tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24769603511769537962024-02-19T02:00:03.259-05:00C-Mike Run (Good Mike)C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-62724166583907688512022-06-21T09:13:00.000-04:002022-06-21T09:13:20.298-04:00Hammock Camping With Aidan<p>This past weekend, I was able to bring to completion some plans long held. Looooong held.</p><p>With this being the first weekend after the completion of the Spring soccer season, I found on my hands a rare substance — <i>free time</i>. Saturday morning I woke early, grabbed my hiking pack, and headed out to the Uwharrie National Forest. I picked a trailhead that I'd visited once before (for just long enough to eat a granola bar and before making the return hike) but had never started at. From the Tot Hill Farm Trailhead, I marched south on the Birkhead Mountain Trail toward Hannah's Creek. But I made a last-minute decision to veer off and take a loop side-trail which was marked only as "Camp 3". I'd not hiked this segment before.</p><p><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="2268" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQQJBu_A5FmcouXBsFgsyhxiKuPauwPBNiTLBPYRGE4B1MIMqn7hXDapHCBOo1QspcqIpIudgwNR7sRLJ6v7oacz1vMeBOy4RripbvplYqBfcNUNzuadQRg6J2vz_0Wd2puooYYfFM_zhmuoa9LojQiahSMbaIksx7g4oVyfbO_60sGGbpibf6oMb5/w181-h320/PXL_20220618_142252714.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 10px 0px 10px 10px;" width="181" />It was a pleasant hike on a clearly less-traveled trail, but the most interesting bit for me was actually finding the camp site(s, plural, as there were two). One particular site stood out immediately as the <i>perfect</i> spot for a hammock camping stay. It featured a nice-sized clearing with an established fire pit just yards away from a natural creek (water means fire safety!) and with several mature trees perfectly spaced for at least six hammocks. I popped up my own hammock and enjoyed the breezy day for a while before continuing my hike. When it was all told, I'd hiked over 7 miles and felt like I'd found the hammock camping spot for which I'd been searching since Fall 2021.</p><p>And that's (at least in part) what I mean by "plans long held". Nine months ago, my son Aidan and I started talking about camping somewhere with hammocks. We bought the gear we needed and started scoping out locations. But life got super busy with Fall soccer. Then life got super chilly with Winter. Then Spring soccer, and now AJ has his first job, and the world is rushing to fill everyone's time as an over-response to a slow pandemic year, and.... So the story of over-committed lives seems to go. We had the gear and the inclination, but no time.</p><p>After Saturday's hike, I came home with a renewed sense of possibility. Sunday was Father's Day, and I had intended to drive out to Denver, NC to hang out with my own dad after church. But my girls both tested positive for COVID-19, which meant that it wasn't such a good idea to interact in person with my parents. I enjoyed a 3-mile light local hike immediately after church with a friend. But the timing seemed right (my company gave me Monday off in recognition of the Juneteenth holiday) and the weather was great, so I asked Aidan if he'd be okay with trying the hammock camping thing <i>that evening</i>. And to my surprise, he was all in.</p><p><img border="0" data-original-height="2268" data-original-width="4032" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCyNmrVKD1QzBRjUImcvXnkXa7Qh4WDGlwDnDMpJCBIl4LGsKO5_hmdvlu_xo0lfSQYJtKQ5cuA3AOoxJKSQoWmkLPko41S6KsygLvMhRkoEfZk1F8JXzj9-eZTjlya5-P0RiRs8KfJ4XJCOOvOLi-IgWeiNaohemVsct73fKHUdr29-RMoy779xIl/s320/PXL_20220619_234218338.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0px;" width="320" />We packed up our gear and by 6pm were parked at the Tot Hill Farm Trailhead. We repeated the hike I'd made the day prior, except we went clockwise around the camp loop instead of counter-clockwise. By 7:15pm we'd reached the site (which I was thrilled to find empty) and started setting up camp — hanging the hammocks, gathering firewood, etc. To my wonder, my fire started effortlessly, and as darkness started to close around us we sat by the fire and talked about a variety of things. One feature of the site I'd noticed the previous day was that there was zero cellphone signal availability. So in an age where we are constantly interrupted by technology, we found ourselves truly alone together.</p><p></p><p>It was about 10:30pm when we doused our fire and climbed into our hammocks. We learned first-hand how challenging it is to wrestle with sleeping bags when trying to sleep on a curved surface. (There's probably some trick to it; we just didn't know it!) We learned how exposed one can feel sleeping in a hammock versus inside a tent — how you can hear absolutely everything yet see almost nothing. We were super grateful for the built-in bug nets our hammocks offered. We were amazed at how incredibly bright fireflies appear in the dark woods. And <i>eventually</i>, we drifted off to sleep despite being hyper-aware and over-stimulated.</p><p>We woke early (as tends to happen outdoors), having each stirred multiple times through the night to adjust a sleeping bag or shift positions. The sun had not yet lighted on our location when we climbed out of our packs, munched on Pop-Tarts and reflected on the evening. But as we started packing things up again, the daylight intensified and aided visibility. We hit the trail again around 6:30am, and arrived back at the trailhead around 8am, having successfully completed the mission we'd set for ourselves some nine months prior.</p><p>Long held plans. But longer still for me. This weekend brought parity that I needed to assuage a bit of parenting guilt. You see, I'd taken AJ's older brother camping at Pilot Mountain a decade prior, and ever since that time it had bothered me that I wasn't able to offer the same one-on-one experience with Aidan. This year — on Father's Day even — the combination of a lovely day, available time, a global pandemic, and an adventurous son resulted in some personal achievement, imbalances balanced, and valuable memories made.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikzWJATy3ZgU2AZQw10SCoVlyw8zKpfAZkycl6yc3Rlrki8qLihK5ffyk-P-Kahc_L0WF12WFwDR51c1ZrOv6PCiWRvayAHjbeHZ0fdsYmtxnT1XYlhnPvZy93aR6GdeM1XnIicn4Lj51ZrhxIfmhkrQrBmbbWkOvvCcDJjKvlmXhoec3YPTEBUWjU/s3264/PXL_20220619_234207411.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikzWJATy3ZgU2AZQw10SCoVlyw8zKpfAZkycl6yc3Rlrki8qLihK5ffyk-P-Kahc_L0WF12WFwDR51c1ZrOv6PCiWRvayAHjbeHZ0fdsYmtxnT1XYlhnPvZy93aR6GdeM1XnIicn4Lj51ZrhxIfmhkrQrBmbbWkOvvCcDJjKvlmXhoec3YPTEBUWjU/w400-h225/PXL_20220619_234207411.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p></p>C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-58199598225224080162021-07-27T09:14:00.002-04:002021-07-27T11:13:21.742-04:00"Gracious and Holy"<p>Over the past month, the Student Pastor at our church (and a dear friend) Evan Smith has been filling the pulpit on Sunday mornings as our senior pastor enjoys some much-deserved vacation time. (You might have noticed, but 2020 was a rather hard year for folks, and perhaps especially pastors.) Evan chose to deliver a cohesive, four-part sermon series, and settled a couple of months ago on the theme of God's presence. Over the four weeks, he planned to illuminate the thread of God's desire to dwell with His people that runs through the whole of Scripture: from <b>Eden</b> (where God walked with Adam and Eve), through the <b>Exodus</b> (where God "tabernacled" with the Israelites), to the <b>Embodiment</b> (or Incarnation, where Jesus — the Word who both was with God and was God — became flesh and dwelt among us), and into the promise of <b>Eternity</b> (where the people of God will enjoy the immediate presence of God forever). And if you were paying close attention, you noticed that those four waypoints were alliterative — such a good Baptist pastor! But between the lines of this story runs the equally deep and powerful truth of God's nature as both <i>perfectly</i> holy — such that imperfection in His presence runs the risk of eradication — and <i>immensely</i> gracious.</p>
<p>These were some of the many thoughts swimming around in my head on July 4, 2021. I was hiking alone the <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/gRiVRCbSjx6M4W3n8" target="_blank">Robbins Branch Loop Trail</a> in the Uwharrie National Forest, and trying to enjoy a calmness of mind. Irritatingly, though, my brain just seemed frantic — jumping from thought to thought across all the various roles I play (husband, parent, employee, worship leader, etc.). At one point, I actually yelled aloud in the forest in frustration, "Why is it so noisy in here?!" And then a strange thing happened. In what seemed like no time at all, the melody and opening words of the chorus of a new song were in my head, coalescing around the themes of Evan's sermon series. I spent the next several hours (and about 8 miles of hiking) developing the skeleton of the song. I was super-grateful to be alone in the woods, not least because it's <i>really</i> embarrassing to be tripping over tree roots whenever I turned my attention to my phone's voice recorder app or tried to type into it some lyric ideas!</p>
<p>Once home, I spent the next week or so putting meat on the song skeleton. Friends I shared the concept with seemed more supportive of this song than usual, so it felt like effort well-invested. And this past Sunday, Amy and I — along with other members of our church's worship team — shared the song with our church family. God be praised for using such an unworthy vessel to encourage His Church in song. Gracious and holy He truly is.</p>
<blockquote style="white-space: pre-wrap;">
<strong>"Gracious and Holy"</strong>
You made the Earth and the heavens.
Spoke words to form them and fill them.
So all that we have is by Your hand.
Gracious and holy You are.
You gave us freedom and purpose.
We chose rebellion and curses.
But hope lingered under the surface.
Gracious and holy You are.
Gracious and holy You are.
You are here, always with me,
Nearer than sacred to naked should be.
You speak promises over my shame.
I know that I'll never be the same.
You came to dwell with Your people;
Strengthen the downcast and feeble;
And rescue us from every evil.
Gracious and holy You are.
Humbly you gave Your life for us.
Hope is reversing our curses,
Restoring our freedom and purpose.
Gracious and holy You are.
Gracious and holy You are.
You are here, always with me.
Nearer than righteous to wretched should be.
You speak promises over my shame.
I know that I'll never be the same.
Now you are seated in Heaven,
So, by the Spirit You've given,
We will proclaim, "Christ is risen!"
Gracious and holy You are.
Gracious and holy You are.
You are here, always with me,
Nearer forever than failure could be.
You poured righteousness over my shame.
Called me Your child and then gave me Your name.
You are here, always with me,
Nearer forever than failure could be.
You poured righteousness over my shame.
I know that I'll never be the same.
I know that I'll never be the same.
<span style="font-size: x-small;">©2021 C. Michael Pilato; License: <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">CC-BY-3.0</a> </span>
</blockquote>
<p>Here also is a demo recording that I made as a reference for our worship team (with many thanks to my son Aidan for lending his percussive skills):</p>
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1089817960&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/cmpilato" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="C. Michael Pilato">C. Michael Pilato</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/cmpilato/gracious-and-holy" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Pilato - Gracious And Holy (demo)">Pilato - Gracious And Holy (demo)</a></div>
<p>Finally, you can get lead sheets (including the source MuseScore file) for the song from my <a href="https://github.com/cmpilato/worship-music/tree/master/Gracious_and_Holy" target="_blank">GitHub repository</a>.</p>C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-15844580684898910252021-03-03T12:38:00.005-05:002021-04-12T08:29:03.728-04:00My custom Planning Center Services plan report. You're welcome.<p>To all my fellow <a href="https://services.planningcenteronline.com">Planning Center Services</a> jockeys out there, I thought I'd share with you a custom Plan report that I created (using one of the built-in reports as a baseline, mind you) and have been using for years now. Now, before you assume that all I've done here is fiddle with colors and fonts and page layout, hear me out. There are some features of this template that I want you to know about.</p><p>First—and the primary reason that I <em>love</em> this template so much—is that it handles Plan and Item Note categories dynamically. Unlike the built-in templates, this report template doesn't have to be modified just because you use different Notes categories than the default Planning Center ones. In fact, it doesn't care what specific Notes categories you have at all. Rather, it examines the Plan and its Items and dynamically determines which Note types are actually employed. This means two things: that it doesn't waste any page/screen real estate on unused Note categories, <i>and</i> you can use the same template for entirely different Service Types with <i>entirely</i> different categories defined!</p><p>The second, admittedly minor, thing that I like about this template is that it adds a column for icons that appear next to certain Item types. So Songs show up with a music notes icon (♫) next to them; Media items show a "play" triangle (⏵). It's a little thing, but it draws the eye to certain Item types quickly.</p><p>Finally, the template itself allows some quick customization of the features it employs via a collection of boolean variables at the top. This allows you to use the same basic template for multiple custom Reports, but with little easy tweaks to goven the feature set for each one. So, for example, I have a Report that shows everything that I distribute to my A/V operators and band members. But I have another one using this same template that I use for our Ushers and Greeters where the variables <b>show_plan_people</b>, <b>show_plan_notes</b>, and <b>show_item_notes</b> have been set to <b>false</b>.</p><p>So, without further ado, my template. Please feel free to copy, use, and modify this thing to better suit your church's needs!</p>
<blockquote style="background: black; color: #dddddd; font-family: monospace; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding: 12px; white-space: pre-wrap; max-height: 400px; overflow: scroll"><!--
QUICK CUSTOMIZATION:
{% assign show_plan_notes = true %}
{% assign show_plan_people = true %}
{% assign show_item_times = true %}
{% assign show_item_length = true %}
{% assign show_item_description = true %}
{% assign show_item_notes = true %}
-->
<html>
<head>
<title>{{ plan.ministry.name }}:: {{ plan.dates }}</title>
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Roboto:ital,wght@0,400;0,600;1,400;1,600&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
<style>
body {
padding: 0;
margin: 5px;
color: #222;
font-family: Roboto, sans-serif;
font-size: 14pt;
}
h1 {
font-size: 1.5em;
font-weight: normal;
text-shadow: 0 -1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9);
}
h2 {
font-size: 1.1em;
font-weight: normal;
padding: 20px 35px;
margin: 0;
line-height: 1em;
text-shadow: 0 1px 0 white;
}
h3 {
font-size: 0.9em;
text-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4);
}
pre {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
white-space: pre-wrap;
font-size: .9em;
}
table#plan {
width: 100%;
border-collapse: collapse;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom: 15px;
font-size: 10pt;
}
table#plan tr {
border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;
}
table#plan thead {
display: table-header-group;
}
table#plan th {
color: white;
background: #444;
font-weight: bold;
padding: 0.5em 1em;
vertical-align: middle;
}
table#plan td {
text-align: center;
padding: 0.5em 1em;
}
table#plan .icon {
padding: 0;
}
table#plan .preservice .time, table#plan .preservice .length {
color: #aaa;
}
table#plan .time {
width: 3em;
text-align: center;
}
table#plan .length {
width: 3em;
text-align: center;
}
table#plan .note_column {
text-align: left;
background: #f8f8f8;
border-left: 2px solid white;
}
table#plan .header {
text-align: left;
font-weight: bold;
color: black;
background: #ddd;
}
table#plan .note {
font-weight: bold;
text-align: left;
vertical-align: middle;
min-width: 1in;
}
table#plan .element {
min-width: 3in;
text-align: left;
}
table#plan .element .description {
font-size: 0.86em;
color: #444;
font-style: italic;
}
table#header {
width: 100%;
border: none;
padding: 0;
border-collapse: collapse;
}
table#header td {
padding: 2px;
vertical-align: top;
}
.artwork {
float: left;
margin-right: 15px;
height: 40px;
}
.note_content {
background: yellow;
padding: 4px 8px 0;
border-radius: 0.3em;
}
#header {
padding: 5px 20px;
background: #000;
color: white;
line-height: .8em;
margin: 0;
}
#header img {
float: right;
height: 60px;
margin-right: -15px;
}
#titles {
color: #333;
font-size: 1.1em;
font-weight: normal;
padding: 10px 20px;
margin: 0;
line-height: 1.1em;
text-shadow: 0 1px 0 white;
min-height: 45px;
}
#plan_title {
font-style: normal;
font-size: 0.8em;
display: block;
color: #666;
margin: 4px 0 0 0;
}
#plan_notes, #plan_people {
background: #f8f8f8;
margin: 1em 0;
border-left: 4px solid black;
padding: 0.5em 0 1em 2em;
}
#plan_notes {
font-size: 0.8em;
background: #ffffd0;
}
#plan_notes .plan_note {
margin-top: 1em;
}
#plan_notes .plan_note_category {
font-weight: bold;
}
#plan_people {
font-size: 0.9em;
}
#plan_people .person {
font-size: 0.7em;
margin-right: 15px;
display: inline-block;
}
#plan_people .person_status_U {
opacity: 0.5;
}
#plan_people .person_category {
clear: both;
padding-top: 1em;
}
#plan_people .person_category p {
font-size: 0.8em;
margin: 0;
}
#plan_people .person_position {
font-style: italic;
}
#plan_people .position {
font-weight: bold;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<!-- If showing item notes, first build a list of item note categories in use. -->
{% if show_item_notes %}
{% assign used_item_note_categories = '' | split: '' %}
{% for item in plan.items %}
{% for note in item.notes %}
{% assign category = note.category.name | split: '|' %}
{% assign used_item_note_categories = used_item_note_categories | concat: category %}
{% endfor %}
{% endfor %}
{% assign used_item_note_categories = used_item_note_categories | uniq | sort %}
{% endif %}
<div id="header">
<h1>{{ plan.ministry.name }} - {{ plan.dates }}</h1>
</div>
<div id="titles">
<img class="artwork" onerror="this.style.display='none'" src="{{ plan.series_artwork_url }}" />
<div id="series_title">{{ plan.series_title }}</div>
<div id="plan_title">{{ plan.plan_title }}</div>
</div>
<!-- If showing plan notes, first build a list of plan note categories in use, then iterate. -->
{% if show_plan_notes %}
{% assign used_plan_note_categories = '' | split: '' %}
{% for note in plan.notes %}
{% assign category = note.category.name | split: '|' %}
{% assign used_plan_note_categories = used_plan_note_categories | concat: category %}
{% endfor %}
{% assign used_plan_note_categories = used_plan_note_categories | uniq | sort %}
{% unless used_plan_note_categories == empty %}
<div id="plan_notes">
{% for plan_note_category in used_plan_note_categories %}
<div class="plan_note">
<div class="plan_note_category">{{plan_note_category}}</div>
{% for note in plan.notes %}
{% if note.category_name == plan_note_category %}
<div>{{note.note}}</div>
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}
</div>
{% endfor %}
</div>
{% endunless %}
{% endif %}
<table id="plan">
<thead>
<tr>
{% if show_item_times %}
{% for time in plan.plan_times %}
<th class="time">@{{ time.starts_at | date: '%I:%M' }}</th>
<!-- {% increment colspan %} -->
{% endfor %}
{% endif %}
<th class="icon"></th>
<!-- {% increment colspan %} -->
<th align="left">Element</th>
<!-- {% increment colspan %} -->
{% if show_item_notes %}
{% for category in used_item_note_categories %}
<th class="note">{{ category }}</th>
<!-- {% increment colspan %} -->
{% endfor %}
{% endif %}
{% if show_item_length %}
<th class="length">Length</th>
<!-- {% increment colspan %} -->
{% endif %}
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
{% for item in plan.items %}
{% case item.item_type %}
{% when 'Header' %}
<!-- Header rows -->
<tr>
<td colspan="{{ colspan }}" class="header">{{ item.title }}</td>
</tr>
{% else %}
<!-- Non-header rows -->
{% assign item_class = ''%}
{% if item.is_preservice or item.is_postservice %}
{% assign item_class = 'preservice ' %}
{% endif %}
<tr class="{{ item_class }}">
{% if show_item_times %}
{% for time in plan.plan_times %}
<td class="time item {{ item_class }} {{ item.item_type }}">
{% for item_time in item.times %}
{% if item_time.time_id == time.id %}
{{ item_time.actual_time | date: '%I:%M' | downcase }}
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}
</td>
{% endfor %}
{% endif %}
<td class="item icon">
{% if item.item_type == "Song" %}&#9835;{% endif %}
{% if item.item_type == "Media" %}&#9205;{% endif %}
</td>
<td class="item element {{ item_class }} {{ item.item_type }}">
{{ item.title }}{% if item.song %} [{{ item.arrangement.music_key }}]{% endif %}
{% if show_item_description %}<div class="description">{{ item.description }}</div>{% endif %}
</td>
{% if show_item_notes %}
{% for category in used_item_note_categories %}
<td class="item note note_column {{ item_class }} {{ item.item_type }}">
{% for note in item.notes %}
{% if note.category_name == category %}
{{ note.note }}
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}
</td>
{% endfor %}
{% endif %}
{% if show_item_length %}
<td class="item length {{ item_class }} {{ item.item_type }}">{{ item.length }}</td>
{% endif %}
</tr>
{% endcase %}
{% endfor %}
</tbody>
</table>
{% if show_plan_people %}
<!-- If showing plan people, first build a list of person categories in use, then iterate. -->
{% assign used_person_categories = '' | split: '' %}
{% for plan_person in plan.plan_people_not_declined %}
{% assign category = plan_person.category.name | split: '|' %}
{% assign used_person_categories = used_person_categories | concat: category %}
{% endfor %}
{% assign used_person_categories = used_person_categories | uniq | sort %}
{% unless used_person_categories == empty %}
<div id="plan_people">
{% for plan_person_category in used_person_categories %}
<div class="person_category">
<p><strong>{{ plan_person_category }}</strong></p>
{% for plan_person in plan.plan_people_not_declined %}
{% if plan_person.person.name != null %}{% if plan_person.category.name == plan_person_category %}
<div class="person person_status_{{ plan_person.status }}">
&bull;
<span class="person_name">{{ plan_person.person.name }}</span>
<span class="person_position">({{ plan_person.position }})</span>
</div>
{% endif %}{% endif %}
{% endfor %}
</div>
{% endfor %}
</div>
{% endunless %}
{% endif %}
</body>
</html>
</blockquote>
<p>As of a few minutes ago, I've submitted this report template back to the fine folks that develop Planning Center Services so that they may consider integrating its enhancements into the core product itself.</p>C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-76392997813928770672020-12-30T15:06:00.005-05:002020-12-30T15:10:19.947-05:00"O For a Thousand Tongues"<p>Way back in January 2016, I was working to create a modernized arrangement of the Public Domain hymn, "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing" by Charles Wesley. I'd hope to preserve the original melody and lyrics, and maybe just add a bridge or something. I ended up adding a sort of bridge for each stanza. Unfortunately, while I was really happy with my additions, they never really paired well with the feel of the original hymn. So I shelved the idea, revisiting it from time to time over the years in further failed attempts to shoehorn together two incompatible ideas.</p>
<p>On June 30, 2020, however, I gave up trying to make fit what never would, and instead restructured the whole song around my additions. I heavily edited the original hymn lyric and melody while still trying to preserve the essence of what it said. After all, to wish that one had a thousand tongues to sing God's praise all the louder is a beautiful sentiment! So that, as well as the general message of the hymn's stanzas, remain the core of what is now essentially a brand new song.</p>
<p>As I intend to share the song with my local church, I needed to whip up a demo of it. Last night I spent about an hour tracking acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and bass guitar. After my son Aidan finished watching a movie with his friends, I asked him to come upstairs and lay down a drum track. Then this morning, I was able to get my wife Amy in front of a microphone to track the lead vocals, with me laying down some harmonies immediately thereafter.</p>
<p>The result of those three-and-a-half hours of recording and mixing are available on my SoundCloud page:</p>
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/956656150&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe>
<div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/cmpilato" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="C. Michael Pilato">C. Michael Pilato</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/cmpilato/o-for-a-thousand-tongues-demo" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="O For a Thousand Tongues (demo)">O For a Thousand Tongues (demo)</a></div><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><br /></div><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><br /></div>
<p>I've licensed the song under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License</a>. And as part of my commitment to reducing barriers to adoption for music <i>truly</i> written for the church (rather than for a paycheck), I've posted the sheet music for the song to my <a href="https://github.com/cmpilato/worship-music/tree/master/O_For_a_Thousand_Tongues">GitHub repository</a>.</p>
<p>And here are the lyrics for the song:</p>
<blockquote style="white-space: pre">
<strong>O For a Thousand Tongues</strong>
All-gracious Master, glorious God,
Give me the words to proclaim.
Spread thru the whole earth, here and abroad,
The honor of Your holy name.
Father, You give me the choice,
But Your grace compels me to lift up my voice.
If I was mute, I'd still make joyful noise to Thee.
O, for a thousand tongues to sing!
Jesus, your name calms the deepest of fears.
You bid every sorrow to cease.
Your mercy is music in this sinner's ears—
Your love is the source of my peace.
Savior, You knew all along
That you'd trade perfection for all I'd do wrong.
Lord, may my life make a beautiful song to Thee.
O, for a thousand tongues to sing!
O, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise!
Sing of the glories of my King; the triumph of His grace!
Jesus you've broken the power of sin.
Your blood sets the prisoners free.
Dying you saved us, then rising again
Accomplished supreme victory!
O, for a thousand tongues to sing our great Redeemer's praise!
Sing of the glories of our King; the triumph of His grace!
Your church in heav'n and earth below, this sacrifice we bring!
O, for a thousand tongues to sing.
O, for a thousand tongues to sing.
O, for a thousand tongues to sing.
Spirit of God, fill this place.
Write on our hearts songs of mercy and grace.
Oh, God, we're desperate to give every praise to Thee.
O, for a thousand tongues to sing!
O, for a thousand tongues to sing!
O, for a thousand tongues to sing!
</blockquote>C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-40018271216710478092020-07-15T15:56:00.001-04:002020-07-15T15:56:26.230-04:00Ambassadors for Christ?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ugh. Today, besides feeling physically subpar (hello, tick bite!), I feel spiritually defiled. In a moment of weakness and morbid curiosity, I made the mistake of reading some of the Facebook feeds of a handful of people in my church. I think we might have a problem.<br />
<br />
The Word of God tells Christians that they are citizens of a new kind of Kingdom. This Kingdom is not one with physical, geographical boundaries, a two-party political system, checks and balances, and a (merely) 200-year-old governing document. It's God's Kingdom, existing outside the physical Universe and governed by God Himself:<br />
<blockquote>
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. [<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%203:20-21&version=ESV">Phillippians 3:20-21 ESV</a>]</blockquote>
One cool thing is that when we become citizens of that Kingdom, God leaves us in place, planted in the physical realm to serve His purposes. Our job? To be His ambassadors:<br />
<blockquote>
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. [<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+5%3A20&version=ESV">2 Corinthians 5:20 ESV</a>]</blockquote>
But as I read post after hate-filled post on Facebook, it became crystal clear to me that either the Kingdom has fewer citizens than I'd hoped, or those citizens <em>grossly</em> misunderstand their roles as ambassadors. Were I to judge by what I saw (and have heard), I would calculate that "ambassador for Christ" has come to mean "culture warrior". We Christians line up on political, sociological, idealogical, racial, or any other "-al" line we can find, dig in our heels, crane our necks and bend our ears for the sound of the charge!<br />
<br />
What if we revisit the idea of ambassador-ship with a new objective: to make—by our every word, thought, and deed—the Kingdom of heaven and the God who governs it so glorious and attractive that its opponents <i>simply emigrate to it</i>. No need for blood shed. No anger. No insults. Just love and faithful representation<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">—</span>ambassadorship<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">—</span>of the King of Kings.</div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-36969253956346918692019-08-28T23:36:00.000-04:002019-08-29T00:15:54.873-04:00Oreos and Milk Done Right<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For far too long, I've held an absolutely essential piece of knowledge—a life skill that every person should have—and I've failed to share it with the world. Today I repent of that, beg your forgiveness, and offer reparation by sharing with you now this critical information. Today, I want to tell you the proper way to eat <a href="https://www.oreo.com/" target="_blank">Oreo</a>s with milk.<br />
<br />
It goes without saying that in order to accomplish this, you'll need Oreos, milk, and a cup or mug to contain the milk. But lest we assume too much, let me clarify some things.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>These instructions assume you can eat an entire Oreo in one mouthful. If you can't, you're clearly not built for eating Oreos and should probably take up <a href="https://www.sensibleportions.com/en/products/spssgveggiestraws/" target="_blank">Veggie Straws</a> or something else instead.</li>
<li>Don't use a cup or mug that's too small. You need at least a depth of milk sufficient to completely submerge the cookie. And you need enough width in your container to do the same.</li>
<li>Don't use skim milk. The higher the fat content of the milk, the better. I strongly suggest whole milk. And don't use warm milk. You want your milk as cold as possible. If, when you pour your milk, it looks like Elmer's white glue and chills the hand that holds your cup or mug, that's a good sign.</li>
<li>Don't use fake Oreos. Seriously. I'm all for generic brands of most things, but ... no.</li>
</ul>
Okay, on to the life-changing instructions.<br />
<br />
First, grasp an Oreo cookie between your thumb and forefinger, with each making contact on one of the Oreo logos on either side of the cookie. (If you don't see an Oreo logo, you're using fake Oreos. And I literally <i>just told you</i> not to do that.) Put some real pressure on the cookie with your fingers—not enough to crush it, but pretty close to it. Now, submerge the Oreo completely in the milk <i>while maintaining this pressure</i>. Yes, your fingers are going to get wet—deal with it.<br />
<br />
All this might sound pretty obvious, but as any seasoned Oreo-milk-dunker knows, the trick is figuring out how long to keep the cookie submerged. And you might be wondering why must we maintain this solid finger pressure on the cookie. After all, they hardly weigh anything and are unlikely to attempt to escape our grasp on their own.<br />
<br />
The answer lies in the sheer importance of getting these two seemingly incompatible foods—one a natural byproduct by which nearly all mammals are initially nursed; the other a completely unnatural, highly processed junk food—to unite properly at or near the molecular level[*]. If your Oreo is in the milk for too short a time, then what was the point? You're merely eating a damp Oreo. But to linger for too long will have you watching your disintegrating cookie's disparate parts sinking out of sight into the milky white abyss.<br />
<br />
As it turns out, the pressure you're putting on those Oreo logos gives you all the tactile feedback you need to know exactly when to remove the cookie from the milk. As soon as that logo begins a crush a bit under your firm-but-non-damaging bit of finger pressure, the time is right. Remove the cookie from the milk, shove it into your awaiting mouth, and rejoice as you've never rejoiced before.<br />
<br />
Once again, this is not for those who lack a certain degree of fortitude. Your thumb and forefinger will get wet with milk. They will also pick up the debris of the crushed Oreo logos. You'll have to open your mouth a bit wider than high society might advise. Sometimes, doing things properly involves some risk-taking. This is such a time.<br />
<br />
Now, there's no need to e-mail me your thanks. It's my great pleasure to serve my fellow man in this way, sharing the results of my years of experimentation in this field. My hope is simply that you'll do the same.<br />
<br />
Oh! But I nearly forgot the final step in the instructions: grab another cookie and repeat!<br />
<hr />
<i>[*] No real scientists were consulted while authoring this article.</i></div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-68863067688812733782019-03-04T10:05:00.001-05:002019-03-04T10:05:20.845-05:00Self-publishing my worship songs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've talked about it forever, but this past weekend I decided to finally act. I've setup a GitHub repository to which I intend to commit sheet music for the various Christian worship songs that I compose. You can visit the project at:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://github.com/cmpilato/worship-music">https://github.com/cmpilato/worship-music</a></blockquote>
I've added the music from my recent <a href="https://cmpilato.blogspot.com/2019/02/shepherd-of-my-soul.html" target="_blank">"Shepherd of My Soul"</a> composition (which my worship team at <a href="https://pbcharrisburg.org/" target="_blank">Providence</a> introduced to our congregation <i>brilliantly</i> this past weekend, I might add!), plus a few other songs. I also have placeholders for several other tunes that I'm committing to self-publish here, too.<br />
<br />
Those who know me well know that I can be pretty outspoken about copyrights and licensing and such, especially as regards music written (at least ostensibly) "for God" or "for the Church". This is why every worship song I've written carries a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons</a> license. But while it's all well and good to say, "My songs I offer without restrictive licensing," it matters little if there are other barriers to sharing and re-use. This self-publishing effort is a way for me to remove some more of those barriers. I <i>genuinely</i> want folks to take and use these songs with minimal impediment if they find them worth taking and using, and I'm willing to put in the extra effort to encourage as much.<br />
<br />
My goal is to keep for each song <a href="https://musescore.org/" target="_blank">MuseScore</a> files with<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-align: right;">—</span>at a minimum<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-align: right;">—</span>lead sheets for the songs, plus MusicXML and PDF exports of the same. I could, of course, just use PDFs, but that would discourage getting corrections submitted by folks who are far better at musical transcription than I am. It would also prevent easy transposition of the songs into alternate keys. At the moment, you can load the score into MuseScore, select the whole score (<tt>Control-A</tt>), and then use the <tt>Notes > Transpose...</tt> menu to put the song in whatever key you wish. It's that simple! Someday I may also include links to recorded demos of the songs, specific hints for individual instruments, etc.<br />
<br />
May God bless this tiny little human's effort to make His praise even more widespread.<br />
<br /></div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-58574545425211657992019-03-01T10:22:00.001-05:002019-03-01T13:23:03.552-05:00"Feel Just Fine"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Perhaps one of the most enjoyable musical recording experiences I've ever been a part of began in June 2009, when friend and former bandmate <a href="http://christopherbunn.com/" target="_blank">Christopher Bunn</a> emailed me to say that he had an opportunity to contribute a song for an independent film project to which he had personal connections and wanted to rope me into the process. Naturally, I was all in!<br />
<br />
We started with his demo of a song he'd written called "Feel Just Fine", and then iterated lyrically and musically across the miles (me in North Carolina, he in California, and the Internet in between) for about three months, passing around emailed suggestions and audio files and such. I held the master recordings (as a Cakewalk Sonar project), and tracked all the instruments plus my own and my wife's background vocals. Christopher was taking drops of the backing stuff from me, tracking his own lead vocals atop them, and then sending me back the vocal tracks. All in all, the process ran incredibly smoothly, even for a time when "broadband Internet" wasn't anything like the blazing speeds we enjoy today. We ended up keeping most of Christopher's original song, but dropped a verse that didn't fit as well thematically with the film and introduced a new bridge section that I wrote.<br />
<br />
As I review my email history, it looks like it was December 2009 when we learned that the filmmakers were interested in our song, but it wouldn't be until several years later that we finally got to see the finished film, <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1669814/" target="_blank">Rise of the Fellowship</a></i>, and hear our song playing in full during the credit roll. Some time after the film itself released, the producers <a href="https://swordsongrecords.bandcamp.com/album/rise-of-the-fellowship-original-soundtrack" target="_blank">released the film's soundtrack</a>, and now you, too, can hear "Feel Just Fine".<br />
<br />
<iframe seamless="" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1212138542/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=e99708/track=906828173/transparent=true/" style="border: 0; height: 42px; width: 100%;"><a href="http://swordsongrecords.bandcamp.com/album/rise-of-the-fellowship-original-soundtrack">Rise of the Fellowship Original Soundtrack by Rise of the Fellowship</a></iframe><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>Credits:</b><br />
Christopher Bunn - original song concept, lead vocals<br />
C. Michael Pilato - arrangement, all instruments, background vocals<br />
Amy Pilato - angelic background vocals</blockquote>Christopher has his original demo of the song posted online, too. Check it out at <a href="http://christopherbunn.com/my-music/feel-just-fine/">http://christopherbunn.com/my-music/feel-just-fine/</a>.</div>C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-29894492694471437632019-02-26T15:52:00.002-05:002022-01-11T12:28:30.427-05:00"Shepherd of My Soul"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="tr_bq">
While on a recent out-of-state trip to visit family, I found myself mentally reflecting on the twenty-third Psalm. You know the one I'm talking about:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
— <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+23&version=KJV" target="_blank">Psalm 23 KJV</a></div>
</blockquote>
Yes, I realize that I posted the King James Version above. I almost never use that translation myself, but I can't deny that as a child every bit of the Holy Bible that I memorized was memorized from that translation. And that childhood memorization turns out to have been important, because I was reflecting on the psalm while in a musical frame of mind ... and while driving my family's minivan around West Virginia!<br />
<br />
So with no instrument in hand (unless the steering wheel counts...) I began morphing Psalm 23 into a singable tune. By repeating the song in my mind over and over again, I managed to retain the concept until I was able to get back to North Carolina and see how it felt over an instrumental accompaniment. A few days later, I recorded a demo version (with my son Aidan providing the drum tracks) to capture the idea. Here's that demo version, imperfections and all:<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/580737315&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
In an unexpected twist, I plan to introduce the song to my church family this coming Sunday. This fact pushed me to try my hand at using <a href="https://musescore.org/en" target="_blank">MuseScore 2</a> to transcribe the vocal parts for the song so I can get the rest of my worship team up to speed on the song quickly. Writing sheet music is still not something I claim as a talent of mine, but MuseScore certainly makes it easy enough, especially since it runs flawlessly on the Linux and Windows platforms that occupy all my desktop computing devices. If you care, you can get my MuseScore musings from my GitHub repository at <a href="https://github.com/cmpilato/worship-music/tree/master/Shepherd_of_My_Soul">https://github.com/cmpilato/worship-music/tree/master/Shepherd_of_My_Soul</a>.<br /><br />
Finally, here are the song's lyrics. Feel free to sing along!<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Shepherd of My Soul</b><br />
<br />
You are my Shepherd. I'll want for nothing.<br />
You make me lie down in pastures of green.<br />
Beside still waters and down paths of righteousness<br />
All for Your name's sake, Shepherd, You lead.<br />
<br />
You restore my soul. You restore my soul.<br />
Surely goodness and mercy will follow.<br />
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.<br />
There with my Shepherd, the Shepherd of my soul.<br />
<br />
Even when walking down through the valley,<br />
There in death's shadow no evil I'll fear.<br />
You're always with me. Your rod and staff comfort me.<br />
Jesus, my Shepherd, You're always near.<br />
<br />
You restore my soul. You restore my soul.<br />
Surely goodness and mercy will follow.<br />
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.<br />
There with my Shepherd, the Shepherd of my soul.<br />
<br />
You set a table before me with my enemies all around.<br />
Let your anointing fall on me. Let my cup overflow with your pow'r.<br />
<br />
<em>© 2019 C. Michael Pilato; License: <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">cc-by-3.0</a></em></blockquote>
<hr />
<b>UPDATE (2/28/19):</b> We ran the new song at our full worship team practice last night, and thanks to the extra layers of instrumentation and my super-talented fellow singers, it sounded A-MA-ZING! I'm so excited for Sunday!</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>UPDATE (1/11/22):</b> Updated sheet music references to point to my GitHub repository.</div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-82219395023233538362018-02-06T15:15:00.001-05:002018-02-07T09:26:25.783-05:00"Yours Forever, Amen"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="tr_bq">
It's been nearly two years since a crazy morning of software development drove me leave my house with a head full of chaos and return having written a new song without ever picking up an instrument.</div>
<br />
On the morning of March 8, 2016, I was indeed struggling with an excessive amount of mental noise—stress at work and general busy-ness in every facet of life—and wanted to talk a walk in the woods to clear my thoughts. There on the walking trails at nearby <a href="https://www.harrisburgnc.org/departments/parks-recreation/parks-facilities/pharr-mill-park" target="_blank">Pharr Mill Park</a>, I was able to walk and enjoy nature and commune with God, and I found myself praying through the prayer that Jesus gave as an example to his disciples, the one most folks refer to as "The Lord's Prayer". But I was blessed in that moment to have a melody form in my thoughts as well. So I came home from that little detour feeling much refreshed, and scribbled down the essentially fully-formed song that had been captured in bits and pieces on my phone's voice recorder app while walking the park's trails!<br />
<br />
In the two years since, I've been blessed to be able to share the song—which I titled "Yours Forever, Amen"—with various audiences and accompanied by various wonderful musicians. One of my favorite ways to present the song is to have the text of Jesus' prayer read in chunks over the song's instrumental interludes.<br />
<br />
So here's "Yours Forever, Amen", with those biblical readings added in quotes:<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Yours Forever, Amen</b><br />
<br />
<i>"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven."</i><br />
<br />
Oh, Abba Father, High King of Heaven,<br />
Holy, holy, is Your Name.<br />
Your kingdom come and Your will be done in<br />
Heaven above and earth the same.<br />
<br />
<i>"Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."</i><br />
<br />
Oh, Abba Father, High King of Heaven,<br />
Give us daily all we need.<br />
And please forgive us, as we forgive those,<br />
Who, like us, caused Your Son to bleed.<br />
<br />
Yours forever is the kingdom! Yours forever is the power!<br />
Yours forever is the glory, amen!<br />
Yours forever is the kingdom! Yours forever is the power!<br />
Yours forever is the glory, amen! Amen.<br />
<br />
<i>"And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil."</i><br />
<br />
Oh, Abba Father, High King of Heaven,<br />
Rescue us from the evil one,<br />
And lead us far from every temptation —<br />
This bride keep spotless for Your Son.<br />
<br />
Yours forever is the kingdom! Yours forever is the power!<br />
Yours forever is the glory, amen!<br />
Yours forever is the kingdom! Yours forever is the power!<br />
Yours forever is the glory, amen! Amen.<br />
Yours forever, amen.<br />
Yours forever, amen.<br />
<br />
<i>"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen."</i></blockquote>
I've included here, too, the hastily-recorded demo I assembled back in 2016. It doesn't have the textual readings because, if I recall correctly, that idea didn't occur to me until after the recording was made. But either way, I hope you enjoy it.<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/282443494&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><br /></div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-65960388834066172922018-01-12T16:16:00.000-05:002018-02-06T15:15:34.426-05:00"Where You Lead (Father, Hear the Prayer We Offer)"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There are a great number of wonderful Christian hymns which are passing into obscurity in large segments of the world's geography. (When Fanny Crosby writes 8,000+ hymns herself, it's easy to understand how a few of these things could go unnoticed!) These songs offer solid theology in their lyrics, but are often musically inaccessible to modern worshipers. I was recently inspired by the folks at <a href="http://sovereigngracemusic.org/" target="_blank">Sovereign Grace Music</a> to do my part my preserve the important parts of these songs — their beautiful, poetic words — while enjoying the liberty to set those words to a different (even original) musical arrangement.<br />
<br />
So I've taken my first crack at this. At my church, we are beginning an emphasis on the topic of prayer. So I searched the collection of public domain songs (those whose copyrights had expired) in the CCLI SongSelect database for songs with a prayer theme. I found in that list the hymn "Father, Hear the Prayer We Offer". This song was written around 1859 by Love Maria Whitcomb Willis. It appears to have gone through some minor edits over time, but I took the version that SongSelect presented to me and set its words to a simple melody. I then added a short chorus for summary and variety (trying to maintain the authorial voice of the original hymn).<br />
<br />
The following lyrics are the ones I used; the italicized bits are my little addition.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Where You Lead (Father, Hear the Prayer We Offer)</b><br />
<br />
Father, hear the prayer we offer.<br />
Not for ease our prayer shall be,<br />
But for strength that we may ever<br />
Live our lives courageously.<br />
<br />
Not for ever in green pastures<br />
Do we ask our way to be,<br />
But the steep and rugged pathway<br />
May we tread rejoicingly.<br />
<br />
<i>Let not these words ring hollow,<br />
This we plead.<br />
Lord, make us brave to follow<br />
Where you lead.</i><br />
<br />
Not for ever by still waters<br />
Would we idly rest and stay,<br />
But would strike the living fountains<br />
From the rocks along our way.<br />
<br />
Be our strength in hours of weakness.<br />
In our wanderings be our guide.<br />
Through endeavour <i>and</i> failure <i>and</i> danger,<br />
Father be there at our side.<br />
<br />
<i>Let not these words ring hollow,<br />
This we plead.<br />
Lord, make us brave to follow<br />
Where you lead.</i><br />
<br />
Father, hear the prayer we offer.<br />
Not for ease our prayer shall be,<br />
But for strength that we may ever<br />
Live our lives courageously.</blockquote>
Almost immediately after recording a demo of the song (which you can listen to below), I learned that there was another verse to the original hymn. So in live settings going forward, I'll use the following verse as the final one instead of repeating the first stanza:<br />
<blockquote>
Let our path be bright or dreary,<br />
Storm or sunshine be our share;<br />
May our souls in hope unweary<br />
Make Thy work our ceaseless prayer.</blockquote>
Here's the aforementioned demo recording:<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/382664921&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br /></div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-82432700262161563822017-11-27T08:49:00.002-05:002017-11-27T08:50:41.295-05:00"Pause" t-shirts redux<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's the design that keep on giving! The <a href="http://cmpilato.blogspot.com/2011/03/disciplenow-2011.html" target="_blank">t-shirt design I co-created for a youth ministry Disciple Now event</a> back in 2011 and was <a href="https://cmpilato.blogspot.com/2012/03/pause-t-shirts-revisited-by-someone.html" target="_blank">re-used by another ministry</a> in 2012 seems to have a life of its own.<br />
<br />
Back in September of this year, I was approached online by John Copeland, a youth pastor from Georgia, who had stumbled across the blog post I wrote about those "Pause" t-shirts. As it turns out, his youth group was in need of a similar event tee, so he reached out to request permission to use the design. As I've demonstrated before, this is perfectly acceptable (and appreciated) request to make! So, naturally, I was happy to see the design used yet again by someone else.<br />
<br />
When it was all said and done, I was even able to connect John with the fine folks at <a href="http://contagiousgraphics.com/" target="_blank">Contagious Graphics</a>, who still had the design artwork on file from the first time they printed up the shirts. All I asked in return from John was that he send me a photo of his youth group wearing the shirts, and I was so pleased this morning to see that he had made good on his promise!<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-mWCM2Nt0SkBkzVtf1tBqketZldOMYaEq-MVh9-e02Gg8VhNI7D4sOuKOWLsyrkrF7nCMygdx7s1vxbT6aZEIu9sbelj95aq4PDdeRYx-5uWA6RSdd6F3-ynMkYjIAkgE3k5G8AKSiY/s1600/glowing-god-tshirt-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-mWCM2Nt0SkBkzVtf1tBqketZldOMYaEq-MVh9-e02Gg8VhNI7D4sOuKOWLsyrkrF7nCMygdx7s1vxbT6aZEIu9sbelj95aq4PDdeRYx-5uWA6RSdd6F3-ynMkYjIAkgE3k5G8AKSiY/s640/glowing-god-tshirt-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-5163704787063215412017-11-02T21:31:00.000-04:002017-11-02T21:31:12.802-04:00Custom countdown video generation (the ... complicated way)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
At <a href="http://pbcharrisburg.org/" target="_blank">Providence Baptist Church</a>, where I serve on staff as Worship Leader and Technology Coordinator, we occasionally employ countdown videos ahead of our worship service start times. Now, a countdown video is little more than a video clip that shows a "minutes:seconds" countdown, usually overlaying some subtle motion graphic loop or still image. You can buy these things from media sites (such as <a href="http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/" target="_blank">Worship House Media</a>) for a nominal fee, often as part of a collection of videos which bear a common visual theme — a countdown video, a few motion loop videos without any overlaid text, etc. But sometimes I want a countdown video that I can't purchase, perhaps because I don't like the font, font size, positioning, or background motion loop of what <i>is </i>available for purchase.</div>
<br />
Now, I'm sure that expensive video editing software can generate these things willy-nilly with full customization. But I'm not really an expensive-video-editing-software kind of guy. I'm familiar with a handful of less-expensive (or free) options, though, and many of these offer the promise of a workaround for my itch to design custom countdown loops. So tonight, I decided to see what I could work out using my current favorite of these editors, <a href="http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/" target="_blank">VideoPad</a>.<br />
<br />
Like many other timeline-based video editors, VideoPad allows you to create text objects which can overlay another video track. I figured that if I could create a VideoPad project with a whole track full of 1-second text objects, each of which showed the countdown text I wanted ("4:59", "4:58", "4:57", and so on), I could use this as a template for various specific countdown timers in the future. I'd simply swap out the still frame or motion loop video that served as the background, and re-render as needed. But it only took me a few minutes to realize that I <i>really </i>didn't want to manually create and sequence 300 of these frames (5 minutes x 60 seconds per minute).<br />
<br />
So I took a slight detour. What if I could reverse-engineer the VideoPad project file format? Was that possible? It only took a few minutes to realize that VideoPad project files are simple text files with Unix line endings and URI-query-encoded lines of data. Unfortunately, while I could make sense of much of what I saw in my sample project file, I failed to successfully edit it to affect a simple change — the addition of one more countdown text object properly sequenced.<br />
<br />
I was about to give up hope, when I remembered that VideoPad also supported the use of PNG image overlays — with full alpha-channel support! If I could generate 300 PNGs, each one a transparent rectangle with the countdown timer text rendered in the frame, then VideoPad would let me import those as an image sequence (much like the "create a slideshow" feature of other editors) and then I could layer that whole sequence atop the background still/video of my choosing! Finally, I was in familiar territory.<br />
<br />
After about a half-hour of hacking around with Python and <a href="https://python-pillow.org/" target="_blank">Pillow</a> (née the Python Imaging Library), I had something that worked for my purposes! I quickly generated the 300 image files, successfully imported them into VideoPad, shoved another motion loop video underneath them, and rendered my first custom countdown video! And since my wife and kids were away from home, I then spent another hour polishing up my script a bit more, allowing it to be driven with various options (controlling the size of the generated frames, the font specifications of the countdown text, and the rough positioning of the text), adding some error-checking and documentation, and published the result to Github as <a href="https://github.com/cmpilato/gen-countdown-frames" target="_blank">gen-countdown-frames</a>.<br />
<br />
To those with oddball interests and similar needs: you're welcome!</div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-37089934993135313602017-08-03T13:32:00.001-04:002017-08-03T13:32:39.749-04:00Parenting by the Sixes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I suspect that at some point every Christian parenting seminar, magazine, or discussion eventually finds a way to bring up the opening verses of Ephesians 6:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.<br />
[<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+6%3A1-4&version=ESV" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ephesians 6:1-4 ESV</a>]</blockquote>
And to be sure, this is not a bad thing. The author and apostle Paul does a good — if concise — job here of addressing both "sides" of the oft-opposed factions within a household.<br />
<br />
But I was surprised and enlightened this morning when I found conviction and instruction for the parent as I read the opening of not Ephesians 6, but <i>Galatians</i> 6:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. [<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+6%3A1-3&version=ESV" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Galatians 6:1-3 ESV</a>]</blockquote>
I can't tell you how many times I've admonished my children for some behavioral shortcoming only to find myself succumbing a similar (or identical!) issue shortly thereafter. So while Paul may not in this second passage be addressing parents and children specifically, I think the prescription applies nonetheless. As a father, my supreme aim for my children is that they increase in holiness. But I need to offer guidance to that effect in <b>love</b>, with <b>gentleness</b>, and in all <b>humility</b> as I openly confess my <i>own</i> failures, my insufficiency, and my outright dependency on the grace of God as He works out holiness in me.</div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-89137411664702842072016-07-27T11:15:00.001-04:002016-07-27T11:15:33.363-04:00WOBO Wallet Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="tr_bq">
Prompted by a follow-up email request to review the <a href="http://wobowallet.com/" target="_blank">WOBO wallet</a> I recently purchased for myself, I composed the following review:</div>
<br />
<blockquote>
I bought the WOBO wallet for three reasons: (1) I tire of replacing cracked drivers' licenses, banking and loyalty cards, (2) my previous (trifold) wallet was a giant lump in my pocket, stuffed so full with such cards that cash bills had to be literally crammed in, and (3) I know the WOBO wallet's designer personally. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Now, let's face it -- there are other solutions for reasons #1 and #2, and #3 is not a product-based reason at all. As such, my expectations were moderately high, but tempered by prior attempts at solving my wallet problems. It is with pleasure, then, that I can report here that my expectations were met and exceeded. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
This is a solid product, well-conceived and well-constructed. The 15-17 cards I carry around (including freshly replaced, now-crack-free NCDL and debit cards) are securely held and easy to access. The whole package is about the same size as a small flipphone (which means I can comfortably and more safely carry it in my front pocket), and it's easy to slip bills in and out of the elastic strap. And when I run into the WOBO designer around town I can continue to greet him with a smile and the promise of word-of-mouth marketing for his product. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
So my three reasons for giving the WOBO a shot are now three reasons to give it a shout-out. That's a successful experiment in my book. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
(Though, I confess I was disappointed to learn from the designer that "WOBO" didn't stand for "Working Our Butts Off" as I had supposed...)</blockquote>
A couple of additional thoughts for the WOBO folks to consider:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Closing the wallet can be a challenge if the "top-most" card in the stack isn't smooth-faced (for example, if it has raised/embossed letters and numbers). Consider providing a smooth, clear, plastic card that folks can put on the top of the stack if they really want a "bumpy" card to be the first one they <i>see</i> upon opening the wallet.</li>
<li>While the video instructions are great, a paper-set of illustrated open/close instructions wouldn't hurt. (I wonder if the IKEA folks outsource their artists...)</li>
</ul>
</div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-15318067393909553302016-07-15T10:12:00.002-04:002018-02-06T15:16:04.182-05:00"Home"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of my favorite smartphone apps is the Voice Recorder. These days I feel like I can barely remember anything, so I use it whenever a piece of musical inspiration strikes. Over time, pieces and segments of song ideas get refined into something whole that's perhaps worth keeping, and I'll usually take the time then to record something of higher quality as a memento/demo. Eventually I'll delete the original Voice Recorder files that no longer serve as songs-in-progress.<br />
<br />
Earlier this week while performing just such a cleaning-out, I stumbled across a recording that I made back in January of a single song section. The theme of the verse (as it later came to be) was about heavenly homesickness. I recall picking up this theme from C. S. Lewis' <i>Mere Christianity</i>. Here's a relevant section of his text:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can
satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another
world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it that does not prove
that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never
meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.
If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or
be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to
mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of
copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my
true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let
it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of
life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the
same. </blockquote>
Of course, the notion of Christians having the citizenship right in heaven rather than in the material world is more directly biblical. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+3%3A18-21&version=NIV" target="_blank">Philippians 3:18-21</a> reads like so:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.</blockquote>
I spent some time churning on this notion and on my little song baby, and was motivated to fully mature it into something worthy of a demo recording (lyrics follow): <br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/273813123&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
And here's the lyrical content:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<div id="line1">
<b>"Home"</b><br />
<br />
On this road I walk along, <br />
Seasons dim and seasons dawn
<br />
And the years keep rambling on.
<br />
They ramble on.
<br />
I know well this world I see,
<br />
Shared with friends and family,
<br />
But a voice keeps telling me
<br />
I'm sick for home.
<br />
<br />
Jesus, only You can satisfy.
<br />
You alone make all things new.
<br />
You're the Way, the Truth, the Life and I'm,
<br />
Oh I'm, coming home to You.
<br />
<br />
The rugged cross that Jesus bore
<br />
Draws my thoughts towards Heaven's shore
<br />
Where the One I'm living for
<br />
Prepares my home.
<br />
Lord, the beauty of your grace
<br />
And the promise of your face
<br />
Bid me make this world a better place
<br />
Until I'm home.
<br />
<br />
Jesus, only You can satisfy.
<br />
You alone make all things new.
<br />
You're the Way, the Truth, the Life and I'm,
<br />
Oh I'm, coming home to You.
<br />
Lord, I'm coming home to You.
<br />
<br />
When my final day is done
<br />
And this earthly race is run,
<br />
I will bow before the One
<br />
Who calls me home.
<br />
Yes I'll bow before the One
<br />
Who calls me home.</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<small>© 2016 C. Michael Pilato. Available for use under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">cc-by-3.0</a> license.</small></blockquote>
I hope you enjoy the listen. Leave feedback if you feel so motivated. <br />
<br />
<i>UPDATE(9/4/2016): Due to the rather personal perspective of this song, I never dreamed it would have a life beyond this crummy little demo recording. But as it turns out, we had a rare revival-like sermon today on "The Preciousness of Heaven" presented by Rev. Rody Carland at my church, and he allowed me to share the song as a musical special ahead of the sermon. Thus, a song that nearly fell through the cracks and was unlikely to ever be publicly performed is now being considered by some as the best thing I've even written. I'm continually surprised by how God works stuff out sometimes...</i></div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-25055425461569856912015-12-10T11:08:00.001-05:002015-12-10T11:10:18.818-05:00Bibles, copyright, and restrictive licensing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One Wednesday evening as Pastor John Cashwell wrapped up his sermon, I found myself staring at the binding of a pew Bible. "Holman Christian Standard Bible" … and then that big ol' ® (registered trademark) symbol. Recalling that in the past I'd read the New International Version (NIV) licensing statement, I flipped open the cover of the HCSB to read its own, and found stuff pretty similar to what I remembered the NIV's to be. You can quote the text, but not more than 250 verses, not quoting a whole book, and not using the quotes as more than 20% of the body of work in which you are embedding the verses.<br />
<br />
Why do modern Bible translations carry restrictive licenses?<br />
<br />
How can a publisher restrict the free distribution of a work that is, by its very definition, just a remix of some other, written-before-there-were-even-copyrights, text?<br />
<br />
I Googled around a bit for some answers. My first hit was a <a href="https://support.biblegateway.com/entries/187525-Why-are-modern-Bible-translations-copyrighted-">FAQ entry on BibleGateway.com</a>, which talks—among other things—about the cost and effort involved in creating an accurate Bible translation. It contains the following wrap-up summary:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
To sum up, Bible versions are copyrighted to make sure that translators are fairly reimbursed for their hard work. Most copyrighted Bible versions have relatively lenient quoting rules that should cover most common situations. But if for whatever reason the copyright rules prevent you from using the Bible as you like, you're free to use a non-copyrighted Bible version.</blockquote>
<br />
The article also states that "there is nothing stopping you from creating your own Bible translation—there are online projects dedicated to doing just that!" This intrigued me. I'd never considered the idea of crowd-sourcing a Bible translation before, so I Googled again for "crowd-sourced Bible translation". This led me to a project called The Seed Company (<a href="http://www.theseedcompany.org/">theseedcompany.org</a>). Initially, I was excited, but as I read on, I didn't see many obvious differences between the Seed Company and other traditional translation methods such as those employed by its sister company, Wycliffe Bible Translators. Some digging around further led me to a well-written <a href="http://missionsmisunderstood.com/2011/08/22/the-words/">set</a> <a href="http://missionsmisunderstood.com/2011/08/23/the-endangered-cultures-list/">of</a> <a href="http://missionsmisunderstood.com/2011/08/24/crowdsource-the-translation/">blog</a> <a href="http://missionsmisunderstood.com/2011/08/29/the-seed-company-misunderstood/">posts</a> which somewhat echoed much of what I was thinking (plus a bunch of stuff I'd not considered).<br />
<br />
Dissatisfied, I tried a different search: "-wikipedia.org wikipedia style Bible translation".<br />
<br />
Finally, I landed on something promising! The WikiProject Wiki Bible (<a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:WPWB">http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:WPWB</a>) is the project that I found myself wishing into existence.</div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-38325172945414660942015-09-09T12:03:00.002-04:002015-09-12T19:31:16.229-04:00"Precious Lord"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A few weeks ago, I challenged myself to write a song that was a bit more closely tied to the Gospel of Jesus Christ than to the goodness of God generally, and especially to target lyrics that carried a bit more emotion than my typical fare.<br />
<br />
The result was a song called "Precious Lord", which I was blessed to be able to share with my church family recently in a performance with my wife and two sons.<br />
<br />
Here are the lyrics:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;"><div id="line1"><b>"Precious Lord"</b><br />
<br />
Son comes up. Blood flows down.<br />
<span id="line25"></span>Word made flesh; Truth made jest; curse made crown. <br />
Sun goes dark. Love's work done.<br />
Landscapes shake; strongholds quake; Love has won.<br />
<br />
Precious Lord, please forgive.<br />
Draw me close; help me live for you.<br />
<br />
Precious Lord. <span id="line32"></span> <span id="line33"></span> <span id="line34"></span>Here I stand, no defense.<br />
Stained by sin, scrubbing crimson fingerprints.<br />
Then Son comes up. Day breaks new.<br />
Life beats Death; Christ breathes breath; Love breaks through.<br />
<br />
<span id="line38"></span> <span id="line39"></span>Precious Lord, please forgive.<br />
Draw me close; help me live for you.<br />
And one day, let my reward<br />
Be the sight of my Precious Lord.</div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;"><small>© 2015 C. Michael Pilato. Available for use under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">cc-by-3.0</a> license.</small></blockquote>I was also able to convince Amy to track her vocal part in a demo recording of the song. The mix is a bit vocal-heavy, and the lead guitar part pretty sloppy. But it will serve, at a minimum, as an audible snapshot of this moment in my artistic development. I hope you enjoy it!<br />
<br />
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/223593774&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false"></iframe></div>C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-58261492058399475352015-04-15T01:34:00.000-04:002015-04-15T01:43:43.830-04:00In Spirit and in Truth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For a few weeks, the topic of worship has been hot, hot, hot around Providence. For some, that’s made for a great opportunity to think about how we as leaders can facilitate a more active and purposeful worship in our services. For others, it’s been a source of confusion and even hurt feelings.<br />
<br />
"Does the Bible require that I sing in church?"<br />
"Does raising my hands make me a better worshipper?"<br />
"Why does the pastor invite folks to come forward and pray at the front of the church, anyway?"<br />
<br />
These are just some of the questions I and others at the church have been asked in recent weeks. But while there are surely some specific answers to those questions that could be given, I'd like instead to explore from a more high-level perspective what the Bible teaches about worship that is acceptable to God. I genuinely believe that when we understand the big picture of acceptable worship, these more specific questions will fall away as less interesting.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Framing the Question</h2>
<br />
John 4 tells us of a unique encounter that Jesus had with a Samaritan woman he meets at a well. He impresses this woman with His supernatural perception and insight into her personal life and failures. So she does what many of us would do: she tries to change the topic away from her own sin and onto something else — in this case, she chooses some religious debate the Jews and Samaritans have been having.<br />
We’ll pick up the text in verse 19.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<sup>19</sup> “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. <sup>20</sup> Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” <sup>21</sup> “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. <sup>22</sup> You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. <sup>23</sup> Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. <sup>24</sup> God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”</blockquote>
<br />
What’s going on here? Jesus is deflecting the woman’s question by indicating that it’s essentially no longer relevant. He’s saying that the old questions about worship style no longer apply — a new worship paradigm has been introduced.<br />
<br />
Worship in Jesus' day was, at its core, much the same as it had been since the days of Moses: as proscribed by Mosaic Law. This worship was primarily about specifically prescribed activities at specific geographical locations — sacrifices, festivals, ritual cleanliness, at the Tabernacle, Tent of Meeting, Holy of Holies, etc.) Jesus’ own family would have been bound to these same rituals. (Luke 2 tells us how Mary and Joseph had to go to Jerusalem to offer the prescribed sacrifice for a first-born son.)<br />
<br />
Our text describes a move away from Mosaic worship and into something else. Moreover, Jesus indicates that this transition “is coming and has now come”. Well, if the change has now come, what ushered in the change? What happened in the world that would permit worship to deviate from the strict patterns of Mosaic Law? Put simply, Jesus happened. He’s the difference. Jesus changes the game. Elsewhere in the Bible we are taught that He is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices; the High Priest to eliminate the need for all other high priests; and that the body of the believer is the new temple of the Holy Spirit. Worship as prescribed by Mosaic law appears to have received an update.<br />
<br />
So what’s the new worship paradigm? If it’s no longer about being at the right place at the right time with the right ritual, then what is it about? According to the text, it’s about worship "in the Spirit and in truth".<br />
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
In Truth</h2>
<br />
Worship that honors God must be true. This worship must be educated and informed, and must not behave contrary to what it knows to be true. True worship is:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>true to Who God is and what He's done (and doing).</li>
<li>true to who God designed you to be.</li>
<li>true to the Gospel, grateful for the gift of Jesus (“the Way, the Truth, and the Life…”).</li>
</ul>
In true worship, there is no room for anything artificial, manufactured, manipulated, or fake. There is no room for anything that’s uninformed and unbiblical. We are compelled, then, to grow in our knowledge of and relationship with God. In doing so, our worship can more fully align with His truth. Without that, our worship will always fall short.<br />
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
In the Spirit</h2>
<br />
John 3:16 is arguably the most popular verse in the Bible, but do you know the context in which it appears? In John 3, a prominent religious leader named Nicodemus is visiting Jesus under cover of night to question the Rabbi about His teachings. They enjoy an almost comical (if understandable) exchange in which Jesus coins the phrase "born again" and Nicodemus misses the metaphor. But then Jesus explains this second birth in verse 6:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<sup>6</sup> Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.</blockquote>
<br />
As Christians, we are (re)born of the Spirit, therefore we have a spirit component to our existence. The life of our spirit flows from God's Spirit. Our entire identity is rewritten in light of God becoming our spiritual Father.<br />
<br />
We are given the gift of the Holy Spirit at the time of salvation. The Holy Spirit’s jobs are many: to act as our Counselor, our Guide, our Comforter; to help us understand God’s Word and His revelation (past and present, written or otherwise); etc. These are all very real-time activities. The Holy Spirit is a person, alive within us, actively working right now to help us make sense of God and His Word and the world He created.<br />
<br />
So this new worship is not just physical — right place, right time, right ritual. It flows from the Spirit, which means:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>it can only be embraced by those born of the Spirit (Christians).</li>
<li>it involves our whole re-born being.</li>
<li> it carries the characteristics of the Holy spirit — it’s alive and interactive.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
Missing Pieces: Where Things Go Wrong</h2>
<br />
Worship in the Spirit and in truth is the recipe Jesus gives for successful worship approved by the Father (God). But like most recipes, things go wrong when we are missing an ingredient.<br />
<br />
Worship that is sincere but not guided by the living, interactive Holy Spirit is incomplete and dry. It removes the interactive element provided by the Holy Spirit’s on-the-fly, in-the-moment communication and revelation about the things of God. As such, it tends to be emotionless, focused on rituals and patterns that run the same course regardless of what's happening in the worship environment. This is very much like Mosaic worship. It may not involve animal sacrifice, but the major components of Mosaic worship are still there. This kind of worship tends to happen only in certain environments (such as a church building) and at certain times (such as on Sunday mornings), performing the same rituals every time (such as singing songs and listening to sermons without any genuine emotional or spiritual response to them).<br />
<br />
On the other hand, if you have worship that's emotional and interactive but lacks truth and sincerity, you have mere emotionalism. Emotionalism in worship is, when it comes down to it, the result of making the hunt for a good feeling the point of worship. Sadly, this is all too common in churches where worship is all about having “an experience”. Don't be deceived! Feelings and emotions are <i>easy</i> to manipulate. I can feel joy, sorrow, excitement, anxiety, and a whole range of other emotions simply listening to instrumental classical music or opera in a foreign language. (Actually, I can't tolerate opera music, so I mostly feel only pain and irritation when I listen to that!) The service and retail industries have known for years how to use music to manipulate consumers. You cannot have “an experience” with the Holy Spirit and the only effect be that you “feel better” for an hour or so. Our God is a Universe-authoring God! Nothing He touches remains the same! If your worship leaves you with little more than an emotional high, is that anything more than you could pick up at a concert or a ball game?<br />
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
Worship in the Spirit and in Truth — How?</h2>
<br />
Moving beyond ritualistic worship and into Spirit-led, interactive worship can be a challenge due to many reasons: social pressures, ignorance, fear, doubt, and so on. Certainly, it's much <i>easier</i> to just keep going with the flow, doing what you do, and not rocking the boat. But that's pretty much never the course God calls us to take. So how can we start to move past those challenges and into the fullness of the worship that God actually desires?<br />
<br />
First, we must be born of God’s Spirit. You cannot worship God fully and completely and in a fashion that He will accept if you don't have a relationship with Him. You must be born again, in and of the Spirit.<br />
<br />
Secondly, we need to understand the relationship between obedience and faith — namely, that they go hand in hand. Without obedience, there is no faith. Faith without obedience is called "dead" in the Scripture. I can say that I believe that God is worthy to be praised by all of my being, but if I withhold part of myself in worship (my emotions, my natural physical expressions, my vulnerability), then my actions tell the sad-but-true story of what I <i>truly</i> believe. God's word is absolutely <i>full</i> of worship-related instructions, from prayer and fasting to singing and shouting and even various postures of worship. When we ask God for faith regarding things he's already told us to do, his response is often, "My child, just obey me. When you see how it all works out, faith won't be an issue for you".<br />
<br />
We also benefit from the support of our church family. The first time we break from our established, ritualized worship patterns in public is always the hardest time. We’re probably convinced that everyone is noticing that we’re doing something different and judging our sincerity. This kind of free exploration of Spirit-led worship is so, <i>so</i> much easier when we’re surrounded by folks who we know are <i>not</i> judging us because they love us. (This is also why we are often more free in our worship when we attend Christian conferences or concerts — we figure that the random folks we sit near in those venues and who we'll likely never see again aren't judging us, either.)<br />
<br />
Finally, I strongly suggest and beg (beseech!) you to take all of this and process it in your private worship time. If you don’t have a private worship time, get one. It will revolutionize your relationship with God. In your private worship time, read your Bible, pray, sit silent and listen, “try out” the various biblical postures of worship, paint a picture inspired by Scripture, write a poem or a song. It doesn't so much matter <i>what</i> you do specifically. The idea is simply to commune with God, to expand the scope of what you consider "worship", and to learn to follow His lead regarding how He wants to spend that specific time with you.<br />
<br />
<hr />
<i>This post was adapted from a lesson I developed and taught to the Impact Student Ministry of Providence Baptist Church in Harrisburg, NC. And, uh, my apologies to all the parents of teens that I irritated that night by running 30 minutes over my allotted speaking time.</i></div>
</div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-13391456251036791312015-03-10T14:04:00.000-04:002015-03-10T14:11:45.344-04:00"Restore Us (Prayer For Unity)"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Last year, I heard a few sermons in seemingly short succession which dealt with the topic of interpersonal struggles within the local church. While my own church has, by God's grace, been largely shielded from the kind of nagging and backbiting that has utterly destroyed other local congregations throughout history, we are not yet a perfected people. Should God remove His hand of protection, today's respectful disagreement is tomorrow's church split and that's that. Given Jesus' indication that it is through the unity of the believers that the unbelieving world will come to know God's love, it seems like a fairly important goal to shoot for.<br />
<br />
Well, I'm no theologian. But I do write the occasional song, and this topic of unity -- and restoration where unity has failed -- was inspirational. I wrote the song "Restore Us (Prayer For Unity)" near the end of Summer 2014. I tracked all the parts myself originally, but then asked drummer and friend Evan Smith if he'd care to re-track the drum parts. Evan obliged, and the song was instantly better! I intended back then to have my wife replace my vocal leads with her much more lovely voice. But life, busy-ness, priorities, distractions, ... you know the routine. It just never happened. Even now as I think about it -- me with a head cold and her with a sinus infection and the boys running around the house noisily and the baby girl singing her own song that apparently has something to do with cheesy crackers -- I just shake my head and wonder how anything ever gets done at all.<br />
<br />
Anyway, here's the song as it stands today.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>"Restore Us (Prayer For Unity)"</b><br />
<br />
When we fracture; when we fragment;<br />
When we fall apart.<br />
When forgiveness seems so distant<br />
From every injured heart.<br />
<br />
Even though breath is fleeting,<br />
Even though hearts may fail,<br />
You are our strength forever.<br />
Restore us. <i><span class="note">(Ps. 73:26)</span></i><br />
<br />
In the season of disagreement<br />
When we all fall short<br />
Unify us in Christ Jesus<br />
To glorify our Lord <i><span class="note">(John 17:20-23)</span></i> <br />
<br />
Even though breath is fleeting<br />
Even though hearts may fail<br />
You are our strength forever<br />
You restore us<br />
You restore us<br />
<br />
It bears all things.<br />
Believes all things.<br />
Hopes all things.<br />
Love endures. <i><span class="note">(1 Cor. 13:7)</span></i><br />
<small>© 2014 C. Michael Pilato. Available for use under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">cc-by-3.0</a> license.</blockquote><iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/195202538&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false"></iframe><br />
</div>C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-48188277119784145202014-05-15T22:58:00.001-04:002014-05-15T22:58:33.547-04:00Family music moment: "How Great Thou Art"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This week, I worked up a modified arrangement of the wonderful old hymn "How Great Thou Art" for use in Sunday's services at <a href="http://pbcharrisburg.org/">Providence Baptist Church</a>. I wanted to record a reference track for the worship band to listen and practice to (since it's a bit late in the week to be introducing music ... <i>ahem </i>...), so I knew that was on my agenda for tonight.<br />
<br />
Our church has been going through a home-based study of the topic of "Worship" (see <a href="http://pbcharrisburg.org/resources/worship_study/index">http://pbcharrisburg.org/resources/worship_study/index</a> if you're interested in the materials), and one of the key components of the study is worshiping in the home together as a family. There are many ways to do this, of course, but I'm blessed with a family that loves music, and loves to make music. So I gathered the family together, distributed chord charts, and setup the recording gear. What resulted was a solid (if imperfect) reference track for the worship band to use, but more important, a digital treasure for the Pilato family, remembering a time we lifted our voices and instruments together in praise.<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/149772744&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
<b>Amy Lyn Pilato</b> - lead vocals<br />
<b>C. Michael Pilato</b> - fingerstyle guitar, bass guitar, vocals<br />
<b>Gavin Pilato</b> - rhythm guitar<br />
<b>Aidan Pilato</b> - cajon (percussion)<br />
<br />
* Kaelyn was sleeping at the time, else she surely would have provided her own slobber-coated contribution to the track. Maybe next time, Sweetheart...</div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-37432705568895900072014-01-12T00:46:00.000-05:002018-05-21T11:01:36.312-04:00A closer look at Psalm 108<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Tomorrow (or today ... gosh, it's late) my church will sing the song "<a href="http://cmpilato.blogspot.com/2013/01/psalm-108.html">I Will Sing To You</a>", which is a worship song I composed nearly a year ago from the text of Psalm 108. Actually, I didn't use all of Psalm 108. I only used the first five verses. In fact, the whole reason that Psalm 108 is on my mind right now is because I wanted to remind myself what the rest of that chapter said — the part I <i>didn't </i>use in my song. Suffice it to say that having read <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.108.6-13&version=NIV">Psalm 108:6-13</a> again, I'm reminded <i>why </i>I didn't use it in the song. There's nothing wrong with the text, of course. It just didn't lend itself so easily to being reworked as a modern song of praise. (What rhymes with "Moab is God's restroom"?)<br />
<br />
But this whole detour got me looking into the chapter in more depth. By perusing my Bible, multiple commentaries, and Wikipedia, I realized some things I didn't previous know about Psalm 108.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
First, the psalm is a remix! The entirety of this psalm is constructed from pieces of other psalms. <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.108.1-5&version=NIV">Psalm 108:1-5</a> is pulled from <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.57.7-11&version=NIV">Psalm 57:7-11</a>; the rest of the psalm comes from <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps.60.5-12&version=NIV">Psalm 60:5-12</a>. These two original psalms each had their own individual tunes: Psalm 57 was written "to the tune of 'Do Not Destroy'" and Psalm 60 "to the tune of 'The Lily of the Covenant'" (whatever those tunes are). Wah-lah — remix. That would make my song a remix of a remix. A second-order remix. Remix².<i> </i>(Shall I continue?)<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
David asks in the psalm, "Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?" and petitions God for aid in a military campaign. Fortunately, we get to know how that story ended. <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2Sam.8.13-14&version=NIV">2 Samuel 8:13-14</a> says that David became famous after his military victory over Edom, that Edom was fully subdued, and — further — that "the LORD gave David victory wherever he went."<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, there seems to be some confusion about the details about this particular victory. The 2 Samuel passage credits David with the slaying of 18,000 men in Edom (though some translations refer instead to a region called "Aram"). A parallel passage in 1 Chronicles 18 names Abishai — who was one of the captains of David's army — as the victor over those 18,000. And the header for Psalm 60 credits Joab — Abishai's brother and another of David's captains — with the victory, though only over 12,000 men. In any case, it was ultimately David's army or a portion thereof led by his subordinate that won the day.</div>
</div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-85445373570833917292014-01-09T00:50:00.000-05:002014-01-16T16:14:46.266-05:00"At Calvary", reenvisioned<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">As a worship leader in the 21st century, I have the interesting challenge of trying to select music that jives with the likes and dislikes of folks of all ages and musical preferences. At this task, perfect success is not attainable. You really can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time. But that doesn't mean that it ain't worth trying!<br />
<br />
One way we do this at my church is to select music from many different eras of relatively modern Christendom (the last 150 years or so), and mix those up from week to week. Ancient hymns, praise choruses from the 80s and 90s, and contemporary worship songs all enjoy representation in our weekly worship services. But one of the things I really like to do is to take a good old hymn and rework it with an ear for performance using modern-day rock instrumentation. Some hymns naturally lend themselves to this exercise. Some do <i>not</i>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://cyberhymnal.org/htm/a/t/atcalvry.htm">"At Calvary"</a> is a song that I've long wished to transform and update in this way, but had failed at several times in the past. See, for me, one big goal is to preserve, as best as possible, the original melody of the song. That allows folks who (like me) have been singing the hymn since their youth to pipe in with what they know on the first listen of the revised version without missing a beat. Or a note. Or a word.<br />
<br />
Well, I recently decided to sacrifice the melody of about 1 1/2 lines of the song in the interest of reshaping the tune for a modern ear, and that was all the concession required to set me off on a full reworking. I swapped the third and fourth stanzas, added a new bridge part, and made one tiny wording tweak[*]. And that was that!<br />
<blockquote><b>I Am Free (At Calvary)</b><br />
<i>Words: William R. Newell, 1895; C. Michael Pilato, 2014</i><br />
<i>Music: Daniel B. Towner, C. Michael Pilato</i><br />
<br />
Years I spent in vanity and pride<br />
Caring not my Lord was crucified<br />
Knowing not it was for me He died<br />
On Calvary.<br />
<br />
By God's Word at last my sin I learned<br />
Then I trembled at the law I'd spurned<br />
Till my guilty soul imploring turned<br />
To Calvary<br />
<br />
Mercy there was great and grace was free<br />
Pardon there was multiplied to me<br />
There my burdened soul found liberty<br />
At Calvary<br />
<br />
Oh the love that drew salvation's plan<br />
Oh the grace that brought it down to man<br />
Oh the mighty gulf that God did span<br />
At Calvary.<br />
<br />
Mercy there was great and grace was free<br />
Pardon there was multiplied to me<br />
There my burdened soul found liberty<br />
At Calvary<br />
<br />
I am free.<br />
I am free.<br />
By the mercy of God's great grace, I am free.<br />
I am free. (I'm forgiven)<br />
I am free. (I am living...)<br />
By the mercy of God's great grace, I am free.<br />
<br />
Now I give to Jesus everything<br />
Now I gladly own Him as my King<br />
Now my raptured soul can only sing<br />
Of Calvary.<br />
<br />
Mercy there was great and grace was free<br />
Pardon there was multiplied to me<br />
There my burdened soul found liberty<br />
At Calvary.</blockquote>Tonight, I spent a few hours tracking a quicky demo of the idea. Hope you enjoy it!<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/128614066&color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
<i>[*] The original song's third verse says, "Now I've given to Jesus everything." As I approached this song, I had to come to terms with the fact that that's not true for me. The surrender process — the process of giving everything to Jesus — is not yet complete in my life. So I went with "Now I give to Jesus everything", which has the added benefit of a little more parallelism with the preceding lyric. </i></div>C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-39536758444496798362014-01-02T15:00:00.002-05:002014-01-02T15:00:29.744-05:00Welcoming Kaelyn<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have a new daughter, and that's pretty awesome!<br />
<br />
For the scoop, see <a href="http://pilatofamily.blogspot.com/2013/12/welcoming-kaelyn.html">http://pilatofamily.blogspot.com/2013/12/welcoming-kaelyn.html</a></div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2476960351176953796.post-23211961584325099452013-10-05T13:39:00.000-04:002014-09-22T13:40:41.485-04:00"All Around the World"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Recently, I had the opportunity to enjoy a short-term mission trip to rural China. On the flights home, I was reviewing all that had happened on the trip, and thinking about the similarities and differences between the communities of believers in the very disparate places I'd been around the world over the past decade or so. I began crafting a rally song of sorts, themed on the unity of worldwide believers. A million-and-a-half hours later when I landed in Charlotte (or so it seemed ... that's just a rough estimate ...) I had mostly completed the song "All Around the World":<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Let the redeemed of the Lord sing out.<br />
Let every voice lift His praise up loud<br />
And join the angels in heavenly shout<br />
All around the world.<br />
<br />
In every nation and every tongue,<br />
With every daughter and every son,<br />
We'll sing the good news that Christ has won<br />
All around the world, all around the world.<br />
<br />
May the Spirit that guides us<br />
Bind and unite us as one, as one.<br />
A fabric woven together,<br />
Enduring whatever to glorify the Son.<br />
We'll sing of His love.<br />
Sing of His love.<br />
<br />
Let every soul that is unaware<br />
See in our actions His love declared<br />
And may His Gospel of hope be shared<br />
All around the world, all around the world. <br />
<br />
May the Spirit that guides us<br />
Bind and unite us as one, as one.<br />
A fabric woven together,<br />
Enduring whatever to glorify the Son.<br />
We'll sing of His love.<br />
Sing of His love.<br />
Sing of His unending, grace-extending,<br />
Ever transcending love!<br />
<br />
All around the world<br />
All around the world<br />
All around the world.</blockquote>
<br /></div>
C. Michael Pilatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05793869252669446487noreply@blogger.com0