Posted tagged ‘Christmas carols’

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Christmas Off-Key

December 10, 2017

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                      December 10, 2017

                                     

Our three children still remember the car ride on Christmas Day morning. We were coming over Rosemont Hill in Portsmouth, Ohio, heading towards my parents’ house upriver in Ironton. It was pre-satellite radio, pre-CD, pre iTunes days! We had to listen to…The Radio! AM no less!

Carol found a church choir trying to sing! The song was “What Child Is This?” and one man with a rather loud voice stood out as we listened in pain. He always came in about a half note too late. One important line in the song goes “This, this is Christ the King!” This man’s first “this” straddled the end of the same word everyone else was singing, and the beginning of its repeat right after. He used it as a conjunction where there was not suppose to be one.

To this day we bring up that song and choir, and…yes…we mock the moment as we relive it and impersonate it.

Christmas is known for all of its music, Handel’s Messiah, Christmas CD’s, Christmas carolers. In the midst of all the peace-filled music there will always be some shrieks, screeches, and voices that can’t quite get to those high notes.

We still have memories of our son, David, singing with the kids of First Baptist Church in Mason, Michigan, and David covering his left ear because Luke Wandell kept singing the same note over and over again loudly to his left. Luke was totally unaware of the pain he was inflicting. It goes down in the Wolfe family humorous memories section.

The church I grew up in, First Baptist Church of Ironton, always did a Christmas Cantata. The choir practiced in preparation for it numerous evenings, but no amount of practice could cure one lady whose voice could also have been used to frighten burglars away and keep mosquitoes from nesting. We all prayed for laryngitis to afflict her, but God did not answer our prayers. We hoped there would be male solos during the cantata to give our ears time to heal before the next onslaught!

Christmas, however, was about celebration and decorations, no matter how off-key the musicians were. Having someone sing “O Holy Night” while the congregation lit candles at the Christmas Eve service…that is a tradition that still resonates in my soul. Nate and Alyssa Price playing their string instruments as Jean Price accompanied them on the piano…Wow! Singing with my two daughters and one of my son-in-laws on Christmas Eve, I’ll always cherish that!

Christmas has its off-key moments that simply sound off in between long periods of sweet harmony. The times when we look for the ear plugs are simply like receiving one of those gifts that our young child wrapped, a jumbled mass of paper with a roll of tape to hold it together. We received it, cherished it, and filed the memory of it within our minds for the rest of our life.

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Caroling With the Methodists

December 19, 2016

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          December 19, 2016

     Cautiously they came up the seven steps into the sanctuary. There were nine of them, four adults and five bouncing kids. They hadn’t gotten two steps into the sanctuary before two of the Baptist women descended upon them with greetings and smiles. Today the Methodists were joining us! More specifically, the Methodist children’s bell choir was going to play for our service. First Baptist Church and First United Methodist Church were situated just a block apart from one another in the hamlet of Simla, but worlds apart from ever joining together in some kind of activity. Today would change that.

The cold and snow kept a few of the faithful away. Henry and Mildred, our two ninety year olds, wisely stayed away. John was down in his back. A different John was on snow plow duty with the County. So nine United Methodists joined thirteen American Baptists for a time of worship, celebration, and laughter. The five-child bell choir, all related to one another, delighted us. After they finished their two songs they passed out candy canes to everyone…and then I passed out the candy canes I had brought for them!

Two small churches figuring out each other! At the end of worship the crock pots with chili were plugged in and most of us trudged down the snow-packed street two blocks to the full-care senior facility to sing for the elderly residents and, once again, to have the bell choir play. The two churches had collected pairs of socks that the children passed out to the residents, socks with brightly colored stripes and designs to bring a bit of color to the lives of some folks whose days were mostly gray and hopeless.

Two small churches walking together, becoming familiar with one another in a community we were all familiar with. Two small churches figuring out how we could join together to make a difference.

Back to the Baptist church we walked to enjoy chili and cinnamon rolls together. We gathered at the front of the sanctuary, joined hands in a circle of prayer, and asked God’s blessing on the meal and thanked him for the day we had enjoyed. Guests went first, savoring the aromas as they passed by the pots. One of the girls gave the ultimate compliment. She said, “This place smells just like Taco Bell!”

We sat together and enjoyed conversation about school, life, and farming. A story I had shared in my morning message resonated with one of the Methodists. He had been the high school basketball coach for 35 years and my story had focused on a basketball official that we both knew. Connecting points brought us closer together in our conversation.

At the end of the day everyone knew that what had happened that morning and afternoon had been a good thing.

Two small churches a block away, but no longer worlds apart.

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Christmas Music

December 5, 2014

Christmas, more than any other season of the year, is defined by its music. As I write this I have my earbuds in listening to The Piano Guys playing “Angels We Have Heard On High.” It gets my fingers moving almost gracefully across the keys of my laptop. I feel like I’m almost playing the piano as I type.

Think about it! If you did an Amazon search of Christmas music you would find an incredible listing of possibilities. Lady Antebellum, Kelly Clarkson, Elvis Presley, James Taylor, Glen Campbell, Willie Nelson, Blake Shelton, LeAnn Rimes….the list goes on and on and on. Christmas music seems to be “in”, even with those folks that we don’t connect the Christian faith with otherwise.

Growing up in a one TV house we knew that if the Andy Williams’ Christmas Special was on at the same time as “Gunsmoke” or “The Beverly Hillbillies”, as kids we were out of luck. Christmas songs sung by guys named Andy or Perry pre-empted everything else.

Our church always had a Christmas Cantata that brought in a crowd. Even though a couple of the older gentlemen had hard times finding the notes that were being sung, people enjoyed the festiveness and serenity of the occasion.

I’m partial to the song that The Piano Guys are playing, plus “Silent Night”, and “O, Come All Ye Faithful.” If we didn’t sing Christmas carols during Advent there would be a riot in the church. Many of the songs tell the Christmas story. In fact, we assume a number of things about the events of Christmas because of the words of Christmas carols…such as there were three wise men (“We Three Kings”), and Jesus was born at night (“Silent Night”).

But that’s okay! There is mostly truth in the midst of the melodies.

Christmas music prepares us for the reason for the season. It points our hearts and souls towards the divine-human interaction, the event that would change the world.

People who have minimal interest in God have an abundance of interest in Christmas. Someone who doesn’t know Jesus in a personal way can probably still sing the words to “Silent Night” without a song sheet.

There’s just something special about Christmas music. We often talk roughly in our day-to-day living, but it’s near impossible to sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and keep a high level of spite in your attitude.

So sing, my friends! Sing! Exercise those vocal chords and proclaim “Joy To The World! the Lord has come!”

Categories: children, Christmas, Community, Faith, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church
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Christmas Silence

December 19, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                December 19, 2012

My guess is that the most popular Christmas carol is “Silent Night”. Traditionally, it is the song that we end our Christmas Eve Candlelight with. The congregation is standing, each person with their candle glowing. A stillness settles over the congregation as the music begins:

“Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright!”

Perhaps it is the offer at a change of pace that makes the carol so appealing. Christmas is amplified with noise it seems. I was in Walmart the other day and had several toys talking to me as I passed them in the aisles. Seriously! The sound of a monster truck accelerating made me exit a toy truck and cars aisle quickly. In the next aisle a stuffed puppy started panting at me.

Christmas noise. Christmas echoes echoing echoes. Christmas jazz rock.

And so “Silent Night” seems so soothing and comforting. I don’t want to dramatize it too much, but it seems that the birthplace of Jesus…off to the side…out of the banter and bustling…was more about the lack of noise. Perhaps there was some livestock standing around, but what I mean is that no one thought it important enough to make noise over.

In fact, most of the Christmas story characters had journeys that included silence. For shepherds it  was important to have quiet so their hearing could be attuned to any predators lurking close to their herd of sheep. The silence helped them hear any uneasiness in their flock.

The wise men from the East had spent a long period of time traveling in the quiet of wilderness and through valleys. In the Luke account it mentions that after Elizabeth found out she was pregnant she went into seclusion for five months (Luke 1:24). Obviously her husband, Zechariah, wasn’t making any noise!

Silence in the incarnational event punctuated the point that God was doing something incredible.

I’ll be visiting my parents back in Ohio the week after Christmas. My mom is at that point in her life where silence is the norm. She has trouble verbalizing what she is thinking and so there are long periods of uncomfortable quiet, because I’m expecting that the next words are going to come. It’s a hard adjustment seeing your mom, who always talked to you…and even more than you got to say…suddenly be silent. I, however, will always opt for a silent mom over a noisy supermarket, a quite moment sitting by her bed over screaming consumers at the mall.

They say that silence is golden. If that’s true why don’t more people just keep quiet?

“Silent night, holy night!”

Categories: children, Christianity, Christmas, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Prayer, Story, Uncategorized
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