Lorem Ipsum Essential Re-choirments Gordon Borror Part 10 RETROSPECT/Starting point looking back and forward Assessment is always fun and threatening, it s nice to look back in order to appreciate/be grateful for what God has allowed/enabled to transpire, it s sometimes not so nice to look back and see what could have been if. This past season I believe we have made some real progress, better consistency, better blend, greater effort to grasp the ministry concepts required to take our role seriously and spiritually, these are very real marks of progress and we respond with thanksgiving to both God and the choir members He has provided! We can all ask ourselves what I could have done better to make the choir better. The answers would not be the same for everybody, but we all should have the courage to ask ourselves in any case. Could I have been better prepared? Could I have been more spiritually prepared through text study and prayer? Could I have extended greater effort to rehearsal? Could I have tried harder to fit into the ensemble with better vocal habits? Many more possible questions could be posed, not only by the choir members but also by the director!! As servants of God we are all challenged to remember that there is a day of accountability coming for how we have invested the talent, time and resources God has granted us it behooves us to stop occasionally and deal with the prospect that to whom much is given, much is required. As age creeps upward on us all, time is running out to give our best. As I join the generation of octogenarians, I find myself singing with Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof as he looks at his marriageable daughters I don t remember getting older, when did they? Then at dinner with adult grandchildren and their children I become somewhat alarmingly aware that my time to be faithful to my calling is quickly running out, am I motivated to give still more with the breath I have left? Breath is vital to singing, as we all know; it is also vital to living and serving GOD with our best effort and motivation! Considering these less pleasant factors could be discouraging, but more important is for us to use them as a springboard to the future, especially, perhaps in this time of pastoral transition. Our transition committee has asked that the choir s ministry remain stable as a means for the
congregation to sense continuity during transition. For now this is a very important role! As we look forward, please join me in striving for even more stability in attendance, and a high commitment level in striving for excellence in our presentations. Your solid numbers and enthusiastic singing serves to kick off the service with momentum and spirit, in addition to the very practical addition of energy in expressing our worship to God and energizing the proceedings as we set the tone for encounter with Christ, WHO attends and assists our worship!! You are the spirit leaders of the worship service as we join with the Person of the Holy Spirit in this spiritual exercise! The INTROIT says to all WAKE UP! We are here to EXALT our LORD Who is glorious, righteous, worthy and the ONE Who wishes to bless His people as we acknowledge HIM and what it means to be people of GOD! I may not be the most objective person to evaluate the various ministries that make up our local Church, but personally, I can t think of a concentration of people in any congregation any more important in modeling for the Church Who the singers of the song of redemption really are we speak for and encourage the rest of the body to know OUR SONG and how to sing it. Our prayer is that the world near and far may hear and sing that God is GREAT, that HE is LOVE, that it is HIS will that all should be redeemed, and that HE is COMING AGAIN for His people, and that the SONG is ETERNAL, as we shall forever sing of His triumph and victory over Sin and Death and Hell!! Keep looking FORWARD, the best is yet to be and we get to help lead it!! Enjoy the several weeks we have off from July 10 September 7, make your determined plans to be fully involved in the choirs ministry for the 2016-17 season ahead! 2
How big is your God? What would have happened had Moses tried to figure out what was needed to accomplish God's command? One of the biggest arithmetical miracles in the world was required in the desert. Foundations Of Faith Amazing Grace! If America had a national folk hymn, this would probably be it. This well-loved and oft-sung hymn, written by John Newton in the late eighteenth century, is a powerful assurance and declaration of the grace of God working in all our lives. When Newton was just eleven, he joined his father at sea and began a tumultuous life in the Navy, eventually becoming captain of a slave ship. In a period of four years, however, his life was drastically turned around: he nearly drowned, he married a very pious Mary Catlett, and he read through Thomas à Kempis Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and joined forces with the great abolitionist, William Wilberforce. A number of years later, he was ordained for ministry, and soon after wrote this great text, declaring that we are saved only the grace of God. Moses led the people of Israel into the desert. Now what was he going to do with them? They had to be fed, and feeding 3.5 million people required a lot of food. According to the U. S. Army's Quartermaster General, Moses needed 1500 tons of food a day, filling two freight trains, each a mile long. Besides, you must remember, they were cooking the food (not to mention for keeping warm, and if anyone tells you it doesn't get cold in the desert don't believe them!). Just for cooking this took 4000 tons of firewood and a few more freight trains, each a mile long and this is only for one day!!! They were in transit for forty YEARS!!! Let's not forget about water, shall we? If they only had enough to drink and wash a few dishes (no bathing?), it took 11,000,000 gallons EACH DAY. That s enough to fill a train of tanker cars 1800 miles long. And another thing! They had to get across the red sea in one night. Now if they went on a narrow path, double file, the line would be 800 miles long and require 35 days and nights to complete the crossing. So to get it over in one night there had to be a space in the Red Sea 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5,000 abreast. Think about this; every time they camped at the end of the day, a camp ground the size of Rhode Island was required, or 750 square miles. Do you think that Moses sat down and figured out the logistics of what God told him to do before he set out from Egypt? I doubt it. He had faith that God would take care of everything. Let us have courage; we share the very same God! Newton wrote, I can see no reason why the Lord singled me out for mercy unless it was to show, by one astonishing instance, that with him 'nothing is impossible' (Newton, The Life of John Newton). As we sing the very familiar words of this hymn, how powerful it is to think of ourselves as an astonishing instance of God s grace and mercy. 3
Everyone Worships. Something! Man was created to be a worshipping creature. Animals do not worship, ordinary objects do not worship, but humans do! It is not a matter of Are we going to worship? but rather, Who or What are we going to worship? Everyone worships. Some worship the true and living God whose only begotten Son is Jesus; others worship false gods, like Baal, Confucius, or Dagon. Some worship the god of materialism, humanism, intellect, science, religion, or nature, and others simply worship themselves. The problem with a man or a woman without Christ is simply that they are worshipping a false god. They must be shown that if whatever they are worshipping is not God, it is not worth worshipping, and they must be introduced to the only true God who is accessible only through His holy Son, Jesus. If we refocus the worship of a heathen, they will become a saint! Likewise, a Christian living a carnal lifestyle suffers misdirected worship. Though he once worshipped Jesus only, he now is attracted by power and prestige, which lead him to put his career above the things of God. Or maybe the temptations of recreation, relaxation and nature have diverted his attention from God, so he spends his weekends at the lake. A carnal Christian needs to be shown the mistake of worshipping other things, and his heart s affection must once again be directed only to Jesus. There is a saying: The knee will bend in only one direction, meaning we cannot worship two gods at once. There is only one God worthy of worship, and the benefits of worshipping Him are far superior to all other counterfeit gods. And because worship is a lifestyle, everyone worships continually. One may say, I haven t been inside a place of worship for years, therefore I haven t worshipped in years. But the truth is, we all worship daily. How we choose to spend our time, how we talk, act and react, how we spend our money, which we associate with, our thoughts, all combine together to form an unconscious act of worship. Now the question is Who or what do you worship? 4
Breathing! If you have ever taken "formal" singing lessons or even if you just sing songs around the house or in the shower, you (hopefully) know that it is important to breathe when you're singing. In fact it's kind of important to breathe whether you are singing or not but when you sing a song, you might have noticed that there are times in the song that you need to pause and breathe so that you can continue singing at a volume that is audible to humans ears, at a pitch that does not resemble a dying animal. If you have started singing lessons more than once, more often than not the teacher starts off with talking to you about breathing. This, no doubt, sounds a bit silly to those of you who have never taken lessons before; however, in singing and playing music even, for the instruments you play with your mouth (e.g. Flute, clarinet, trumpet etc.), you need to know when to take a breath and where to take it from, otherwise you will not get the strength you want, or the right volume in the note you sing/play. To those of you who have had formal singing lessons or if you've been part of a choir or something, you probably will have heard this sort of thing a million times, and you might be sick of hearing it, but please understand that there is the possibility that there are people who have never heard this before and breathing is one of the major questions they have about making their voice better. Those of you who have had breathing experience (as funny as it sounds) may still want to review this. If you are one of those people who struggle to keep their breath during a song, stand up straight and place your hands just under your ribcage where it begins to curve up and meet in the middle, around your upper waist area. There is a muscle there called your diaphragm and this is very useful if you want to get a bigger breath and give your voice more strength and volume. You see, when you breathe in, you will notice that, not only your lungs but also your diaphragm expand as you take a breath. The diaphragm may not expand very far if you haven't yet been taught this but it should at least a little bit. Now, place your hands back on the area of you diaphragm (if you took them off or didn't put them on in the first place J) with the tips of your middle fingers touching but not pushing against each other. Now take a deep breath in and sing a random note, holding it out for as long as you can. It doesn't 5
matter if your pitch goes pear-shaped; we're not focusing on that yet, just hold a note out for as long as you can. If you are breathing properly, then your fingers should part by about a centimeter or more, depending on your lung capacity, but do not stress if they don't part very much, there is a reason and a solution for that and I am about to get to it. If your shoulders rose as you breathed in, it s possible your fingers didn't go very far, less than a centimeter if we're getting technical. Now, you may have a really good lung capacity and this means you were able to hold out that note for a long time, whether your fingers parted or not, and that is great! But if you were a bit disappointed in your note, (not because of the pitch but the length) this could be why you had trouble with holding out that note as long as you wanted while keeping it at a good strength and volume. See, if you raise your shoulders when you breathe, you aren't using your full lung capacity and you are reverting energy to raising your shoulders rather than taking a good breath, hence the lack of ability to hold that note to the very end when you're singing. You are actually using more muscles than you need to, which can eventually tense you up. Tensing your muscles too much will eventually make your singing sound strained and it will become difficult to stay on pitch and really showcase the tone in your voice (your tone is basically your unique sound, your voice's fingerprint, what makes your voice different from every other voice on earth). You can try this breathing exercise lying down. Notice how the abdomen raises as you inhale, and lowers as you slowly exhale. It is best to be as relaxed as possible when singing because then you can focus well without feeling uptight and you are more likely to feel good about your performance afterwards. So, relax your muscles and drop your shoulders down and don't let them rise. They won't rise if you relax and don't think too much about it. Breathe so that you get the full quantity of breath from your lungs and expand your diaphragm as much as possible. Fill your diaphragm and then your lungs to get the most oxygen into your system and you will, guaranteed, be able to draw out a note much more than you could when you only used your lungs and raised your shoulders. Now put your hands back on your diaphragm with your middle fingers touching gently; stand up straight, almost like a soldier; relax your shoulders and drop them down; relax the rest of your muscles 6
(but not too much or you'll fall over!); don't be thinking too much; take a deep breath and sing a random note and hold it out. Hopefully your middle fingers parted, your shoulders stayed down and you were able to sing the note for longer than before. It can take a while to be able to get it right, you might forget to relax your muscles sometimes, so don't expect yourself to have it perfect straight away. You might need to practice relaxing your muscles or breathing. As for timing your breathing during a song, that is a little bit more complicated because there are things to consider: 1) Sometimes you don't have a very long pause in the music so you have to take a quick breath and then you don't get a chance to breathe deeply and therefore don't have enough breath for what you need to sing. 2) You might find that your quick breaths are very noisy and gaspy and are not usually what people want to hear during a song so you need to breathe quietly but quickly. 3) Don t breathe when other around you are breathing, so wait until they ve done it first. To keep from gasping for air, you can always take in some air even when you don t really need it. This helps keep the blood highly oxygenated. Another point to consider is that is you keep running out of air, it s possible you are singing too loud. If you drop the volume even a bit, you can hold out the note for a few measures more. Remember to keep control with your tummy muscles so the diaphragm doesn t rise too quickly and push the air out too fast. Main Adult Choir Website: http://tiny.cc/t0si2x 7
; July 2016 Village Baptist Church Choir Newsletter Choir Member Spotlight Bill Phillips Roxy Linville As much as we tease Bill, we all appreciate his ready to help spirit and his deep rich bass voice. It would surprise you to know he started out singing tenor. (Something happen??) He started singing 33 years ago in a small Baptist church in Stanford, Kentucky. Bill and his wife, Denise, joined Village in May of 2001 and Bill joined the choir just after they became members. His favorite style of church music is upbeat gospel, and his favorite hymn is Jesus Paid It All. Bill s favorite Bible verse is and always will be PHILIPPIANS 4:13. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me". As strange as it may seem, Roxy sings Bass, not Alto. That would make her the envy of all the second Altos! She started singing eight years ago, but the last five have been with us. She s been attending Village for 12 years now, so she s seen a lot of changes around here. She has two favorite hymns, Be Thou My Vision and How Great Thou Art. Her favorite Bible passage is Psalms 103:11-12, For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. July 6 Betsy Adams, 8 - Lorraine Mix, 14 - Stephanie Reynolds, 15 Joanne Poelstra, 23 - Karen Shields, 27 Mary Beth Danneels, 28 Gary Combs 8