Mental Musings

Another year has come and gone and my little blog continues to plug along. I wanted to make one last post to share the best of 2013, based on shares and reads. If you missed any of these, feel free to share them within your sphere and invite others to join the great and massing throng (said tongue in cheek of course). Sheep and Shepherds - 6 part series on the church, members, ministers, and more. Long Road of Hope - some personal insight into our struggles and how God uses them to help others. Vocal Coaching - some simple steps and resources for teaching voice or even teaching yourself to read music or sing.  Darkness and Light: A Parable - There is a battle taking place all around us. This parable conveys that in a creative way. Victory in Christ - this last minute sermon formed from months of personal study time has been shared throughout the world. Amazing how God works. Happy New Year to all of my readers. May God give you a happy and health 2014. I ...

The number one question I get this time of year is: What's next? Church members want to know what I plan to do now that the Christmas musical is over, choir members want to know what we are doing for Easter, and the pastor wants to know what my plans are for the coming year. Many people get stressed just by being asked what plans they have, but not a worship pastor. Worship pastors always live out of season. While everyone else is planning what to do for the Easter block party, you can bet that your worship pastor is working on the final plans for the Christmas program. While you are enjoying the latest Christmas CD, your worship pastor is probably listening to patriotic music. I know from personal experience that the planning stage for a large Christmas program takes a minimum of 11 months preparation. This past program took almost two years from start to finish. Planning months or even years in advance is necessary in order to complete any large scale project. The old ...

This time of the year is full of devices that are used to tell stories: garlands, wreaths, candy canes, lights, stars, candles, trees, presents, and more. They are mnemonic devices for sharing an important event with others. As my wife puts ornaments on our tree, she could tell the story of each one. Who gave them to us. For her, the physical ornament is a reminder of the giver and timing of the gift. Mnemonic devices are just one way to help us remember. We have written histories, we have photographic histories, we even have video graphic histories, but most of these do not help us feel the reality of those stories. And the story about this season is so important that I think it is wonderful to have so many mnemonic devices to use in telling that story. His Story. The story of Jesus Christ. In our worships services this month, we have revealed two or three different ornaments used to decorate a Chrismon tree . Each white ornament of the Chrismon tree is a monogram represen...

Justin Timberlake Yesterday I was standing in a checkout line at Walmart as I perused the covers of those celebrity magazines. Some are nothing but glamour and glitz with all of the info the fans want to know about their favorite star. Others are full of gossip and slander. The ones that have a "Justin Bieber is Having My Alien Baby" or "Miley Cyrus Gained 150 Pounds" type of headline. I guess it is always open season for invading and publicizing the life of a celebrity, whether it be an actor, musician, athlete, or politician. Most people believe that these individuals gave up their freedom to privacy when they chose to accept large amounts of money to become famous. These celebrities are hounding by the media and paparazzi all because their fans hunger and thirst for the latest gossip and news about them. This in turn started me thinking about how Christians relate to the various celebrities. Does the Christian community take part in the immortalizati...

I am often asked to teach voice lessons for church members. While they are willing to pay for these lessons, I just do not have the time to teach lessons on a regular basis. I often do agree to work with someone for a little while just to give them time to decide if they really want to pay to take lessons from a voice teacher. Music lessons are not cheap, typically $25-40 for a half hour private instruction. Lessons through a college or a specialty music school can cost even more. While many parents are willing to spend this much for their children, they often are wasting their money because their children do not spend the necessary time at home practicing. Unlike a classroom setting where some practice time is built into the lesson plans such as in mathematics, music lessons are not meant to be a time of practice for your child. This was an expensive lesson for me to learn. In High School I drove 90 miles to the University of Southern Mississippi each week to take trumpet le...

I just went through all of the remaining response cards from our Christmas musical performances for this weekend. Based on the comments, those who attended were really blessed and want to see more of the same next year. The comments from last year's "Jingle in The City" were very similar, so I am not sure why we had such small crowds this year. The weather could have had an impact, but we also had a very slow start on ticket requests this year. Typically all of our tickets are gone by mid-November, but this year we still had some tickets remaining even on opening night. Advertising could have played a role in lower numbers. Last year our advertising team did a wonderful job of helping us get the information out to the public. This year, I was the advertising team. We followed many of the same plans that were used last year, but we just did not see a good return on our investment. I am not sure that print ads are worth the cost anymore. Very few people read news...

I must admit that I was disappointed in the attendance at our Saturday performances. We had more than 750 tickets requested and had a total of about 350 people attend. I reminded myself that we have had less in worship attendance at our early morning worship services, but it is still disappointing to have about 100 church members participating in a program for such small crowds. Then I took home the response cards from our Saturday performances and God had to teach me to stop looking at attendance numbers and realize that results are the real deciding factor of how successful we were in sharing His message. Of those who were willing to complete a response card on Saturday, we had: 5 people accept Christ; 14 people rededicate their lives to Christ; and 9 people attend who do not belong to any church. God does not need large crowds to change lives. And reports of how the program has left a lasting impression on people continue to be shared. One young man came to a performance ...

I am always excited to see how God is going to use our Christmas Spectacular programs. I must admit that I went into this year's programs with more fear and trembling than usual. Not because I doubt what God can do, not because I doubt the talents of our church family, but because I wrote the drama for this musical and was worried that what sounded like a great concept in my head would not be received all that well by others in our community. The musical started out as an idea after a small group from our church participated in a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City in November 2011. The entire box office for the concert went to help several churches that work with underprivileged teens and kids in the Brooklyn and Manhattan area. I started wondering about the big issues that these churches must deal with on a regular basis: teens in gangs, teens using drugs, unwed pregnant teens, teens from broken families, teens who steal because they have nothing and nothing ...