Worship Ministry Update: 3/3/09

Worship Ministry Shirts

    Great news!  Someone (and I honestly do not know who) has volunteered to donate the money for 85 choir and orchestra shirts!  Praise the Lord! This all reminds me of the passage in Matthew 6 "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

    The shirt committee will have a table set up in the hallway on Sunday so you can order a shirt.  We'll also be taking orders Sunday evening during choir and orchestra practice.  Remember, everyone in the choir and orchestra will need one for the right to life banquet, but all worship ministry participants, including media team, drama, sign choir, praise band, creative materials, etc., are welcome to order a shirt.  See the shirt committee's note below:

    We are ready to start ordering our new Worship Ministry shirts.  The shirts will be Carolina Blue (Sorry, Doug, not “Kentucky” blue!) Hanes Polo shirts with a darker blue FCCN logo and the copy, “First Christian, Newburgh Worship Ministry” on the left-hand side.  We will have sample sizes for you to try on before ordering, so you’ll get the correct size.  (Remember the dress code!) 

Shirt Committee:  Brenda Krogman, Charlotte Nixon, and Cheryl Smith

Choir, Orchestra & Media Team!

     We again had 2 more volunteers for the last practice, praise the Lord!  But we're still looking for more!  We'll need lots of voices and instrumentalists to fill the Centre when we sing for the Right to life Banquet in April!  Come on out and join us Sunday evening.  We practice every Sunday night from 6:00-7:30 P.M., and childcare is provided for every practice.   

 

    This Sunday night we will be preparing to lead worship on March 15.  The media team will be joining us that night.  It's always good to have them with us! 

 

       6:00-6:10 Opening prayer, Bongo Bob solo and another cool video courtesy of Jeff Coombes!

 

        6:10-6:45 Full group practice on stage for Sunday, March 15.

 

        6:45-7:05 Prayer Groups

 

        7:05-7:30 Full group practice on stage for Sunday, March 15.

 

Major moves this Week!

 

    We'll be taking the instruments off the stage on Tuesday night around 7:45 (there is a wedding on Saturday).

 

    Then we'll put everything back on the stage Saturday evening at 5:00 P.M. 

 

    At 5:00 P.M. on Sunday, we'll be setting up the choir risers and pulling out the orchestra pit.  Come on out and help us!

Christmas Musical DVD's: Available in the Library this Sunday!

    Guy has finished the Christmas Musical DVD's, and they will be in the Library this Sunday!  You can pick up a copy for $10.00.  Thanks again to EVERYONE (and we're talking, like over 200 people) who helped make the Christmas Musical a great success!

Value of the Month: Excellence

    (note to the tenors in the choir: thanks for a lively and fun discussion Sunday night, it gave me lots of things to discuss in the blog!  By the way: Be a real man and go rent the classic: "Sleeping Beauty."  Your wife will like it, and you'll even enjoy a few of the action sequences!  In fact, the princess is only on screen for like, 18 minutes.  So you won't have to deal with a lot of boring "dancing in the woods" and "singing to forest creatures." There is more to the movie than that: especially the final battle with the dragon.  It's awesome!)

    We define excellence as "doing the very best you can with what you have."  A good example of excellence is the animated movie, "Sleeping Beauty."  According to Wikipedia: 

"During its original release, "Sleeping Beauty" returned only half the invested sum of $6,000,000, nearly bankrupting the Disney studio. It was mainly criticized as being slowly paced and having little character development. Since then, the film has gained a following and is today hailed as one of the best animated features ever made, thanks to its stylized designs by painter Eyvind Earle who also was the art director for the movie, its lush music score and its large-format widescreen and stereophonic sound presentation.  The film was re-released theatrically in 1970, 1979 (in 70mm 6 channel stereo, as well as in 35 mm stereo and mono), 1986, 1993.  When adjusted for ticket price inflation, the domestic total gross comes out to $478.22 million, placing it in the top 30 of adjusted films."

   "Sleeping Beauty" was made with a high level of excellence in 1959.  Walt Disney and his team obviously "did the very best they could with what they had."  But what if the same movie was made today?  That probably would not be considered excellence.  The technology has improved dramatically over the last 50 years.

    The same can be applied to our situation.  If we did the same worship service Sunday that we did 4 years ago, that probably would not be excellence.  We've grown numerically and artistically since then.  So today, we are striving to do the best with what we have.  That is what God is calling us to do!  To do our very best for his glory.  It's my prayer that we will grow musically and numerically during the next 4 years, we'll do much greater things for His glory.  And how do we do that? By doing the very best with what we have.  In short, serving God with excellence.

    I'll leave you today with my favorite line from "Sleeping Beauty," which has obvious Biblical overtones:

"Now sword of truth fly swift and sure, that evil die and good endure!"

P.

P.S. Last evening, my youngest son Luke picked "Sleeping Beauty" as one of our 5 books we read before bedtime.  Weird huh?  Out of the over 100 books we have in Nathan and Luke's room, he picked THAT one.  There must be something to it. :)