Monthly Archives: October 2007

How many of you have ever suffered from an "earworm" (a song that gets stuck in your head). It's sad to say but I still take a great deal of (wicked?) pleasure in implanting songs into people's minds and then watching them struggle to get rid of it. I've found that it works best with old show-tunes and snippets of songs which are otherwise almost entirely forgotten.

But what if you could put a song in your head that should stay there? One of the methods of the early church was to put doctrine to music so that the hymns they sang were full of meaning. To a certain extent we do the same thing today but not all of our songs are as doctrinally rich.

Before his death in about the year 220 A.D. Clement of Alexandria described the constant worship of Christians this way:

"We cultivate our fields, praising. We sail the seas, humming. Our lives are filled with prayers and praises and Scripture reading before meals and before bed, and even during the night. By this means, we unite ourselves to the heavenly choir."¹

Not much remains of some of those early songs. No doubt the early church sang from the Psalms, but they also began to write new hymns which specifically testified about Jesus. There are a few instances where some of the early hymns of the church made it into

For those interested, Nelson is having a one day sale October 31st, 2007 (Sale ends 11:59 CST) Rated 3.0 out of 5.0

eBible Expanded Edition for $59.95 on sale, Normally $94.97 on Web, $149.99 SRP

http://www.nelsonministryservices.com/nms/product_detail.asp?dept_id=703&sku=1418513164&ref=11523

(I don’t own this one so am going off the description…)
A great deal for those who have never grabbed a eBible collection before… This is the collection that seems to have replaced the eBible Platinum Collection when eBible upgraded to Logos Libronix 3.x…

In the weeks leading up to his second space shuttle mission, Rick was busy and isolated. He was busy with an intense preflight schedule of training and planning. He was isolated by the required isolation of pre-flight quarantine which separated him from his wife (Evelyn) and two children (Laura – 13 and Matthew – 8). During a pre-flight NASA interview he was asked "Outside of your time with NASA, what's been your most enjoyable time or experience in life?" His response revealed his heart:

"Well, I think apart from NASA, the most enjoyable part of my life has been my time with my family. And, if you think about, probably the pinnacle or the most exciting or memorable events, I would say probably my marriage and then the birth of our two children, and being there with my wife, and just the awesome experience of seeing a baby come into the world. And just being so overwhelmed with God's goodness in blessing us with two wonderful children."¹

His response explains why, knowing that his coming mission was 17 days long, he diligently prepared 17 personal one-on-one video devotions for each of his kids.

The Space Shuttle roared into the skies at 10:39 AM Thursday, January 16, 2003. A successful mission was completed on February 1, 2003. Finally the payload bay doors were closed and latched, all seven astronauts including Rick Husband were dressed and ready in their orange launch and entry suits. At 8:18 AM the Columbia's braking rockets were fired and at 8:44 AM Columbia entered the upper fringes of Earths atmosphere at approximately 14,757 Miles per hour.² A crack in the shielding on the left wing caused catastrophic failure of the craft. The entire crew was lost. The video devotions which Rick Husband had left his children changed in an instant from a gift into a treasure.³

Sometimes you might have thought (as I have), "I wish one of the apostles or God himself would come and tell me