Thankfulness

     This post is about some things I am sincerely thankful for this week.  They may not seem big -- in fact, they may sound pretty trivial to some of you, but they are important to me.  One of my goals has been to write down what I am thankful for on a more regular basis, or at least to be more conscious of those day-to-day things the Lord organizes to make my life just so much more pleasant.

    Thankfulness #1.  A couple of days ago I randomly sent a message to a friend, asking what she was doing next Monday.  She immediately recalled I had said I have out-of-town guests and asked if I needed a car for something.  She then continued to say she could try to ask for the day off, or she could request a shift if she knew in advance when I might need her and the car.  It warmed my heart that someone would try to re-arrange their entire schedule just to drive me somewhere. :)

    Thankfulness #2.  I have been down with a cold all week.  Being the optimist that I am, I thought it would blow over faster, but it is dragging on (the colder temperatures also don't help).  I planned our Sunday worship lineup and was prepared to go to practise tonight, but last night, I realized I was in no shape to sing or lead a rehearsal.  I messaged a couple of my team members, one of whom I knew was planning on taking the week off, and they immediately said -- no, you should stay home and rest, we will take care of everything!  Needless to say, I am truly thankful for the graciousness and maturity my team exhibits.  They are the best!

     Thankfulness #3.  I hosted my cell group a couple of days ago, but because I have had a cold, I didn't have the energy or inspiration to prepare any interesting snacks (I often do!).  I also didn't ask anyone to bring anything either!  I was pleasantly surprised when they came to the door and we had plenty of snacks.  The best part was someone had brought not one, but TWO packages of raspberries and I absolutely LOVE raspberries, but don't always find them in my local supermarket.  I had the leftovers for breakfast and felt truly thankful that the Lord would care about these sorts of seemingly insignificant details.

     What are some things that YOU are thankful for this week?   How has God been showing you His love daily?  Feel free to comment below, or start your own list. :) 

    

    
 

Kingdom Singers -- the story behind my new choir

      After much prayer, deliberation, and prodding from friends and other singers, I started rehearsals for a new choir in the fall of 2017.

     Although I have sung in choirs all my life, I have never felt the desire to conduct a choir, let alone actually be the founder of one!!!  To make matters even worse, I don't like starting things that might fail, and believe me, there are a lot of things that can go wrong when you lead a choir, especially a new one!!!

     We started in September with about 30 people on our sign-up list and a good 20 who arrived at the first rehearsal, many of whom I did not know personally.  The youngest person in the room was finishing high school and the oldest was retired, and we had everything in between.  And that is when the little voice in the back of my head went off  Each and every possible insecurity came to the forefront for me -- are these people going to get along with each other, are they going to like me, can they sing and what do I know about choirs anyway?

     So what did I do?  I knew the choir was God's will.  He had made that really clear.  I had no choice but to trust Him and not my own feelings on the matter.  As rehearsals continued, I asked Him for wisdom.  One morning, I woke up at 5am and suddenly felt the Lord wanted to talk to me about choir rehearsals -- namely, that I wasn't leading them the way He wanted.  Having sung for many years in professional choirs and being a well-trained musician, I spent most of our rehearsals focusing on singing the right notes and making a good sound.  Because we only meet every other week, I try to use rehearsal time as effectively as possible.  Now there is nothing wrong in that actually -- we are instructed to give our best to the Lord.  However, this time, I felt Him prodding me to model worship, and not just practice songs.

    The following evening, we had choir practise.  However, after vocal warmups, I sat down at the piano and explained to my singers that this time, we would not directly rehearse any of our current repertoire, even though we had upcoming gigs.  Instead, we would hang out with Jesus.  I encouraged them to stand, sit, lie down, move away from the pews (we rehearse in a church), write things down if God spoke to them, or open the Bible.  Then I started playing and singing whatever I felt on my heart.  I pushed back the voice of insecurity which was trying to tell me that people might feel uncomfortable for one reason or another -- and I decided to worship an audience of One.

    The results were actually very amazing, and surprisingly, everyone had only positive things to say.  One person commented why Sunday church couldn't look like this, and another revealed that God had indeed spoken to him.  Someone else shared a Bible verse.  Since then, we have periodically used rehearsal time for open worship sessions, and at the end of our first year, one singer commented that those were the best part of choir by far. 

     I have gained a new understanding of the verse from Proverbs 3, which encourages us to ¨trust in the Lord with all Your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.¨

     As we approach our one year anniversary, here is a quick look back at this past year:

     Our very first gig at the end of October, came after just a handful of rehearsals.  It was a music festival in Kerava, with many other international and Finnish choirs.  Mighty God, You are was written by my long-time friend Andreas Forsberg, and he is the featured soloist in this video.

     Kingdom Singers was founded to inspire and encourage the local church in praise and worship of our almighty King.  However, we were not expecting our first church service to take place in the Helsinki Cathedral downtown, on the 100th anniversary of Finland's Independence, but God is cool that way!   Here is the closing song from that service.

     Our spring term included a service at the International Evangelical Church in downtown Helsinki, as well as at Andreaskyrkan, a Swedish speaking congregation.  One of the aims of our choir has been to include songs in Finnish, English and Swedish, and to break down the language and generational barriers that we sadly often find in churches today.   

     Thankful for a fruitful and fun first year and looking forward to 2018!  If you are interested in singing with us or in having us at your church, please write to kingdomsingersfinland@gmail.com.




    


    

TV interview thoughts

     There is nothing like logging onto Facebook after being out of town in the countryside the entire weekend, and noticing that on your newsfeed, a Christian TV channel has featured an interview you did in 2015 and actually had conveniently forgotten about.....

     Truth be told, I just about loathe being on TV.  Newspaper interviews are not a whole lot better -- I did one last year as PR for a local event and was so nervous, I could barely get myself out of my chair at the end.  I still haven't been able to watch the TV interview in its entirety, although a couple of my close friends assure me that it went just fine (I hope they are telling the truth!).

    However, Himlen TV7 decided to make a 4 minute mini-Youtube version of the interview and today I literally forced myself to watch it (I kept my eyes closed at times).  Although I still find it really eerie to hear myself speaking Swedish, I actually agreed with the content of the interview (which maybe shouldn't be so surprising, since they were my thoughts!!).  Some of the things I managed to touch upon include the importance of embracing diverse musical styles in our churches today, and not limiting ourselves to one style.  In this way, we are inclusive and encourage multi-generational worship services, which are very important as we can learn from one another.  In addition, I believe that our calling from the Lord is usually not a static one, but something which is constantly changing as He molds us.  In fact, if we knew everything He asked us to do right from day one, we would probably be too scared to do anything, so He often reveals things slowly.

     Seeing the interview on Facebook today also reminded me about what I should be focusing on.  In all honesty, it is easy for me to become distracted and de-motivated at times -- much of leading worship can feel like a chore when you do the same things every week (picking songs, writing chord charts, rehearsing with amateur musicians and getting to church early on a Sunday).  However, it is when we are faithful in the small things that the Lord can really use us to change the people and situations around us.  And although TV and newspaper interviews are not my thing and I don't feel at all qualified to do them, I know that one small step of obedience often blesses other people.

   If you speak Swedish, you can watch the shorter Youtube-version here or the complete version here.  If you do manage to watch the whole thing, please let me know what you think and even better -- remind me what I said, because it might just be that I need to hear it again from someone else. :)

Untitled

    I was exiting the train station last night at around 8pm, when I spotted a middle-aged man coming towards me.  He said hello and asked me how I was.  I didn't recognize him and since strangers in Finland don't normally make conversation with other strangers, I answered briefly and continued walking.  Approximately five minutes later, I saw the man on the other side of the street.  Since there is really only one exit to the train station, and I had assumed he was going there, I immediately started wondering at what point he had turned around and started following me.

    I didn't have to wait long to find out because he then crossed to my side of the street and ran a little in front of me before trying to resume conversation.  Again, he said hello and asked me how I was doing, but this time I was beginning to panic a bit (the street was really quiet), so I ignored him and continued walking, but not before his body language registered despair.  I made it to my destination a few minutes later and thought nothing of the entire scenario until this morning. 

    You see, the man whom I met had dark skin and was most likely also a foreigner in a strange country.  I felt somewhat guilty for not wanting to make conversation with him.  Had this situation happened on a bus or tram, I surely would have talked to him -- in fact, I have often had strangers tell me their life story while on public transport (I guess I look sympathetic, or just very non-intimidating).  However, it is almost always the case that if I meet a man alone, especially in the evening, and he tries to make any kind of contact, I opt to just keep walking.  I realize it shouldn't be like this, but I am also interested in my own safety, and six years of living in New York City have taught me that looking out for myself is actually a very wise thing to do.  I never needed a campaign such as #metoo in order to innately understand that women are often the victims of violence and abuse.  In addition, being petite has also meant I have had my fair share of unpleasant situations to learn from, but thankfully none of them have had drastic consequences.

     I pondered a little if I should have done something different.  One option would have been to ask if he needed help or was lost; however, I also know asking questions is often a stalling technique, and I wasn't sure I was interested in waiting around to find out what he had in mind.

    Of course, I don't have to defend my actions, because the man last night did not make his intentions very clear.  I have no way of knowing if he was after sex or if I had met him at an event and he wanted to reconnect (very possible, given my line of work).  Although great progress has been made in the area of gender equality, as a general rule, I am perfectly willing to admit that women are still physically weaker and therefore need to be on their guard -- however, it makes me a bit sad to feel that there is no better alternative than to just turn around and walk away when someone might indeed have needed help.  What would you have done?