iBelin

My 2000 Concert of Sacred Music

// April 7th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Worship Resources, worship

1 Malotte’s The Lord’s Prayer
2 O God Our Help in Ages Past
3 How Tedious and Tasteless the Hours
4 Father I Stretch My Hands to Thee
5 Great is Thy Faithfulness
6 My God is So High
7 Gonna Shout All Over God’s Heaven
8 Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning
9 This River
10 My Chains Fly Off
11 Three Hymns (Be Still My Soul, In Times Like These, The Name of Jesus)
12 Medley of Hymns sung to RETREAT LM

Lenten Resource for Fasting and Prayer

// February 3rd, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Worship Resources, fasting, prayer, worship

The Lenten Season begins on Ash Wednesday, March 9th and is a wonderful time to cultivate the life of the spirit through the Spiritual Disciplines. The congregation I serve will be on a journey that involves a Daniel Fast and regular schedule of prayer. I am making the guide I developed available for you. Use as much or as little as you want.

Just click this link and it will download to your computer.

Fasting and Prayer: A Journey to the Heart of God

I have a few other posts you will find useful concerning fasting and prayer. Just click on any of the links below:

Fasting
What is Fasting?
Why Fast?
What is a Daniel Fast?
Prayer

Remember, I’m praying for you.

A Prayer for People of Haiti Still Trapped in the Rubble

// January 14th, 2010 // 7 Comments » // Haiti, Worship Resources, worship

O God, Creator and Sustainer of all that is, we come to You in reverence and humility thanking You for the great privilege of prayer. With our hearts heavy from grief and our minds filled with questions, we come to you! Once again and, as always, we need Your grace and mercy. God, we trust Your wisdom in all things.

Our hearts are filled with anguish for our sisters and brothers who are trapped in the rubble in Haiti who are still hoping and praying to be found before their spirits leave their bodies.

O God our Keeper! Your Word tells us, if we make our beds in Sheol, You are right there. So, show Yourself, manifest Your Presence to our sisters and brothers who are right now still trapped debris. Glorify Yourself in the rubble!

O God our Comforter! Wrap your loving arms around our Haitian sisters and brothers who are longing for to see their family members and loved ones again.

O God our Sustainer! Empower and strengthen rescue workers, keepers of the peace, medical personnel and preachers of your Gospel with your Holy Spirit.

O God our Peace! Breathe on Haiti.

O God our Healer! Heal broken bodies, troubled minds and sorrowing hearts.

O God our Joy! Penetrate the grief, pain and sorrow by the great power of your Presence that all may know, even in tragedies, that you are the Lord.

In Jesus’ holy name, AMEN

Cake and Communion

// July 5th, 2009 // 5 Comments » // family, worship

So, I baked Ina Garten’s famous Flag Cake (click here for recipe ) for the congregation I’m privileged to serve this weekend. I baked it for my sister’s children a few years ago when it was featured on Martha Stewart. We had a blast that 4th of July. They were excited to help ice and decorate the cake with blueberries and strawberries (NOT raspberries as the recipe calls for). It made for wonderful memories. A few years later after I moved back to Nashville, some of my South Carolina crew came to visit and I baked the cake again. It was a communal endeavor. All of us were in the kitchen laughing, talking, decorating, sharing, telling old stories. We took the cake with us to Sandra’s house around the corner as our contribution to the barbecue. When I cut into the cake after dinner, I knew…. rubber!

Notwithstanding the rubber cake, our time in the kitchen baking the cake, cleaning up after it and laughing at my embarrassment are the stuff that make life worth living. We remind each other that we are loved, that we matter and that someone is genuinely interested in hearing the answer to, “how are you?” We are bound to each other and want what we believe is best for the other even when the other refuses to listen. We pray for each other and tease each other mercilessly. When something challenging happens to one of us, the others exploit it for all the humor that can be squeezed out of it. We force each other to laugh in the face of what would reduce isolated people to tears. We are a family bound together by love for each other and our God.

Well, the cake I baked for my Kairos Family was an overwhelming success (albeit a little dry for those who got pieces from around the edges). There was a lot of love in that cake. Before I put it into the oven, I lifted it before God and said, “Now, You know this is for Your people…” This prayer was not to guard against attacks by rubber spirits but a prayer that even an uneven cake with cream cheese icing, blueberries and strawberries can become an humble means to know God’s grace.