March 2011
March 26, 2011
Hymns for April
April 3
17 O Worship the King
20 I'll Praise my maker
18 All People That on Earth do Dwell
709 Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken
April 10, Hank Mills Preaching
197 Beneath the Cross of Jesus
587 Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross vss 1 & 3
548 The Old Rugged Cross, vss 1 & 4
207 In the Cross of Christ I Glory
April 17
192 All Glory Laud and Honor
543 Blessed Assurance
413 Take OUr Bread
191 Ride on Ride On In Majesty
4/24
Choral Response through May, Refrain of 218, Thine Be the Glory
216 Christ the Lord is Risen Today
480 I Love to Tell the Story
391 These I lay Down
95 Jesus Shall Reign
March 23, 2011
Sunrise Easter services are an old tradition. The first recorded service took place in 1732 and was held by a Moravian church that celebrated Christ's resurrection at a Saxon cemetery in Germany. On Easter morning this year, April 24, the downtown churches will hold a joint Sunrise Easter Service on the town square from 6:00 to 6:30 AM, to celebrate their Risen Lord. Staff from those churches will lead a simple service of prayer and singing and a short message. An offering for the work of Operation Inasmuch, a ecumenical service ministry to Murfreesboro non-profits, will be received. Host churches are Antioch Primitive Baptist, Central Christian, First Baptist, First Presbyterian, Hope Church, St. Paul's Episcopal and St. Rose Catholic. The service is non-sectarian and open to the public. In case of rain, the service will adjourn to First Baptist, at the corner of E. Main and Spring Street.
Where: East side of County Courthouse Square, Murfreesboro
When: 6:00 AM, April 24, Easter Morning
March 22, 2011
When you walk through the heavy oak doors of 3C, it seems to be just another church from a lost childhood—hymnals, pulpit, organ,pew cushions, brass offering plates—the whole panoply of mid-century American protestantism, lit by chandeliers and stained glass windows.
But the trappings can mislead, because this congregation is anything but unconscious of its stance in the milieu of Mid-Americann BibleBelt-ism, surrounded by megachurches and wannamegas.
The prelude to everything that happens is just that, the Prelude, played on a souped up organ with MIDI modules and giant speakers hidden behind a facade of faux organ pipes, that tips its hat to tradition while seeming to chuckle at it at the same time.
The pastor then steps off the platform into the congregation to challenge the plausibility structures of a modern world uncertain of its purpose, place or identity.
Every week......We're gathered here to know Jesus Christ....simple words but they set the tone, the pace. Clear about the goal of the gathering and a challenge to not only the deep structures of a world that does not seem to know or much care about “why” it does what it does, but also a brotherly kick to churches that only think about selling...selling themselves.....selling a message....selling God.....putting it across, connecting to a bored blasé public that wants to be entertained or amused.
To know Jesus Christ, he says, and make him known to others.
Not only not embarrassed about having something the world needs, but putting it upfront and center, to make him known to others.
After this ancient call to gather, that harks back to sandal shod smelly preachers wandering across the Mediterranean, the service shifts to the concerns of the community, in no particular order. The pastor will update worshipers on opportunities of learning and service, and raised hands in the pews call out school friends in car accidents, colleagues in hospital, peoples around the world needing attention in prayer. With that finished, all stand who can and recite that week's call to adore God, taken from one ancient document or another found between the covers of their holy book, known as the Bible.
Back and forth, ebb and flow, ancient, modern, formal, unbuttoned, old, new. All of it calculatedly planned to undermine the ultra modern’s inability to imagine a world before last week, and to drag those too comfortable with doxologies and benedictions into God's day of now. God's word in the ear, in the air, for all to hear.
The other move of resistance against the deracinated pomo who lives two feet above his or her head, or the worldling chained to abuse of the world's pleasures, is the weekly ingestion of a small piece of bread, and what amounts to a shot of grape juice.
Rooted in stuff, tied to things, attached to created physicality, the gathering takes in the body of the man/God it follows, in order, among other things, to be reminded that the Eternal saves not souls alone, but messy, straying bodies as well, Brother Ass as old friend Francis would have it. Our bodies are inextricably tied to this matrix- this mother, this earth, and we are not saved from the the world, the universe, but redeemed in and with and for the sake of, all that God made, and has promised to remake.
Not a church you can find just anywhere, but in the geographical center of old Tennessee, unusual things are happening at the Central Christian Church.
March 19, 2011
New Sunday Evening Class:
Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings, by James R. Payton
This class starts tomorrow, March 20 at 5:30 PM. Open to all, if you don't have the book yet, come and try it out and get the book later. See ya there!
March 12, 2011
PASTORAL PRAYER AFTER PACIFIC EARTHQUAKE & TSUNAMI
March 10, 2011
March 8, 2011
Hymns for March
3/13
O 595 Be Thou My Vision
I 546 Amazing Grace vss. 1,2,& 3
C 670 All Who Love and Serve Your City 1,2, 4 & 5
CL 452 Here I Am Lord
3/20
O 86 Great Is Thy Faithfulness
I 97 Fairest Lord Jesus
C 612 O Jesus, I have Promised vss 1,4
CL 699 Rejoice, the Lord is King
3/27
O 100 When Morning Gilds The Skies
I 601 I Am Thine O Lord vss 1 & 2
C 321 Break Thou The Bread of Life vs. 2 capella
CL 680 O God Of Every Nation
March 7, 2011
The book we recently finished in our Sunday night class, "Empires of Trust: How Rome Built -- and America is Building-- a New World" by Thomas Madden, is one of the best written and most interesting books we've read in a long time. I'm putting my copy in the Church Library for those who might want to read it but couldn't be in the class. Feel free to borrow it.
March 7, 2011
"Great is the truth, and mighty above all things." Noble sentiments, but rather surprising to find on the masthead of Alexander Campbell's journal, Millenial Harbinger, for over thirty years (without attribution). It is from I Esdras 4:41, which is in the Apocrypha. Campbell was somewhat anti-catholic in his opinions, so to have this quote from Apocrypha on his journal is unexpected to say the least!
March 7, 2011
Concluded the King James BIble 400th Anniversary lecture series today with about 30 attending and a lot of interest in further Monday lectures. More to come!
March 5, 2011
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I got to the office this morning and there were 12 big cans of beef stew, 24 boxes of macaroni and cheese and about 40 cans of beans and soups in the bin! It's that man and his dog in the pickup truck again! Can we even think about beating February in March? 628 in February; can we top that? Of course we can, but we will we? Let's make 600 our new baseline and stay above that figure. That's only about 2 items a week from each of us. When you're witnessing for Jesus, think BIG!
ROMEOs meet next Wednesday, March 9, at 8:00 AM at IHOP. What's a ROMEO? It's a new name for the ORGs, or Old Retired Guys. Now, we're the Retired Old Men Eating Out. Of course, someone said she thought it was the Ruggedlygoodlooking Old Guys Eating Out, and that's OK too!
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March 3, 2011
Well, if you're feeling a little blue this'll cheer you up. Click to watch the "laughing baby."
March 2, 2011
Pray for the families of two US Airmen who were murdered today in Germany on their way to overseas deployment. They were killed on their bus leaving the airport by a Kosovar jihadi in Frankfurt, who shouted "God is Great" in Arabic. Their names have not been released.
Also, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Roman Catholic cabinet minister in the government of Pakistan, was assassinated in Islamabad today. He was the Federal Minister for Minorities in Pakistan. He leaves behind 5 siblings and a mother. Please pray for their safety. Bhatti stated he had never married because he had received so many death threats over the years because of his work on behalf religious minorities.