Well, we got through Fourth of July. (more about that later)
This, to a church music leader, means only one thing…IT’S CHRISTMAS TIME!!!!!
The Wednesday BEFORE the 4th, the Sunday School director greeted me with, “Hey, remind me before you leave, we got some CD’s of sample choir stuff for Christmas…”. What ran through my mind was something akin to what Harry Potter would think if he saw a nametag reading “Hello, my name is Voldemort.”
I suppose I must explain myself. Asking the most politically liberal guy in a Southern Baptist congregation to put together the choir program for Independence Day (that would be me), is bound to cause some sleepless nights for the liberal. I’ve had just enough Anabaptist influence to be a bit leery of mixing God and country. I wanted something that would honor the memory of the soldiers who died in the cause of freedom and justice, without looking like the musical intro for Hannity’s America. I couldn’t get any coherent ideas together at all.
So I did what any principled man would do.
I went back to the most vocal choir members who were asking for this and told them, “Hey guys, I’m drawing a blank here.” (It was the truth, I’d been trying to put something together that would honor the Christian core values of freedom while trying not to use the flag as a shroud for the Cross.) “You guys said you had some ideas. Put ’em together and let me see them.”
It wasn’t too bad, though I had visions of Jerry Falwell’s ghost wandering in and saying “Hey guys, could you dial down the jingoism a bit?”
But we did it, the people enjoyed it, I even had a good time.
What I’ve got in mind for Christmas is something like this, though…
A disillusioned Christian bookstore clerk is closing up shop on Christmas Eve and growling “Bah, humbug. I understand Scrooge’s motivation. WHYYYYY are we doing this?”
Whereupon he is visited by three ghosts: A Pharisee expert on the major prophets, that guy that took Paul’s dictation for him, and a third ghost of Christmas future with a Hawaiian shirt and red hair who goes by “Rick”.
Think it’ll work?
Jesusfishfood 