Dear Theophilus

the text: John 4:1-26 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bu...

This is post #2 of 4 on the 4 songs I wrote for school... This is one of my favorites. The songs works and it recorded well. I have been toying with this song for a long time, so some of you may have heard it before - sorry. Lots more banjo, no drums, lots of electric guitar and one of the best guitar solos I have ever come up with (which is not saying much if you know me :)). One of my learning objectives was that I wanted to seek traditions outside of my own. The Psalms have not been a major part of my worshiping tradition in my home church. More than that, before coming to SPU I was unsure about the Psalms. I wrestled with David and Solomon and their roles in scripture. I mostly avoided them, not finding much value in them at all. I think my issue was that David and Solomon both started great but devolved into a mess of a family that ultimately cast the people of God into the stone ages and persecution and exile. I think I was hurt because the church taught ab...

So, I wrote 4 songs for this project I had to do at school... It is this class where I could do a project, literally almost anything, where I synthesized the material that I was learning. I decided to write and play some songs. These are not finished. I have my favorites. The next four blog posts will be about these four songs. Here is a playlist with all 4 on youtube. You can easily listen to any of them. I am going to blog about what I was attempting to do and say in each song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3udEpVy92w4&list=PL3A3C391AEE5B22F5&feature=plpp_play_all The first song is my LEAST favorite but it has been knocking around in my head. It is called "Rise Up!" “Rise Up!” With your left hand you clear my path, With your right you hold me close Your Holy fire all around me will be my light home, it will be my light home Rise up our God the Lord above, You are the great and Mighty One You stay our enemies away, you pour ...