Day 1 - Wish Me Luck

So, today is the first day of November which also means it's the first day of NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month, and I have agreed to write EVERY DAY. We'll see if I can pull it off.

To start, I'll give a brief recap of where I am at this point in the thesis process. The Worship Planning Team came together back in August and had 6 weeks of study and worship together. That part went amazingly well. It's hard to believe that I'm on this side of things. After those 6 weeks, we met again for 2 weekend 'retreats' and one extra Tuesday morning to play the 5 worship services of the Stewardship Campaign: Oct. 21st through Nov. 18th. As you can see by the date, we've made it through 2 of the 5 Sundays. I have yet to have any negative responses, which isn't necessarily a good thing. I've created (well, and am creating as we go along) questionnaires for people to fill out after each service with directed questions about the service. I was careful to ask questions that do not ask "Did you like it?" but ask "Did you participate" and "What in the service helped or hindered that participation?" After the 5 Sundays, I'll meet with a few people for one on one interviews in addition to these questionnaires. Then, I'll have the very difficult task of evaluating all this data.

For this week, I still have some details to iron out, but we're close to ready to go. On Sunday, I'll post an overview of the service. I think I'm also going to try to post PDFs of each of the bulletins. I'm not sure how to do that, but I'll try.

I am hoping to get a lot of writing done this month on Chapter 2 specifically (Biblical, Theological and Historical Foundation for the project). However, the next week and a half is pretty much a loss because on the 11th we have our fall choir concert (which has a Veteran's Day focus) and once again, I've agreed to do too much! I have 1 week to learn (or get back into my fingers) and register on the organ the following:

1. Randall Thompson's Testament of Freedom (my mom and I are playing the orchestra part as an organ duet)
2. Charles Ives' Variations on America (this has a KILLER pedal part in the final movement)
3. An organ duet titled Variations on Yankee Doodle Visits New York City (again, my mom and I, and I can't remember the composer right now)
4. Highland Cathedral with flute, percussion, organ and lots of bagpipes (I can really play the plain old version of this piece in my sleep which is what we played last Sunday. But this version is a 9 minute version that I transcribed off an old recording that requires a lot of registration and nimble fingers)

Each of these pieces are a blast to play in their own way, but a lot of work must be done before now and the 11th. Which means I have to sacrifice my study time tomorrow and next Friday. However, especially since I won't have my Friday study day for 2 weeks I'll be focused especially strong on getting in at least 1 hour every day.

If you're in the Oklahoma City area, I invite you to come to our concert on November 11th at 5:00 pm. It will be a fantastic concert with lots of variety, featuring our Chancel Choir, our Agape Seekers Youth Choir, the Westminster Pipe Band (these guys win national competitions and the director is a member of our church), My mom and I on the organ and the OU Brass Quintet. It's a free concert. If you need more information, you can visit the church website: Westminster Presbyterian Church.

See you tomorrow...