Favorite Christmas Songs, Albums

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In honor of the season, I thought I'd post of a few of my favorite Christmas songs.

• Favorite Traditional Christmas Song: "O, Holy Night" - Yes, every artist has to record it, and somebody at church has to sing it every year, but there's a reason for that! The song remains beautiful - one of the best worship songs ever written!
• Favorite Modern Christmas Song: "Born to Die" by Bebo Norman - A beautiful, moving pop song. It captures the truth of the season in a way that's hard to do in under four minutes.
• Favorite Novelty Christmas Song: "'Zat You, Santa Claus? by Louis Armstrong - Let's be honest. This is much closer to how we would actually react if some dude showed up at our houses on Christmas Eve. Plus, the song is just plain fun.
• Favorite Reworking of a Classic Christmas Song: "Jingle Bells" by James Taylor - "Jingle Bells" as blues! Brilliant!

Favorite Christmas Albums:

1. Christmas... From the Realms of Glory by Bebo Norman - Songs we know, and some we don't. Some are done in the Bebo Norman style CCM listeners have to come to know. Most are done in a style much more reminiscent of his indie music: simple instrumentation - acoustic guitar, piano, melodica, hammer dulcimer. It's a warm, folksy, introspective, beautiful album. Plus, the brave inclusion of Jackson Browne's "The Rebel Jesus." Highlights: "Born to Die," "Come and Worship," "The Rebel Jesus"
2. Christmas by Michael W. Smith - Remember when Michael W. Smith used to be a songwriter? This album is odd for 80s CCM. It's a high-church, classical Christmas album with a couple of classic Smitty touches, and it's pretty flippin' amazing. Of course, he had to to include the radio-friendly "Gloria," a pop rendition of "Angels We Have Heard on High." Highlights: "First Snowfall," "All Is Well," "Gloria"
3. Home for Christmas by Amy Grant - I am not, nor have I ever been, an Amy Grant fan, but I love this album. I even went to one of her Christmas concerts years ago. There are a couple of blemishes ("Grown Up Christmas List" and her insistence on singing along with the choir on Handel's "For Unto Us a Child is Born"), but there are so many classic renditions of so many classic Christmas songs, if you don't like it, you have no Christmas spirit! Highlights: "Breath of Heaven," "The Night Before Christmas," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"

Christmas album honorable mention: Christmastime by Michael W. Smith, Music of Christmas by Steven Curtis Chapman

Worst Christmas Song Ever: "Grown Up Christmas List" - I do not need to defend this choice.

Introverts in Ministry?

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Here's an unofficial poll. I'd like your comments. I'll respond via blog later.

Unofficial Poll: In your opinion, can an introvert be effective in ministry and remain an introvert?

Let me clarify a couple of things.

1) I'm speaking of a real introvert - someone who processes internally rather than externally, someone who draws their energy from solitude and/or being with a small group of close friends or family. Not someone who has low self-esteem.

2) I'm speaking of pastoral staff ministry.

A Good, Good God

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Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, "Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?"

And Abraham said to God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before You!"

But God said, "No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

"As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.

"But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year."

Genesis 17:17-21 (NASB)

As I was reading through Genesis 17, I was struck deeply by this passage.

God made Abram and promise, one that Abram and Sarai almost immediately sought to fulfill on their own rather than trust God. Their action resulted in the birth of Abram’s son Ishmael, and the tension – to put it mildly – between the descendants of Ishmael and the descendants of Isaac continues to this day.

God answers Abram’s act of faithlessness with… a covenant. It’s like He’s saying, "You didn’t believe me, but I’m serious!"

God changes his name, spells out the blessing, then Abraham responds with… laughter! He absolutely does not believe that God can or will do what He’s promising. "Oh," he pleads, "that Ishmael might live before You!"

At this point, if I’m God, I'm thinking, "Forget you pal. I’ll just wipe you and your family off the face of the earth and start over with somebody else." Thankfully, I’m not Him.

Look at verse 20: "As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him…"

I am overwhelmed by the goodness of my God. He chooses Abraham and holds onto him through all his failings and faithless acts and sin. He blesses the child of that sin. And he blesses the sinner.

Just as God blessed Abraham and his sons – all of whom were as undeserving as we are – God blesses me daily. And he blesses you.

Our God is so good!

A Big 2010 - Houses Sold, Debts Paid

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2010 has been a big year for the Kossum family, so I wanted to share with you some of the ways God has been blessing us.

First, as some of you know, Kacy, Emma, and I moved back to Houston from Florida in 2008 after living there for about 4 years. We bought a house in Orange Park, Florida in late 2005. We knew God was calling us back to Texas and put the house on the market in late 2007 - a short 2 years later. It was only a couple of months before the nation's housing market began to collapse, and Florida has been one of the hardest hit states.

So, our house has been on the market almost three years. Finally today we got word from our realtor that the mortgage company has accepted the most recent short sale offer. It's not technically official, but it looks like the house is sold, removing a HUGE burden from our shoulders.

Thank you God!

In my opinion, an even bigger one happened in July. We were discussing - with some friends and fellow members of Magnolia Creek Baptist Church - how the Bible tells us the church ought to be. That we ought to be meeting one another's needs. It's easy to point the finger at people who don't ever help anyone else, but we also made note of the fact that, in our hyper-self-sufficient suburban American culture, nobody wants to admit when they're in need.

So, inevitably, someone said, "Who has a need? Let's talk about it." I immediately thought, "Well, we've got a huge one, but nobody could help with that! And they probably shouldn't." But I couldn't shake the feeling that God was pushing me to talk about it.

So, I told our friends how, in our poor musician days in Florida, we got in over our heads financially and incurred a lot of credit card debt. Even now, it's hard to admit that, but there it is.

I told them how, when we came back to Houston and were earning enough money, we decided that God's will for our family was to pay off that debt as quickly as possible so that Kacy could leave her job and stay home with our daughter. However, it soon became apparent that we wouldn't be able pay it all off before Emma started kindergarten.

So, our friends basically said, "We've got more money than we know what to do with." In the name of Christ, they wrote us a HUGE check, and we paid off that debt. Kacy will be leaving her job at the end of October.

Praise be to God, who paid our debt and inspired us to pay the debts of others.

Celebrating Toy Story 3

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I don't usually post stuff like this here, but I couldn't help it. I'm a big fan of Pixar, and in honor of this weekend's release of Toy Story 3, I thought I'd post the short that started it all: "Tin Toy."

New Song | Shining Down

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Check out my brand new song, "Shining Down," on YouTube and leave a comment here or on the 'Tube to let me know what you think!

Good Friday

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For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.

For finding fault with them, He says,
"BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD,
WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT
WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH;
NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS
ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND
TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT;
FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT,
AND I DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD.
"FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL
AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD:
I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS,
AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS.
AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD,
AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
"AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN,
AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, 'KNOW THE LORD,'
FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME,
FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM.
"FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES,
AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE."

When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.

Hebrews 8:7-13 (NASB)

This morning, Good Friday, as I read through the letter to the Hebrews, I was struck by the enormous compassion that God has poured out on us. It wasn’t a huge, deep revelation. Just a fresh realization of the unimaginable act of love that brought Jesus to the cross.

Time and time again throughout the Old Testament – under the old covenant of the Law – we see Israel fall, and we see the Lord pour out His wrath on the nation. But the writer of Hebrews calls on the prophet Jeremiah to show us that this time, it’s different.

This time, when God found fault with His people, He didn’t just respond with wrath. He responded with a new covenant – one that would cause His laws to be written on our minds and hearts, not just paper or tablets of stone.

Christ was mocked, tortured, and killed. The blood that poured from His veins onto that Judean hillside is what seals the new covenant with God. That blood, which was spilled as payment for the sins of every person, assures us that, if we accept the great gift of Christ, God will remember our sins no more.

That is why it’s Good Friday.

Civility Covenant

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“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” – Matthew 5:9

Yesterday I read a surprising piece of news from the world of politics. Christians from the political left and right came together to sign a “Civility Covenant.” I was impressed and heartened by this.

Let’s backtrack to the year 2000, when George W. Bush was first elected President of the United States. What arguably secured his victory was his campaign’s bringing together the evangelical community – conservative Christians – in nearly unanimous support of not only Bush as a candidate but the Republican Party as the sole champion of Christian values in this country. Over the course of that campaign and the eight years of his presidency, we saw the melding of the GOP and the Church into what almost amounted to a single entity.

Maybe this is a subject for another blog, but we just can’t let go of Christendom, can we? The Church was persecuted off and on throughout ancient Rome until Emperor Constantine “converted” and named Christianity the official religion of the Empire. Some of the greatest theologians of the day believed that God’s plan for spreading the Gospel to the world would be carried out by the expansion of the Empire.

But then, Rome fell. Life stank. Church leaders pined for the days of Rome as the world around them was completely altered. But then on Christmas Day in A.D. 800, the Pope crowned Charlemagne to lead the “Holy Roman Empire.” As the joke among historians goes, it was neither holy nor Roman. It wasn’t much of an empire either. But this was bald-faced attempt to regain the glory days of Christendom under Constantine, when the Church held power.

Despite the separation of church and state that is one of the hallmarks of American democracy, somehow we still expect to have a form of Christendom in this country. We wanted George W. Bush to be our Constantine, but he was just our Charlemagne.

American Christians grabbed hold of our new-found political power and clung to it for dear life. We assimilated ourselves into Republican political culture, bought into every bit of it hook, line, and sinker – including the arrogant vitriol of its most respected pundits and radio hosts. So, when the presidency changed hands, we got angry. Some will blame the anger on our Republican congressmen and senators. Some will blame it on the “tea-partiers.” I personally think it’s a symbiotic relationship. The angrier the constituents get, the angrier the representatives get, the angrier the constituents get.

And finally, here we are. American politics has devolved to the point of name-calling and death threats. The smallest detail of the smallest legislation is treated as either God’s Gospel or the vilest heresy – depending on your politico-religious point of view.

It’s not surprising to me that American politics would turn into a stalemated shouting match. What it does is sadden me because so many of the people involved call themselves Christians. That’s why this Civility Covenant gives me a glimmer of hope.

Perhaps we can be the church. Perhaps we can stop judging those who don’t know Christ and stop trying to change hearts with legislation. Perhaps we can make peace.

Haiti Earthquake

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Dear God,

What can I do?

To see such devastation in a land where the people do not have the money to prepare their homes for natural disaster, where the government infrastructure to offer the people aid does not exist, is too great for my heart to bear.

What can I do?

So many are suffering. So many have died. Children alone in the devastation. Mothers and fathers whose children are gone.

Dear God, what can I do? Please, show me what I can do.

(Image from NPR.)

Thousands of people hurt, dying, dead. Homes, businesses, government buildings destroyed.

The devastation in the tiny nation of Haiti seems endless, and the people are desperate. Aid is needed now. It is coming, but time is of the essence. So, what can we do?

Whatever we can. If you can go, go! Help, feed, attend to, comfort the people in need with your own voice, your own hands and feet, your own arms wrapped around them. They need us!

But many - probably most of us - cannot go. We can still send money, food, and medical supplies to meet the basic needs of these people without basic necessities in the midst of this destruction.

Do whatever you can. Just don't wait.

If you are - like I was earlier this morning - wondering what exactly you can do, seek out reputable organizations that are helping and help them. If you don't know where to begin, start here:

Living Water International: Haiti Earthquake Response

Water is one of the Haitian people's greatest needs at this moment. NPR quotes a Haitian doctor's assistant as saying, "There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."

LWI is joining with other water organizations to provide what is needed in this time of tragedy. So, join me in helping them, in the name of Jesus.

If you don't want to help this way, find another way. But please help.