Preparing for Sunday, New Year's Day, 1/1/11 (Guest Post by Tim Plaster)

Jenny and I are out on the East Coast this Sunday visiting her family. Tim Plaster joyfully took over responsibilities for music this week, and wrote a guest-post for the blog for all of ya'll! Here he is.

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I always look forward to dusting off my Christmas MP3s and teaching some great Christmas hymns to my guitar students. The 3/4 and 6/8 time signatures, the reminder of what God has done for us by sending His Son, and the lyrics that teach us something new each year, really get me going.

For the last three years, Kate and I have seen a band called Future of Forestry play at Cornerstone church. They're a Christian band, and they have two Christmas CDs that they've released. An old friend of mine, Sarah Rollins, posted on her Facebook a few years back that she was going to see Future of Forestry, so we thought we'd give it a shot.

We ended up really enjoying the show, and bought a few of their Christmas MP3s that we love. They take the good old Christmas songs, and what they tell us at the show is that they slow down the songs. Not too much, just enough to help us realize what we're singing. I remember thinking that that's one of the things we are supposed to do when we sing songs to and about God, simply learn from them.

So each year I spend some time playing some of their songs on my guitar. When Josh asked me to play this week, he told me that I can do a Christmas song if I wanted to, even though Christmas has passed.

I didn't hesitate to choose the song What Child is This, a great song about Jesus as a baby from a different perspective.

Another song that I've been wanting to do lead for a long time is How Great Thou Art. I heard this version by Charlie Hall a few years ago I really top my attention. It's upbeat, and maintains the melody of the song. The third verse will sing, I love:

And when I think that God his son not sparing
Send him to die I scarce can take it in
That on the cross my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Each time I've lead worship in the main service over the past few months, we've sung 10,000 Reasons, by Matt Redman. What an amazing melody and some strong words that we can sing to our God to start our worship time on Sunday morning. There's a great pause in the rhythm in the middle of each verse, that makes you stop and think about the words that you're singing. Rich and Johnny do a great job with this pause on the percussion in the middle of each verse.

One thing that I love about teaching guitar is that I get to learn new songs that my students bring me. I use songs to teach corns and different techniques. The student showed me a song for a few weeks ago by Hillsong, song by Brooke Fraser, called His Glory Appears. Another name for this song is Age to Age. It only has one person one chorus, but it's very powerful and nice and slow... so you can take it all in.

I look forward to my time this week worshiping God with all of you. I give thanks to God for the opportunity to lead when I can. Have a great rest of the week, I'll see you on Sunday.

Preparing for Christmas Eve, 12/24/11

Well, last week ended up pretty busy and I didn't get a blog post up, what with school wrapping up for the holidays, among other things. But here we go - we're into the home stretch in our Advent celebration as a church body.

I hope you're planning on being a part of corporate worship Christmas eve, and Christmas morning. It absolutely might clash with our family "plans" to gather to worship as a church Christmas morning; but if we really believe that Christmas is all about Jesus, then what a great opportunity to have a regularly scheduled church gathering fall on Christmas day. You can also think about it this way: this year is also an interesting test of what you and I value most in our families. We'll surely choose to spend our time Christmas morning doing whatever is most sacred to us. If you have a chance, Zac Hicks, a worship and music director I respect very much, wrote a great blog post here. He has some great challenges for us as we think through the decision of whether or not to participate in corporate worship Christmas morning. We can't be legalistic either way on the decision, and if you miss, I hope it's for good reasons. But hopefully we'll see you there.

All that to say, Christmas eve will be a relatively short, hour-long gathering. Jordan will preach briefly from John 1, and I can't think of a better passage for a Christmas worship-time. God's Word became flesh; the light of God came to dwell with men, and the darkness did not overcome it; Christ brought light and life into our sin-darkened world, and all of us who believe in Christ are given the right to become children of God through Jesus.

The Order of Service

We'll sing together about this theme of God's Son taking on flesh and coming to dwell among us, to save us from our sin. The following is a brief explanation of our Christmas Eve gathering. The way we order a gathering often says as much about what we're doing as the actual content of songs we choose, so this year we're trying to be purposeful in reflecting what Christmas is all about in the song order.

Here's the thought-process of the night: we'll start off the service in a minor key, congregational sing of the first verse and chorus of "O Come O Come Emmanuel." With this song we express the longing of God's people for a Savior, that was promised by God from the time of man's first fall into sin.

Then we'll drop out of the minor key into "Angels We Have Heard On High" as a response, sounding the word with the angels that the Savior has come at last. The chorus sings, "Gloria, in excelsis Deo," which is Latin for "Glory to God in the highest." In the first 2 songs we express the longing of God's people, and God's gracious response.

We'll continue to work our way deeper into who Christ is, and what His incarnation really means, singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" just before Jordan preaches, and concluding the night with "Joy to the World." The goal of of the whole night is to present Christ as clearly as possible, and move systematically through a reflection on the glory of Christmas. Again, the themes in our songs will go from longing for salvation, to completion of it in Jesus Christ.

There will be a few more songs in between, with a possible appearance by the kids' choir, and you just have to come Saturday night to find out about everything. The service starts at 5:00 PM on Christmas Eve. Hope to see you there!

Preparing for Sunday, 12/11/11 (Advent)

This is our 1 & 2 Samuel Recap Sunday. Jordan will be preaching, pulling together all we've learned about what God shows us about Himself in the lives of David and Saul. Jordan will be focusing on 2 Samuel 7, and the covenant God made with David and David's line, which absolutely affects our celebration of Christmas and Advent as a church. God has made a covenant to set His love on His people. And we have assurance of God's covenant love for us because He didn't even spare His own Son to provide forgiveness for our sin. We are God's blood-bought, adopted children, and we gather during the Advent season to reflect on Christ's incarnation, and long together for Christ's second return.

We'll sing the following carols this week. Make sure you're there to be a part of our Christmas worship. And be ready to sing loud and well!

1. Joy to the World (Unspeakable Joy)

A fresh, but not too different arrangement of the hymn by Isaac Watts, originally written in 1719. This is a great hymn that bridges the fulfilled prophesies from Isaiah about the coming Messiah, with the ultimate completion of Christ's lordship at His second coming. The song speaks of the governmental, worldwide peace that Christ will bring, that we still look ahead to with hope and expectation. The chorus of this one express the "unspeakable joy" we have because God has kept His promises and provided a Savior for His people.

2. The First Noel

"The First Noel" is a favorite of our church, a traditional English carol, that we'll also play in a "fresh" arrangement. Little known factoid: "noel" is a French word for "Christmas." This is a song of worship and reflection on the first Christmas, when our King was born in Bethlehem.

3. O Holy Night

This one's a French carol, written in 1847. I really don't know of a better song that combines reflection and meditation, celebration and praise, than this one. The combination between melody and poetry is pretty amazing. This song speaks of Christ, our Lord, deserving of eternal praise, coming to dwell with us and break our chains of sin. We'd better sing this one with gusto.

For an extra treat, here's another version of "O Holy Night" by David Phelps. This version is one-of-a-kind. You have to skip the interview, to 1:28, where the song starts.

What is Advent? Why & How Should You Observe It?

Go here to read a great post by Kristen Gilles, about the Advent season and why it's such a great observance for the Church to participate in. Kristen and Bobby Gilles are part of Sojourn church, which includes more liturgy in their gatherings than our church does. But our church will be focusing more intentionally on the Advent season among other things, this year and in the future.

Here's how Gilles defines "Advent:"
This season of Advent is a re-enactment of Israel’s wait for the birth of their Messiah, and a symbol of our longing for Christ’s return.

Read this post to help prepare yourself for corporate worship on Sundays this month, but also to help you focus your individual devotions during the Christmas season, and for your family as you observe Advent at home with your spouse and kids.

Keep checking back for more on Advent!

Preparing for Sunday, 12/4/11: Advent

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent (the countdown of the 4 Sundays before Christmas), but this week we're kicking off December with all Christmas worship. I'm super excited. Make sure you don't miss any of the singing this month if you can help it, since we don't always get to sing these songs together. Advent/Christmas hymns are some of the most rich and most beautiful ever written, and we'll be hitting these pretty hard each week. Think and prepare your heart ahead of time, to come on Sunday morning and sing together. This is a wonderful, sacred season for the Church. Let's make the most of it.

This week, Jordan is preaching from 2 Samuel 14, and we'll sing the following songs:

1. O Come All Ye Faithful
This song is a call to worship, for all the "citizens of Heaven" to raise a mighty chorus of praise to God for the Gospel. I love the last verse, that says, "Jesus, to Thee be all glory giv'n/Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing/O come let us adore Him!" This theme of adoring Christ and treasuring our Messiah above anything else, is really the theme of Advent.

2. Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
A classic Christmas hymn, written by Charles Wesley, that speaks of the glory of the coming of Christ, in answer to the long waiting of God's people. Finally, the Savior has appeared to deliver us from our sins and complete our adoption into God's family. The song's 2nd verse says, "Born Thy people to deliver, born a Child and yet a King/Born to reign in us forever, now Thy gracious kingdom bring!" All this to say, I'm really excited to sing this one together on Sunday.

3. Kids' Choir: "O Little Town of Bethlehem"
We'll worship by listening to the kids sing this one. It's always an encouragement (and a necessity) to incorporate the children of our church family into Sunday corporate worship, and participate in worship alongside one another this way.

4. Hark, the Herald Angels Sing
Another Charles Wesley hymn, this will be the transition hymn into the time of preaching. I won't say much about this song, it's so classic - I'll just quote from it: "Veil'd in flesh the Godhead see, hail th'incarnate Diety/Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel."