Wendysue

At the first church, I led three morning worship services with a new service titled “Preparing For Christmas,” which my husband Craig and I designed.  I’ve had a lot of practice in designing worship services the last year, and Craig has some gifts in tying together the messages of Scripture, sermons, and songs. :-)  We make a good team!

After packing up from that morning’s services, I headed down the road to a Ladies Advent Tea Program where I led 130 women in music to prepare our hearts for the Light of the World.  After another hour drive, I arrived at a second Advent Tea for women where I was the featured speaker and musician.  Do you know how much chocolate I could have consumed that day?  For any of you that have attended these kinds of events, you know that Christmas, women, and chocolate just go together!   It was wonderful to get out again to lead some new folks in worship and to sing a few of my original songs, as well as cover Faith Hill’s song “A Baby Changes Everything.”

Dear friends,

My traveling music ministry has been on hold for much of this year as I continue my position as interim worship director at my home church, Brookfield Lutheran Church (BLC). This has been an exciting job, and a great blessing for me to serve God and His people!  Here are some more details…

Worship Director

When I first started in this position last November, I thought I would just be selecting songs, rehearsing with the musicians, and leading worship on Sundays for a couple months.  It’s been all that, and much more!  I’ve had the challenge of working with a different set of musicians and singers each week, as well as recruiting and training new musicians.  I’ve become involved in planning, writing, and performing in drama skits (dusting off my acting skills from my younger years), and adding extra special things to the services like choir/praise team duets, dance, and live painting – there are so many ways for God’s people to praise Him and a wealth of talents to utilize in any congregation.   This means extra planning meetings, rehearsals, and evaluations for improvement, which all take time.  The development of relationships, the musical growth of learning to sing/play new songs, and the spiritual encouragement to me has been a tremendous blessing.

My church is in the process of interviewing for the permanent full time director and I hope he/she will be in place in the New Year.  I will continue in this interim position until then.

October 10 Concert Event

I do have an exciting concert event scheduled for October 10 at 6:00pm at BLC.  I get to  open the concert with a live band, performing both original and familiar songs, and there will be a guest appearance by the children of BLC.  The concert headliner is Scott Riggan, a national recording artist and international performer www.scottriggan.com.  If you listen to Christian radio, you might remember Scott’s #1 radio song “I Love You, Lord” from a few years ago when. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81lvIgnidOU

Those in the Milwaukee area, please mark your calendars!  This is a great opportunity to attend a high-quality event - and to invite a friend who hasn’t experienced this type of thing before.  The concert is free with a gift offering being received that night.

Singing for Jesus, Wendysue

I just returned from singing in MONTANA for a short but sweet weekend.  Thanks to Pastor Ken in Livingston and Pastor Brown in Bozeman for having me and chauffeuring me around.  The Spirit was active in encouraging those who attended the concert and worship service.  Before heading home, the Browns took me hiking in Gallatin national forest.  We occasionally jutted off the beaten path to explore the mini trails and look for hungry bears.  Good thing we didn’t see any!

Plane Witnessing

As usual, the Lord prepared some divine appointments on my plane flights, and I was able to make some neat connections:   There was a young newly-married Christian couple who shared some breakfast time with me during our lay-over in Chicago.  We talked of travel, adventure, church worship, and creation.  My CD made a nice little wedding gift and we plan to be in touch.  Then there was Marty, a business-man who raises show dogs, and was heading to a Nascar race for fun.  He wasn’t sure where he’d go if he died, although he hoped it would be heaven.  The Lord enabled me to share the assurance of heaven because of Jesus’ sacrifice for each of us, and also to encourage him regarding his widowed mother. Finally, I met a teenage brother and sister heading to Montana for a fly-fishing vacation.  They both do hurdles competitively, and shared some athletic wisdom as we discussed my daughter’s hurdling interest.  The young man is also an aspiring drummer, so we chatted about music, but I chickened out giving him a CD since he likes hard rock…

My New Website

In other news, my WEBSITE has been re-designed!  Besides being more organized and interesting to look at (I hope), I’d like to specifically highlight a couple things for you to go and check out…  First, you will notice a short video on the home page to watch.  I will be updating this video monthly with the latest news or live song recording, so plan to go back to my website regularly.  Second, all the music from my five CDs is organized on the “music” page.  You can listen to 30-second-clips of every song, purchase digital downloads of individual songs ($0.99) from my two most popular CDs, and download every song from my first CD, “No Tears Past the Gate,” for FREE!  I also have seven singing events in the next 5 weeks, so check out the “Events Calendar” too – all at wendysue.com

May God’s peace surround you this week, and give you strength and courage to share the good news of Jesus in your community!