The song is used with permission from Daniel Bashta (www.danielbashta.com- by the way his album is free or by donation) and the potter is Doug Marks (who goes into great detail in his book and conferences which he performs and you can contact him if you want more info at nelsondouglasmarks@gmail.com.) I hope you enjoy the video and can use it effectively for the Kingdom. God bless!
I was inspired to do this song a year ago. Some friends had us over for a Christian Seder meal, which is part of the passover celebration. Jesus and his disciples were celebrating this at the last supper. The closing ceremony is something called “dayyenu” which means “we deserve no more”. At our church this year we will put on a church-wide Seder meal and possibly use this video at the end after reciting the traditional dayyenu text (Christian rendition).
Be blessed this easter. You are. It would have been enough, but He’s given us more!
Excerpt from my new CVMag article: Many of us in Christian Video ministry in churches across the country don’t have formal training in all of the areas that we work in. Much of our learning comes “on the job” and through reading of publications (such as CVmag). I’m reminded of my kids when they start a new sport – soccer for instance. I know that they are not going to be like the great Pelé. They are just starting out. It’s ridiculous to make such an assumption! So what do we tell them? “Just go on out there and HAVE FUN WITH IT.” And they do…most of the time.
I had an accident the other day. But there’s good news. Some time back I saved 15% or more by switching to GEICO. I just called the gecko company and gave my statement about the accident that I had on Friday. Now I am telling you what happened as it did. The events occur in real-time.
It all started back on Tuesday really. A team of young energetic kids from Tulsa descended upon the valley with the intent of working across the river in various different Mexico missions. Their guide…yours truly. Now, I maintain that I am still young, but not as young as these over-eager teens. As their guide, I wanted to show how they should work hard, which I did. We mixed cement on the ground and passed it up a scaffolding in bucket fulls until a roof was complete. I was so worn out after this and other days of shoveling, etc.
Now we come full circle. It’s early Friday morning. I haven’t had my coffee yet. My wife informs me that we are out of water. I wonder to myself, “How is this? We have two 5 gallon jugs and the rule we live by (really the only clearly defined rule in our household) states that when one jug is empty it gets put at the door to be refilled as pronto as possible. That way we don’t have this predicament of an urgency to fill both jugs.
Friday I had this sense of urgency. Remember, I had not had my coffee. It was literally minutes before the Tulsa group would be arriving at our door for me, the guide, to lead them to the beach for a time of well-deserved relaxation. But here I was running this 911-type of errand for my wife who for my sake (being busy everyday and worn out) did indeed break rule 1 of 1. So now instead of filling 1 jug (5 gallons) I have to fill 2 (10 gallons).
I have previously stated a couple times how tired I was at this point, so I don’t think that I need to mention this again, or the fact that I haven’t had my coffee yet. What I need to mention is that the last time that I was filling 1 jug (which is what I do when the rule in place is effectively followed), I was stopped by a security guard in his golf cart informing me that I could not park there in the fire lane in front of those circular concrete posts. He did tell me that I could park behind them, between them and the vending machines. So I did this time. First and only time I’ve done this. Since I was having to fill 2 jugs, I thought I should get as close as possible especially in my weak and feeble condition. That aforementioned golf cart was parked next to the vending machines, making this newly inspired maneuver a tight squeeze. I thought briefly to myself that if I could skillfully navigate the narrow roads of Mexico is will be a no-brainer. This turned out to be false. Upon filling the 10 gallons of water and mustering the last ounce of strength in my lower back in order to load them into the van, I proceeded to implement this easy driving feat of backing up. In my present state of mind I thought that backing and turning into the pharmacy area would be a good idea, so that I could put it in drive and come out straight. I failed to remember that there was a short circular concrete post in my blind spot, and when the thought occurred to me the front headlight was already in mid air. This angered me because I consider myself to be a better driver than this.
My mother who went in the store to buy drinks for the boys for the beach later realized that the passenger door doesn’t open. This added fuel to my fire, so I proceeded as quickly as humanly possible to McDonald’s to order a medium vanilla latte which I convinced myself was needed and long overdue and I was entitled to one after having survived such an ordeal.
I got home and calmly pointed out to my wife that she broke rule #1 and that had it not been for that I would not have parked there and this would not have occurred. I realize that placing blame on others is a negative side of my personality, but here she was obviously the one to blame. I simply was NOT my fault.
OK, so it was my fault. I take full responsability. Hopefully you read this far to see that I’m not a big loser husband and that I can own up to my own shortcomings. I can admit when I really am to blame. I was driving. I made a statment to geico. They asked if I was hurt in the accident. I was not, only my pride was hurt. And that was all MY fault. It was my wife’s fault for making it my fault.
I recently took some footage of an ex-professor of mine, a great man and friend, Doug Marks throwing a pot on his potter’s wheel. He did one of his wonderful conferences at our church. We were so blessed and maybe you can be too. Email him for info on hosting a conference or to obtain his book: nelsondouglasmarks@gmail.com. Then I found this song by Daniel Bashta. I obtained permission to use it and edit it down for time. Daniel’s info and CD is available for free even or for a donation at www.danielbashta.com. Here’s my first edit with my pottery footage:
Today the new top 100 page came out on sermonspice.com- http://www.sermonspice.com/spice100. I was happy to see that “Church Bulletin Bloopers Countdown” was #14. In the Top 20 Countdowns category it came in at #2! It was 6th in the New Videos (90 days or less), and “Lukewarm Hymns CD Info” was 20th in the New Videos category. “Worship 1/2″ had been on the top 100 for some time, but worked its way off. It’s probably 104th or so!!
Here’s another random personal entry. I’ve been re-baptized. Or have I?
I maintain that once someone is baptized (immersed) sincerely and genuinely (and knowingly) it is good once and for all. There really is no need to be re-baptized, that is unless the first time you didn’t mean it. There is one baptism (Ephesians 4).
Well, today I went down in our baptistery at the church. I’ve been there many times to baptize other people. In those circumstances I am never submerged completely under water as the ones being baptized are. Today I was. Why? Every month it is cleaned and in order to be cleaned it has to be drained. In order to be drained the plug has to be pulled. In order to be pulled it must be connected to this certain wire. When the janitor went to pull it yesterday the wire broke off from the plug. I volunteered to go swimming.
I woke up in the morning knowing that I needed to skip the shower, put on my swimming trunks and go diving for plugs. What I didn’t know was that it had gotten strangely cold this day, especially for the valley. Another thing that I didn’t know is that once in the COLD water (oh my!!!) it was the plug, not the wire that broke. After the shock of the cold water, I reach down with my hand to pull the plug up. I can’t grip it. The pressure of all that cold (did I mention that I didn’t turn the heater on the night before?) water was too great. So I holler to our youth minister to bring some pliers. He brings me a tweezer looking thing, which only breaks up the plug even more. Apparently we don’t have regular pliers at the church.
Another challenge was once I decided to be submerged (which is in its very raw form the very definition of the greek word “baptizo”) the challenge was to stay under long enough to do the work necessary. I kept floating to the top, even after letting out all of my air. I didn’t come ready with goggles either, thinking this would be really easy and a relatively quick thing to do.
The youth minister brought me a little screw driver thinking that I could get around the edge of it. I couldn’t. But what I ended up doing (in desperation at this point) is stabbing the darn plug with it, and prying it open. It didn’t seem to work, but I decided that I would just destroy the thing and we’d have to buy a new one anyway. Finally I heard a little bit of draining. I applied some more force and heard more draining. My heart was filled with hope! I freed the plug from the rushing current and came out gasping for air. Good thing that when I got out my McDonald’s latte was waiting for me. A couple sips must have raised my body temperature enough to be able to proceed to the shower. Though the shower pressure at the church is low and the water is lukewarm, this was a great relief.
Tomorrow we’ll try out the new plug. I hope it fits. They may not make this size anymore. We’ll see then. In the meantime, I hope no one wants to get baptized (there anyway)!
Everything comes in bundles now a days. Phone/ Cable/ Internet bundled. Buy this cheese and get chips bundled with it. Well I have some bundles too.
Since “Lukewarm Hymns CD Info” was just released I thought that I would bundle it together with its counterpart “Worship 1/2 CD Info”. By themselves they are $15 a piece. Together they are $25 for a savings of $5. $5 could be a latte at Starbucks, two at McDonalds, or 10-15 at home. In this economy bundles are better.
