Thursday, January 26, 2017

Camp for Camp


One of my good friends has a 2 year old grand-nephew, Camp Tatum.  I have never met Camp, but I have read a lot about him. He seems to be an amazing boy.  Even more amazing are his parents and extended family that have loved him and cared for him through his fight with cancer.  Camp is now celebrating victory with Jesus in what I imagine to be a great big camp designed just for him.  I am told that the gathering honoring his life was one of the most poignant worship services that many have ever been a part of.  I wish I could have been there.  If you want to know more about Camp and his story, click here.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Meet the composer

If you have followed this blog for a while, you know that Caroline and I play in the Georgia Wind Symphony.  We are debuting a new composition written by Jay Bocook at our GMEA concert in Athens on Friday, January 27th.  We were fortunate to rehearse his new work with him conducting at our rehearsal last Sunday.  It was an honor for us to be able to watch him as he heard something that was conceived in his mind, reviewed on his computer, but never performed live before Sunday.  Jay based the composition on an old gospel spiritual which was made well-know when it was  included in the movie, "O Brother, Where art thou?".  Alison Kraus recorded "Down in the River to Pray" for the movie, but we would love for you to hear Jay's adaptation.
 

Thursday, January 12, 2017

New Year's Dissolutions

There is so much focus this time of the year around new year's resolutions -  things we have been meaning to do that we plan to start doing in January.  Much of the talk has to do with the full expectation that a New Year's resolutions is something we do at the beginning of the year, buy then fades quickly, ie the reduced number of cars in the gym parking lot in February.   This year, I have spent some time thinking about new year's dissolutions.  What are the activities/habits from last year that I could change or quit to make life a little better this year.  It didn't take me long to come up with quite a list.  The first thing I thought about was television, and that is a good one, but so far my best one is to stop thinking so much about how people can serve me thereby making room for me doing something for someone else.  What's your top new year's dissolution?

Thursday, January 5, 2017

Slipper church

My church closed its doors on 1/1/17 to give the volunteers a break.  Some may wonder if the church leadership might have just been giving themselves a break.  Not at my church.  The Vine took the opportunity to launch our first online service and encouraged everyone to tune in at 11am on New Year's Day.  Caroline and I joined from Lake Hartwell in our bedroom slippers.  As usual, I was impressed by the attention to detail that our staff used in putting together great music and a great message.  There is no doubt the online service was much more difficult to pull off than just showing up on Sunday morning.  That being said, there is nothing like gathering together to praise our great God all in the same room.  Joining together online will always be second best.  If you don't have a church home, we would love to have you join us in person or online.