SINGING IN CHURCH 101

G:
I read this in church this evening......I hope that 'Blogging in Church' is not a violation of the '14th Commandment' or anything.  ;-)   It was a preface to the song I was lead to sing in church.  
You may have to pretend you are sitting in the congregation for this to make sense. 
All three of my kids were involved in this process and helped me tremendously.  G


SINGING IN CHURCH 101  (renamed later.....THE DEVIL DIDN'T WIN TONIGHT)


My #1 one rule for myself when singing in front of the church is…..
"Don’t SAY anything….Just sing the song you are supposed to sing and get off of the podium."  :0) 

I don’t LIKE to talk in front of people. However, I started a Mom blog with a friend 2 days ago….
so basically I’m not TALKING right now…. I’m ‘blogging’…..so that makes it okay. You just get it read out loud by the author.

Rule 2: Pick a song that is relevant to life at the moment and that will touch who needs to be touched.

Rule 3: REMEMBER RULE 1…..!!!!! (“Yeah….right.” LOL!)

(Blog readers:   There are several things that occured this week to try and keep me from singing this Sunday....This is just a breakdown of it all.....)
HERE IT IS IN A NUTSHELL:

Our song leader at church sent me a text me on Wednesday afternoon….(I have it in my phone still)….
“Will you sing this Sunday PM and Sept 12 AM? Let me know.”
After no thought about it, I sent back…. “That should be fine.” He sent back, “Thanks… …Praying for you.” I said, “Back at ya.” ;-)

So I immediately start thinking of what song I knew that I could work up quickly because there was a lot going on this weekend. “I Will Rise”-Chris Tomlin came to my mind….the kids and I sing it CONSTANTLY in the car…and maybe get 'Little T' to sing with me because he does so well in the car. (FYI….He said “NO” on Saturday…because too many people would be looking at him…AND mainly because he’s only 6). So, with limited time to get the song ready for church…this was the plan…..

Plan A:   After our 10 year old, 'Big T', had a double header on Saturday, I’d take him school shopping and go by Mardel (where he wanted to look at shirts anyway and grab the backup CD and since I already knew the words.  Easy, peasy, right???? NOPE.  No sound track to that song available on the shelf…and no time to find it elsewhere and still get school shopping done.

Plan B: Grab 4 background CD’s off the shelf….continue that pattern until I find one that I want to sing. So, I did just that.  I shut 'Big T' in the little room with me, explained to him what I was looking for and started the first one.  Me: "No..that’s not it.”….put it in the NO stack.

2nd CD: “A Mighty Fortress” by North Point Live….I’m not sure why I pulled that one, however, I started listening and singing (the words are included), not even having ever heard the song before. I finished up and 'Big T' said, “I like that one.” I said: “Me too.”

We went on to listen to two more….The 3rd one was Rascal Flatts song named “My Wish”….I listened and sang to that one just because I like it and I had a captive audience. ;-)

The 4th one was “I Believe in Prayer” by HisSong. This one was brand new to me too. I’ve never heard it before, but it would eventually end up as the runner-up and I could go ahead and buy it and make up my mind later.

I also chose a 5th one to listen to…”Indescribable”….which I also knew all the words to from the Christian praise CD we listen to in the car, but didn’t feel like it was ‘the one’….but wanted it anyway for another song to sing later.

I went to the counter with “A Mighty Fortress” and “I Believe in Prayer” and “Indescribable”…….then decided against purchasing “Indescribable” at the last minute. That left two to choose between.

More school shopping and by then, we were worn out and headed home and listened to those two on the way, trying to chose then, with the help of 'Big T', of course…..and he never asked to listen to anything else, surprisingly.

When we finally got home, I was so tired and my back wasn’t doing well, so I took two muscle relaxers and headed to bed. I told my daughter, 'CoCo', that I needed help picking between two songs for Sunday night and explained what I wanted to sing about…and handed them over to her for her opinion. She chose “A Mighty Fortress”.

Sunday morning…."Little T" reiterates that he really doesn’t want to sing with me, but he’ll practice with me in the car.  "Okay"…(big hug for him), but I said, “It’s fine because I’m singing another song.”  At that point, he asked if he could pick which one I sang.   I said, ”Okay” and laid both CD’s on the table in front of him and told him the title of each one.    He did a little pointing game and then put his finger on “A Mighty Fortress”…..I’m not sure if he even knows what a ‘fortress’ is.    4th opinion…same as the first 3.
SONG CHOSEN.

Now…..so that you know what happened previously to Saturday……

Friday morning, everything was fine. Then, I leaned over to turn on a water faucet outside and strained my back. It tightens up every time I sit down for any length of time….STILL.

Saturday morning, I start losing my voice. Therefore, I couldn’t cheer at the 2 ballgames or sit down for very long. 

Early this morning around 2:00 a.m., my muscle relaxer wears off.  I’m wide awake until 6:00 am contemplating all of what I’ve just told you, and  FIGHTING against the urge to relate all of this to the whole church.  Around 6 a.m. when I decided that I WOULD relate this….I finally went to sleep. Then, wide awake again at 7:30….wow!

I have one more thing you need to know.  During the game, I told a precious family/church friend that the song I planned to sing wasn’t what I thought I SHOULD sing, so she suggested a ‘topic’ only.  I went with that.  Those 4 words just happen to be in this song.

So….this all could be chalked up to ‘random acts of whatever’, or it may be GOD's hand in helping me make it up here tonight.   I’m going with that.    So since the concensus from ALL angles was “A Mighty Fortress”, I hope it blesses someone else tonight, because it has blessed me.  And by the way, Satan....you just lost the game!

G