For Unto Us

Isaiah 9:6 "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

(Not pictured here.)

Merry Christmas everybody!!!

Chilly Icebreakers

Spotted this in Reader's Digest -who spotted it in Radar Magazine. These are icebreakers they suggest you avoid.

"I can see you're not one of those shallow people who are super concerned about appearance."
"Out of curiosity, how good are you at protecting yourself against identity theft?"
"Listen, my daughter needs a kidney real bad."
"Ever been to Narnia? It's quite beautiful."

Spotlight On Music Ministry

The controversy that arises from differences of preference when it comes to music style for worship has lovingly been referred to as "Worship Wars" in recent years. This is actually an oxymoron. True worship, true adoration of God -just as the Trinity expresses love one to the other, UNIFIES! It doesn't tear apart.
So, let me let scripture speak for itself.
Phil. 2:1-8 "If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
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. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!"
Phil. 2:14-15 "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe"
Col. 3:12-16 "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."

Our Red Hot Chili Pepper

I've been meaning to put these on here for awhile. This is one of the younger members of our congregation. He is also one of the most popular. His name is Shawn Pallil and folks will do just about anything to get this little guy to smile. Because when he does, as you can see, he lights up the room. Here you'll find him as a laughing pepper, a demure pepper, and, as his mom Jesse says, a choir director pepper. :)

Mid-Week Study

For our mid-week study in December, I'll be doing a series I've titled, "Joy To The World". Throughout His ministry Jesus was constantly inspiring people to worship Him. This actually started at His birth and can be seen all through the Christmas story.
Even before He was born, another unborn baby got excited about Him. Elizabeth, pregnant with John, felt the little guy jump when she first got together with Mary.
Tonight I'll be focusing on John's daddy Zechariah. He went to worship and was then quite surprised when God answered his prayer. You might say he was speechless. But there was mercy even in the midst of his unbelief -as his condition was only temporary. In fact, it give him time to work on a song as he watched Elizabeth's tummy grow. Join us!

Spotlight On Music Ministry

As I mentioned last week, I was educated for music ministry, in a way, through a very unusual occupation. I was a D.J. for a company that provided music for wedding receptions, parties, and fashion shows. I even did a bar mitzvah once.
Here I learned how to work with sound systems, how to lead a crowd, and most importantly, how to involve and motivate all age groups.
My boss taught me that you have to use songs from ALL eras in order to bring the families together on the dance floor. So it was typical for me to segue from Glenn Miller into one of the current songs of the day. You'd usually need to get things from the 50's, 60's and 70's as well. This usually resulted in everyone from the kids to the grandparents staying involved in the celebration.
I was convicted by what I saw at many of these wedding receptions. There was more rejoicing, celebrating and unity there than is usually found in many of our churches. This lead to my Thanksgiving philosophy.
At Thanksgiving, the ideal seating arrangement is not to have the older folks in one room, the kids in another room, the young people in another room, and the middle-aged in yet another room. The whole idea is to be TOGETHER!
This being said, you also need to bloom where you're planted. You probably wouldn't want to lead a lot of wordy Vineyard songs in a house church in China. If your church is made up mostly of young people, you're probably not going to be singing a lot of Gaither songs. For Faith Christian Assembly's 10:30 service, drawing mostly from Leisure World, we won't be doing any David Crowder songs.
However, for our 8:30 service, and wherever you have a fairly good mixture of age groups, you're going to need to learn how to navigate around to different styles of music. Variety is the spice of life. The young need the old and the old need the young. There is something we can learn from each other's expressions of worship.
Once I heard a speaker give a great talk on worship. He ended it by saying, "Now I'd like us to worship." He put on an old tape -and along came some very old songs. The sound quality was terrible and the songs weren't much better. However, I felt God whisper into my spirit, "Focus on what the words are saying." So I started to do just that. It made all the difference and I was able to put my heart into it. We're ripping ourselves -and God -off when we refuse to worship Him because of the style of the music. More on this next week.