God Save The Queen

This has got to be one of the most moving pieces of music. This arrangement of the British National Anthem by Benjamin Britten arranged in the early 1960s.

In grade school we used to sing it whenever we sang O Canada. The two went together like peanut butter and grape jam. :)

But this arrangement is stunning and I've only heard of it because in recent years they have been singing it on the Last Night of the Proms.

It has become, in this version, much more the prayer that it was written to be.

Where Is The Wonder?

Very few of us as human beings, are given a great dose of Wonder to face life with.

For most of us as we transform from children to adults, we lose the sense of wonder. The grace of awe.  We trade it for a harsh dose of reality. Maybe especially this year.

The wise ones hold on to their wonder, and the rest of us look at them with impatience, wondering when they will grow up and face the world like the rest of us do.

We say “Grow up” BUT Jesus said you must become as a little child.

Christmas is a time when wonder is real, when Wonder became flesh and dwelt among us.

Here's my talk this morning about wonder. It may be time to add some more to your life.

Where is the Wonder?

Should we be praying for sick people to be made well?

You know the church's history of praying for healing for people has been a bit of a come and go thing over the past 2000 years. There are seasons where we practice it well and then there are seasons of quiet. We see seasons of incredible miracles and then we see nothing for a hundred or so years. While that may be a part of our past story, there is biblical reason to believe that it can be a helpful part of our ministries today, if we will have the courage to try.

I think some of us are generally afraid of the whole topic, so we end up saying that those sorts of things were for the early days of the church and are not for today.
I also think that we see the things we have simple faith to see.

During the past two weeks we tackled the difficult topic of Healing in the church and we explored some reasons why we may not see the answers we are looking for. It's certainly not the definitive piece on healing, but it's a good place to start looking at these things and perhaps to be challenged about our own thinking on it.

Part One: Praying for healing, an Overview

Part Two: What Happens When We're Not Healed?

BirdSong in The Field

Since our return from the vacation, Lauralea and I have both caught some nasty ongoing viral, flu like, cold thing. She is coughing her brains out and I am aching and snorting my way through a miserable week.

But then the rains came and after the rain came the birds. So today I hit record and this is the audio I caught from the little blighters.

Much better than the audio you'd hear from either of us.

Enjoy.

Clay is a great metaphor for the human story.

Last Sunday I talked for a few minutes about Isaiah.

Isaiah shared a fairly personal prayer with us as readers down through the ages. It gets quite personal and passionate and is a good reminder of a simple life lesson, as great as we may think we are, we are still the created ones.

And that...

Clay is a great metaphor for the human story.

Free but not cheap.

Sometimes we as followers of Christ forget the great sacrifice that was offered for us. And the whole concept of someone loving us before they ever knew us, well that blows us away.

The end result seems to be a western church that has great depth of teaching, but a great shallowness in living. Perhaps it's good that we just remember a few things.

I do the preaching but St. Peter reminds us of what's important.

Living worthwhile lives.

Living with difficult people

This is another part in our exploration of living life in community.

It's usually easy to live with people who are nice and quiet and helpful and loving and who don't eat loud or have smelly feet. Unfortunately that just describes two dimensional paper dolls.

Life and community can't be lived with just paper friends who don't ever offend or hurt you. If you are going to connect at deeper levels, you're going to have to learn what to do when sometimes they are difficult to live with.

Here we explore what it means to get the greater blessing, even when living with, pardon my french, "Stupid People" or people who are just going through a "stupid" phase.


Take a listen.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/Living%20with%20difficult%20people%2064.mp3

Made for Community

I think that if I were to recognize one sort of overarching theme of my life's work, I think it would have to be how passionate I am about community and especially the church as community.

It's amazingly driven into my whole being that we were not made to be alone, and until we can somehow become a part of a community that can know us, and whom we trust and respect and can be vulnerable and intimate with, I think we will just skim along the surfaces of life.

So it's talks like these that get me going.

Here is a talk I gave last Sunday, September 11, 2011 about how we were made to be a part of community.

Remember, the context here is unique and so the references and jokes may not fit where you are, but I hope it just gives you pause to think about the communities you are involved in.

Here is the link. (50 extra points to whomever gets the SNL reference.)


Made for Community

BBC Radio now in iTunes

I know that some out there have gone to great hacking efforts to get BBC Radio to play in your iTunes, and I know this because I have searched and hacked a bit myself.

But as of this morning when I was looking for some decent classical music to play while I study, I stumbled upon BBC Radio 3 in iTunes. I dug a bit more and BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 4, 4EXTRA, and 5Live are all there now.

So on a day when I'm having difficulty focusing my bleary eyes, this is very good news.

Abiding Radio

I've been listening to this audio site lately called Abiding Radio.

They present themselves as a "

"...a unique internet radio ministry of Brookside Baptist Church located in Brookfield, Wisconsin, USA. This ministry provides conservative Christian music exclusively.
- Providing a mix of instrumental and vocal music from various artists all selected to be sacred, God-honoring and conservative."

"Sacred, God-honoring and conservative" makes me just a bit nervous, (equating conservative with God-honoring) but they play stuff my grandparents would have loved. I've had it on occasionally in my office and sometimes an old hymn will come on that takes me back to good memories as a kid and I find myself singing along because I know the words.

You should check it out. It may scratch where you itch.

http://www.abidingradio.com/main_page.html

What does a Saviour look like?

I usually post my sermons over at the church website, malmomc.com, but this one from last Sunday helps answer some of the questions some of you have been asking me.

Ever wonder what a good saviour looks like?
We took a shot at exploring that last Sunday. From Mrs. Libowitz to a guy running into a burning house, you can relive the moment here:

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/REFjan31-1096.mp3

seeping into the hard broken edges of my recent days of busyness and life

And suddenly a song begins to play on my iTunes and my spirit slows and my eyes get all heavy and watery and my heart begins to shift.

It’s like it’s moving inside, changing direction, mood, orientation

Suddenly, because of music, I change.

I immerse myself in it like a hot bath when my aching body settles into the hot healing soothing bliss. Only this is for my spirit, my soul.

Oh it feels so good, seeping into the hard broken edges of my recent days of busyness and life. It hurts as it fills each nook and cavity, but its a good hurt, like hot water covering my tired body.

Music this good is so rare that when I occasionally stumble upon such pieces I hold onto them like rare secret treasures.

This is such a piece. Spiegel im Spiegel by Sergej Bezrodny & Vladimir Spivakov


Now excuse me, I need to let it seep in, deeply.

Healing, cleansing, restoring…


(Here is a video with the exact recording I have. Turn it up all the way, sit back, close your eyes, and rest.)

Thinking about forgiveness

I've had a couple of people from the area ask if they could get a copy of this talk i gave a couple of weeks ago, so I'll make it available here.

Some of my words throughout the talk get mixed up and are embarrassing, but the gist of it is real and true, and have been quite helpful for me in the past. Forgiveness is often misunderstood, but when you experience it's powerful effects in your life, wow it can really help you to be free again.

Anyway, here you go. thinking about forgiveness.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refJUL5-0996.mp3

Talking about who is the older son

A couple of Sundays ago I was talking about what it meant to be the older son, when the younger son comes back home after partying his life away.

Sometimes we as a church need to be more like the father than the elder son.

Listen here.

Talking about milestones in life

Sunday was a kind of grad Sunday as we worshipped out here in the field. So I talked about those mile-markers in our lives, the places where we are wise to stop and look back and see how God has led us.

It's a pretty unedited version of the talk so some of it might be caught in the visual.


Listen Here.

Wehrlos und Verlassen

What with Lauralea gone for the weekend and the guys busy, I took the time tonight to do something I've been planning to do for a very long time.

I have an early 1980's recording of the Mennonite Concerto and on the album are nine old songs sung in german. While I enjoy the Concerto, the mennonite german songs take me to a place of fond memories. I put it on when I want to remember and smile about the olden days in the mid 80's when Lauralea taught at a Mennonite German Bible school and I worked as a lay minister in the church. 400 people, half of whom spoke low-german and half of whom spoke english.

Both Lauralea and I were in the church choir and we sang many of these songs. When I led the choir I often selected the songs I enjoyed singing. That's why this album takes me back. So tonight I rigged a recorder and recorded the album, split up the songs and mp3'ed them. The quality isn't amazing, but I know what they are singing, and sometimes the words come back to me and I sing along.

Anyway, here is one of my favourites, Wehrlos und Verlassen.

Click here to listen.

On the way to my office this morning I heard some amazing Birdsong. Listen if you like.

The Unseen Effects of Prayer

Well here is this morning's offering of loaves and fishes.
May God do with it what he wishes.

This is the last in the series on Prayer that I've been looking at for the past month. It's also the end of my trial of posting these Sunday morning talks online.

So that's where I could use some direction.

My ongoing concern is that the words that are spoken here are done so within a certain unique context that might be quite different from where you are at. If you think they should remain within the local context because they are "Local" sermons, then fine no problem, lets do that.

However, if it's something that you found helpful or useful, why not drop me a line here at covrev AT gmail DOT com. Tell me what you think.

We might continue to run them online, even for our local people here who like to listen during the week. In that case we might host them elsewhere.

But do talk back. I'm not looking for huge affirmation here or for a review of my hermeneutic skills. I do really see them as a small, simple offering, that God may use how he wishes.

Now, to todays offering.
What if your prayers could effect kingdoms and rulers and unseen worlds, and all you had to do was learn how to pray deeper, longer prayers?

We get a rare glimpse behind the prayer curtain when Daniel has an amazing experience.

Listen here:
http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refFEB0109-96.mp3

Christ's word to a distracted church

My talk yesterday morning was difficult. Hard to get focused and communicate my heart.
But here it is. Keep what you can use and toss the rest.

My thanks to Stan Harsch who records the audio so well that I don't have to tweak it that much, and to Eunice Nelson for the beautifully played piano at the end.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refJAN2509-96.mp3

 

May God be near you.

Praying with your Spirit

This morning in worship I wanted to continue to explore prayer, so I took a passage that Paul sent to the Corinthians in a letter and expanded it a bit to look at praying with the mind and praying with the spirit.

We may pray well with our minds, but how can we pray better with our spirits?

That's what todays talk is about.

Listen if you wish.

Praying for ya.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/JAN180964.mp3