that they can inspire, encourage, and refresh others.

For a taste of the symposium, you can hear the "Panel Discussion" from Sunday morning in which Michelle Higgins-Loftin, Renae Higgins, Randy Nabors, my dad and I share some off the cuff remarks about crossing cultures, embracing changes, getting out of the box, and keeping people ahead of vision. Listen here on Skip's podcast.

You can also here a board-mix of my song "Rejoice In The Lord" here.