Monday, October 31, 2005
Another week begins
"No, O people, the LORD has already told you what is good, and this is what he requires: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

This verse stood out when I was reading the Bible verses for this week's service which are: Joshua 24:1-25 (selected verses), Micah 4:1-7, Micah 6:6-8. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that it is the verse which is most familiar to me. I must confess however that I only skimmed the readings tonight. More serious reading to follow.

I am excited about the directions we will be taking the church in the near future. As I mentioned in the Worship committee meeting, I think there is much to be gained by using different methods to present the same materials. By doing so, it is my hope that people will get more out of it by getting a fresh take on things.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:17 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Giving your heart to the church
As I had mentioned a couple of days ago, I was one of 4 people that had been asked to recount their statement made at the Finance Committee meeting about when they had given their heart to the church. For those of you who might have missed the service, here is my statement:

When I first heard the question about when the congregation became my home, I had an answer ready immediately. But as I was listening to the others give their answer I realized that we were talking about two different things altogether.

You see, ever since I have been going to church, I have always been involved in some way: Altar boy when I was very young, when I was a teen I was, with the rest of my family, leading the singing during the church service. So, although I had only joined this church so that my kids would have a Christian education, it was very natural for me to become involved. I joined the choir because I enjoy singing and I felt that it was my duty to use my God given gift in God's service. So you could say that in my head this was my home, but not in my heart.

The problem was that all this time, I felt as if there was something missing. I came to church every week, made sure that I was singing the hymns right, listen when I was supposed to listen, responded when called for. And I certainly enjoyed being part of such a wonderful group of people - my church family. But I kept thinking that there should be more.

It was not until I attended the Alpha and Beginnings courses that I realized that what I wanted was a relationship with God and that, as with any relationship, both parties have to actively take part for the relationship to work. Sitting there waiting for something to happen did not work, but it is amazing how easily you can find God when you're looking for Him. I can now say that I have opened my heart to God and this is the place where I want to be deepening my relationship with God.


I don't think it has the same impact on its own, taken away from the context of the reflection, but at least you get an idea of what it was all about.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 10:26 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Saturday, October 29, 2005
These songs speak to me
"But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day," says the LORD. "I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people." Jeremiah 31:33

It has taken me a while to come up with songs that I thought would fit with the theme. But I think the following songs (in the order they will be sung):

"In His Time" Diane Ball (TFWS2003)
"As a Fire is Meant for Burning" Ruth Duck (VU578,TFWS2237)
"Cry of My Heart" Terry Butler (TFWS2165)

while not directly on theme, speak of God teaching us and us wanting to get closer to Him.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:59 PM | Permalink | 1 comments
Friday, October 28, 2005
A beginning
"For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

I have begun looking at songs for this week's singsong. I guess I should mention that the theme this week is "Staking a claim, trusting the Lord" and the Bible readings are taken from Jeremiah 29:11-14a, 31:31-34 as well as selected verses of chapter 32. I have not been able to find songs based on those passages in my usual places. So I have been looking at songs that speak of trust. One suggested song is "In His Time" by Diane Ball which I have done before. I have also been looking at songs that speak of mission. And one of the suggested songs about mission whose words I really like is "As a Fire is Meant for Burning" by Ruth Duck (VU578,TFWS2237) using the Beach Spring tune (VU457).

Well it is now quite late so I will continue looking on Saturday.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:59 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Not much chance to do anything
I spent a good part of the evening at the church for choir practice which meant there really was not much time to look for songs for the singsong. Our minister had asked the choir to select the first hymn. After reading the Bible readings, we sang the hymns that had been given as suggestions. The choir ended up selecting VU601 "The Church of Christ in Every Age" using the MARYTON tune (VU472). I particularly liked the words which probably explains why I have used this song in the singsong before.

I will be giving some choices for songs in tomorrow's entry.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:07 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Thoughts about the meeting
I purposely did not write much about yesterday's meeting as I was worried that the anger that I had felt during the meeting would surface in my comments. Hopefully it will not rear its ugly head tonight. I should confess as well that I only volunteered to chair the meeting because I knew that our minister would be doing the bulk of the work as facilitator. It certainly was not an onerous job.

It was very interesting to hear how everyone first came to the church. The people were certainly a diverse group and they covered the whole spectrum of experience. Some people joined the church during the 2nd World War and some had only been members for a few years. One thing that seemed to be almost unanimous was the music - how everyone liked it. As an aside, it is interesting to me that I don't remember the music being a factor - particularly since I have been involved with music and/or singing for most of my life.

But I guess the best part of the evening for me was when people were recounting how they had come to give their heart to the church and made Esquimalt United Church their church. Listening to the other people (although I probably have to say that Dianna made the most impression on me) made me realize that the answer I had wanted to give did not go deep enough. The current plan is for me (and some of the other people from the meeting) to repeat our answers as part of the reflection time. I will therefore not include here what I plan to say - thereby inviting the thousands of people reading this to come to the church this Sunday to hear all about it. Click on the link above for directions.

At the end of the meeting we made a covenant between ourselves and God, individually, which was then put in an envelope which will be mailed back to us without anybody else ever seeing what it in it to remind us of our covenant. I remember this particular method being mentioned in the "Power Surge" book, although I think in their case it was the congregation putting their giving plan in the letter. We had been asked at the previous meeting to think about what we were willing to do for the church so I had most of the answers already.

I think part of my problem at the meeting last night was that I was resentful that one of the members, who does not come to church regularly, was (to my view of things) asking questions that seemed to point towards a "why are we trying to save this church when there are many other churches?" That is where I lost my temper and I was very short when I pointed out that, while she had somewhere else where she could worship, I did not and I wanted to fight for this church. In retrospect, I think that it was wrong of me to be resentful of her. While doing some soul searching, I found this passage in "Power Surge"(top of p.159): "Many Christian disciples are called to serve in arenas outside the direct ministry of the church...... The demands of their service may rob them of the time and energy needed to serve directly in church-based programs, but that doesn't minimize the importance of their of their service or mission." I would therefore like to apologize to her for thinking less of her opinion because she was not in church every week.

Well I certainly did not intend to be so long winded.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:12 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Random thoughts
It dawned on me, when I woke up this morning, that the watershed moment was not so much how the service was done, but rather that people realized that this was what discipleship was all about. I am repeating this just in case you have not read the comment left on my previous entry.

Tonight was the finance committee meeting, and this time we delved quite deeply in why we first came to Esquimalt United Church and why we decided to stay and why we are still here. It was shortly after that that I realized how committed I am to making this work. I am not too proud that it involved losing my temper though.

One thing I keep forgetting to put down here. I have been meaning to write down another thought I had. Someone mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the 5 churches that are struggling should merge so that they do not all spend money and that way make one viable congregation. I have thought about it and decided that it would be a bad idea. And the reason behind that is that then there would be no reason to make changes - therefore just putting off to the future having to deal with the issues the church as a whole is having today. Just my 2 cents.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:44 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Monday, October 24, 2005
Discernment meeting - take 3
"You're blessed when you get your inside world--your mind and heart--put right. Then you can see God in the outside world." (Matthew 5:8 - The Message).

As is our custom at the beginning of the meeting, we went through the Lucio Divina process of Bible reading. Except this time, we were much more deliberate about doing it as it was the topic of the meeting - Daily Bible reading as the 3rd mark of discipleship. (As an aside, I was explaining what we had done to my older daughter, and she says "Oh, you mean Lucio Divina." Somehow I was not surprised. In any case, I think I will enjoy reading the Bible much more now that I know I do not have understand it all, but rather let God speak to me through the passage.

You may recall what I said about yesterday's service and how it was probably more my problem alone rather than something that would affect everybody. Well it would appear that I was right. The people at the meeting were just going on about how great the service was and how it was a great example of discipleship in action. I am not denying that it was an example of discipleship in action: people using their talents in praising God. I just don't get what made that particular service such a watershed event. Or maybe I should just say that it was not for me; it was just natural to me that people would make use of their talents - after all they have done just that many times in the past.

I just want to write this down before I forget. When I was speaking during the meeting it just occurred to me that people are very afraid of the changes they think will be made but they do not really need to be. The thought I had was they do not have to change what they are doing, but just remember/realize why it is they do what they do. To which my older daughter said "That is probably the hardest thing to do for them". I will have to think about that.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 10:54 PM | Permalink | 1 comments
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Another Ahhh moment
Today's service was led by members of the congregation since our minister had taken some time off. The reflection (aka sermon) was the part of the service I enjoyed the most, as the people that gave it really engaged me into the subject. I wish I could say the same for the other prayers. I have trouble "getting into" the prayers that this one member writes. I always have the feeling that he does now converse with us but rather just reads and somehow this just does not work for me. As most members of the congregation enjoy them I guess it is something that I need to get past.

The Ahhh moment came when I was reading the chapter on daily Bible reading for tomorrow's Discernment Committee meeting. There is a section which talks about Lectio Divina. That is the process of reading a passage of Scripture aloud, usually three times, with a period of silence between each reading. We are to focus on a word or phrase that strikes an inner chord and imagine that it is Jesus talking to us. Our minister has been doing something very similar at each of the meetings I have attended. I has now become clearer as to why she has been doing it.

Speaking of the chapter, I think I need to reread it again and again to become more familiar with all the material that is there. I guess the same could be said about the book itself. But I feel like I am missing something - forgotten or overlooked - by only reading that section once or twice.

And speaking of our minister, she has sent us links to a couple of web sites as ideas to spark our imagination. They are links to St. Mary's Road United Church and to one of its programs: The Thin Line. It is certainly an interesting setup that they have. I would like to think that we have started down a similar road already with the Sunday Wonder Program for example, but a lot of ground work still needs to be done.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:02 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Few and far between
I have been remiss in keeping up with my blogging. I would like to blame it on the cold that I have been fighting for the last couple of weeks, but really I have been back to the "I really have nothing to say" excuse. I would have thought I was past that excuse a long time ago. I guess it is a constant battle.

I am putting together the singsong for Sunday and I think that the song order will be:

"We Are Pilgrims (The Servant Song)" Richard Gillard VU595
"Hunger and Thirst" David Moffitt and Sue Smith
"Touch The Earth Lightly" Shirley Erena Murray VU307

The first song was an easy one: the theme for this week is "We are pilgrims on a journey". And since this Sunday is supposed to be about recapping the last few weeks which were in part about God feeding us and quenching our thirst, the second song fits perfectly (I think). The last song is being done in the service, but since it is a new song for the congregation I have decided to go over it in the singsong so people will be familiar with it.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 12:55 AM | Permalink | 0 comments
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Next discernment meeting
The next discernment committee meeting is coming up next Monday (Oct.24th) and the topic will be the next mark of discipleship: "Daily Bible Reading". I have started reading the assigned book chapter which is on, what else, daily Bible reading. The one thing I have picked up so far is that you are not studying the Bible, but rather trying to let God talk to you through the Bible passage you are reading. Also, it is easier if you read the New Testament rather than the Old Testament as you need to know more about the history around what God is trying to accomplish in the Old Testament.

Our regular minister is away this week, so I am waiting until I see the bulletin for this week to look for songs for the singsong. I do have an idea about a couple of songs as the theme is supposed to be a review of the last few weeks. I will mention actual songs tomorrow.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:12 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Songs for singsong
I have had trouble finding songs for this Sunday. But I have been mentioning in the singsong that I would sing any songs that the congregation would request. I did receive just such a request a couple of weeks ago, "The church in the Wildwood", so this is as good a time as any to do it. And another song that has been stuck in my mind is "Come let us worship and bow down", which are the words from Psalm 95:6-7. Those verses were some of the ones quoted for the last discernment committee meeting and it has been running through my head ever since. And I mentioned the other song in yesterday's entry. So I think the order will be as follows:

"Come let us worship and bow down" Maranatha Singers
"The Church in the Wildwood" Dr. Wm. S. Pitts
"Hunger and Thirst" David Moffitt and Sue Smith

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:02 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Friday, October 14, 2005
Finally looking at songs
As most of you reading this blog know already, I have had a cold all week and have not been going to work because of it. I also have not been feeling well enough to spend any significant amount of time looking for songs for this week's singsong.

The theme this week is "Water from the Rock; God Satisfies Our Every Thirst", and the Bible reading is Exodus 17:1-7. Surprisingly few songs have been written about this. Which always makes it a little more challenging coming up with songs. The one suggested song in Voices United is: "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" which I might end up doing. I did find one song while searching on CreativeWorship.com:

"Hunger and Thirst" David Moffitt and Sue Smith

I have listened to it a couple of times so far and I really like it. Unless I find something more suitable (unlikely at this late hour) I will be using it on Sunday.

There is still more searching to be done as I really only have 1.5 (I do not really want to do "Guide Me....") of the 3 songs I would like to have for the singsong.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:59 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Thursday, October 13, 2005
And now for something frivolous
Found this fun test about your religious philosophy:

You are a Believer

You believe in God and your chosen religion.
Whether you're Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu..
Your convictions are strong and unwavering.
You think your religion is the one true way, for everyone.
What's Your Religious Philosophy?


One cannot be serious all the time, can one?

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:55 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
And so it begins
I went to the church again last night, this time for a Finance Committee meeting. It will turn out to be a pivotal moment in the life of the church. I have mentioned before that the attendance at our church as been declining over the last few years, with the result that our expenses are now outpacing our revenue and it has been getting worse every year. This meeting, and the one before it which I missed because of family business, were for the express purpose to decide what we would be doing.

I am, again, not going to recount all that happened in the meeting. Suffice it to say that I am very pleased to be able to say that we, the committee, have decided that we should dip into our trust funds and work at reversing the trends at the church. The "only" thing left to decide is how we are going to proceed - which is partly what the Discernment committee is about.

I cannot help but be excited about trying to discern God's purpose for ourselves and the church.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 10:11 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Worship
Tonight was Discernment Committee meeting night. We are going through the Marks of Discipleship (put forward originally by Michael Foss in his book "Power Surge") one by one after reading about that particular mark of discipleship in another of Michael Foss' book "Living the six Marks of Discipleship: Real Faith for real life". Tonight's discussion centered on weekly Worship.

I am not going to recount everything we discussed at the meeting, but just write down a couple of things that have come to me since. I was re-reading the chapter after the meeting trying to clear something up in my mind when I came upon this line: "Worship is our invitation to come into a time and place where heaven and earth touch". That, I think, is for me the best explanation of what worship is. It allows for different methods of accomplishing that purpose while having the same end result.

The other thing is really just me being picky again. I would say that if you are by yourself you are not worshipping, you are praying. Worshipping to me involves being part of a faith community, or as it is put in the Bible "in the company of saints".

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:10 PM | Permalink | 1 comments
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Picky, picky, picky.
Or maybe I should say things that annoyed only me (hopefully). First, I should mention that I enjoyed the service this morning - well for the most part anyway. As I get older I find it harder and harder to tune out other noises when I am listening to something so it was very distracting to me to have a young child babbling next to me during parts of the service. And while I understand the need to make everyone feel welcome it did not help with be losing track of parts of the reflection. I also was annoyed at our music director's interpretation of one of the songs (Dayeinu) but I am hoping it was just my preconceived notion of how it should sound that clashed with her version.

The singsong seemed to go fairly well - I enjoyed the fact that one of the choir members took it upon herself to add drums to one of the songs. I like the fact that people feel free to add to the songs in whichever way increases their participation in the songs.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:59 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Saturday, October 08, 2005
And the song list will be
For some reason I found very difficult to make a choice this week as far as songs were concerned. And now that I have done so I worry that I have picked too many "new" songs: songs the congregation will not be familiar with. I guess we will see. The song order is as follows:

"Give Thanks" Henry Smith TFWS2036
"Would You Bless Our Homes And Families" Walter Farquharson VU556
"O How Thankful I Am" Terry Butler
"If Our God Had Simply Saved Us" Trad. Hebrew VU131

In the case of the last song, we will be singing it in the service and it is new to the congregation so I figured I would give them a little help getting started in learning the song. I am only going to do a couple of verses (1,10), just enough to give them a taste of the melody.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:59 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Friday, October 07, 2005
Vacation post
I may have mentioned (although probably in my other blog - Chris' Musings) that I have taken a few days off to be with my wife since her return from her visit with her family. So I have not done much but just spent some time with my wife.

I did want to mention a song I really like at the moment "Who am I" by Casting Crowns. It speaks of the wonder of God's love despite the fact that, in the great scheme of things, we are pretty much insignificant. I certainly identify with the song.

I have received the presentation slides for next Sunday's service. As I was pretty sure would happen, the youth that is putting the presentation together has realized that the more people proofread the presentation the fewer the chances of errors. So far I have seen a couple of formatting errors - but those could be because I am viewing the presentation on my Linux computer using OpenOffice instead than on Windows using Powerpoint. I will be getting the laptop from the office tomorrow and will be having a closer look at it then.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:37 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Much to be thankful
In keeping with the Thanksgiving theme, I wanted to mention one think that I thankful for: the safe return of my wife. She had been away for 10 days taking care of her ailing mother and is now back with us, tired but thankful herself to be back home.

Also, I have continued looking for songs that could be used on Sunday. I mentioned that the theme Bible reading was Exodus 16, but I should say that the theme for the week is "God feeds us". That is a little harder to find songs for than Thanksgiving. I did one that sort of mentions God feeding us: "I Heard the Voice of Jesus" VU626. There is also "You Who Are Thirsty" TFWS2132 by Barbara Ross. I am not too sure however if that fits very well with the theme.

Finding songs for Thanksgiving is much easier and another song I have come across is "Thank you, Lord" by Seth Sykes. I have just found that song and I think I might try to use it this Sunday. I am worried though that I will end up will all Thanksgiving songs and will not have any that address the "God Feeds Us" theme. I do still have a couple of more days to find more.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:59 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Monday, October 03, 2005
Thanksgiving Sunday
I have started looking for songs for next Sunday. The theme Bible reading is Exodus 16 and since it is also Thanksgiving this means that finding songs is not very difficult; choosing the songs is the difficult part this time around. After a cursory look around, the following songs are possibilities:

"O How Thankful I Am" Terry Butler
"Come, Come, Everybody Worship" Natalie Sleeth TFWS2271
"Give Thanks" Henry Smith TFWS2036
"Let All Things Now Living" VU242,TFWS2008
"Would You Bless Our Homes and Families" VU556

I have not yet finished looking so I am hoping that there will be more songs to choose from for Sunday. I will let you know.

I have a few days off coming up and I am hoping that I can get caught up on the reading that needs to be done before the next Discernment meeting. I have been falling behind on my reading and I really have no one to blame but myself for not setting aside the time to read.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 10:52 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Some preparation helps
The reason I say that is that I was running the slide presentation for the service this morning, a presentation that had been handed to me just minutes before the service started which meant that I did not get a chance to even look at it. After struggling for a while, hoping that I was pushing the button at the right time, I decided to hand the remote control to the person that had put the presentation together since she knew it much better than I. I felt really bad for her later when it turned out that she had forgotten to enter some of the service into the presentation. Having done the same thing before I know how frustrating that is and why I now firmly believe in having someone else proofread the slides.

Interesting that it was not until I read the comment our minister left on yesterday's entry that I really stopped and looked at the lyrics for "We Bring the Sacrifice of Praise". Sometimes I get lost in playing the song rather than really paying attention to the meaning of the words I sing. This of course means that I do not get as much out of the song as I should. I will certainly try to pay more attention to the lyrics of the songs I sing.

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:27 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Song lineup formalized
It has taken me a while to come up with all the songs for this week. Not that there were no songs to choose from, it is just that I have been really picky about songs lately. I really have no idea why. In any case, the three songs are as follows:

"We Bring the Sacrifice of Praise" Kirk Dearman
"The Church of Christ in Every Age" VU601 (tune MARITON)
"Bread of Life" Stephen Spencer

I was looking at a couple of other songs but either I am not ready to play those for the congregation yet (Go Light Your World) or the range of the song is too large for the congregation to be able to sing it (You Raise Me Up).

God Bless You!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:58 PM | Permalink | 1 comments