Praise Group Playlist - 10-28-12

In honor of Reformation Sunday, I tried to pick songs that depicted the solas of the Reformation: By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.  Hence:

Prelude - Marvelous Grace of our Loving Lord (Trinity Hymnal page 465)
My Faith Has found a Resting Place (Trinity Hymnal page 468)
Nothing But the Blood (Trinity Hymnal page 307)
To God Be The Glory (Trinity Hymnal page 55)

(Note: service music picked by the pastor)
Quiet time - How Sweet the Sound of Jesus (Trinity Hymnal page 647)

Holy, Holy, Holy (Trinity Hymnal page 100)
I Stand in Awe (Mark Altrogge)

Offering - Holy Spirit Living Breath of God (Getty/Townend)
Response - Doxology

My Heart is Filled with Thankfulness (Getty/Townend)

May the Mind of Christ My Savior (Trinity Hymnal #644)

Doxology - Trinity Hymnal #98 - third verse

Postlude:  My Faith Looks Up to Thee (Trinity Hymnal #528)

On this Sunday, our guitar player was not available, but we were joined by a young lady on flute, which was a wonderful addition to the group, which was a cellist and myself on piano.

Praise Group Play List 6-23-12

Prelude:

To Him Who Sits on the Throne (an oldie but goodie)
10,000 Reasons (A new goodie by Matt Redman - the sheet music was a free offering on either Kingsway Music or Worship Together)
Thine O Lord (another oldie but goodie)

#295 Trinity Hymnal - Crown Him
See, What a Morning (Getty)

Offering:

Trinity Hymnal #680 - Consider the Lilies (described by my pastor as "schmaltzy but the words are great"!)

Response - All Things Are Thine

Trinity Hymman #35 - My God How Wonderful Thou Art

Sermon Response - Jesus is Lord (Getty)

Doxology - May the Peace (Getty)

Postlude - Thine O Lord

The prelude/postlude choices were influenced by the pastor's service music, particularly "Crown Him".  The sermon and the music all pointed to Jesus as Lord - His position now in heaven.

Praise Group Play List 7-15-12

I thought it would be fun to post the playlists for the Praise Group at our church and maybe write a little about the songs. (Much more fun than mowing the lawn or reclaiming the garden during the mid-day heat in high summer!) I just went through my stack of lists & found that I have them back through January of 2011. They are on the back side of old page-a-day calendar sheets featuring cat cartoons. If I get really ambitious I'll post about some past lists.

Usually we are scheduled for the 4th Sunday of each month, but we're flexible, so this month it is tomorrow. Most of the time our group consists of myself on the piano and a guitarist and cellist. Sometimes we are joined by a violin or two, when they come home for a visit. Occasionally we also have a guest instrument. A while back our church got a new (to us) baby grand piano and set it in a different place than where the spinet was and I love the new arrangement.

Our pastor chooses the music we sing during the service. I think he does an amazing job of not only choosing music that fits with the sermon and the various parts of the worship service, but also working with the style of each service's pianist or organist.

I do most of the choosing for the prelude & postlude. (So if you don't like the music, now you know who to blame!) I like to make photocopies of everything and put them into a ring binder. It cuts down on bringing a stack of music books and also lessons the likelihood of the music blowing or falling off the piano.

Here's tomorrow's list:

Prelude:
Make us One - Twila Paris
How Great Are You Lord - Lynn DeShazo
I Will Glory in My Redeemer - Steve & Vikki Cook
There is a Hope - Stuart Townend

Service:
Beautiful Saviour - Stuart Townend
To See the King of Heaven Fall (Gethsenane) - Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Give Thanks With a Grateful Heart - Henry Smith
Jesus I Come (Out of My Bondage) - (Old hymn words with new RUF tune)
Faith of Our Fathers - #570 - Trinity Hymnal
Threefold Amen - #740 - Trinity Hymnal

Postlude:  Make Us One

Various things influence my choices. Tomorrow's over-arching theme is Key of C!!! (It is summer after all, when the living is supposed to be easy!)  I also really love Celtic music, so a lot of what I pick has a Celtic flavor. I'm also a hopeless Anglophile, so if it comes from the British Isles, my ears perk right up. I've also discovered that Kingsway Music UK and Worship Together Music offers free sound files, lead sheets and sheet music every week, so that has been a great source of new music. "Make Us One" by Twila Paris, for example, was the free-song Friday offering a few weeks ago on Worship Together.

So how about the rest of the songs?

How Great Are You Lord was done by Robin Mark on the Revival in Belfast album. I love Robin Mark! Each of his CD's is a mixture of his own compositions and those of others and I have used a lot of those songs in my playlists. I just wish we had a penny whistle player!

I Will Glory is from Sovereign Grace Music and was on Bob Kauflin's "Upward" hymns CD. Not only is a lot of their music appealing, but the lyrics are theologically sound, which makes them great candidates for congregational singing.

I first heard There is a Hope as I was using youtube as my radio and poking around listening to various British praise & worship music. The version on youtube has an extended uillean pipe solo that is totally gorgeous, but I also like the song's melody and message.  We have added it to our congregational repertoire.

Beautiful Saviour is one of the first Stuart Townend songs I heard and I'm not even sure  where I first heard it. It's been part of the congregational repertoire for quite a while now.

To See the King of Heaven Fall was one of the free song offerings on Kingsway and was so beautiful and moving that we incorporated it into our worship repertoire right away.

Give Thanks - it's an oldie but goodie copyrighted 1978. Just today I looked through "The Source" (a huge hymnal-style book of praise and worship music compiled by Graham Kendrick) and found a really nice arrangement of it to use tomorrow.  We are singing it during the offering.

Out of My Bondage is found in our Trinity Hymnal, but the version we are singing tomorrow is to a new tune by Reformed University Fellowship. Their mission is to take old hymns and introduce them to a new generation. I'm not crazy about all their efforts, but in this case, I think this tune is a huge improvement over the one in the hymnal - lyrical, singable, and nicely complementing the words, which are wonderful.

Faith of Our Fathers - some songs don't need modernizing and this is one of them. Each month we do at least one hymn that the praise group hasn't done before (not on purpose, just happens that way) so slowly but surely I am scanning the Trinity Hymnal into my computer and creating my piano player's version that fits into a ring binder.

Three-fold Amen - a lovely way to end the service!

Chipmunk Picture Fun

My friend sent me this picture of a chipmunk enjoying the ball I gave her a while ago. I had fun messing with it in photoscape. Here's the original and two alterations. They remind me of an illustration in a children's book.

My Furry Children

Here are some pictures of the darlings: Binky, Clovis & Raquel today, Callie earlier this month, Huber during the holidays.

Bok Choy Chopped Salad

Yesterday I made a lap around the local farmer's market and came home with some beautiful hydroponic bok choy from Bolton Farms. Tonight I turned it into a chopped salad and we both loved it!

Here's the recipe:

Chop the following to bite size:

1 bunch bok choy
1 medium apple
1/2 peeled cucumber
1/4 green pepper
1 tomato
1/4 cup walnuts (toasted or warmed in the microwave)
handful of pea shoots
ham (I used 4 or 5 slices of honey ham)
grated parmesan

Dressing: (I put this in a small jar and shook it until combined)

1/4 cup olive oil
1/8 cup pear balsamic ( got this at Tasteful Additions)
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
squirt of whipped cream

Pour the dressing over the salad ingredients and toss.

We split this in half and had it for supper. I think it would also work as a side salad and would probably make 6 to 8 servings.

I think this recipe could serve as a basic pattern for a chopped salad and the ingredient combinations are only limited by your imagination.

Enjoy!!!

"I Bought Too Much at the Farmer's Market Vegetable Soup"

Last week I was trying to bring order out of chaos in the fridge. I dragged out all the produce and it was immediately obvious that there was no way two people could eat all that veg before it went bad. So, out came the cutting board, the knife, and the 16 quart pot. Here's what went in:

brussel sprouts
bok choy
savoy cabbage (1/2 a head)
red cabbage (1/2 a head)
baby carrots
celery
cauliflower (1/2 a head)
shallot
(I can't remember - but maybe an onion and some garlic)

All veg was chopped into bite sized pieces and sauteed in some olive oil. After things started to soften up, I added 2 quarts of frozen turkey broth (recipe posted on the blog as "Blue's Soup". Then I added another 2 quarts of water that I had boiled in the tea kettle.

After the pot got close to a boil I added 1 cup of quinoa, put on the lid and simmered it for 30 minutes.

At the very end I added some kosher salt and some black pepper until it passed the taste test with Little Man's father.

I was afraid it might smell cabbage-y, but the end result smelled and tasted wonderful! I put a lot of it into the freezer right away, but what I kept in the fridge thickened up nicely and tasted even better on day 2 and 3.

Cranberry-Pineapple Jello

Yesterday in an attempt to clean out the pantry and fridge, I tried a new recipe and was happy with the results. I had cherry and strawberry sugar free jello and a bag of tired cranberries. The recipe I came up with on the internet called for a can of cranberry sauce, so the first thing I did was wash the cranberries, pick out the bad ones, then cook what was left with equal parts water and sugar. The recipe on the package called for 1 cup of water to 12 oz. of cranberries. I used 2/3 cup water and 2/3 cup sugar, brought it to a boil and cooked it for 10 minutes.

Here's the recipe:

6 oz of red jello ( I used a 3 oz cherry and a 3 oz strawberry)
2 cups boiling water
20 oz can of crushed pineapple - drained (reserve the liquid)
Can of cranberry sauce or 1 bag of cranberries cooked per the sauce recipe on the package.

Put the jello in a bowl and add 2 cups boiling water. Stir until dissolved.
Add the cranberry sauce
Add cold water to the pineapple juice to bring it to 2 cups - add to the bowl.
Stir in the pineapple.

Chill until set.

I think this would be a nice way to incorporate cranberries into a turkey dinner.

New Twist on Apple Crisp

Yesterday I made the apple crisp recipe I posted on June 2, 2010. However, this time I made it gluten-free on behalf of a friend at church who is gluten intolerant. Apparently rolled oats could have small amounts of gluten due to their place of processing, so I bought some gluten-free oats. I substituted tapioca flour for regular flour. And I checked online and the brand of brown sugar I used (Aldi's baker's corner) is gluten free. The rest of the ingredients (apples, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg) are not a problem. The result was delicious (if I do say so myself!) and I couldn't detect any difference in the taste to the original recipe.

Kickin' Split Pea Soup

Here is the recipe for today's experiment in Split Pea Soup (which was my attempt to copy the seasoning package that comes with Healthy Sisters "June's Split Pea Soup". (Healthy Sisters is a great local organization that helps women in recovery. Their soups are wonderful and you can read about them here.)

1 package split peas
4 cups chicken broth
4 cups water
1.5 cups roughly chopped celery
1.5 cups roughly diced carrots
1 small onion chopped
1 tsp. thyme
2 bay leaves
1-2 tblsps. southwest sizzle seasoning
1-2 drops hot sauce ( I used Kick Yo Ass' "Ass-Kickin' Roasted Garlic Hot Sauce")
1 tsp. kosher salt
6 grinds black pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp. celery seed
10 oz. Hickory Farms summer sausage - diced

Rinse the split peas with cold water. Warm the chicken stock and water in the microwave. Place all the ingredients except the sausage into a dutch oven and cover. Place into a 350 degree oven for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, add the sausage and cook for another 30 minutes.

Little Man's Father asked for seconds, so I guess it was a success!

Clovis Loves Bags

This tote bag was hanging on the back of the kitchen chair and Clovis managed to get himself into it without it falling off the chair or tipping the chair over.

What Perseverance Looks Like - 2011

O Jesus, Friend Unfailing

O JESUS, Friend unfailing,
How dear art Thou to me!
Are cares or fears assailing?
I find my strength in Thee!
Why should my feet grow weary
Of this my pilgrim way?
Rough though the path and dreary,
It ends in perfect day!

What fills my soul with gladness?
'Tis Thine abounding grace!
Where can I look in sadness,
But, Jesus, on Thy face?
My all is Thy providing ---
Thy love can ne'er grow cold;
In Thee, my Refuge, hiding ---
No good wilt Thou withhold.

Why should I droop in sorrow?
Thou'rt ever by my side!
Why, trembling, dread the morrow?
What ill can e'er betide?
If I my cross have taken,
'Tis but to follow Thee;
If scorned, despised, forsaken,
Nought severs Thee from me.

For every tribulation,
For every sore distress,
In Christ I've full salvation,
Sure help and quiet rest.
No fear of foes prevailing,
I triumph, Lord, in Thee!
O Jesus, Friend unfailing,
How dear art Thou to me!

Written originally in German by Samuel Christian Gottfried Kuster (1762 to 1838), translated by Miss Hannah K. Burlingham (1842-1901) on June 13th, 1865, when she was only 23 years old! Moya Brennan has a version of this that is on a CD called Focusfest 2001 - The Sound of Grace. The tune she uses is a traditional Irish tune called "The Dawning of the Day". (This tune was popularized by a group called The Dubliners on a song called "Raglan Road".

You can have a listen here. Check the tabs at the top of the site to find the page.

Happy New Year!!! Welcome 2012

Here are the darlings - ready for a new year!