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.)
My favorite
Christmas story is from the Gospel of John. Here’s how The Living Bible puts it:
“Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always
been alive and is himself God. He created everything there is – nothing exists
that he didn’t make. Eternal life is in him, and this life gives light to all
mankind. His life is the light that shines through the darkness – and the
darkness can never extinguish it. …
And Christ became a human being and lived here on earth among us and was full
of loving forgiveness and truth. And some of us have seen his glory – the glory
of the only Son of the heavenly Father!”[i]
From the album
“Hope Giver” this video is scrolling playback of the song.
Kathy
Click here to read
John’s Christmas story in the New International Version.
You can get
print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for Merry Christmas!
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.)
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”[1]
God commanded it. Jesus lived it. He laid down his life for us.[2]
Who is our neighbor? Jesus responded with a parable. The
Samaritan’s neighbor was the stranger who was attacked and left for dead. If the
Samaritan were in that stranger’s place, how would he want to be treated?
The Samaritan possessed the resources necessary to help. He
could bring heaven’s healing power to the injured man by caring for him out of
the resources God had given him. Or he could ignore the stranger and walk on
by. Even though it was inconvenient and costly, he voluntarily chose to obey
the command, to love his neighbor as himself. He made a rational decision to
show mercy.
In the last 28 days over 14,000,000 people across the
globe have been attacked by COVID-19, leaving over 200,000 dead. No matter
where we go, we are near someone who is vulnerable for severe COVID. We stand
in the Samaritan’s shoes. Will we use the resources God has given us to bring heaven’s power to heal? Will we respond out of compassion to the stranger? Or walk on by?
There are no simple solutions. COVID will be with us for a long time. What personal resources has God given you that will ease the suffering of a neighbor?
“Love your neighbor as yourself.” God commanded it. Jesus
lived it. What if we lived it?
From the album
“This & That – A Little Bit of Everything” this video is scrolling playback
of the song.
Kathy
The parable of
the Good Samaritan is found in Luke 10:25-37. Click here to read it.
Click here for John Hopkins University CoronaVirus world statistics.
Lead sheet
music (PDF) is available for Samaritan!
It started last March with Covid-19. People we know became sick. The virus swept through our neighborhood, infecting two households on our block. We shelter in place.
Last May 700 buildings in Minneapolis were damaged as people rioted in the wake of George Floyd’s death. The pharmacy near my sister’s home was severely damaged. Lake Street, the street where my cousin once had his shop, was on fire. The aftermath was like a war zone, marked by burned-out collapsed buildings and rubble.
In September and October 4,000 homes in Oregon burned. Family and friends were evacuating farm animals, sealing windows against poor air quality, sharing frightening photos of fires near them.
Social media posts of friends were censored, accounts flagged, not based on facts but because they made someone feel uncomfortable.
Longtime friends died; we were unable to weep with the families. Funerals were broadcast on social media.
And Christmas was a Zoom meeting!
We live in a society plagued by loneliness and fear. Where is God when trouble presses in?
From the album “This and That – A Little Bit of Everything” this video is scrolling playback of a song based on Philippians 4:6-7.
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.)
Evangelicals interpret the Genesis 1 creation account in
a variety of ways, and they have good reasons for doing so. This presentation
explores those reasons then briefly summarizes six evangelical views of Genesis
1, giving some strengths and weaknesses of each view.
Evangelicals agree that God is the eternal Creator. They
disagree on the how and when of creation. The disagreements over Genesis 1 do not need to be divisive. This presentation is a conversation starter.
Kathy
A three-page
PDF summary of the presentation is available.
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.)
Historic Christianity teaches that the Creator God of the
Bible is Triune. The Creator is three Who’s and one What. The three Who’s are
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The one What is God. There is only
one God. A recent survey revealed that many evangelical Christians are out of
step with historic Christianity. 30% say Jesus is not God!
When I was in high school my neighborhood was homogeneous.
A friend told me that I worshipped three Gods, not one. Her church taught that
the Trinity is nonsense. I did not know how to respond.
Times have changed. Today my neighborhood is diverse. Recently
a group of us were discussing Jesus. The Muslim in our group said that Christians
worship three Gods, not one. He worshipped one God, Allah. We were snacking on
potato chips. He picked up three empty chip bags and said these three bags are not
one. Three cannot be one. The Trinity is not logical.
How would you respond? You might say that the Trinity is
a mystery; it cannot be explained, yet it is true. But that would not address his
misinformed potato chip bag analogy. It would not expose his straw man
argument. It would not satisfy his thirst to know his Creator.
Here is the
presentation I gave last month on the Trinity. At the end I share how I
responded.
Kathy
Click here for
the results of the State of American Theology Study.
Print (PDF) and/or
digital (MusicXML) sheet music is available for No God But One, a song
featured in the presentation.
(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.)
