Lorem Ipsum Part 9 Sacred Space Essential Re-choirments Gordon Borror Sacred Space comes in many forms. I was recently involved in a service in a Church Sanctuary which is VERY sacred space to my family and me. I ministered 23 years in that space, family members memorial services were held there our three children were all married there; eternally significant decisions were made there. I was ordained in that room, when we left that fellowship for the next assignment in ministry, my farewell was held there. I had conducted many concerts there, my wife had sung many fantastic solos there, I hosted festivals of worship there, we had many guest conductors and close musician friends that had performed there; memories of all these events are very precious and when I return for any reason my heart and mind are refreshed just being in that space!! The scriptures are also filled with references to a specific place where God did miraculous things for His children; Moses at the burning bush, Jesus in the upper room with the disciples, Joseph O.T. and Paul N.T. in their jail cells, Mary and the Angel at the annunciation to name a few! We can all think of very significant places where very important, life-changing events have occurred; these are special places, (not always pleasant) because of what has happened there. Both physical and spiritual things can surely be life changing, and for the child of God they all have eternal significance! Recall the place and time you placed your faith in Jesus Christ and declared your desire to be His disciple from now on! Sacred places surely exist for us all. Thinking about and remembering these occasions and where they occurred should be a time of spiritual reflection for us all a very special time of thanksgiving to God for the people and events involved. Almost daily I find myself remembering special times with family and friends many of whom have preceded me in death I remember them and thank God for them and look forward to being back together when Christ comes in glory to gather us home together forever! The most glorious time for now is when we take our temples (our bodies) and gather together
in sacred space for the express purpose of WORSHIP, not selfishly for our own sake, but sacrificially for the sake of GOD S glory and pleasure! Like earthly temples, our temples need cleaning and maintenance. If the temple is cluttered with stuff that we know doesn t honor God, the sacred space becomes polluted and the sacrifice of praise is obstructed. This kind of dualism frustrates worship and we are reminded of Jesus words that we can t serve two masters we can t worship GOD and stuff, (mammon/ self)!! When our bodies need maintenance either physically or spiritually, everything becomes distorted and we tend to become frustrated. Preparation for spiritual service demands practice; practice the presence of God in our temples; practice the best technics for singing; practice notes, rhythms and diction; practice being filled with the Spirit of God (ready forgiveness, joy, patience, etc.) and even practice courtesy on the road while driving to rehearsal! (Seems that sentence has a lot of practice in it!!) It has been well said, practice doesn t necessarily make perfect, but it surely does make it permanent! Every day God gives us is a day of preparation; the things God brings/allows into our lives all have potential to make us better prepared for the way God intends to use us, only HE KNOWS and has a perfect view of the future! It is good so seek and appreciate sacred space. May God help us all to realize afresh that all of life is SACRED to a Christ-follower, and every space both inside and out of our temple IS Sacred! As Christ fills our spaces our words become eternally significant, our song proclaims eternal truth, the place we sing that truth becomes sacred space, (our car, home, church, office, etc.) Let s make every effort to see that our temples are useful for God s eternal purposes!! 2
Vowels of Great Price Many of us know the parable of the Pearl of Great Price. For singers, they strive to find the vowels of great price. While the strand that holds many pearls together is important, it is not what the eyes are drawn to. It s the pearls! So it is in singing. We are not drawn to the consonants, but to the beauty of the vowels. Foundations Of Faith All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name Edward Perronet was the son of the Rev. Vincent Perronet, Vicar of Shoreham, Kent. Perronet was a minister of the established Church of England, however his evangelical, or "dissenting" roots grew deep. The text first appeared anonymously in 1780 in Gospel Magazine with the title "On the Resurrection." Many argue that the hymn has experienced continued popularity due to the hymntune MILES LANE which appeared with it in Gospel Magazine and the tunes CORONATION and DIADEM which have accompanied the text since that time. At his death he is said to have left a large sum of money to Shrubsole, who was organist at Spafield's Chapel, London, and who had composed the tune "Miles Lane" for "All hail the power of Jesus' Name!" Think about it. If you sing the word Bring, where should the focus be? On the I of course! Think of it as br-i-ng. You want to quickly get through the br with a roll of the tongue and get right to the I. Same goes for the ending, ng. Hold out the I until the last possible moment, then sound the ng. Now we have to choose how to sound the ng. If it is at the end of a phrase or before a rest, then the ng sound is produced by closing the tongue with the soft palate and resonating through the sinuses. If there is a word right after bring, then the ng sound goes quickly to the sound of the next work. No loitering on the ng sound! Being in the northwest, you might like the image of stepping stones in a pond. You want to stay on the rocks and not slip in to the water. You get the idea. Vowels are good. Vowels are our friend! Use the consonants to explode in to the vowels. Listen to all of our recordings. You can hear how this keeps the singers together and in turn, better harmony. 3
What Happens When We Sing in Worship? God has a passion for singing. "Oh sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth... tell of his salvation from day to day" (Psalm 96:1-3; cf. Psalm 47:6). The Bible contains over 400 references to singing and 50 direct commands to sing. We're commanded twice in the New Testament to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). Why does God command us not only to praise him, but also to sing praises to him? We can begin by realizing that God himself sings (Zephaniah 3:17). Jesus sang hymns with his disciples. Ephesians 5 tells us that one of the fruits of being filled with the Spirit is singing. So we worship a triune God who sings, and he wants us to be like him. How does music relate to words? Some Christians think music supersedes the word, both in its significance and effect. Others think that music undermines the word. But God himself wants them together. He gave us music to serve to word. How music does this is the theme of this message. Three Ways Singing Serves the Word 1) Singing can help us remember words. Ever notice how easy it is to recall the words of songs you haven't heard for 20 years? We store literally hundreds, even thousands of songs in our memory vaults. Music has an unusual mnemonic power. We remember patterns in music much better than patterns in words alone. Rhyme, meter and song are the most powerful mnemonic devices. They govern and restrict the way we say words and the time it takes to say them. Notice in Deuteronomy 31 that God uses music to help his people remember his words. 4
Implications 1. In the church we should use effective melodies, that is, melodies that people are able to remember and that they want to remember. And both familiar and new melodies have their place among the people of God. Some great hymn lyrics have been ruined by new melodies and others have been revived by it. 2. We should sing words God wants us to remember. It matters not only that we sing but also what we sing. Colossians 3:16 - It is the word of Christ, the gospel, that should dwell in us richly as we sing. The largest portion of our singing content should be the truths that we are responding to, not just words about the effect that truth has on us. Also, the lyrics of our songs should reflect the broad themes of Scripture. Ask yourself, if the teaching of our church was limited to the songs we sing, what would our people know? 3. We should seek to memorize songs. Don't be too dependent upon screens or hymnbooks. 2) Singing can help us engage the words emotionally. Music is a language of emotion in every culture of every age. It is capable of affecting us in profound and subtle ways (like when Saul's spirit was calmed by David's harp). Why does music affect us deeply? One reason is its associations. In our culture, a fast song in a major key is usually associated with happiness, whereas a slow song in a minor key is associated with sadness. Music can also bring forth old associations of things that happened in certain periods or experiences in our lives. Musical skill also has a role in affecting us deeply. If it is played well it can affect us to a deeper degree, whereas poorly done music can be distracting or less effective. Music helps us engage emotionally with the words we're singing also by stretching things out. It gives us time to think about the words more carefully. Consider the repetition of Psalm 136 or the hymn "It Is Well." Through repetition the words and emotions are amplified. Implications: 1. We need a broad emotional range in the songs we sing: reverence, awe, repentance, grief, joy, celebration, etc. The jubilant triumph of Christ's victory over sin cannot be duly communicated in an acappella hymn. 2. We don't need to pit different styles or traditions against one another. They each serve to help us in different ways. 3. Know that there is a difference between being emotional moved and spiritually enlightened. Music has a voice but we're not always sure what that voice is saying. It can make us feel peaceful, but it can't tell us that the Lord is our shepherd or that Jesus endured God's wrath in our place to bring us eternal peace with God. 4. Singing should be an emotional event. And they should be religious affections. We won't always be moved in the same way or to the same effect Main Adult Choir Website: http://tiny.cc/t0si2x 5
when we sing, but when the emotions aren't there we should repent and cry out for mercy to feel them appropriately again. God is worthy of our highest, purest, and strongest emotions. Singing helps express and unite them. Singing without emotion is an oxymoron. Vibrant singing enables us to connect truth about God with passion for that truth. We can sing theologically profound truths and not be affected. But none of that changes the fact that God wants to use music to help break through the apathy and hardness of our heart and engage him emotionally. 3) Singing can help us use words to demonstrate and express our unity. The first two points can be accomplished when we sing by ourselves, but this point needs other people. People sing together in the strangest places: rock concerts, sporting events, birthdays, weddings, and funerals. Singing together tends to bind us together. It enables us to spend extended periods of times expressing the same thoughts and passions. And when it comes to the church, it has significant implications. Scripture doesn't only speak about congregational singing--god can be honored when we sing alone or when soloists sing in the church. But it is clear that the dominant theme of Scripture is believers singing together. Jesus died to redeem a universal choir, and every individual voice matters. We are not called to listen to others sing or to sing by ourselves. We are called to sing together. The question is not, "Do you have a voice?" The question is, "Do you have a song?" If you're redeemed by Christ's cross then you do have a song. Implications 1. We should sing songs that unite rather than divide the church. We can appreciate the diverse musical styles and genres, but we shouldn't try and make church worship "something for everybody." There should be a unifying musical center that focuses on the sound of the people themselves. God commands us to worship him with instruments, but the majority of the commands tell us to worship him in song. Instruments are only there to aid the singing. So if you never sing without instruments, you should start singing acappella at times. 2. Musical creativity in the church has functional limits. Your ipod shouldn't be the starting point for selecting songs to sing together. We want to pursue a creativity that is distracting and not just innovative. 3. We must be clear that it is the gospel and not music that unites us. We should guard against gathering together in churches based upon our musical preferences rather than according to our unity in the gospel. The gospel is what unites us. Ephesians 2:14 - Jesus has united us, not our music. I don't connect with people at my church because they have the same song selection on their ipod. I love them because Christ has enabled me to love them. The host of heaven is not united in their style of music but in the words of their song (Revelation 5:9-10). What kind of music do people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation sing? We don't know! But the Bible tells us what the focus should be: Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. The Lamb must always be central to our corporate singing. Why? Because Jesus is the one who makes it possible. God doesn't hear us on account of our skill in singing. He hears it because it is in his Son. We shouldn't look for music to move us to sing. God has already done something worthy of moving us. How can we then keep from singing? Ask yourself, what are we doing to encourage our church in corporate singing? What are we doing to discourage it? Our singing should more and more resemble what we see in Revelation. Whatever we experience here in terms of the active presence of God, it is a mere glimmer of what is to come. In the new heavens and earth we will sing gloriously and for a long time. Our thoughts and passions will be focused, and we will have the strength to give him the glory he deserves. What a glorious thing to anticipate that time! And part of our singing here on earth is anticipation of what is to come. 6
; June 2016 Village Baptist Church Choir Newsletter Choir Member Spotlight Tim Howery Joanne Poelstra One of the happiest bass/baritones in the choir is Tim. As PK, Tim started singing at 8 and discovered he enjoyed music! Growing up and moving between churches, Tim always sang in the choir. Tim had a gruff taskmaster for his high school choir director: Gordon! Even when his parents moved to Italy as missionaries and later in the Missionary Assistance Corp, Tim sang in choirs there. Tim has been attending Village for the past 7 years. His favorite verses are Exodus 31:3, and Proverbs 25:25. True to form, his favorite hymn is When In Our Music God is Glorified. As a lifetime singer, Joanne started singing at 11 in a child evangelism radio ministry called Radio Kids' Bible Club, directed by J.C. Brumfield. She participated in this ministry through high school, singing alto. She took a Choir class in collage, and competed in an Inter-Varsity choir. Another SoCal transplant, Joanne and Paul started attending Village 7 years ago. Her favorite hymn is Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee. Her favorite verse is Psalm 90:14 - "O satisfy us in the morning with Thy loving kindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days." June 1 Doreen Aldrich, 1 - Doris Wilson, 3 - Cheryl Riel, 4 - Dale Himes, 6 - Carol Henricksen, 14 Alan Vore, 17 - Wanda Boboia, 18 Shelley Plaep, 30 - Frieda Nichols. 30 Donna Vore 7