The post can be found here—it is technical but not terribly so. It is simple, as these kinds of questions go. The page is public as far as I can determine. If the link fails, please let me know and try Monday with Mounce, looking for the article “Is the NT Anti-Semitic?“.2

I will quote here just the final paragraph:

In the current culture, this is something that we must be sensitive toward. The entire Jewish nation did not kill Jesus. The Jewish leaders and some of the Jews did. Punctuation should reflect this.

I agree.

“The church” has taught me any things. In fact it taught me so much that for two thirds of my adult life I carefully avoided it, being happy to join the “unchurched” back in the early 1970s by the time I was 21, when many others were doing likewise. I won’t go into that here, but I did write about it in Testimony.

What I write here is not for happily-churched people that don’t want their traditions and beliefs disturbed. It is for those that sense something wrong and happily stay away, and for those who sacrificially pursue truth online and in person but encounter immense opposition, leaving some to ask “how can this be happening?” The latter might be a good title for another post, but I won’t pursue it here.

There are good reasons for such people to find “church” unattractive. But there are also good reasons to look more deeply at what’s going on with churches. I am not “anti-church”, but I certainly would like to see churches do their jobs better, and my relationship with them is complex. In my Substack bio , I refer to it as “church hesitant”. Some churches do reasonably well, even within the constraints under which they choose to operate, and some of the worst of them, doctrinally speaking, do well serving people in need.

My remarks specifically address “Christian” churches, and we’ll get to that soon, but first let’s look simply at definitions of the word “church” itself, and then at some of the things the Bible has to say about the matter. If you are new to this Substack, don’t worry, I’m not going to try to convert you to anything, church tradition skeptic that I am. Read on, and you’ll see what I mean.

Definitions

The word “church” is quite flexible. Here are some definitions:

church1

1 of 3

noun

ˈchərch

1 : a building for public and especially Christian worship

2 : the clergy or officialdom of a religious body

3 : often capitalized : a body or organization of religious believers: such as

3a : the whole body of Christians

3b : denomination

3c : congregation

4 : a public divine worship

5 : the clerical profession

church

2 of 3

adjective

1 : of or relating to a church

2 chiefly British : of or relating to the established church

church

3 of 3

verb

churched; churching; churches

transitive verb : to bring to church to receive one of its rites

Etymology

Noun, Adjective, and Verb

Middle English chirche, from Old English cirice, ultimately from Late Greek kyriakon, from Greek, neuter of kyriakos of the lord, from kyrios lord, master; akin to Sanskrit śūra hero, warrior

The Noun “Church”

The word “church” is indeed flexible. Let’s keep it simple and go through just the meanings of the noun, but with a biblical perspective in view. I’ll provide a source of references later on for what I say here, a well-researched book, rather than attempting to write an entire book here in the footnotes.

1 : a building for public and especially Christian2 worship

Early gatherings of believers, called assemblies,3 typically met in homes, although the Apostle Paul may have rented a hall4 for some of his teaching. Church buildings can be expensive to buy, operate, and maintain, leading to incessant fund-raising, often called “tithing”. Established churches5 could collect tithes as a tax. There is, however, no mention of a “tithing requirement” among the early assemblies. There is “for God loves a cheerful giver“ in 2 Corinthians 9:6, often offered as a “proof text”6 for tithing, but if one reads that verse in context, it’s not about that. It’s about a collection for the Judean believers.

2 : the clergy or officialdom of a religious body

The assemblies had no clergy or officialdom as we would understand those words today, although there was organizational structure. There were no seminaries or degrees, so there was no body of credentialed clergy.

The organizational structure that did exist did not operate the way “church” today ordinarily does. They did not have pastor-rank leaders preaching regularly to congregants. There was not a fixed “order of service”. It was spontaneous. The members possessed differing talents and gifts through which they served accordingly, and everyone contributed to meetings, one at a time.7 This is not “church” as we typically know it, although there are contemporary approximations to it.

Try standing up and asking a question during a sermon, when doing so has not been scripted—NOT REALLY. Depending on the size and preparedness of the church, you just might meet with the security detail if you were to do such a thing.8

3 : often capitalized : a body or organization of religious believers: such as

3a : the whole body of Christians

Well maybe, but did they call themselves Christians?

3b : denomination

There was no such thing in the first century that I have found.

3c : congregation

This could be used as another word for “assembly”. I recall that there is a specific Greek word for “congregation”, but I’ve lost track of what it is. It doesn’t appear frequently.

The form of a first century assembly, as exposed in the New Testament, is quite different from what the activities of a typical modern congregation would look like, although there is overlap.

4 : a public divine worship

Well yes, but a different sort of worship from what is ordinarily seen in churches, as described in preceding comments.

5 : the clerical profession

Not as we understand it today. As already touched upon above and in footnotes, there were no pastors, no stages, no pews, no lectures with a presenter preaching to a passive audience. And while certain clerical “ranks” derive their names from Greek words applied to certain members of the assemblies, the job descriptions are usually not the same.

Discussion

There has been a substitution of one thing for another. The new thing doesn’t do all that the old thing did and vice versa, and while this is not entirely incapacitating, it can lead to a wide range of problems.

My own first church of note was a Christian cult-church with which my mother and I became involved when I was 12 years old. This article was inspired by what I learned while recovering from that early experience.

That church taught heretical doctrines intermingled with truth, something my mother and I failed to notice.9 I spent decades deprogramming from that organization (my mother never did) but interestingly enough, truths were taught there that rarely were spoken elsewhere.

Among the actual truths were claims — historical facts — about how the “other” Christian churches had incorporated pagan beliefs and practices into their gatherings. This is known as syncretism.10. “Other” of course meant, from their point of view, all the other “false” churches as opposed to this one claiming to be the “one true church” as this one did.

I grew up having this background knowledge about syncretism, imperfect knowledge but nevertheless fairly accurate in at least some respects. Unfortunately we did not learn about the parts that they omitted, concerning the pagan beliefs and practices that that church also had adopted.

Out of this upbringing, and ensuing incidents that occurred after I turned 21,11 I no longer wanted anything to do with Christian churches — that one or any other — for much of my adult life. I see now that it was an overreaction. There was a problem, but it could not be solved by running away. But then mistakes can be good teachers, if you survive them.

I have been back with Christian churches now for more than a decade, and there is no end to the problems I encounter, but they do create community, and they may preserve some of the practices that the early assemblies featured.

Ironically, because of all the problems, they may also resemble the early assemblies closely in one important respect: those assemblies had no end of problems either! And the problems of the early assemblies offer lessons from which we could learn now, if the modern churches were to teach them. And sometimes they do, but too often they don’t.

For some of us, this provokes a question that pops up repeatedly in a variety of curcumstances upon taking a closer look, “Why isn’t this taught?”

Why Isn’t This Taught?

One day somewhat recently an article [Edit: link changed and has been corrected] turned up on another Substack, highlighting a book titled Pagan Christianity.12 I read it, and roughly 80% of the book told of history that I already knew. The other 20% was the part that had escaped my notice. The book seems to me to have a rather negative tone about it, and I have some difficulty with that, although it is balanced by another later book in the series13 that I have also read. I am not promoting the ideas about what to do that are presented in either of these books, nor am I promoting their author’s business interests, but I did find them helpful as a reference point for better understanding “why isn’t this taught?”, and for clarifying my own relationship with these peculiar institutions known as Christian churches.

That said, the material in Pagan Christianity offers well-researched evidence supporting the claims I made above concerning “the noun ‘church’”, and it serves as a published reference for those claims. However, my prior knowledge of the material had a cushioning effect that other church-goers might not experience. I don’t want others to read the book and run screaming from their communities. Things are not that bad. If anyone feels this way, post a comment here. Let’s talk about it.

There is also good news hiding behind the “not taught” curtain, and I hope to go peeking behind that curtain again in future posts, seeking those parts. Whether you believe what it says or not, the Bible has very good news about what we are doing here on this Earth and what our destiny can be. The trouble is, it’s not all taught!

Stay tuned.

Related:

A funny thing happened on the way to the office … from the dining room (I work at home). I tripped in the semi-dark—it was early—and went sailing forward, trying to save my breakfast which I had in a bowl in one hand (solid, not liquid). I reached the wall and stopped abruptly, with the help of my head. Ouch. (See photo of wall above.) I saw sparks. I’m not quite sure what happened next, but I ended up on the floor on my tailbone. Double ouch. Then followed a long process of figuring out how to get back up off the floor. Most of my breakfast survived, still in the bowl except for the eggs. That, I found upsetting.

I’m 75 years old, and getting up from the floor has been a challenge for quite a few years, if it’s hardwood and I don’t have the right furniture in place in advance to lean on, and the office floor is and I didn’t have anything to lean on. Having a sore rear didn’t help, but I eventually made it the rest of the way into the office and up into my work chair. I’ve had practice with this.

So I’ve been quieter than usual on Substack, mostly because I’ve been sleeping a lot. It seems to help with healing. I discussed the fall with one of my doctors (teleconference), and she had good suggestions. I have doctors that have time to talk and know how to listen, paid by subscription, not insurance. And that pathway now has a motion-sensing night-light at either end. Why didn’t I think of that? And I have a nice donut cushion to sit on.

It is something else, to grow old and begin to lose that which you always took for granted. It’s hard to describe.

What’s this?

It’s a section of this Substack containing an archive of videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. This is the final planned post, as explained below. A longer description of the section can be found on the About page.

Love, Come Down, arranged for SSA and Piano

From the publisher’s page:

Marrolli provides her own text imploring the presence of the Holy Spirit in times of stress and challenge, leading into the familiar words of Bianco da Siena's hymn. Fragments of Ralph Vaughan Williams's tune Down Ampney appear in the accompaniment from the very beginning (although strangely misquoted in the initial upward ascent), paving the way for the melody to appear complete in the voices with rhythmic variation (and repeating the alteration of the first measure melody). The texture blossoms into three-part harmony, maintaining the Vaughan Williams melody in the top voice. Treble choirs able to sustain three parts would find this anthem engaging, and its use extends far beyond the day of Pentecost.

—Jason Overall, The Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians, March 2025

We were small, and beset with technical difficulties here and there, but we did it! This was a special women’s chorus, singing just the offertory anthem, two weeks before the beginning of the regular choir season. We began with a Saturday workshop, a few weeks earlier, with great turnout, and the sopranos and altos almost evenly matched. This was folowed by an evening rehearsal a few days before the Sunday service, with the turnout that you see here, just six sopranos and four altos. Well, at least we fit well on the chancel.

The altos are the four mostly tall ones right of center, of which I am the first to the right of of the rear stained glass window (and the saxaphone), and we held our own against those sopranos. For me it was a wonderful way to finish out…

Behind the Scenes

I’ll pass on discussing the technical glitches this time. They’re obvious but they weren’t terrible. But this was my last planned anthem. I am not continuing with the choir when it resumes in the next couple of weeks. I recently turned 75—hard to believe—and, as I wrote about earlier, the decision has to do one way or another with multiple health issues along with driving at night. Otherwise I’d continue ‘till I dropped. But that’s messy if it happens on camera. Others in the section are at or approaching a similar place in life, and I’m not sure what is going to happen with it.

This is my third attempt at retiring from choir. The first was following Easter, 2017 at another church, and that break lasted a year and a half. The second was when my choir at yet another former church disbanded in 2020, in compliance with “the authorities”. That lasted only 10 months until, at my present church, I could no longer stand to sit there listening instead of being up there singing.

This time it’s for real. I do plan to continue in my other volunteer activities, including screens (ProPresenter operator), and to stay in practice, singing alto or soprano in the congregation.1 I am going to greatly miss being in the choir, but from the summer break onward I have been feeling relief and release from the stress of a time-consuming, difficult-to-sustain, and sometimes dangerous weekly routine. Case in point, I about fell over as we exited after this piece as I reached for my cane (propped against the chair behind me), but I cut the clip short so that it wouldn’t show here. My balance has improved somewhat since then, by the way, by a miracle I think.

It’s safer up on the risers where I can sit down if my balance goes, there are workarounds for the other issues, and I might still occasionally fill in if the number of other altos drops to two or three as it did here, and if I don’t have a time conflict. Maybe.

I hope these anthems have held meaning for those of you who had been dropping by here from week to week. Thank you.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, August 31, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.

I came across a bit of local news this morning in a post to the Substack, about which I commented on the SMUD board of directors (see the links). It seems that SMUD, our local public electric utility, is being sued over their surveillance practices.

But anyway, this is the tinfoil hat (photo from late 2017) that I mentioned in my comment. The hat is on the brown bear today, the one with the kazoo, and my “joy bears” share their spot on the shelf with biblical Greek reference materials and controls for our surveillance cameras. I think this photo is cuter.

I’ll have to show you Lolla Koala sometime. She clings to the monitor stand and holds my second pair of glasses for me. I should introduce the whole gang, my office staff.

Later—Megan

11:25–26  … It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians… [Full Greek text omitted, along with other commentary]

…Luke’s final comment here about the origins and the early years of the congregation in Antioch notes that it was in Antioch that the disciples, i.e., the followers of Jesus, were first called “Christians” (Χριστιανοί). This term occurs in the New Testament only on the lips of outsiders. Josephus, Pliny, and Tacitus use the term as well. The first Christian usage of the term as a self-designation comes from the second century, which suggests that the term “Christian” was not a self-designation of the followers of Jesus as early as the 30s.

The verb translated as “were called” (χρηματίσαι) is not necessarily a reflexive (“they called themselves Christians”) but can be treated as a passive, which suggests that the term “Christians” was introduced by others. The followers of Jesus called themselves “disciples,” “believers,” “brothers,” “slaves” or “servants of Jesus Christ,” and perhaps also “those who are in Christ Jesus.” The form of the Greek expression — in particular the ending (-ιανοί; singular -ιανός) — also suggests an origin outside of the church, pointing to Latin-speaking circles. In Rome we hear of the Caesariani and Augustiani; in Judea we encounter the Herodiani (the relatives, clients, and the supporters of the Herodian court, who are also mentioned in the New Testament, cf. Mark 3:6; 12:13). The term “Christians” (Χριστιανοί) was evidently an official designation coined by the Roman authorities in Antioch for the new religious group. The designation was probably applied to the followers of Jesus by outsiders “when, not least as a result of their missionary activity to the Greeks, they began to separate themselves from the synagogue congregations and acquire an identity as a separate group.”

It is possible that the followers of Jesus who proclaimed the good news of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, Lord, and Savior, in the synagogues, in private houses, and perhaps in the marketplace had come to the attention of the Roman authorities — perhaps as early as AD 39, in connection with the unrest among the Jews provoked by Emperor Caligula’s directive to have his statue erected in the Jerusalem temple. The followers of Jesus were probably recognized by the Roman authorities in Antioch as a group of people who publicly proclaimed their loyalty to a Jew named Jesus as Messiah (Χριστός), who grew in numbers and who thus had to be watched.

So what does it mean to call oneself or someone else a "Christian"? I'm not sure. There is reason to question whether the early church used the word the same way it is commonly used today.

Here are the three biblical references:

Acts 11:26 …and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

Acts 26:28 Agrippa replied to Paul, “In a short time you are going to persuade me to make a Christian of myself.”

1Pet. 4:16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name.

[Edited 2025-12-20: The details of each passage were expanded to include additional commentary from other sources.]

Are these positive or negative references? Let’s examine each.

• Acts 11:26 struck me as neutral—to possibly be taken either as positive or negative—but the Greek verb appearing here as “were first called” is commonly translated as passive as noted earlier, and that influences my thinking. Others see it differently, so take your pick. Despite the translation upon which he comments—ESV, which also chooses “were first called”—Vickers writes

Whether “first called Christians” (11:26) refers to self-reference or to a label from others is disputed. The more likely conclusion is that the name is first given by others to distinguish the believers from competing groups. In Jewish settings these believers are considered a sect, a splinter Jewish group (24:5, 14; 28:22), and Gentiles probably view them in relation to Jews. In Antioch, however, Gentiles have joined these Jewish followers of Jesus of Nazareth. They are not Jews, though they socialize with them sometimes, and they have also changed and left their former lifestyles and practices. Such a group needs a new name. And the name sticks.3

• My thinking was that Agrippa, in Acts 26:28, didn’t care for it, using it to name a class to which he did not wish to belong, but Vickers has this to say:

Agrippa fully understands that Paul is pressing him to believe. But instead of answering the question, he asks one of his own. There is considerable discussion concerning how the Greek text of 26:28 should be rendered. “In a short time” could be translated as “with so little effort” or “with so few words,” but Paul’s reply in verse 29 (“whether short or long”) seems best understood as a response to “in a short time.” The point is that Agrippa knows Paul is hoping to persuade him to be a Christian. The term “Christian” appears only one other time in Acts (cf. 11:26), where it was presumably coined by unbelievers at Antioch. Its usage by Agrippa perhaps implies that, unlike most in the narrative, he understands there to be a distinction between the followers of Jesus and the Jews, although this cannot be proved.4

• 1 Peter 4:16 associates “shame” with the word, interestingly enough. I wouldn’t take that as a positive, but (with much elision, to make it bearable) Michaels comments:5

The phrase “for being a Christian” brings out more clearly the meaning of the expression “for the name of Christ,” in v 14. Believers in Jesus Christ are referred to as “Christians” elsewhere in the NT only in Acts 11:26 and 26:28 (“Christian” being a formation analogous to “Herodian” [BGD, 886; cf 348], with the meaning, “partisans of Christ”). All three instances appear to reflect the viewpoint of Jewish and pagan outsiders toward those who followed and worshiped Jesus. This is evidenced by a variant reading, Χρηστιανός, or “good fellow” (used ironically) in at least one manuscript (Codex Sinaiticus) each time the designation is used (for a similar confusion… By the second century, Χριστιανός had been adopted by “Christians” themselves as a self-designation (IgnEph 11.2; Magn 4; Rom 3.2; Pol 7.3; MartPol 3, 10.1, 12.1–2; Did 12.4).

…

μὴ αἰσχυνέσθω, “don’t be ashamed” (lit, “let him not be ashamed,” with the τις ὑμῶν, “any of you,” v 15a, still presupposed as the subject). Peter’s conviction is that believers in Christ “will never be put to shame” (οὐ μὴ καταισχυνθῇ , 2:6, citing Isa 28:16), while those who slander them will (cf 3:16). Yet he writes here in the imperative, not the indicative mood. His emphasis is not on what will objectively be the case (ie, that Christians will be vindicated) but on what his readers’ attitude should be subjectively when faced with verbal abuse and physical danger. Peter’s aspiration for them corresponds to Paul’s aspiration for himself in the wake of imprisonment and the possibility of death (Phil 1:20; cf 2 Tim 1:12; cf also the warnings of Jesus in Mark 8:38//Luke 9:26).

δοξαζέτω δὲ τὸν θεόν, “only glorify God.” “Shame” and “glorifying God,” the only two alternatives for pagans under God’s judgment at the “day of visitation” (2:12; 3:16 …) are similarly the two alternatives open to Christians facing human judgment here and now… Peter wants to make sure that his readers’ response to threats from without is the glorification of God—precisely the same goal toward which he directed them in their ministries to each other… Although he does not in this instance spell out concretely how they are to do this, it is a fair inference from 3:15–16 that he wants them to acknowledge their faith in Christ openly and without fear, regardless of the consequences. As in the case of their ministry to one another, glorification of God depends on attitudes and behavior toward other people.

ἐν τῷ μέρει τούτῳ, “in this matter” (cf 2 Cor 3:10; 9:3; also Polyb. 18.18.2). Adoption of the more commonly accepted reading, “in this name,” could suggest that 1 Peter stands at a transition between the use of “Christian” by opponents of the movement (as in Acts and in pagan sources), and its serious use by believers themselves, beginning with Ignatius. Peter would then be saying, “Even though the name ‘Christian’ is thrown at you by your enemies in derision, wear the name proudly, for that is what you are.” Yet transcriptional probabilities favor the reading adopted here…

If you are not accustomed to reading deep-down Greek-level commentaries, welcome to the experience.

Here is what I know. I had the experience of attending a mainline church for 3 years. They called themselves Christians. I loved being part of it, and I remained there for as long as I could. My memories of it are of better days than now.

[Edited 2025-12-20: Added footnote.]
But the gospel, as I know it now6, never came up in that place, that I can recall, not in direct teaching. They practiced a form of the social gospel promoted by their denomination, not at all a bad thing to do, and supported by scripture, but that is not the complete biblical Gospel, although some mainline churches state that it is.

This is not unusual in the mainline churches, what remains of them. I had never seen anything like this before finding myself at that one, but I arrived there believing much as they did (although having read the Bible numerous times). I left there an orthodox believer7, but not because of what I learned there, although some of it helped. It’s a long story perhaps for another post.

I find that many people in the evangelical churches I have attended since then appear to have no awareness that this kind of omission even goes on. And I have seen the surveys, Barna8 and others, pointing to a slide even in evangelical churches in that direction. More personally, my own present church recently left its original denomination of 60 years over related issues. My point is that the present-day meaning of the name “Christian” has become quite dilute.

I began by asking "Did Jesus ever profess to be a Christian?" Well, I'm not sure that question even makes sense, but there is evidence that his followers of the period might not have, as Schnabel, Vickers, and Michaels illustrate. And then again it can be argued that they did. Some of the things I hear coming from these other churches, when I happen to be in a place to hear them, make my head spin. It can sound so "holy", and some of them are excellent at public prayer. But there can be very different kinds of communities claiming the same name.

So why does this matter? I’m not entirely sure. What’s in a name? Well, potentially a lot. Biblical names can be very important. But Roman/Latin names for categories of “troublemakers”? Possibly not as much.

I wrote this article some time ago, but hesitated to publish it because I didn’t know where to go with it. I don’t find the name “Christian” to be a huge issue, but I do see it as possibly relating to another much greater issue. That, topic, however, will for this writer have to wait until I muster the nerve to write in full about it, although I have dropped related comments here and there. Backtrack in the threads (click “Return to thread”) to read the contexts.

There is so much to consider and from which to learn. Such is the journey of the difficult path.

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See the original post upon which I was commenting.

Simple Christianity

The Danger of Cultural Christianity

Wikipedia says there were approximately 2.4 billion Christians, as of 2021, making Christianity the largest religion in the world…

Read more

2 years ago · 20 likes · 15 comments · David Roberts

This is a family I knew through a former business relationship, and I met Kyron in the years preceding his dissapearance. I have been following this story for the last 15 years, and while I won’t be traveling to Oregon for this gathering, I did want to mention it here. My prayer is that at the least, the thruth about what happened would be brought to light, and I would hope for even more.

It’s a section of this Substack containing an archive of videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. I expect this to be the final post, as explained below. A longer description can be found on the About page.

O Rest in the Lord

From the publisher’s page:

Based on Psalm 37 and composed by Ken Medema. Pastoral feeling with classical overtones. Sensitively set with warmth in both the voices and accompaniment. Moderately easy SATB voicing, especially appropriate as a choral response after prayer.

This piece was a “quick learn” for our choir. I am a little surprised, however, at the statement above about “moderately easy SATB voicing“. It’s not a difficult piece, unless you have little time to learn it before singing it. We had little time, and quite a few choir members were not able to attend the the final weeknight rehearsal for it, which made for an “interesting” pre-service run-through. The difficulties were similar to those we encountered last week. We did however have our six altos (my section) when it came time to sing, and the six of us came through clearly in the recording.

I like the way this anthem turned out well enough to include it as my almost-final offering here (more below). Like last week’s anthem, we goofed in a place or two, but I still hear it playing in my head, and it is welcome to keep on doing that, goof free.

Behind the Scenes

I wasn’t expecting to be posting any more anthems after this one. This was our last Sunday before the choir breaks until September, and I don’t plan to continue with choir on a regular basis when they resume. There was, however, a special opportunity for the sopranos and the altos to sing an offertory anthem on August 31st, and I took part in that. The final post now is this one.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, May 18, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

Jesus, Only Jesus

From the distributor’s website:

Dramatic and effective, this contemporary ballad from Matt Redman's album Passion calls all to worship and adoration. The arrangement gradually builds from the restrained opening, proceeding to a crescendo of affirmation…

The arrangement we used follows Jesus, Only Jesus with All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name and then returns for the final words of Jesus, Only Jesus. We seamlessly jumped past All Hail the Power to the ending without altering anything by simply turning to the last page at the transition. I’m not certain of the reason for the change, but it may have had to do with the time available. We run on a tight schedule.

Lyrics (as sung)

There evidently were no lyric slides for this anthem beyond the title slide—I don’t know why—so I offer these, adapted for our arrangement from Matt Redman’s slightly different one.

Who has the power to raise the dead?
Who can save us from our sin?
He is our hope, our righteousness
Jesus, only Jesus

And who can make the blind to see?
Who holds the keys that set us free?
He paid it all to bring us peace
Jesus, only Jesus

Holy, King almighty Lord
Saints and angels all adore

I join with them and bow before
Jesus, only Jesus

Who can command the highest praise?
Who has the name above all names?
You stand alone, I stand amazed
Jesus, only Jesus

You will command the highest praise
Yours is the name above all names
You stand alone, I stand amazed
Jesus, only Jesus

Holy, King almighty Lord
Saints and angels all adore
I join with them and bow before
Jesus, only Jesus

You will command the highest praise
Yours is the name above all names
You stand alone, I stand amazed
Jesus, only Jesus
Jesus, only Jesus
Only Jesus

Behind the Scenes

This another anthem I am happy to still have playing in my head. I can tell you that there is a huge difference between listening to other people sing and singing in the choir yourself!

We first read through this anthem at choir practice a few days ago. The planned anthem was canceled for its second time (again, I don’t know why). We sampled several others, some of which we had recently read through, but this one was the favorite.

We could have sung a little better with additional rehearsal time, but not much. The multiple modulations (key changes) can make finding pitches at the transitions more difficult—try it sometime when you’re singing 4-part harmony, or polyphony—but it comes automatically with enough practice. So there were some glitches, but it sounded great from where I was standing.

I don’t know if I will be posting more anthems after this one. Next week is our last Sunday before we break until September, and it will be a choir, bells, and orchestra service. If the anthem recording turns out well, and if I like the anthem itself enough, I’ll post it. Another recnt anthem, while it was a choral arrangement of a fine hymn, just didn’t inspire me enough to put out the effort to present it here.

As I mentioned last time, with my 75th birthday coming up in August I am having to again evaluate whether I am still physically up to rehearsing and singing every week. This is my third year to make such an evaluation.

I have sung in church choirs on and off since 1992—about 21 choir seasons across six choirs and 33 years—and I really don’t want to give it up, but I may not have much choice. My balance has been deteriorating ever since I took a nasty fall eight years ago. I developed new problems in my legs a year ago, after already having had problems with them for decades, and I am walking with a cane again, one that I’ve owned and used intermittently for 30 years. At least I’m experienced at using it.

All of this does not mix well with climbing up and down those risers. And then for rehearsals there’s driving at night on the increasingly dangerous roads leading to the church, though I could pay for rides. I’ve wanted to continue singing rather badly. But there is more to this story, not involving physical ailments. It’s not about this church specifically—it applies to every church I have belonged to, whether conservative or liberal, and I have belonged to both kinds.

If I am successful at freeing up more of my time, I may write about this other concern in my main blog, . It’s a delicate subject.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, May 11, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.

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It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

Now the Green Blade Rises

Adapted from a sampling of reviews:

"Now the Green Blade Rises", an Easter hymn, first appeared in the Oxford Book of Carols in 1928, with text by John MacLeod Campbell Crum and music from the ancient French carol "Noël Nouvelet". It reflects metaphorically upon the resurrection of Jesus as wheat growing from buried grain.

More information: History of Hymns: "Now the Green Blade Riseth"

Lyrics (modern version)

Now the green blade ris­es from the bur­ied grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth ma­ny years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

In the grave they laid Him, Love whom we had slain,
Thinking that He’d nev­er wake to life again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps un­seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Up He sprang at East­er, like the ris­en grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain;
Up from the dead my ris­en Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

When our hearts are sad­dened, griev­ing or in pain,
By Your touch You call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Behind the Scenes

This was said to be a record year for attendance. What you see here is from our Sunday traditional service, a link to the livestream of which can be found at the end of this post. We had another traditional service the evening before, and there were two contemporary services on Sunday as well.

This anthem was both enjoyable to sing and challenging to learn. It proved to be more difficult than it looked. The audio in this recording sounded a little off to me, but good enough to post. There’s a demo on this distributor’s page if you would like to listen to that. I also noticed that there appeared to be no camera operators. That contrasts with three manned cameras, one roaming on a monopod, on this day in the past. I don’t know what is happening there.

The choir was smaller this year for a variety of reasons. Usually it peaks on Easter Sunday and shrinks dramatically the following week, and it may still do the latter—we’ll soon find out. We have just three Sundays left when we sing and before we break until September. There is no traditional service the first Sunday in May.

I am posting this anthem late because the video downloader extension for my browser quit working again, when YouTube yet again changed the recorded format. The developers of the extension released an update today and I was able to download again.

I plan to post the remaining anthems for this season, if all goes well. After that, I don’t know. I will decide later on. The bigger decision, which comes up each year when we return and I am a year older—75 coming up—is as to whether I am still physically up to rehearsing and singing every week. Having sung in church choirs throughout much of the past 33 years I don’t want to quit but, like some of the other members, I may not have much choice.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, April 20, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

Call to Worship Anthem: The Name of Jesus

By Craig Courtney. Lyricist: John Newton / Edward Perronet.

From the distributor’s page:

John Newton's beloved hymn text All Hail the Power of Jesus Name just dances off the page in this inventive setting … . … A marvelous and creative musical experience on a well-known hymn.

This is one of the more unusual anthems we have sung in my time with this choir. I didn’t quite know what to think at first, but once we got the hang of it, well, like it said above, marvelous and creative!

Accompaniments were available for clapping groups or hand drum. We had the bell chorus this day and, percussionists that they are, they clapped for us.

Offering Music Anthem: Be Gone, Unbelief

By Wesley Peters.

From the publisher’s page:1

[A] wonderfully catchy sea-shanty-inspired setting of John Newton text: "Be gone, unbelief, my Savior is near....with Christ in the vessel, I smile at the storm."

As we began rehearsing and learning this anthem, it felt a little like being on a rocking boat. It took some doing to learn, but was quite enjoyable to sing before the congregation.

Closing Anthem: O Sacred Head

By Mary McDonald.

From the Publisher’s Page:

The captivating lyrics of the 17th century Passion Chorale still resonate today as we reflect on the somber final moments prior to Jesus’ death. Paired in this setting with the minor tonalities of the tune PROMISED LAND, along with an original refrain, the depth of emotions are effectively conveyed in both word and song.

This anthem looks forward to Good Friday (when the choir will not be singing). While it doesn’t show in the video—the cameras compensate for it—for contrast, the house lights were blacked out (there are skylights and windows), and the chancel lights were adjusted to highlight the choir.

Behind the Scenes

What goes on behind the scenes for a day like this is weeks of rehearsal and refinement. And there’s more coming for Easter, when we have services Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

As I mentioned earlier, there was a lighting change for the final anthem. Being the lighting person as well as a choir member, I was surprised to learn about this just a few days beforehand. It was a simple transition, fading out the house lights at the beginning and re-balancing the chancel lights to favor just the choir.

I didn’t have enough time in advance to set up and test a programmed sequence, so I set up the alternate pattern on the individual manual faders instead and had the screens operator bring down all four of the regular preset faders when we began the scene, leaving just the manual faders active so that they showed through. It’s simpler than it sounds, and that’s what I told her.

It is simple in principle, but I had to get up unusually early (4 AM) and come in and work out the alternate pattern by trial and error before the bells and choir arrived for the pre-service run-through. This required balancing four channels of dimmable electric lighting against the skylight, stained glass rear window light, and fixed stage lights (non-dimmable), to achieve a pattern that would appear as even on camera while ensuring that all the choir members could see their music clearly. Simple, but not so simple. It seems to have worked.

I finished this post except for final edits on Sunday afternoon while still recuperating from the day but before I could publish, the day caught up with me and I dozed off at the keyboard for a long, long time. But this is what can happen when your work chair is a nice, comfy recliner.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, April 13, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

In the Presence of Jehovah

From a distributor’s page:

…this spiritually dynamic offering captures the mystery and majesty of personal worship. Easy to learn, but hard to forget, this gospel classic will inspire and uplift.

Behind the Scenes

Well hooray! We do have a livestream recording this week, though I can’t predict what will happen in the future. The balance was quite good between our soloist and the choir. There are some audio issues still, particularly with the kick drum, but I was on the verge on tears listening to the playback, from the music itself, not the audio quality.

I was running screens for this one—turning the slides—rather than singing, but we still had a good turnout of altos. Screens is a high concentration, occasionally nervewracking job where I don’t get to become emotionally involved, let alone cry. For the livestream it consists of timing the lyrics displayed at the bottom of the screen. The main (audience) screens, displaying lyrics over animated backgrounds, may sometimes be caught by the cameras, but not this time that I could see. Here’s how it looked from the screens console, early this morning.

The lyrics timing was a little choppy because I had limited opportunity to practice the precise turns. I noticed that there were also issues with how the lyrics looked, but I don’t create the slides and I don’t have time to proof and correct the “lower 3rds” feed to the livestream booth, so what you see is what I receive from the team, and the present console configuration does make lower thirds somewhat difficult to proof.

Next up, Palm Sunday.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, April 6, 2025
Excerpted from this livestream.

As you can see, there is an inscription at the bottom, “I AM SILENT WITHOUT THE SUN”. The question is, why are those words there—what do they mean?

I asked the AI of a certain web browser that will remain unnamed (no, it’s not that browser—whichever you were probably thinking of) this question: What does the inscription "I'm silent without the sun" on a sundial mean? I did this because I like to laugh at the answers that my regular browser’s AIs offer (without asking me if I want their opinion). To my utter astonishment, however, after saying that it didn’t find many hits, it answered the question correctly!

I’m a little chagrined. It took me years to understand what those words are doing there, presented they they are. Possibly more than a decade. The answer is rather obvious, once you see it.

I bought the sundial and pedestal years ago, to go in that round patio at the back of the garden. The garden has gone through many changes, but the sundial stands there looking like it always has, a small connection to earlier days that felt better than what these feel like today. Here’s a peek, taken from the orchard (being redone) and highlighting some of the edibles, berry bushes left and right, raised vegetable beds to the far right. And lots of weeds. Disclaimer: this is not my garden! It belongs to my housemate, who owns the property.

OK, time for lunch while the sun’s still up.

This past year has proved quite “interesting” for many, in the “Chinese Curse” sense1, myself included. My last researched article that I had time for was The Fact-Value Distinction in August, 2024, which had 100 views and a 25% open rate. Meanwhile, Substack seems to have been evolving into a full-blown, business as usual “social media platform”. How exciting. How interesting.

If I open someone’s Substack article, read it, and then proceed to the comment section, there will be a list of threads, some of which perhaps branch to other threads, perhaps recursively. Have you ever tried to sustain a conversation in one of these?

Let me interject that I am not complaining. I am trying to understand what gives, and what can be done about it. I don’t believe this platform is designed to facilitate discussion. It seems to be great for ranting and carrying on, however.

If I choose a random comment, I am presented with four items:

1. The comment text itself, with any comments-within-the-comment (replies).

2. A menu that offers several options such as “Copy link”, “Restack”, and “Collapse“.

3. A “Share” button and menu.

4. Information about the commenter, including

   1. two variations of the commenter’s blurb,

   2. Either of which if I know what to do and click enough links will allow me to “mute” the commenter or worse

   3. A link to the comment itself. I find “mute” useful for trolls, once I establish that they are indeed trolling.

So what if I come across an interesting discussion and simply want to follow it? Oops, that’s not an option that I can see. I can copy the link to the comment and track it using my browser’s bookmarks, but how many people actually would do that, even if they knew about it? I can also reply to the comment, which then establishes a “follow” for it, but I don’t understand exactly what is being followed. If someone branches off from there, is that part of the conversation followed? I get the impression that it might not be, possibly depending on the depth of the branch. And if they branch in parallel it is not, I don’t think.

I don’t want to belabor the point, but it looks to me as though thoughtful attempts at discussion are being run through a shredder. How does one publish articles and then engage readers in conversation? Chat? I somehow don’t think so, although it might be useful sometimes.

I don’t have a solution to this for Substack authors in general. If there are readers here that would like to engage in discussion about things I write about—including questions about what are we doing here, and what in the world is really going on—or even things I should write about but haven’t thought of yet, I do have an alternative outside of Substack.

It is part of my business, a private Microsoft Teams virtual server. It’s not the easiest thing to use, and it’s not entirely private (there’s no such thing), but it is licensed under a business EULA2 that is different from the usual “you consent to our use of anything you say here” EULA for “free” platforms.

What do you think? Any suggestions? Interesting?

—Megan

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Everything was working again today! There’s still no choral anthem, however, because we didn’t sing one this week. The Kid’s Choir sang their anthem instead, as had been planned, and we just accompanied the service music. My YouTube downloader still doesn’t work for last week’s service but it did work for this week’s, and if all goes well I will resume with next week’s anthem, which we’ve been practicing for a while.

Original:

Both my church and I are having major technical difficulties with YouTube — the church with sending things up and me with bringing things back down from the service — and I am having to pause my anthem posts for now, until both sets of issues are resolved.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

Because nearly all of my posts in recent months have been in this section, I have added it back into the main post listing, but you can still turn off notifications for this section if you wish.

The Narrow Way

This brief little anthem has so much to say. In the lyrics, it captures what we are here to do.

Publisher's page - “A lyrical setting of an 18th century prayer.”

Behind the Scenes

I haven’t posted here in the anthems section in a while because of ongoing technical problems, not to mention much of the choir being out sick the past two Sundays. The anthem two weeks ago had livestream audio issues that made me reluctant to use it, as I recall. All I remember clearly is that we had only two altos (I was one), plus two more that we ‘borrowed’ from bells and orchestra just for the anthem, that had almost no time to learn the music, which was not easy to learn. I searched for a musical term to describe what the alto part was doing and came up with “parallel polyphony”. That sounds about right.

I would normally have been running screens that week, but under the cirumstances I swapped with someone else on that team and I will be running screens this following week. I will still post the anthem, if the recording quality is good.

Last week’s audio was worse — there was no audio! The tech team managed to align the video with a local recording (or something — I didn’t ask). They uploaded it as a regular video, deleting the silent livestream, and that turned out well except for the anthem, where the choir mics didn’t sound like they were on for much of the piece. The anthem’s ending was good, though. At least we had four regular, rehearsed altos, even if our part couldn’t be heard.

I was very pleased with the audio quality this week. And by the way, if anyone new here wonders where I am, it’s top row, one seat left of center. The tall, strange-looking one that has trouble standing up, seeing the music, and holding the music folder. But I like to sing, and FYI I’m not the only tall alto.

And one more thing, if you ever wonder why I cut these excerpts the way I do, it is because the services run on a tight schedule, and the scenes are so close together that they overlap slightly. I limit the video shown here to just what belongs with the choir anthem.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, March 16, 2025
Excerpted from this livestream.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

What is Love

From a distributor’s page:

[A] traditional anthem of service and dedication from the Phillip Keveren Choral Series.

A quite moving piece, nuanced and somewhat challenging to sing.

Behind the Scenes

While we have recently been doing “rehearse once then sing”, we spent a rather surprising amount of time on this anthem, over several rehearsals, learning the precise cutoffs and pauses, as well as the dynamics.

Our final weeknight rehearsal was unusual too, in that our director/worship leader was out sick! But our accompanist took over, accompanying and directing (try that sometime, from behind the upright practice piano), and it went very well. The director was back Sunday, directing the anthem and playing guitar for the hymns, while still recovering. Try that sometime.

There is an optional cello accompaniment for this piece and we had hoped for that, but our cellist was not available.

By the way, our choir did not sing last week—we had a guest choir instead and they did a lot of singing, but I did not post any of that here.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, February 16, 2025
Excerpted from this livestream.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn this section off there.

Wonderful Words of Life

Our choir put this piece together last week during rehearsal, using a hymn from one of our hymnals (I wasn’t able to confirm which one it was). Our director presented us with a starting adaptation, and then we played around with different variations until we arrived at this one. I was quite happy with it, although I wasn’t singing—it was my week for running screens (slides).

There was a mishap in the livestream booth—somebody left the choir mics muted for a while at the start of the first verse, which was sung a capella. More about the audio below.

Behind the Scenes

Because I was running screens this week, from pre-service run-through onward I was sitting right next to the audio console, listening during the run-through using my headphones connected to directly to the mixer (via a Behringer P1, if anybody cares).

With my direct feed, I did not hear the livestream glitch, but I noticed the same peculiar distortion from the choir mics that was present in last week’s recording. I told the sound guys about it, and they were on it right away. It took three of them a while to find it, but they hunted it down and fixed it, an equalization issue. What a difference!

It was quite a surprise, then, when I returned home, downloaded the video, and discovered the choir mics being muted. I am glad they caught it early!

There were also problems with the livestream lyric captions. I don’t prepare the slides, I just correct and run them, and there were quite a few corrections to be made, affecting about half the songs. There was no time left after that to check the livestream captions, so that came as another surprise, and I don’t know what happened. I did check and fix captions for the various corrections that I made, but this song didn’t need any.

There is a lot of hardware and software involved in producing these services, and we are a medium-size church with resources to match, not a big-budget megachurch. I can think of two paid staffers on the team—the rest of us are volunteers. These things happen, and we resolve them as we are able. I am quite satisfied with how it is going.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, February 2, 2025
Excerpted from this livestream.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn this section off there.

You Alone Are God

From the distributor’s page:

This expressive, powerful original starts softly in a prayer-like fashion and slowly builds to a soaring, majestic affirmation of faith before closing with a return of the prayerful opening mood.

I overheard comments afterward about how people were moved by this beautiful piece. We, the choir, loved it from our first read-through. The lyrics are taken from seven passages of scripture, Revelation 1:4-8, Psalm 145:1-21, Isaiah 6:1-13, Exodus 15:1-18, Psalm 47:1-10, Psalm 48:1-15, and Revelation 5:11-14.

Behind the Scenes

The tenors and basses were sounding especially good this morning, and with our full alto section present we balanced the sopranos well. The arrangement gave us altos plenty of our “special” parts, and they came through clearly. Yay!

The audio wasn’t quite as clear as I could have hoped for, and the piano sounded as though a noise gate were being applied, and there was, but it was originating from my local sound system—oops. The technical issues with audio at the church are being worked through bit by bit.

An orchestral arrangement was available for this anthem, and we had the full orchestra this week, but we sang with piano accompaniment and I feel that worked out for the better. Our choir isn’t large enough to balance well with the orchestra. A scene from a rehearsal a couple of years ago comes to mind: Someone in the choir calls out “play softer” to the orchestra and a reply comes back, “sing louder”. That kind of conversation goes nowhere fast, and we generally don’t sing our anthems with orchestral accompaniment, although we do sing with the smaller ensemble.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, January26, 2025
Excerpted from this livestream.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn this section off there.

This Little Light of Mine

From the publisher’s page:

Howard Helvey offers us a new arrangement of this well-known spiritual that literally sparkles. Passing the melody between the voices, adding slight rhythmic variations in phrases, a brief foray into a newly-composed refrain and a jazz-based accompaniment all add up to pure enjoyment for your choir and congregation or audience.

I can’t really add to that. It was a lot of fun for the choir, and well-received by the congregation.

Behind the Scenes

This was the choir’s return after the end-of-year break, and we had just one rehearsal beforehand. Some had undoubtedly sung this one before, but there is only so much most of us can remember of something with such complex harmony and heavy syncopation. I don’t know about the other sections, but some of us altos had to improvise slightly in a place or two. Our harmony was not an easy read, especially the part with the C♭ and F♭ accidentals, if you know what I mean (if you don’t — never mind, some things are hard to explain).

This is the only choir I have belonged to, out of six altogether, that could do this after one rehearsal.

I would have posted this sooner, but I had new problems with the editing software that I have been using for several years. It crashed on me, and it eventually produced a humongous file containing only 2 1/2 minutes of music. I started over from the original download today, and was able to finish without crashing or file bloat. Whew!

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, January12, 2025
Excerpted from this livestream.