New songs

I recently discovered iTunes. Well, I had checked it out in the past, but this was the first time I had really delved into it. I ended up spending at least a couple of hours (legally) downloading and listening to music. Several of the songs I bought were worship songs (including an entire copy of Vineyard Music's Sweetly Broken, which I've been meaning to purchase for quite some time), so it ended up being a great time of worship.

It's amazing how songs can capture a moment or a season in your life, how God can take someone else's words and melodies and speak to you. I think I'm learning why the Psalms talk about singing new songs to God. It's an opportunity to connect with God in a fresh way.

So how about you? How does new life get breathed into your experience of worship (musically or otherwise)? If music is a key factor in how you worship God regularly, what songs are adding special meaning for you in this season? Other sources of inspiration? I'd love to hear about it...

God bless,

Candyce

Easter thoughts...

Check out my other blog for some thoughts on Easter...

Candyce

Holy Week

So squeezed among a few small things we call auditions, a preview celebration, and an upcoming launch is this little thing called Easter. It snuck up on me this year.

Maybe I'll sneak a few seasonal thoughts in here over the next few days...

Until then,

Candyce

What's your sacred pathway?

The women's ministry at Vineyard Community Church (the church that's planting D'VINE) has been drawing wisdom from Sacred Pathways, a book by Gary Thomas, and focusing on that for the last couple of months. Thomas puts forward the idea that different people are wired to connect with God and express worship in different ways. That makes sense to me; people have a variety of strengths, gifts, personalities, learning styles, and love languages. So it's just natural to think that different people might be wired to connect with God in a variety of ways.

I believe that worship isn't just about singing songs in a gathering on a Sunday. It's ultimately about the way you live your life before God, loving Him and loving others. It's also about experiencing God's presence. I've found that I've felt the most empowered to live in a way that honors God when I've experienced God's presence in a profound way. The feelings that come with experiencing God's presence will definitely ebb and flow throughout the life of someone following Jesus. All relationships have fun times and hard times, and a relationship with God is no exception. But there are spiritual disciplines that can help a person to experience God's presence, that can help a person to worship even when the "feelings" aren't there. I'm finding the approach presented by Thomas helpful in determining which spiritual disciplines are most helpful in maintaining my spiritual health (not that other disciplines are unnecessary, but that I'd be malnourished without these).

So what's your sacred pathway? This quiz might be a good step in finding out. It might also be a good way to find ways to worship that might be a bit out of your comfort zone. Either way, I hope it's helpful for people seeking to make worship a part of everyday life...

Peace,

Candyce

New song for a new year

I originally posted this on my other blog, but thought some who read this might appreciate it as well...

__________________________________________________

worship connect is the online song database i use to create song sheets and chord charts for worship or pdf's to send to my friend kalla, who helps us out with her mad power point skills. worship connect really does make life easier for me as a worship leader. i can use it anywhere that has an internet connection (which is good for bivocational worship leaders like myself or for churches where multiple people are leading), it produces all sorts of nice charts as mentioned, it changes keys for you (a must-have for a girl worship leader who occasionally leads songs written or recorded by guys), and it even does your ccli reporting for you. it's amazing. but adding new songs to the database is one of my least favorite things to do. it involves sitting at my computer and typing, switching back and forth from my computer keyboard to my musical keyboard, so i can transcribe the music. it's one of the more tedious
things i have to do in this role...

but one of the benefits of spending that kind of time on transcribing and adding new songs is that you notice all sorts of things you wouldn't notice if you were just listening. for example, i've had a collision by the david crowder band for more than a couple of months, and i've listened to it pretty frequently over that period of time. yet i never noticed until last night that the song 'wholly yours' uses the words 'might could be'. holy crap. i'm singing a song sunday night that uses the words 'might could be'. next thing you know someone will write a worship song that talks about what God is 'fixin' to do'. unbelievable. the irony of it all is that crowder also writes in this song about how God is 'the antonym of me,' a line that i think is brilliant. oh well, grammatically correct or not, i still love the song...

one of the other things i noticed in this song as i typed it into worship connect is what crowder has to say about grace and human brokenness...

from the broken earth, flowers come up, pushing through the dirt...
from wounded hands, redemption fell down, liberating man...

at a time when i'm pretty keenly aware of the brokenness and woundedness in my life, i am so incredibly thankful that God has a way of using the broken, the dirty, and the wounded for the sake of His glory, even using the scars and the damage as His wounds heal ours... how incredibly amazing God is... and what amazing hope He offers...

and this might could be the most impossible thing
Your grandness in me making me clean
glory, hallelujah
glory, glory, hallelujah... (from 'wholly yours' by david crowder)

hallelujah, indeed...

___________________________________________________

Peace,

Candyce

Poem for Advent #4: Time

Time and all creation stop for just a moment
A King is about to make His entrance
But not in a palace
Or even a sterile hospital

A host of angels turns its collective attention
From the heavens and its glory
To a dark, dismal manger
No place for any baby, especially this One

But it was time
Time to be taxed
Time for a birth
Time for a world to be redeemed

At last, the One we had watched for has come
The anticipation has reached its culmination
Incarnation is now a reality, God has become Man
And it was time for a new chapter in eternity's story...

The wait is over... and spring begins...

See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come... (Song of Songs 2:11-12)

Merry Christmas, all...

Candyce

Poem for Advent #3: Incarnation

Incarnation
It seems to be such a big word for such a tiny Life
Yet much too small for life's Source
But it's the only word that fits the thought

Word became flesh
And she now carries the weight of glory
Much too young for such a burden
Such a responsibility

It seems so unreal, the angel, the prophecy...
But her cycles have skipped
She's felt Him kick
Her neighbors question her integrity

But she knows the truth
She watches as she carries the Child to term
And she wonders why...
Why would God ever choose her?