Christian music

Garbage in, garbage out

/ The Pastor / 16 Comments

Most days I am up at 5:45am and at the fitness center in the high school by 6am.  I bring with me my water and MP3 player (which is loaded with Christian praise and worship music).  I bring my music so I can listen to some awesome praise and worship music music, to help pass the time and to counter the music the high school kids turn on when they arrive.  The students start arriving around 6:15 to 6:30am and head straight to the stereo.  And it goes without saying that their music is not my music.  At least they are respectful and don’t crank the music up so loud that I can hear it through my headphones.

This morning was no different.  The kids came in and turned on their music, but I kept on doing my workout…enjoying my own little world away from them.  When I finished I went to get ready to leave.  I turned off my music and the chorus I heard on the stereo was this, “Highway to hell…”  I wanted to turn my MP3 player back on…but the lyrics were already stuck in my head.

My father-in-law is known for saying to his students “garbage in, garbage out“…referring to music.  I know there are people that would refute this claim, but I believe music has a profound impact on people.  And when I happen to hear the lyrics of some of the music out there I am very worried.  I know how Christian music makes me feel and it makes me wonder how lyrics like “Highway to hell” is affecting our youth (and there are far worse lyrics out there).  Maybe I should get to the fitness center early some morning and have my Christian music CDs playing.  I’m not sure how the kids would react but I am curious.

As a church I believe we need to expose our kids to music that have positive lyrics (specifically…Christian music).  Have Christian music playing as they arrive to confirmation or Bible study.  Talk about music with them.  Examine lyrics and have a discussion about them (sometimes they don’t even consciously know what they are hearing).  One thing I do is bring kids to Christian music festivals.  And that has been a hit.

What goes in has an impact on what comes out.

After hearing those lyrics in the fitness center this morning I turned on my car radio (obviously to the Christian music station) and the first lyrics I heard were “I give glory to your name…”  Ah…that was more like it.  Now…those “other” lyrics from this morning are a distant memory.

“In Christ alone I will glory…“

…from KLOVE.com on my computer right now…you just can’t go wrong with that.

Praise be God!

-edh-

Monday morning check in

/ The Pastor

Summer is unofficially over.  Are we all sad now?  I have mixed feelings about that.  I am sad that the “freedom” that summer brings is gone for 9 months, but I am also excited for things to start up again.  Next week Release Time (grades 3 – 5) begins.  In two weeks, Wednesday Night Live (age 3 – grade 5), 6th grade Bible class and Confirmation (grades seven and eight) begin.  The unofficial end of summer also means I have to re-adjust my routine.  Everything will change next week with the addition of class preparation.  It usually takes me a few weeks to get back into the swing of things, hence, September is usually a busy and stressful (but a good stressful) month for me.  So I am going to prepare my Release Time lesson this week as sort of a practice run before the real thing begins next week.  How are the rest of you viewing September?  Is it stressful, exciting, etc?

LifeLight
The LifeLight Festival was this past weekend.  LifeLight is a free Christian music festival just outside of Sioux Falls, SD at the Wild Water West water park.  I think is it absolutely amazing that they can put on a festival like this and not charge admission.  We were told that it costs about $800,000 to put on LifeLight.  Businesses, churches and other faithful supporters make this weekend possible.  If you haven’t been to LifeLight plan on checking it out sometime.  It is held over Labor Day weekend every year. 

On Friday night of the festival this year the headliner was Switchfoot; Saturday it was Michael W. Smith and Sunday night Casting Crowns closed things out.  On Saturday night the crowd was in excess of 100,000 people.  Standing up and surveying the sea of people definitely made me me feel very small.  Other artists we heard throughout the weekend included: Matthew West, Lincoln Brewster, Sanctus Real, Natalie Grant, Family Force 5, and much more.  It was indeed a very fun weekend.

Rain
Today I am thanking and praising God for rain.  It has been dreadfully dry here for a long time.  When I walked on my grass last night it crunched beneath my feet.  But today I can here a collective “sigh” from all the lawns in town.  And according to radar this rain will last for quite a while.  God is indeed faithful.  We go through these dry spells every year and every year we get nervous and wonder if this is the year we will need to replace the lawn.  But every year God brings the rain to nourish the crops and the grass and everything else.  God proves to be faithful year in and year out.  Maybe one of these years I will learn to trust God.

Heavenly Father, I believe, help my unbelief.  You prove to be faithful yet we worry about tomorrow.  You prove to be loving yet we often fail to show love toward our neighbors.  You prove to be gracious yet we fail to show grace to others.  Thank you God for your Son who died for us despite our shortcomings and rose to New Life so we may live.    Lord God, thank you for your faithfulness, in Christ name we pray, Amen.

Take care and God bless!

-edh-

Monday morning check in — Post-Sonshine post

/ The Pastor

Here I am…in my office…post-Sonshine…procrastinating on writing my newsletter article (of course, by the time my secretary reads this I WILL be working on my article, I promise).

Anyway…we had a great time at Sonshine Festival.  We heard lots of great music from the likes of Jars of Clay, Third Day, Jeremy Camp, Toby Mac, Hawk Nelson, Peder Eide, Barlowgirl, David Crowder, and much more.  That list is definitely not listed in order because that would be to hard to do.  But Hawk Nelson is a group I never really listened to before but I am now developing a new appreciation for them.  All the groups were (and are) great examples and very open about their faith.  It was fun and inspiring to hear them and worship with them.  And for $68 for the weekend…for all that music…you just can’t beat that.

Our group consisted of my wife and I along with one senior high girl from Salem with a group of 10 from Our Savior’s.  There were more adults than youth in our group, but everyone had fun.  We camped in tent city where there were thousands of tents crammed in together.  It is hard to describe the scene but trust me, it was a zoo.  The “city” never really completely died down.  There was activity all night long for all four nights.  My wife and I came home on Saturday and let me tell ya…a shower and my bed felt great on Saturday night.  But over all it was a great experience and we are already looking forward to next year.

Ramp update
I haven’t said much in this area for a while but here’s a quick update (just in case you were wondering).  All the cement is poured and now they are on the brick work.  Red-ish (basic brick color…whatever that is “offically” called) bricks will be placed on the side of the ramp and a brick wind break is currently being built on the north side of the ramp by the sanctuary door.  The time table for completion is still mid-August sometime.  I will get some pictures posted soon.

One week to go…
After this week I will be out of the office for a couple weeks.  On Sunday I fly to Chicago for a special meeting on evangelism and outreach.  I was invited by the synod office to attend this meeting (I will discuss this more in another post this week).  After I get back on Tuesday I go on vacation until Sunday.  On Sunday I am still out of the office but for continuing education.  The week of Aug 3 – 10 I am at the Okoboji Lakes Bible and Missionary Conference.  A free conference in the Okoboji Lakes area (about 20 miles from here).  That too I will write more about later.  So this week I have a lot to get done before I head out.

With that…I leave you with this quote I came across…one I used in my sermon yesterday: “We are not in the land of the living, but in the land of the dying — someday we shall be in the Land of the Living.”  What a great reminder of the hope we all have in Jesus Christ.

Take care and have a great day!

-edh-

Basking in the SonShine

/ The Pastor / 1 Comment

This morning I am packing my gear and heading out to SonShine Festival .  This is a Christian music festival in Willmar, MN.  Salem and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches are taking a group and of course I have to go.  It’s a rough job but someone has to do it 🙂  Because of this I will be away from my computer until Sunday.  So no new blog posts until then…I hope you can survive without me 😉

Anyway…i hope you have a wonderful week.  I look forward to telling you all about our experience.  Take care and God bless.

-edh-