Some Monday Morning Stuff

Still bogged down in book writing, so just a few things that have been on my mind this week:

1. It’s about time to fetch the Resurrection eggs out. Don’t worry about doing the dozen. If you manage half of that you’ll doubtless do better than the Vicarage. Do some – it’s fun, a great way to prepare for Easter and an excuse for early Easter chocolate, unless you’re Lentenly fasting, of course.
2. I’m loving the music from Ordinary Time – folky acoustic adaptions of traditional hymns. Mellow and lovely.
3. I ordered a bunch of copies of The Mystery of the Empty Tomb for our toddler group for Easter – it has lovely pics and a really clear story. 10ofthose do very fast delivery if you want some too. And give you a one hour delivery time slot. Magic. I clubbed together with some other clergy wives on the conference to get a good price. on a bulk order. Perhaps you could do a joint order with other local churches. You could make a couple of calls and save everyone money.
4. I have about 3 weeks to finish 2 chapters, edit everything to some sort of coherence, write a final chapter and send to my editor. Messy Meals and Messy Celebrations are next week’s challenge. Am currently wondering how many easy peasy meals I can plan for the coming weeks to allow more writing time. Macaroni cheese again anyone?

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Anticipating Advent: Even More Proper Advent Songs

I’ve been reminded of another couple of lovely songs for Advent. This is taking away a lot of the stress of service planning for the next few weeks!

This is quite zippy, tho’ guitar might not be my first choice for accompaniment for Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (YouTube is, as usual, full of WRONG TUNE versions):

And I love Maggi Dawn’s haunting song, Into the Darkness, but it’s hard to find. There is just this one YouTube clip, and I don’t think we’ve got it in our extensive cd collection so haven’t been able to sing it in church (we don’t have a music team just now).

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Anticipating Advent: More Proper Advent Songs

Monday morning brainfreeze made me forget a couple of other excellent Advent songs. Here’s a good version of O Come O Come Emmanuel by Sixpence None the Richer:

And here’s the best version I could find of Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus. Almost all the others were to the WRONG TUNE. Again.

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Anticipating Advent: Proper Advent Songs

The other day Ros commented that Advent hymns are wonderful. And we don’t sing them all that much. So to cheer a wet and dank Monday morning, a small collection. Starting with Matthew’s Begats, also from Andrew Peterson’s ‘Behold the Lamb’. We were meant to have this in church yesterday, as the Vicar concluded his sermon series in Ruth, but we had technical difficulties, so I’ve been wanting to sing along for 24 hours:

This may not, however, have been what Ros had in mind, so I went hunting for other rousing Advent hymns on YouTube. Not as easy as you’d think. They are mostly too slow, or without voices, or too flouncy and choral, or to the WRONG TUNE (Americans, I’m looking at you here).

I managed to locate a bouncy(ish) version of Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending:

And here’s a far-too-slow version of On Jordan’s Bank, the Baptist’s Cry from the Wells Cathedral Choir.

What I’d really like tho’, is a good video version of Christ is Surely Coming. But there’s only an organ version and one with a single verse. So here are the words. And the tune is Land of Hope and Glory, so I’m sure you’ll manage to hum it for yourself…

Christ is surely coming
Bringing His reward,
Alpha and Omega,
First and Last and Lord:
Root and stem of David,
Brilliant Morning Star:
Meet your Judge and Saviour,
Nations near and far!

See the holy city!
There they enter in,
All by Christ made holy,
Washed from ev’ry sin:
Thirsty ones, desiring
All he loves to give,
Come for living water,
Freely drink, and live!

Grace be with God’s people!
Praise His holy name!
Father, Son, and Spirit,
Evermore the same;
Hear the certain promise
From the eternal home:
“Surely I come quickly!
Come, Lord Jesus, come!”

And finally, one sung with a bit of gusto – When the Lord in Glory Comes:

 

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Anticipating Advent: Song

Advent in the Vicarage is not complete without Christmas music.  The Vicar has banned me from listening to my favourite Christmas cds apart from during this season after rather overwhelming overuse of one of them in the early years of our marriage. So about this time of year I get quite excited about digging through the cd collection to rediscover Christmas Now is Drawing Near by Sneak’s Noyse, a collection of English folk carols that I love. It’s pretty obscure – I first heard it cos my dad had it (and have no idea why he bought it) – and there are no YouTube videos. So imagine a more folky version of this song, and you’ll get the idea:

Another Advent listening favourite is Andrew Peterson’s wonderful album Behold the Lamb (which includes our favourite Matthew’s Begats). Here are a couple of other songs from the album for you to sample:

Of course, we have Carols from Kings type cds too and a mad Celtic instrumental one. This year the Queen and the Joker are joining me in the church Christmas  carol service choir, so we are singing in Thursday evening practices too. Christmas music – just the thing to lift our spirits on dull December days (and a stressy November day too) and point us to the joy and wonder of the incarnation.

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Now and Not Yet – Free Psalms

I’ve just got myself a copy of this acoustic album of Psalms 16, 27, 28, 30, 34, 61, 116, 121, 126 and 130 by Matt Searles and sung by Miriam Jones. Wonderfully you can download the album for free this November.

Current fave song is Psalm 126 – a psalm for all in ministry. This is a psalm I know how to sing by heart in Anglican chant, thanks to a rather old fashioned music teacher at my secondary school – this version is waaaaay better.

[HT Ros]

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God Rock Rocks

On our return journey from Scotland, we were delighted to be able to make a pitstop in Leyland in Lancashire. Leyland is a smallish town with a lively church in the centre. And for one day only, timed perfectly for our return south, the maker of the soundtrack to our lives since children have joined us, Colin Buchanan, was playing a concert.

Colin has a new album out – God Rock – which we had already listened to for most of the journey. It was great to hear the new material – and some old favourites – live and presented with lots of laughs. He still has eight UK dates left to play so you might be able to catch him live yourself. Highly recommended for primary school aged kids. The Queen is in Year 6 and enjoyed herself immensely. On the clip below there are a few samples of songs from the new album. I really think Bear Grylls should hear the Survival Man song. We also have a lovely pic of the kids with Colin but we haven’t quite worked out how to transmit it from the Vicar’s new phone, so you may have to wait for that one.

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By Faith

Starting next Sunday for the rest of Lent (and a bit afterwards) the Vicar will be taking us through a few chapters of Hebrews in his sermons. So this, of course, will be our theme song to accompany the preaching. It’s also one we sang on my conference last week, so it’s sort of in my head anyway.

I’ll have to listen online next week as I’m in Junior Church for a second week. But I think we might try and sing along to this song in the Vicarage at teatime so those of us who’ll not be in the main body of the kirk during the sermon will have a little taste at what everyone else is up to.

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Devotion

Back from deepest Leicestershire and feeling rather spacey after three nights in a strange bed with unfamiliar pillows. But on my home computer so able to share the lovely song and video from Stuart Townend that we saw at the Ministers’ Wives conference. It’s not called ‘This is my Devotion’ as I thought it might be but ‘Christ be in My Waking’. Which is what I want, even when I’m feeling rather out of it after being away.

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Possible Solution for Musicianless Churches?

A friend recently linked to this excellent video on Facebook and suggested it might be the solution in small churches where musicians are thin on the ground. We’ve been blessed recently by musicians playing in our services and replacing the cds and midi files, but one (Rocky, our Ministry Trainee) is leaving in the summer, so we’re praying for reinforcements. If you know any musicians, or even some helpful robots, do please send them our way…

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