My family and I went and picked up "Slugs and Bugs and Lullabies" tonight... that is the title of the kids record I recorded earlier this year with Andrew Peterson.  It looks great.  The guys at Portland Studios did an amazing job with the illustration and design.  We've had a ton of pre-orders and those will be sent out on Monday.  You can hear a couple of the songs HERE

You can order it HERE.

Holiday Cheers,

Randall

I was in a meeting today and as we were praying, I kept getting distracted.  I was thinking about a song lyric and then about an email I needed to write and who knows what else.  I tried to get back into the prayer and I drifted off again and I wanted to punch myself in the face with the question - "Why can't I concentrate?"

As I took my question to God, he gave me a brand new prayer. 

Thank you, Father for how you've made me.  Thank you that you are always at work calling me to you. 

My concern was staying on task.  His concern is the gaze of my heart.  In my distractions, my weaknesses, is his true siren song, calling me to my death, that I might find life.
 

Very often, I will allow my small perspective to guide me into guilt or frustration or even depression because of how I seem to "fail." However, when we allow God to apply his perspective to our hearts, His peace gains a foothold.

That is, first, our end is secure. Second, our now in in his hands. And third, he loves us as we are, but is not content to leave us as we are.

So I'm driving to staff meeting this morning and I'm feeling guilty. I've missed two out of the last 3 staff meetings, and I was an hour late to the other one.  It's raining, and traffic south of town is backed up for miles and miles. 

I can't believe I'm about to admit to doing this.  

Unless you are given a DUI and your picture makes the paper, most of your friends will never know how you drive when you are alone.  Maybe you drive fine.  I'm sure I do.  But maybe you are a terrifying, blinkerless, thoughtless, clueless punk driver who only shows his true colors when he's flying solo.

I am in the right hand lane, my blood is pumping, my hands clenching the steering wheel, my misguided imagination conjures up a disgusted and dissapointed room of friends who I had let down again by showing up late yet again, and my wheels are totally stopped on the interstate.  Now they are rolling, now they are stopped again.  Rain, rain, rain...

I pulled out onto the shoulder and hit the gas.   

Of all my contemptable, arrogant, idiotic stunts, this one tops all for 2006. 

I'm flying past a great line of cars, a rolling ball of self-contempt and guilt old and new... this is crazy, what am I doing... and then a Parks and Recreation vehicle pulls out in front of me to block my path.. SWERVE!  I don't think so.  I'm rolling - shuddering to think of what the drivers I'm passing are saying or thinking.  And then almost as quickly as it began it was over.  The shame over what I was doing suddenly outweighed the  previous shame and I pulled back into traffic in front of a transfer truck.  Maybe I saved 120 seconds.

What in the world is going on?

We'll have a link for preorders by the end of the week, with a buy 5 get one free deal good through New Years Eve.

I'll keep you posted!

My wife's father passed away this passed spring, quite unexpectedly.  A few days before he died, he and Amy's mom Linda came up to visit. It was the last chilly weekend in March.  I remember them sitting on the couch, and laughing about what we hoped God would say when we got to heaven.  Mit said, "I hope he just says, 'Well, you sure tried. Now come on in and rest a while.'"

He had spent most of his last day on earth working in a community garden, miles from his own home in south Tuscaloosa County.  This community garden feeds folks who often can't afford to buy their own groceries - like the young men at the Boys Home down the street.  Long before he was given charge of disaster relief and missions from the UMC's South Alabama Conference, Mit had been a tireless advocate and minister to the poor and disadvantaged, and the Lord brought his quiet passion for "the least of these" to the doorstep of the UMC Tuscaloosa Home For Boys. 

He painted walls, replaced light fixtures, swung his hammer along side the young men who lived there, fixed up their home where it needed fixing, and offered to help build a transitional home for the boys graduating from high school that would otherwise have to leave, though they had nowhere to go.

In lieu of flowers at Mit's funeral, Linda asked for donations to be made towards the construction of this new facility, now to be named for my father-in-law, Rev. Milton (Mit) Booth. Over $30,000 has been raised, which is about the half-way mark for the funds.

We have a concert this coming Sunday night in Tuscaloosa (Oct. 29th).  Christ Harbor United Methodist is hosting the concert as a fundraiser to help raise more construction funds, and Amy and I are so thankful for their generosity. The details are on my website.  If you don't live in that area, please send your friends that do!  We're going to have a great time. If you can't come but would like to donate, here's the address.

UM Children’s Home
PO Box 71688
Tuscaloosa, AL 35407

Just specify in your letter that the funding is for the Milton Booth Transitional Home.

After the welcome, we lead the congregation in these songs...

Hallelujah, Your Love Makes Me Sing (first time we've sang that at midtown)
    (in G - modulated to A on the last chorus, which ends on D)

Better is One Day (in E, piano intro establishes the key change)

I Cry Out (3/4 in E)

    (prayer - but we kept a very little music going) 

Laden with Guilt (also 3/4 in E)

Near the conclusion of the service, Randy (our pastor) introduced Andrew Peterson's song Mystery of Mercy as an opportunity to meditate on the sermon, or just pray. Randy had told me early in the week that the Lord had ministered to him through the song and it would go great with this week's sermon.  It's not a congregational song, so that would mean having what is often referred to as "special music," which we tend to avoid at Midtown. 

There are many artists and musicians and creative people that attend Midtown, and since there's a self-centeredness that seems to accompany creative expression of all kinds, we shy away from solos and special music numbers that could be natural distractions to our family. And ours is a young church, with many new believers,  so Paul's warning from Romans 14 against doing, "anything that will cause your brother to fall," seem especially applicable.

And that is why it <i>was</i> so wonderful to have the special music that we did on Sunday.   The song was written in our community, the inspiration for adding it to the service came from the Lord as it ministered to Randy, and then Andrew was willing to step out of his comfortable place in his home congregation and receive from the Lord in a much less comfortable way. And our congregation was given the opportunity to grow in their experience of worship as well, as Randy set up the song as a time of reflection and prayer.

After the sermon, we were prepared to teach the congregation a beautiful new hymn written by Sandra McCracken, but Randy concluded his sermon (after Andrew sang) with such a spirit of rejoicing that it no longer seemed appropriate to sing a slower song.  We sang "Hallelujah, Your Love Makes Me Sing" again.

Sometime this week, I'm committed to figuring out how to add links to this blog page. If you already link to me, let me know... I'll try to return the favor.  But my word in this matter is only as good as my capacity for computery things, which isn't very good. 

In other news, we had a river baptism today at Midtown Fellowship.  It was freezing out there - in the 40s I think, and I didn't touch the water, but one small child and 6-7 young adults received the sweet watery grave of life before a gathering of about 60+ church family members.  Our two senior pastors wore fishing waders, which seemed a little unfair, until I remembered they had to stay in the water the whole time.  At different points in the baptism/picnic we sang I'll Fly Away, I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Say, and Nothing But The Blood. 

Each young adult had a scripture they had selected to read before they went under, and all of them tried to spring for the shore immediately after the dunk.  Each time, a pastor would try to hold on to them to pray for them before they escaped.   It was a very moving service, in that it really felt like the baptisms were flowing out of what God is doing in the community, and in the lives of these people, and not some obligatory religious requirement.  The cold made it that much more special - like the whole extended family showing up at the freezing 6 and under soccer final in sweatpants and ear muffs to cheer on their kin.