Evangelism

Getting confronted by a Chic Tract in a Sam's club bathroom has gotten me thinking about what is effective evangelism. Is it being God's secret agent man and leaving stealth tracts all over the place? Is it befriending someone for the sheer purpose of sharing the gospel with them and moving on once they are in the church? I am all for evangelism and I don't have all the answers. My big question is "is what we are doing working for or against the gospel message?".

LSB Hymn Selection Guide

The LSB Hymn Guide Selection Guide is of supreme value to both the Pastor and Church Musician alike. It has hymn suggestion for the one year and three year lectionaries. It has an extensive comparison of LSB with The Lutheran Hymnal, Lutheran Worship and Supplement 98. There are also hymn planning worksheets. This aids greatly in the planning and coordination of the weekly worship services. From the church musician perspective, it has helped with my choices of hymn to practice so that the prelude, postlude and voluntaries fit with the service a lot easier and without having to always to get details from the pastor. Please don't take this as tension between church musicians and pastors but rather that communications between people break down for a ton of reasons. If musicians and pastor both use this resource, the odds of them being on the same page or close enough on the same page without always having to touch base. (Please, musicians and pastors work together, the music can be so much more with the coordination.) This book is a great resource for hymn selection and making services better and planning easier.

The cph .org page is here.

Being a church musician

It has been a weird time for me lately as a church musician. I play the recorder and have started playing a few years ago so I started playing in the church in a very limited way. I was very occasional special music only player. Now that I am getting better, it is interesting to see how the frequency of me playing is increasing and that people are being are appreciative. I still see myself as not that good yet but it is very nice and useful to get the positive feedback. I have never liked my voice so it is nice that I have a musical way to give glory to God in the worship service. I absolutely love music in church and sometimes it is frustrating not to participate in music because of my own mind games about singing. I have found a voice of sorts to sing to my God.

God's Word to the Nations New Testament

God's Word to the Nations New Testament (website) is an interesting contemporary translation. One neat feature is the chi rho symbol being used by verses taht show an old testament fulfillment in new testament time. The translators say they tried to puncuate it so that silent and oral reading of the text would be easier. The hard copy, second printing one I have (copyright March 1989) had all sorts of appendixes to help explain how the translation was done and tells of the features and study aids to get more out or the new testament. It is a good bible to have around but not my favorite. Pick up a copy and check out their website and find out more about this translation.

Reading Planner

Ever wanted to be able to create your own bible reading plan? Better yet, did you want to take it along with you in a convenient manner? Goto http://www.readingplanner.com/. They have a program that you can load onto your PDA to use with a bible on your PDA or a paper copy. They also have bibles that can go onto your PDA so check it out and get your bibile study wired.

Lutheran Service Book-Pew Edition

This is the first in a series of looking at the Lutheran Service Book and companion books. The cph.org page for it is here.

The Lutheran Service Book is a great pulling together of Lutheran Liturgy. It is a combining of The Lutheran Hymnal, Lutheran Worship and other sources. It has resources for church and home.

One of the things its favor is its uniform numbering. It use to be that the hymns would have one page numbering and the rest of it would have an entirely another page numbering and could be confusing. It also has the creeds and the Lord's Prayer on the back cover for ease of finding. The rite for emergency baptism is near the back for fast and easy find. The layout, page color and print has been picked for easier reading. The music has also been put into keys for easier singing for the congregation and easier playing for the church musician.

It also has mini liturgies for home devotions. These liturgies may not be necessary for home devotion, they are , however, a good way to set aside time for your devotion. There is also a daily lectionary to guide your bible reading as well as table of psalms for the day. The small catechism is also there to supplement your devotions. Noe of these are things you have to do but you can cheryy pick what would be helpful for where you are at.

I am quickly seeing that there is far too much for post here. I will return to the Pew Edition of the LSB and start looking at the individual parts so I canmore effectively and more logically deal with his hymnal.

This is the start.

LSB Weekly Series

The Lutheran Service Book is the latest hymnal in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod's history. I will be looking at this hymnal and its companion editions and going over the strengths and drawbacks of this hymnal.The books I will be going over is the LSB pew edition, the Pastoral Care Companion, the Altar Book, the Agenda,LSB Propers of the Day book and the LSB hymn selector guide. There are other companion books but I do not, as yet, have them in my library. The first round of blog posts will be an overview of each book and a review of each. As the series continues, I will look more closely at the different features of each book. I will be aiming at one post each week on this series. Since today is Friday, then hopefully every Friday will have another post.

This blog ...

This blog has been sorrowfully neglected. To help just start it, I have a series or two that I will be putting out on a weekly (hopefully) basis. The scheduled posts feature has helped with my pther blogs and I hope to use it to my advantage here. We shall see.