Our Favorite Hymns

The theologian Paul Tillich once said, "I am at my best when I sing my faith." I've also heard it said that "he who sings prays twice". In my life, I've heard great preaching, and I've sat under great Bible teachers, but what has stuck with me are the hymns I have sung.

I would like to share with you the hymns that I cherish, and a little about why they're important to me.

• "To God Be the Glory": We sang this at my mother's funeral.
• "It Is Well with My Soul": My dad sang this to himself as he and my uncle were leaving the surgical waiting room after just having learned that my mom had died during surgery.
• "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name": Gives me chills every time I sing it. "Bring forth the royal diadem / And crown Him Lord of all...."
• "In the Garden": When I play music with patients at the hospital, I play "In the Garden", and everybody signs along!
• "This Is My Father's World": Reminds me whose world this is, and that I need to quite worrying so much! Fun to play on the banjo too!
• "Blessed Assurance": I have wonderful memories of Sunday night "singspiration" meetings (remember those, anyone?), with the song leader having us hold the notes extra long when we sang "This is my story...." I also have a memory of one of our foster children, Christopher, whenever we sang "Blessed Assurance" in church, rocking back and forth, doing air guitar and singing, "Dis-a my tory, Dis-a my tory...."
• "Jesus Loves Me": Probably the most powerful theological statement anyone can make: "Jesus loves me, this I know, / For the Bible tells me so." What a shame that it's considered only a children's song.

What are your favorite or most cherished hymns, and why are they important to you? (Just click the "comments" link below this post and write your comments.)

All good things....

Ah...yes...as they say, "All goods things must come to an end." My vacation officially ends today. This was my last day off from the hospital. I have a meeting tomorrow morning at the Methodist church to plan community services, and I'll be back in the pulpit ("I'm back in the saddle again, / Out where a friend is a friend...." Sorry--I couldn't resist.) Sunday morning. I've missed you, Alpha Baptist!

Vacation was good: Sleeping in every morning (okay, it was sleeping until 7:00am, I'm used to getting up 5:30am every morning, so that's sleeping in to me) going to the Bettendorf Family Museum and Discovery Depot with Joey, having lunches with Kim and Joey, noodling on my guitar, seeing old friends in Ohio central Illinois, and in general just not working for ten days. A good vacation! It's good to take a break now and then and be reminded that God runs the world, not me!

Headin' Back Home

Good morning!
I'm blogging from my friends' house, out in the country in northwest Ohio. I had fun at the wedding, but I missed my family a lot. My friends were very gracious and hospitable, and I had a good time catching up.

The trip here was uneventful, thank you Lord, and it went by a lot faster than I thought it would, again, thank you Lord! It was about 8 hours, but it didn't really feel like it. I had a lot of music on CD's and the radio, and interesting scenery. Like a friend told me, US 24 across Illinois is BORING! Flat, with almost nothing but corn and bean fields. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Indiana had some pretty scenery, especially with the leaves almost at their fall peak.

I'm heading home to Illinois in a few minutes, stopping on the way to visit a friend. What would we do without friends? Old friends, new friends, funny friends, neighbor friends, work friends.... Thank God for all of 'em!

Alpha Baptist: I miss you! I'll see you again next Sunday!

Readers: Give me your comments, let me know you're out there!

Is There a Word From the Lord?

Hello again!
I got to thinking about all the economic mess that our country--the world, really--is in. It's complicated, and I certainly don't know much about the whole field of economics. I started to wonder, though, if there is anything in the Bible--which I believe is the written Word of God--that might give us some food for thought about what's going on these days.

Here are a few passages to stimulate our thinking about whether or not there might be a "word from the Lord" about what's going on:

Isaiah 10:1-4--unjust laws that oppress the poor
Jeremiah 22:3--Do what is just and right.
Zechariah 7:9-10--justice, mercy, compassion; don't oppress the poor
Malachi 3:5
Leviticus 25:8-55; 27:22-25--Jubilee (It's long, but worth the read.)
Exodus 22:25-27; Deuteronomy 24:10-13; Luke 6:34-36--about lending
Deuteronomy 15:1-11--about canceling debts
Luke 14:28-30--"Count the cost."

Happy reading! Let me know what you think the Lord might be saying to us in our situation through those passages.

I'm off to Ohio to officiate a wedding for an old friend of ours. Pray for a safe trip for us!

Hey everyone!

Hey everyone!
I decided to catch up with the times, and start a blog! I went to a workshop at the ABC-GRR Annual Gathering that talked about using recent technologies, such as blogs and websites, and they talked about how a blog can be an effective outreach tool for a church in today's day and age.

It was explained at the workshop that a blog is different from a newsletter column, in that blogging is a conversation, a way to log (the word "blog" is short for "web log") thoughts and feelings, and through comments people can make, have interaction with other folks sharing their thoughts and feelings.

One feeling I'll share with you right now is the feeling of starting to relax! I am on vacation from the hospital starting today, 10/8, through Friday, 10/17, and I'm going back to work there on Monday, 10/20. As I've said before, I'm not going anywhere much, except for a weekend trip to Ohio to officiate a wedding for a friend of ours. I will be taking short trips with Joey to play and, well, give us a chance to get to know each other better. He's such an amazing little guy! Sweet, loving, already a good sense of humor. What a blessing!

Another thought I'll share with you is about the upcoming election. I strongly urge everyone to vote, first, to vote their conscience, and then to vote based on which candidate you think would do the best job in the office for which they're running. I think it's best to vote for someone based on their values, beliefs and qualifications, not on what their opponent says is wrong with them.

On more thing: I'm getting more and more aware of the fact that religion is fading in America. There is more and more permission in our culture for religion, especially Christianity, to be a target of ridicule. There is a movie out now by the comedian Bill Maher, Religulous, that spends 101 minutes "beating up on" religion in general, and on Christianity in particular. I haven't, and won't, see the movie--I don't feel I really need to--so I won't comment on the movie itself. To be honest, there are folks who do some pretty goofy things in the name of the Christian faith. The magazine The Wittenburg Door, a satire magazine put out by evangelical Christians, points that out with a lot of humor, and sometimes with harsh seriousness. We need to realize something, friends: For many people, many more than even up to 20 years ago, it's all but meaningless to appeal to the authority of the Bible or our church to convince people of the truth of our faith in Christ. First of all, in general people don't read or know the Bible nearly as much as they used to. And more and more people refuse to accept the Bible as having any spiritual authority, just because we say God said so. Here's the one thing that no one can argue with, and the one thing that will convince people that our faith is real, that Jesus is real, and that Jesus offers them what the world cannot: Love. That's what Jesus says in John 13: "This is how people will know that you are following me, if you love one another." If we honest-to-goodness love each other, and if we really, I mean really, love our neighbor, and actually obey our Lord and really love our enemies, people will see that our faith in genuine, and they will want to come along with us!

That's it for now. More later. Post your comments--let me know what you think!

Pastor Andy