The Music of Christmas

This past weekend the Choir and Drama teams presented our Christmas program.  What a fantastic job these wonderful people do each year!  I have such a privilege to work with singers and actors who love Christ and long to see Him lifted up.

Notice I purposefully used the word presented rather than performed.  In today's culture, anything put to music is expected to be for the purpose of entertainment.  Entertainment is defined as [a : amusement or diversion provided especially by performers <hired a band to provide entertainment> b : something diverting or engaging: as: a public performance.] We greatly desire to overcome this expectation for music and drama in the church. Our motivation is not to perform but to encourage.  I believe that churches should have a different motivation for the way they use music and drama.  We hope to see music used in the more Biblical practice of encouraging the fellowship of the family of believers - to remind ourselves and one another of the richness we have in Christ Jesus.  On Sunday, in particular, that we would Marvel at the Manger and how Jesus chose to come at the humblest of times in the poorest of places and present Himself to the least of all peoples.

The root word Entertain has a slightly different definition -[a : to keep, hold, or maintain in the mind <I entertain grave doubts about her sincerity> b : to receive and take into consideration.]  That is our goal! - to "maintain in the mind" that Christ is Lord - to "receive and take into consideration" that He Who was born in the manger was and IS the Son of God.  We use music and drama because it helps us in our efforts to "maintain in the mind" and "take into consideration."

The challenge we undertake each year is to remind the body that Christ is the center, not only of Christmas, but of our very lives.  All of us need these constant reminders.  We long to lift Him up through the songs and scripts we present, but we also hope to use those songs and scripts to challenge the church body to lift Him up with their lives - to weave Jesus in to the fabric of their everyday lives.  Accordingly, on Sunday, we ended the morning with a congregational song declaring Jesus to be the Messiah.

Jesus Messiah
by Chris Tomlin | Daniel Carson | Ed Cash | Jesse Reeves

He became sin who knew no sin
That we might become His righteousness
He humbled Himself and carried the cross
Love so amazing love so amazing

His body the bread His blood the wine
Broken and poured out all for love
The whole earth trembled and the veil was torn
Love so amazing love so amazing 

Jesus Messiah Name above all names
Blessed Redeemer Emmanuel
The Rescue for sinners
The Ransom from heaven
Jesus Messiah Lord of all

All our hope is in You
All our hope is in You
All the glory to You God
The Light of the world

Jesus Messiah
Lord of all
The Lord of all
The Lord of all

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Lord of ALL! Lord of the season. Lord of the church.  Lord of our homes.  Lord of our song!  Lord of our friendships.  Lord of my life.  Lord of all we say and do.  He is the Messiah and He is LORD!

Do What Is Good

Every day you live, you can Make A Difference.  Each day holds new opportunities to do good.  Opportunities which are different for each of us and have specifically been designed for us.  In fact, you and I have appointments today with people whose names we do not yet know. And those appointments will call for us to "do good." You're skeptical, I can tell.  If you don't believe me read this... Ephesians 2:10 says "For we are God's masterpiece.  He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planed for us long ago."

We know our time on this earth is brief.  Scripture declares it and we see evidence everyday that life is short.  It would be such a waste to live that life only for ourselves, especially in the light of Eph 2:10. God has made us His masterpiece.  He specifically designed us to do the "good things" and he planned these "good things" long ago explicitly for us.  WOW!

Another verse - This one's a favorite. Galatians 6:9-10 "So let's not get tired of doing what is good.  At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up.  Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone - especially to those in the family of faith." YES! do good to everyone, ESPECIALLY other believers and DON'T EVER STOP doing good.

I believe that all of us want to do good.  But, in a world turned upside down, where evil is declared good and good is deemed offensive, it's difficult to know where to begin.   Do you lack ideas in your personal campaign to do good?  Here are some starters.

Tithe to your church and then give above that.  Find a place to serve within your church and then find a 2nd place to serve.  Go to Bible Study and Worship faithfully, then stay a little longer to encourage others. Too easy?  Scripture does say "especially to those in the family of faith."  We can't just ignore that because it seems obvious.  We are biblical to start with these three things and springboard from them.

Now for the "don't ever stop" part of the Galatians instruction - But lunch for a friend.  Serve the meal at a homeless shelter.  Invite friends over to dinner.  Send someone an encouraging message on facebook.  Send an elderly widow a bouquet of flowers.  Rake your neighbors yard when he is out of town.  Have a Daddy/Daughter date or a Mother/Son date.  Tell someone that Jesus loves them.  Hold the door for a stranger.  Sponsor a child.  Help an elderly shopper with his/her cart.  help a friend with a repair. Tell someone they are doing a great job.  Tell others that you love them.  Make A Difference.

Using Technology to Deepen My Sunday Experience

Each of the last two weeks at FSBC, we have tested out the YouVersion app as a compliment to the worship on Sunday morning. If you haven't heard of this app, it is available on any smart phone or iPad as a free download. It's a new experience for me as I stated, so I thought I could take this opportunity to layout how I intend to make use of our live events, should we continue to provide them. The above pic is from my laptop, but the examples listed below will demonstrate the iPad since that's what I'm using as I follow the sermon. 

Before the pastor begins His sermon, I open the app and search for a live event. Since I have my app set to recognize my location it finds that live events closest to me. There's only one and, of course, it's our live event; FSBC Lawrence. So, I select it and it opens in the drop down bar you see below, on the left.  Each of the scripture texts the pastor is using are in the sidebar but beneath them is a link to turn to that page in my digital YouVersion Bible.  Selecting that link will take me to the corresponding verse in the specific translation being used. 

This shows the drop down with scriptures and outline.

I can close the sidebar and
view the scripture separately.

 You may noticed in the above right picture that there is line in the drop down, highlighted in blue.  It says "Add your notes."  Selecting this takes me to another drop down box where I can add my own notes and thoughts to the Pastor's.  I tend to write tips to myself for later application.  It looks something like this;

I add my own notes to the drop down window.

At the top of the "added notes" box is a place for my email.  I won't enter that until later.  As of right now, our live event is kept open until Saturday.  So I can go back and add more notes later, before sending a completed copy to myself.

Once I vote in the poll I can see the results.

The poll included this week allows me to consider the main reason behind what keeps me from showing more love to those around me.  I pray for Jesus to help me conquer this in my life, so that I  can get down to the business of "Loving Deeper."

After the service, at home, I open the live event again, add a couple more thoughts to the "Add your notes" option and then I email it to myself.  I chose to email it straight to my Evernote account.

I email the notes to my Evernote account

The email includes everything that was in the drop down bar; all scriptures, the outline plus my added notes.  I don't make any changes before I send it.  I can do all that easier once I open it in Evernote.

Here it is. (pulls out the dish prepared before the program)

In Evernote, I select a folder

3 different tags means 3 ways to
find this note at a later date

Once I open it in Evernote, I create a folder called sermon notes and tag it with the themes.  This time it it tagged "love" since the title of the message is "Love Deeper."  Additionally, I tagged it with our pastors name and our series Title.  Now I know I'll have at least three ways of finding my notes later.

After I create the folder and add the tags I decide to make some adjustments for easier reading. I bold the scriptures and italicize the notes I added so the stand out from the rest of the text.  I could delete the poll since now it just appears as text.  But instead, I chose to leave it and create bullet points for the five options.  Looking at those later might remind me of what I still need to overcome.

This is still new to us at FSBC Lawrence.  I may change the way I'm using this tool later on, but for now, I expect this will deepen the impact of the message for me and allow me to think about my action response throughout the week.

Have you tried the YouVersion live event feature?  Do you find yourself coming back to it later in the day?  Do you add your own notes and email yourself?  What do you do with that email afterward?