The Falling of the Rain – Music Story

Remember the story of Job from the Old Testament? He lost it all, his children, his wealth, his health, reputation, his happiness. He was caught in a storm of pain. Perhaps you are caught in a storm of pain. 

Job believed there is a God, but he questioned God’s goodness. You may question more than God’s goodness. You may question God’s existence. You may be skeptical of religious faith, thinking it is blind or unreasonable.

Is there a God and is he Good? is a three-part presentation available on YouTube, making a case for the existence of God and showing that God is present in the storm. Each presentation is approximately 35 minutes long. The parts build on each other, the evidence for God accumulating from one part to the next.

Click here for a three-page PDF study guide for Is there a God and is he Good? Grab some food watch the presentations with a couple of friends. Then work through the study guide, checking the facts. What is the best explanation for the facts? 

Part 1 – Evidence from the Universe

The Old Testament makes three astonishing claims about creation. Do those claims hold up against images / photographs of the universe and earth? What does that imply about the New Testament?

Part 2 – Evidence from History

The New Testament claims that Jesus died on a cross and rose from the dead. Do historians and critical New Testament scholars agree with those claims?

Part 3 –The Puzzle of Pain

How can the Creator be good when there is so much pain, suffering, and death in the world? How can I cope with pain?

God answered Job from the storm! From the album “This & That – A Little Bit of Everything” this video is scrolling playback of a song based on Job38:1[i].

Kathy

 

Click here and here to read why many young Christians are leaving Christianity.

Want to change that? Invite some struggling friends to watch the presentations with you. Serve food and work through the study guide together, checking the facts. Here’s a 30 second promo you can download from Google Drive to start the conversation.

You can get print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for The Falling of the Rain.

Click here for print sheet music.

Click here for digital sheet music.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)  

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[i] Job 38:1 NIV: “Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm.”

Ten Years (Daddy Daughter Dance) – Music Story

According to the BB King classic, “Let the Good Times Roll,” good times happen when you get together, spend some cash, and have some fun. The coronavirus smeared King’s picture of a good time.

Sara turned ten on March 17, 2020. Just four days after her birthday her family began sheltering in place. She could no longer get together with friends, spend some cash, and have some fun. She missed important milestones. School functions, including her spring concert, were cancelled. School moved online with E-Learning assignments. Her daddy was worried how this would impact her life. 

She assumed responsibility for doing her own laundry. She learned how to make pancakes from scratch. How to identify animal bones she found near her home. She used the Internet and Legos to entertain her out-of-state nephew. She helped build a monarch butterfly nursery. She curled up with her parents after dinner to watch Star Trek Discovery. How will she remember 2020?

I had written a song for each of Sara’s birthdays, but not her tenth. I was not sure what to write. Then her daddy made a casual statement during dinner one evening. He said these are the best years of his life! I incorporated that phrase in her tenth birthday song. From the album “Silly or Celebratory – Songs for Sara Lily” this video is scrolling playback of the song.

Kathy

Click here for BB King’s “Let the Good Times Roll.”

Print lead sheet music is available for Ten Years (Daddy Daughter Dance).

Click here for PDF.

Do you teach or play the cello, keyboard, guitar, or bass? Ten Years (Daddy Daughter Dance) is on SmartMusic, the comprehensive music practice app!

Click here to practice the music. Click here for SmartMusic help.

You can change key and instrumentation with MusicXML – digital sheet music.

Click here for MusicXML.
(MusicXML is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML files.)

The Story of Reality – Music Story

Christianity makes exclusive truth claims, truth claims based on the Bible. For instance, Christianity claims that we are highly created, deeply fallen and in need of a Savior. Jesus, and no one else, is that Savior.

Our culture wants us to believe that these exclusive truth claims marginalize people. Do they?

Christianity tells us that we have inherent dignity and worth. We are created in God’s image. Even the most marginalized person bears the image of God. But we are deeply fallen. We victimize the vulnerable. We oppress the defenseless. So, God took special care to ensure that the most defenseless, the most easily victimized, would be treated with dignity and fairness. Check the original documents. God’s laws protected the most vulnerable – women, the poor, orphans, widows, day laborers, debtors, foreigners.[1]

Our culture divides people into two groups: those who are oppressed and those who do the oppressing. Our culture tells us that oppressed people can better understand reality. Their “lived experience” gives them privileged access to truth about oppression. Their special insight makes it possible for them to free themselves and their oppressors.

Christianity disagrees. The Bible tells us that Jesus is the truth. According to Jesus, the real story about people is that all are slaves to sin. No one can free themselves. Jesus came to set us free. And if Jesus sets us free, we are truly free.[2] Christianity, not our culture, tells what is true about man. Christianity, not our culture, tells the story of reality.

How are we to live in a culture that thinks poorly of Christianity’s truth claims? Paul in Colossians tells us to:

Live wisely among those are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.[3]

We are to take the most of every opportunity to graciously and attractively share the story of reality! From the album “A ChorusBook” this video is scrolling playback of the song.

Kathy

Our culture divides people into two groups. Click here to read how this differs from Christianity.

Jesus died to make two groups one! Click here to read how he does this.

You can get print (PDF) sheet music for the Story of Reality.

Click here for print sheet music.

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[1] Deuteronomy 24

[2] John 8:34-37

[3] Colossians 4:5-6 NLT

The Wall – Music Story

An emergency room physician in the Chicago area has tested positive for COVID-19. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker issued a stay at home order effective March 21^st through April 7^th. We are not on lockdown. Nor are we under martial law. We are to “shelter in place” in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Our homes provide physical barriers against infection. Walls protect us.

There is another disease that is just as pandemic as COVID-19. It is the disease of anger and resentment fueled by privilege and exclusion. Walls cannot protect against this disease. Walls exacerbate it.

Today’s social justice movement teaches that our identity is found in a group, either an oppressed group or an oppressor group; that individual identity is on lockdown, inseparable from group identity. People “shelter in place” according to identity markers such as race, economic class, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical ability, age, weight, etc., feeling “safe” in their group and “threatened” when the norms, values, and expectations of society exclude them. By resisting dominant power today’s social justice movement seeks to liberate groups that are oppressed. Today’s social justice movement sees Christianity with its exclusive truth claims as oppressive.

Group identities separate people. The lockdown fuels anger and resentment. Today’s social justice movement cannot end the war between privilege and exclusion. But a new identity can! The wall separating people groups crumbles when people share the same identity. That’s what Jesus accomplished when he died for us.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.[1]

Jesus won the war between privilege and exclusion. He won it on the cross. His death ended our anger and resentment. It ended at the cross. Jesus tore down the wall of separation. He is our peace. He made us one.

From the album “This and That” this video is scrolling playback of a song based on Ephesians Chapter 2.

Kathy

Click here to read Ephesians 2.

Click here for an overview of Critical Theory, the social justice movement making inroads in our culture and church.

You can get sheet music for The Wall at the MusicStories Shop on Etsy.com.

Click here for sheet music. 

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[1] Ephesians 2:14 NIV

Rend the Heavens – Music Story

What was wrong with the nation?

According to Isaiah, ordinary citizens were what was wrong with the nation. They were embracing pagan customs: they practiced divination and bowed down to the work of their hands.[1] Isaiah prayed:

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down … The nations would tremble before you; then your enemies would learn the reason for your fame! … But we are not godly; we are constant sinners and have been all our lives. Therefore, your wrath is heavy on us.[2]

What is wrong with the church?

According to Jesus,[3] ordinary church goers like me are what is wrong with the church.

I am what’s wrong with the church when I practice loveless doctrine.

I am what’s wrong with the church when I expect to be rescued from the unjust or cruel use of power.

I am what’s wrong with the persecuted church when I excuse sexual immorality in the church or embrace pagan customs.

I am what’s wrong with the serving church when I think social justice requires the endorsement of sexual immorality or paganism.

I am what’s wrong with the church when my faith is dead.

I am what’s wrong with the church when I don’t walk through the door Jesus has opened for me.

I am what’s wrong with the church when my worship is lukewarm.

What’s wrong with the church?

Me! I am! I am what’s wrong with the church.

Jesus asks the church – me! – to repent.

From the album “Sing” this video is scrolling playback of the song.

Kathy

Click here to read how today’s social justice movement differs from the teachings of Jesus.

“Was Jesus just a spiritual leader like Buddha, Krishna, Confucius, and Muhammad? Or is he something more – something else entirely?” Ken Samples evaluates these religious leaders in God among Sages and shows that Jesus is more than a spiritual leader. He is God himself.

Print sheet music for wind quintet and piano is available for Rend the Heavens.

Click here for PDF.

Do you play or teach a wind instrument or piano? Rend the Heavens is on SmartMusic, the comprehensive music practice app!

Click here to practice the music. Click here for SmartMusic help.

You can change key and instrumentation with MusicXML – digital sheet music.

Click here for MusicXML.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXMLfiles.)

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[1] Isaiah 2:6-8

[2] Isaiah Chapter 64

[3] Revelation Chapters 2 & 3

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence – Music Story

“Imagine that you are watching – astonished! – as God, accompanied by thousands of angels, descends from heaven to earth be born of Mary. Picture that descent as you sing these words.”

The choir director was asking us to focus on the lyrics of the sheet music he had passed out. I was a student nurse at Abbott Hospital School of Nursing and privileged to be part of an area wide student nurse choir. We would be performing Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence at a Christmas concert downtown Minneapolis. We had in our hands an ancient Greek hymn translated into English and set to a French melody.

Sixteen hundred years ago the hymn was chanted during communion when the bread and wine were presented. The words focus the attention to the awe and mystery of God’s presence in the Eucharist. We were to sing the words as an act of worship, in awe and wonder that God with us once lay in a manger.

I can’t remember what else was sung at the concert. But I will never forget singing this song, our voices reverberating through St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, seemingly in concert with the angelic host as they announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. For me this communion chant will always be a Christmas hymn, depicting the amazing wonder of God being born as a man.

From the album “The HymnBook – Thirty-Four Hundred Years of Praise!” this video is scrolling playback of the song.

Kathy

Click here and here to read the history of the hymn.

You can get print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence (arranged for brass and bells).

Click here for print sheet music.

Click here for digital sheet music.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)

Ecclesiastes – Music Story

The ancient book of Ecclesiastes speaks to contemporary youth culture. An increasing percent of youth in the UK exclude the Creator from their life.[1] According to a recent study most young Brits believe their life lacks purpose.[2]

Ecclesiastes is twelve chapters long. The first chapter opens with these words, "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."[3] The last chapter echoes the first, "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Everything is meaningless!"[4]

The Teacher walked a secular path. He knew the Creator exists. But he chose to live life apart from God. He spent his life researching the benefits of the ordinary things of life and concluded, “All things are wearisome, more than one can say. … I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”[5]

The ordinary things of life include work, pleasure, possessions, success, marriage, youth, old age, religion, and even wisdom. None give meaning or purpose to life. Ironically, recent scientific discoveries agree with the Teacher. Hope, purpose, and destiny cannot be found in this world or, as the Teacher puts it, under the sun.[6] According to the Teacher, the most one can expect from life is a little happiness.

This video is scrolling playback of seven songs based on the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes.

·         Chase the Wind – The Failure of Secularism

·         Livin’ Large – The Failure of Possessions and Pleasure

·         Time and Circumstance – The Failure of Success

·         The State of the Heart – The Failure of the Heart

·         Judge Wisely – The Benefits of Wisdom

·         Live Wisely – The Limitations of Wisdom

·         Invest Wisely – the Failure of Life Lived Apart from God

Kathy

Click here to read Ecclesiastes.

You can get print sheet music for Ecclesiastes (30-page PDF).

Click here for print sheet music (lead sheet format).

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[1] UK Youth

[2] Young Brits

[3] Ecclesiastes 1:2 NIV

[4] Ecclesiastes 12:8 NIV

[5] Ecclesiastes 1:8, 14 NIV

[6] Scientific discoveries