Opportunity Is Knocking

I wonder how many people can remember what they were doing on February 2. Yes, I realize that was Ground Hog Day, but I’m talking about the evening, after all the festivities were over.

I know where I was, along with about 60 other people. Twelve weeks before the holiday, we all had Easter on the mind. That night was the first practice for the Easter concert my church will present next weekend.

Since then, the choir’s been working hard. We had to not only learn 12 songs, but memorize them, too. Most of the choir members manage this well, but the limited abilities of my feeble brain makes this a major challenge. The twice weekly practice gets me started, but I need more than that. Listening to the practice CD repeatedly helps quite a bit, but even that is not enough, in spite of the fact that I wake up with Easter music going through my head. I have found that the most effective way for me to memorize the songs is to write the words out. If I do that once or twice, then write out just the first letter of each word, I can successfully memorize my lyrics… mostly. I haven’t yet figured out a method to help me memorize the music. It’s always full of key changes and incredibly long phrases, and …well, you get the picture. Though I listen to the CD an average of twice a day, and pick out my part on the keyboard over and over, I’m usually still cramming when the lights go down. Still, it always seems to work out, and I’ve always been glad I chose to participate.

By the time the concert opens, I will have attended 20 practices, gotten writer’s cramp more than once, and listened to my CD at least 160 times. What a big commitment of time and energy. If you consider that dozens of others are doing the same things, it becomes huge. However, a choir alone does not a concert make. There’s also the directors, and the accompanists, and the actors, and the orchestra, and the lighting crew, the technical crew, the stage crew, the costumers… and on it goes. Why would so many adults spend their time in such an endeavor?

Some people just don’t understand why Christians do any of the things they do. There are people who disapprove of Christians who make their faith public in any way. In fact, I recently read a comment complaining about Christian devotional blogs. Maybe you’ve had some of these same thoughts. Well, now is the perfect opportunity to find out what’s behind all this “Christianity stuff”. Over the next two weekends, churches all over the country will be presenting concerts celebrating this holy day. I’m sure there’ll be one near you. Go to one, and get some of those questions answered. In fact, if you’re anywhere near the DC area, you might want to come to mine. It’s at Grace Baptist Church of Bowie, MD, 7 PM, April 22 and 23.

We’ll save you a seat.