I’ll Fight Day Update
Thursday, November 30, 2006
I’ll Fight Day is ONLY 9 DAYS AWAY! Have you met with your Corps team and figured out what you are going to do?
Lunch Delivery to Bellringers, Laundromat Outreach, Snow Removal and Cleaning Up at Food Courts are my personal favorites. But the great thing about I’ll Fight Day is that you can pick whatever you want to do! It’s completely up to you.
For more information about I’ll Fight Day click here.
Posted By: Eric at 10:40 AM : Link : 0 Comments
Phil Laeger’s New EP
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
I’ve got great news! Phil Laeger has just released a new EP called: Pride & Glory, Truth & Beauty. It’s available for FREE download on the following sites:
www.phillaeger.com,
www.saytunes.com/bands/phillaeger,
www.myspace.com/laeger,
www.purevolume.com/phillaeger (or you can click the banner above).
Posted By: Eric at 10:12 PM : Link : 0 Comments
Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Yesterday I mentioned Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas EP’s (see below). I have been profoundly touched by his rendition of Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming, even on the verge of openly weeping in the Caribou Coffee that I am even now working at. Shame on me for playing this song all those years on Kettles and not knowing the words to this haunting melody. I love the plant imagery of these old hymns; I hope the Church recaptures these simple yet powerful descriptions for modern worship. Check it out for yourself here.
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as those of old have sung.
It came, a flower bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.
Isaiah ’twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind;
And so then we behold it, the virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright, she bore to us a Savior,
When half spent was the night.
Isaiah 11
1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD -
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.
10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious. 11 In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.
12 He will raise a banner for the nations
and gather the exiles of Israel;
he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
from the four quarters of the earth.
13 Ephraim's jealousy will vanish,
and Judah's enemies will be cut off;
Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah,
nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim.
14 They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west;
together they will plunder the people to the east.
They will lay hands on Edom and Moab,
and the Ammonites will be subject to them.
15 The LORD will dry up
the gulf of the Egyptian sea;
with a scorching wind he will sweep his hand
over the Euphrates River.
He will break it up into seven streams
so that men can cross over in sandals.
16 There will be a highway for the remnant of his people
that is left from Assyria,
as there was for Israel
when they came up from Egypt.
Posted By: Eric at 12:55 PM : Link : 0 Comments
Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas EP’s
Friday, November 24, 2006
Merry Christmas! You can stream all five of Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas EP’s for free by going to this site.
You can buy it for $19 by going here.
Enjoy.
Posted By: Eric at 1:46 PM : Link : 0 Comments
In Touch With Jesus
Monday, November 20, 2006
Sugarcoated, MTV-style youth ministry is so over. Bible-based worship is packing teens in pews now
By Sonja Steptoe / Bellflower
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2006
Sometimes a scavenger hunt is just a scavenger hunt. That's all it is at many churches, where the frenzied chase to collect trinkets and complete silly tasks is a perennial activity aimed at getting teenagers into their doors. But at Calvary Baptist Church in Bellflower, Calif., a scavenger hunt is also a metaphor for the lifelong pursuit of meaning and happiness that begins in adolescence--and rich grist for a sermon targeted to teens. "A scavenger hunt is a search," youth leader Doug Jones, 20, tells the 80 teens who have just returned from a race through this working-class city 30 miles east of Los Angeles. Quoting from Romans 10: 13 ("Anyone who calls on the Lord will be saved") and Matthew 7: 7 ("Ask, and God will give to you. Search, and you will find"), he urges them to "ask God to come into your life and rescue you, and bring your personal scavenger hunt to an end."
Youth ministers have been on a long and frustrating quest of their own over the past two decades or so. Believing that a message wrapped in pop-culture packaging was the way to attract teens to their flocks, pastors watered down the religious content and boosted the entertainment. But in recent years churches have begun offering their young people a style of religious instruction grounded in Bible study and teachings about the doctrines of their denomination. Their conversion has been sparked by the recognition that sugarcoated Christianity, popular in the 1980s and early '90s, has caused growing numbers of kids to turn away not just from attending youth-fellowship activities but also from practicing their faith at all. In a national survey recently released by Barna Group, a polling firm that tracks religious trends, only 33% of kids 13 to 18 responded that they attend a youth-group event regularly--a 3% drop since 1998. And while nearly 75% pray each week, that number has declined 9%.
Even more worrisome to many youth ministers was the Barna survey finding that 61% of the adults polled who are now in their 20s said they had participated in church activities as teens but no longer do. Some experts point out that young people typically drift from organized religion in early adulthood, but others say the high attrition is a sign that churches need to change the way they try to engage the next generation of the faithful. "This dip should serve as an exhortation for everyone to be about the business of discipleship, missions and a higher calling than popcorn-and-peanuts youth culture," says Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals. Scholars who have looked at young Christians say their spiritual drift is in part the result of a lack of knowledge about their faith. "The vast majority of teens who call themselves Christians haven't been well educated in religious doctrine and therefore don't really know what they believe," says Christian Smith, a University of Notre Dame sociologist and the author of Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. "With all the competing demands on their time, religion becomes a low priority, and so they practice their faith in shallow ways."
As the exodus has increased, churches are trying to reverse the flow by focusing less on amusement and more on Scripture. When Chris Reed failed to convert a single youngster during one 12-month period soon after taking over as youth minister at Calvary in 1995, he decided to restructure his young people's program by adding both larger doses of doctrine and closer adult mentoring. Now, religious instruction, based on a model developed by youth pastors at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, centers on five Christian principles--evangelism, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and worship.
There's still some fun, games and live-band music in the mix at Calvary, but every youth activity, from scavenger hunts to prayer meetings to scrubbing floors and donating food and clothes at Los Angeles homeless shelters, must relate to one of the principles. Additionally, Reed recruited parents and young adults like Jones to forge bonds with small groups of six to eight teens. The grownups lead weekly Bible studies, help plan missionary trips and monitor the high schoolers' emotional and spiritual well-being with frequent phone calls and face-to-face encounters outside of church. Since Reed's overhaul six years ago, the total youth rolls--including the reconstituted Sunday school and college programs--have grown from 70 to more than 200. In 2003, a record 64 teens accepted Christ as their savior at Calvary. "We're healthy spiritually," Reed says. He adds that even adults who once thought teen members had little to contribute and needed baby sitting welcome their involvement in all church activities.
Bible-based youth ministries at churches around the country are enjoying a similar success. At Shoreline Christian Center in Austin, Texas, youth pastor Ben Calmer vetoed the purchase of a pool table because it didn't further his goal of increasing spiritual nourishment. Instead he started a class in which the young people wrestle with such difficult questions as, Why doesn't God answer all prayers? No one seems to be suffering from the absence of the pool table. Youth membership has doubled, to 160, during the 18 months Calmer has been in charge. Similarly, teens at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., are embracing the big doses of Bible study youth pastors now recommend. Teen ranks have tripled, to nearly 600, since the mid-1990s.
The Calvary kids say they too are happy with the more traditional approach. Priscilla Balcaceres, 16, believes she would still be holding grudges and feuding with friends and family were it not for Bible lessons and sermons on forgiveness. "Before attending Calvary, I believed in God and prayed at night, but I was still very bitter and unhappy about many things in my life," she says. "I've learned what it really means to be a Christian, and now I wake up smiling every morning." Meanwhile, Amanda Sinks, 16, spouts verses from Timothy, Corinthians and James the way other teens recite rap lyrics. "There's nothing boring to me about reading the Bible every day," says Sinks, who became a Christian 17 months ago and counts a heightened ability to withstand peer pressure as one of the benefits. If things keep up this way, hanging out with God might even become cool.
Article printed in Time Magazine. Click here for original link.
Posted By: Eric at 1:45 PM : Link : 0 Comments
Dodgeball Outreach in Elgin
Friday, November 17, 2006
The Elgin Corps has launched a new youth outreach ministry: Dodgeball. Every Wednesday night 50 plus youth come to their corps’ gym to play Dodgeball for a couple of hours. At the end of the night they give a short devotional, pray with the youth and slowly build relationships that focus on bringing youth into the Kingdom of God. This is an exciting program where primarily bi-lingual youth attend and have even started bringing their parents to attend.
This type of Dodgeball outreach proves to be effective, fun and exciting. Two other Corps: Oakbrook Terrace and Tri-City also have weekly Dodgeball outreaches in the Metropolitan Division.
Are you interested in launching a Salvation Army Dodgeball Outreach at your Corps? Contact Eric Himes for more information.
Posted By: Eric at 1:55 PM : Link : 0 Comments
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Hey,
The Singing Company (and Cathleen and I) are going up to Seattle for the weekend. We are going to take part in the Worship + Justice Conference.
After that, Cathleen and I are going to visit The War College in Vancouver. We’ll get to visit Ian Smith!
Anyway, just wanted to let you know that we’ll be away until Thursday. What will you do with yourselves in the meantime? Suggestions: read a book, eat an apple, go for a walk, plan your I’ll Fight Day. Let me know how that goes.
Grace,
Eric
Posted By: Eric at 7:54 PM : Link : 0 Comments
thesingingcompany.com
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
The new and improved Singing Company website is now up. If you want to listen and buy the album, buy t-shirts, download sheet music or hear the upcoming Christmas EP (comes out around Thanksgiving), this is the place. http://thesingingcompany.com
Speaking of the Christmas EP—called The Singing Company Christmas Musical—we recorded over the weekend. The album will try to contain the following songs:
1. Joy: to the World and in The Salvation Army
2. It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
3. Mid-Winter
4. O Holy Night
5. O Come All Ye Faithful
Here are some ridiculous pictures of the event.
Metro Youth who participate in I’ll Fight Day will receive a free, limited edition copy of the CD. People who don’t participate in I’ll Fight Day will have to listen to Amy Grant: Home For Christmas instead…
Posted By: Eric at 8:31 PM : Link : 0 Comments
DeKalb Prayer & Praise Night Photodoc
Monday, November 06, 2006
(Photos courtesy of K. Shay)
To view as a slideshow please click here.
Posted By: Eric at 7:26 PM : Link : 0 Comments
