"I Have Been Blessed"

We did an odd thing tonight and actually did a midweek performance. I say it like that because considering my parents work and I work and go to school, we typically don't do shows on school/work nights. However, since my parents are off this week, we went ahead and scheduled this show. I am glad that we did. 
Over the summer, Anointed Hearts had performed at this church. They did one of their songs, I Have Been Blessed, and they really seemed to enjoy it. We felt that God wanted us to do that song there. It was a miracle it actually got done due to a few different things such as sickness and the song length in general (it is over 5 minutes if I remember correct and that is a long time to hold your arms up). However, we decided that if God wanted us to do it, then we were going to do it. 
Whenever the song started, there were people in the audience who started singing along with it. I actually looked over at my mom and was like, "Well, I guess some of the people here have been listening to their CDs," and then smiled. It is always nice to hear people sing because when we are behind the stage, we can't really know if the audience likes it or not if we can't actually hear a response from the audience.
After the show, my parents got talking with the pastor of the church. He told them that I Have Been Blessed is actually the church's favorite song by Anointed Hearts. Actually, he told them that just recently he had actually done a message about being blessed. After the message, they actually played that song.

If you listen to the introduction to the song on the video on this post, Steve talks about his daughter's trips to Honduras. He tells about how the people there will make a living off of finding cans and other things to recycle by digging through the trash at the dump. However, even though they have to dig through trash to live, they still say that they are blessed because they have Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Now, take a look at your own life. Do you feel blessed even in times when you are struggling? If not, remember that God is there with and for you. He won't give you more than you can handle. 

 Note to Readers:

Currently the version of the video is not very good quality. It is actually a camera recording of the TV because we haven't gotten the chance to actually download the recording to the computer. However, I am hoping to get a better version up soon. However, I wanted to still include this version at least for now. You may need to turn the volume up to hear it well. Sorry about the quality! 

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To see the rest of the posts from this series please click here  

Choosing Songs

Note to Readers:

I am going to apologize ahead of time for the fact that this post is going to be ridiculously short. Today has been a long day in the fact that I have had a headache since I woke up this morning and I am really just ready for bed. However, I really do not want to miss a day, so I at least wanted to write something. So, here is my something. 

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In a puppet ministry, choosing which songs to perform is important. You want the song to be something that the audience will be able to get in to. For that reason, the biggest rule in choosing songs is to know your audience. 

If you are performing in a setting where the majority of your audience is going to be young children, then more of your songs should be kid focused. If you are performing where the majority of your audience is on the older side of the spectrum, slower songs such as Southern Gospel or hymns are typically better. However, a lot of time, the audience is mixed. Therefore, when selecting songs, the show will typically be made up of a variety of different styles of music. 

Also when choosing songs, it is important to look at the number of people the song would require to perform it. You have to look at how many singers there are as well as all the props you would want to do in order to see if you even could do it. 

Since this post is about choosing songs, I want you to think about the music that you listen to. Is it music that would please God for you to be listening to? If not, maybe you should think a bit more about what you are listening to. I mean, that saying "garbage in, garbage out" does kind of apply here. If the music you are listening to is full of cussing and topics such as sex, drinking, and drugs, what are people going to see in your life? 

Colossians 3:16 (NIV)

¹⁶ Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.  (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+3%3A16&version=NIV)

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To see the rest of the posts from this series please click here