This Christmas Eve, in the spirit of our Advent sermon series about the African American spirituals, we consider God’s repeated command in the scriptures (ex: Psalm 96/Psalm 98 / Psalm 149/ Isaiah 40 / Revelation 5) to SING A NEW SONG. What could this mean during a season all about comforting rituals and precious traditions? What areas of life is God inviting us to make new and how did God do something new in our cherished Christmas story?
12/18/2022: ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CANTATA
This Sunday is a favorite of each church year, bringing together people from our Contemporary Band, our Sanctuary Choir, our music staff and other special guests. This year’s cantata comes from the vision of COA Director of Music, Diana Martin. It is called “Good News” A Cantata of American Music including Early American, Appalachian, Spiritual and Gospel. The music IS the sermon this Sunday! It is meant to serve as a finale to our short Advent sermon series focused on the African American spirituals and their lessons for us in going deeper this Advent with the story of God’s Incarnation. Enjoy this special presentation!
12/11/2022: Songs for a New World: Go Tell it on the Mountain
What is the song in your heart this Advent season? How does it make your heart feel? Does it make you want to sing and shout or curl up and hide? What message is good enough that you would want to tell the whole world? This week, we explore Mary’s Magnificat (her song of response to being pregnant with God’s own Son, celebrating how His presence in the world would overturn the status quo and bring liberation for those most in need), and we lay it alongside the African American spiritual “Go Tell it on the Mountain”. Both of these songs came from people who thirsted for justice and revolution. Maybe Christmas was never as sentimental as we thought. What else could it be about? Maybe this good news can be Good News for us too this Advent, such that we will never be the same.
12/4/2022: Songs for a New World: “Rise Up Shepherd and Follow”
This week is our short Advent series, we continue exploring themes of the season through the lens of the African American spirituals, and we focus on the song “Rise Up Shepherd and Follow”. This song, like all of the spirituals, has a double meaning of breaking out of slavery and into freedom, but it also challenges us to leave things behind on the journey to that freedom. What do we leave behind when we truly welcome Jesus into the world? How can the world change if we too are not willing to change? This season is not just one of comfort and joy, but also transformation! Join us in the journey!
11/27/2022: ADVENT SERIES: Songs for a New World
This week we begin a new and brief sermon series for the season of Advent:
Songs for a New World: Advent Reflections on the Spirituals
Did you know that our Presbyterian hymnal has thirty-five songs that are African American spirituals? This music, for most of us, may not come from our background and culture, but it shares so much in common with the Biblical people of God who also had experienced the horrors of slavery and violence were longing for a Savior. In this season of waiting and anticipation, what might these songs have to teach us as we seek to connect with Jesus in a new way during this Advent and Christmas?
We begin with a non-Christmas song: “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”, but it connects well with the themes of Advent scriptures urging us to stay awake and prepare ourselves because the world is about to be changed. This world is not our true home, and God is at work bringing something new for the restoration and healing of us all. Just like many of our Christmas songs (in scripture and in popular culture), the spirituals are not just sweet songs of some faraway dream. Rather, they are prophetic words of hope about what God is doing right now for the cause of human freedom and how we are called to be agents of that hope.