Each year retired United Methodist Bishop Woodie W. White writes a letter to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the anniversary of his birthday about the progress of racial equality. This year I asked Bishop White if he would allow me to video a reading of the letter. It was a unique opportunity and honor to work with Bishop White on this project. Below is Bishop White’s 2013 Letter in video format, entitled “50 Years On: The Dream is Becoming the New Reality.” The text of the Letter can be found at UM Reporter here. Bishop White is the Bishop in Residence at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga and more about Bishop White can be found here.
This video may be downloaded for use in school/civic/church services, may be embedded or posted freely, and is free for use under Creative Commons for non-commercial, non-modified use.
Special thanks to Bishop White for his permission and time, Rev. Dr. Bill Britt and staff of Peachtree Road UMC in Atlanta, Ga, for filming location, Stan Taylor at Candler School of Theology for his wealth of technical expertise and materials, and friends Josh Amerson and Rev. Brian Tillman for their advising, direction, and encouragement.
The hymn “This is My Song” serves as a reminder of the love God has for all people–not just for this nation or another nation. On this July 4th, may we be mindful of all the people in this nation and other nations who are still striving for justice and for peace.
The Fourth of July brings up many themes of patriotism: we celebrate our United States of America and demonstrate our pride in our nation–there are some instances of appropriately and carefully crafted celebration and pride, while other instances seem to exalt our nation over and against all other nations.The hymn, “This is my song” reminds us that ALL nations are loved by God and that we as individuals or as a nation do not have any more or less favor in God’s eyes. As the author puts it, it is “a song of peace for lands afar and mine.” The familiar tune Finlandia , by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, was written in 1899, as a covert protest against the oppressive Russian forces, and is a much beloved symphonic piece.
The 4th of July began as a day of celebration of our independence from the tyranny of the British empire upon the American colonies. Those many years ago our forefathers and foremothers gave birth to a land where religious and political freedoms were guaranteed and that all people had civil rights(although we are *still* working on getting these parts right some MANY years later).
The first two verses were written by American poet Lloyd Stonewho wrote a number of books of poetry, two children’s books, and served as chapter president of the National Society of Arts and Letters.The final verse was written by Methodist theologian Georgia Harkness, who was one of the first women to hold a full professorship at a U.S. theological seminary--she taught at Garrett & Pacific School of Religion to name a few. Harkness was a leader in the ecumenical movement and was important in securing ordination for women in the Methodist Church. Most of her hymn writing was in the form of prayers and the final verse of “This is My Song” is a fine example of her work and her prayer for God’s peace to be known in “all earth’s kingdoms.”
Below is my own arrangement of “This is My Song,” which serves as a reminder of the love God has for all people—not just for this nation or another nation. On this July 4th, may we be mindful of all the people in this nation and other nations who are still striving for justice and for peace.“Si quieres paz, lucha por la justica” “If you want peace, work for justice.” –Pope John Paul II
“This is My Song” Lloyd Stone/Georgia Harkness, 1939 // UMHymnal #437, Finlandia, 1899 , J. Sibelius
This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.
This is my prayer, O Lord of all earth’s kingdoms:
Thy kingdom come; on earth thy will be done.
Let Christ be lifted up till all shall serve him,
And hearts united learn to live as one.
O hear my prayer, thou God of all the nations;
Myself I give thee, let thy will be done.
A live recording of a bluesy version of this beautiful spiritual from this past Sunday.
A live recording of a bluesy version of this beautiful spiritual from this past Sunday (04.29) at The Gathering @5:50pm ( a new worship service at Glenn Memorial UMC where I’m helping to coordinate the music for the worship).
A recording of my Easter Sunrise service homily on John 20:1-18 on April 8th, 2012.
Here is a recording of my homily on John 20:1-18 from the Easter Sunrise Servicew/ Emory Wesley Fellowship with people from the Emory University and Glenn Memorial UMC communities.
This musical arrangement carries melodies which convey the solemn, yet hopeful words and tone of this hymn, which many consider to be Watts’ finest & most recognized hymn.
This is by far one of my favorite hymns for the season of Lent in the Christian tradition. The original hymn text was written by Isaac Watts (1674-1748)–one of the greatest hymn writers of the English language (more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Watts). The modern refrain in this version was co-written in the year 2000 by JD Walt (Theologian, musician, professor of worship at Asbury Seminary–link here) along with Chris Tomlin and Jesse Reeves (two rather popular christian musicians–link here). The refrain adds a humble call to action and submission to ‘come and die’ with Christ during this season of lenten preparation for Holy Week. There is also an amount of light shining ever so slightly with hints of the resurrection Christ and resurrection for us–the promise of Easter.
Although a variety of tunes can be used for this Long Meter tune (8.8.8.8–that’s 8 syllables in 4 lines), the original tune ‘Hamburg’ (#298 in the United Methodist Hymnal) is still my favorite. Hamburg tune was written by Lowell Mason a prolific hymn tune composer who is responsible for many advancements in music education (wikipedia info here). For me, this musical setting carries with it the more helpful melodies and notes which convey the solemn, yet hopeful words and tone of this hymn, which many consider to be Watts’ finest and most recognized hymn.
This is my own arrangement with the guitar tuned to DADGAG: a common Irish/Scottish/bluegrass tuning which allows for the playing of ‘melody’ while playing ‘rhythm.’
verse D Bm G D D G A D Bm G D D G A D // refrain G D/F# G D/F#G D/F# A D
view from the the 43rd story (looking SW over Dallas/Ft. Worth)Cain on the top
This past December I had a once in a lifetime opportunity: I was in Dallas for a conference (Refresh campus ministry conference) and a friend from college who lives in town asked if I’d like to join him for a tour of his current project at work. Cain Young is the Superintendent in charge of building the structure and skin for Museum Tower, a 43 story residential tower in the heart of the Dallas Arts District. From previous experience with Cain while I was an undergrad, I knew that “tour” meant a great adventure. So, Cain picked me up that night at my hotel around 9pm and drove us to the tower. Click here to see all the photos on Flickr and again, thank you Cain!
I believe that there IS excellent, theologically diverse, musically interesting, contextually indigenous, and beautiful music out there–some of it helpful for Christian worship. The challenge as pastors and musicians is to seek it out, sort through it, exegete/dissect it, and make it work in our context/setting.
Let me first say that I’m very skeptical of much modern christian worship music.Secondly, I’mespecially skeptical of the “Contemporary Christian Music Industry”–which appears to be mostly concerned with certain (most often very conservative) theological/social perspectives, the music’s ability to play on ‘pop-christian’ radio, and the its ability to sell–that is, to make money. When every band in all of musical Christendom comes out with a “christmas worship album” it is hard NOT to see the dollar signs overtaking and obscuring the Gospel–as well as the context and beauty of music. This is not simply the music industry’s fault, but also the blame lies in our tendency towards laziness and sticking to what we already know. I believe that there IS excellent, theologically diverse, musically interesting, contextually indigenous, and beautiful music out there–some of it helpful for Christian worship. The challenge as pastors and musicians is to seek it out, sort through it, exegete/dissect it, and make it work in our context/setting.
It seems like I’m always having conversations with other musicians, ministers, and college students about music–specifically in this case about WHERE to find good music for worship services in the Christian tradition. That’s at least in part of why I began writing here and posting recordings and thoughts on songs, theology, and media.One such source I’ve discovered is Sojourn Music from Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY. Sojourn is a great example of contextualized, indigenous, and thoughtful church community that produces EXCELLENT music and art. (I first heard about them while in seminary at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Rev. Barbara Day Miller, Associate Dean of Worship and Music, gave me a set of their CD’s and an article about them she’d run across. I looked at the article and then listened to the music–it was excellent!) Their songs are influenced by variety of musical styles including blues, folk, gospel, and indie rock. After some further research I found that they are a member of the Southern Baptist Convention–a discovery which, as a moderate United Methodist, I found both shocking AND refreshing! Sojourn musicians have a fond appreciation for the hymns of Isaac Watts and do great justice to his words with the original music and with some new arrangements drawing on the native sounds of their context and congregations in Louisville. One of my favorites of their new musical arrangements is “Oh God Our Help in Ages Past” arranged byBrooks Ritter (a gifted musician and song writer with lots of play on Louisville local radio stations). Here is a link to their recorded version.
Finding good worship music is a part of the process–implementing it in a worship setting is often the next step: A few weeks ago we tried it out in worship with the college students at Emory Wesley Fellowship in our Sunday Night Worship service held at Glenn Memorial UMC on Emory’s campus. Here is the resulting recording with guitar, voice, and event some harmonica too.
This summer, while out in California, we had a little side project…a VIDEO project. Our task was to help capture and tell the story of Rev. Kristin Stoneking who had received a scholarship award for her doctoral studies.
I love learning about video and film making. Below is my reflection on a video project I worked on this summer & early fall to help tell the story of a friend who is a scholarship recipient working on her PhD (w/ some technical jargon):
THE PROJECT: This summer I was able to travel out to Sacramento, CA for Youth 2011, an every-4-year gathering of United Methodist youth ages 13-18 to help represent Collegiate Ministry. While out in California we had a little side project…a VIDEO project. Our task was to help capture and tell the story of Rev. Kristin Stoneking–Campus Minister and Director of the CA House at the University of California in Davis, CA. She has received the Bishop James C. Baker Scholarship which aids United Methodist collegiate ministers in advanced degree or doctoral studies.
(BELOW THE VIDEO IS MY ‘THE MAKING OF’ PORTION)
Special thanks to Kristin and the CA House as well as Allyson Collinsworth of Scholarships and Loans at the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church. Interview, filming, and editing by Michael McCord & Joseph McBrayer.
THE SETTING: The CA house is a remarkable residential, intentional, and mutli-faith community in Davis where students live, learn, and serve together. It is a really neat, older house that has some cool spaces in it. For the interview we decided to use her office (looks scholarly–just out of focus books are always a nice background). The office is located on the second floor of the house and faces south out over a main road that runs beside campus. The natural light was good but we wanted a little extra so we took the lampshade off of a desklamp and moved it closer. In interviews, the best way I’ve seen to frame the shot is to put the subject’s head in the top-left or top-right quadrant with them looking across the line-of-sight of the camera to the interviewer–it is supposed to help the viewer to feel more like they are there–like they are just sitting on the couch next to the interviewer. Kristin sat in a classic wooden chair like the kind you’d purchase from your alma mater and we framed the shot of her from just above the waist up (allowing for some hand movement when she raised her hands to gesture, but not when they were at rest).
CAMERAS & AUDIO: For the interview we used a standard sony HD camera that our agency provided shooting in 1080 at 30 frames per second–this is the camera mounted on a tripod, which framed the standard “interview” shot. This camera also received the audio off of the wired lapel mic (a low-end Audio-Technica lapel mic). In video, audio is one of the MOST overlooked and neglected things. To me, audio is just as important as the video…well, its at least very important. For the second camera I used my Canon 60D DSLR shooting 1080 video at 30 fps (the camera has manual ISO & aperture settings which I used at 1.8 and 60–you most often want the ISO to be at least double the fps). I shot this video off to the left side of the subject using a shoulder mount (Cowboy Studio’s $30: plastic, lightweight, & affordable!) and the built in audio (which I removed from the clip afterward). The idea of the second camera in this situation was for us to give the video some live-feeling movement (very popular in film, tv, commercials, etc) and to utilize the out of focus caused by the shallow depth of field in the DSLR lens (a 1.8 50mm Canon lens).
DURING FILMING: While we were filming we just let the camera on the tripod roll the whole time so that we’d capture anything we said that could be helpful (this is ideal when filming interviews as some side comments may end up being quite sincere and be full of wisdom or little sound bites that prove useful). For the shoulder mounted camera I broke up the filming into two big chunks (the whole interview lasted only around 20 mins) as I had to set down the camera a few times to help fix the lapel mic. One of the big things for the interviewers to remember during an interview (especially one where the subject is the only one on camera) is to resist the temptation to agree or comment on what the subject says while the subject is still speaking or too quickly after they finish. The main reason is so that the subject finishing what they were saying and you don’t have to go back to take out audio because the interviewer agreed, applauded, or sighed–especially if the interviewer is not in the shot or the video at all. Another helpful thing is for the interviewer to think on your feet to hear something that the subject said that was especially good or where they may have stumbled on a word–in either case, ask them to rephrase or “could you say that again”–this ‘on the fly’ thought process is especially helpful if you have one person filming and one person interviewing.
B-ROLL: Before and after we filmed the interview Rev. Kristin gave us a tour of the CA House and the residential spaces behind the main house. We filmed with the DSLR & shoulder mount the whole tour looking for moments that might make good cutaways while Kristin was speaking. The B-roll before the interview was based upon what Kristin was showing us and her explaining the community (giving us a sense of the space & context with which to better ask questions) and after the interview was based upon what she said in the interview (specifically focusing on things she’d spoken about that ‘jumped out’ to us after the interview).
POST-FILMING & EDITING: This is the hardest part. Editing and working with the video you’ve captured is likely one of the hardest parts because *most times* the video you have is all you’ll have to work with. Moral: take LOTS of video on location. On occasion you can go out and re-create something that might work well to supplement an element that you’re missing, but in the majority of situations it is all about what you have on your hard drive or camera at the end of the shoot. I use iMovie (w/ the ‘advanced features’ turned ON) to create most all of the videos I work on–again, I’m not a professional and I’m still pretty slow using Final Cut. This project was challenging in part because we were creating it for another section of our organization (Scholarships and Loans). We communicated the goals, constraints, content, and needs of the project before we filmed it—and after the interview we worked closely by email to discern and collaborate on how the project proceeded. There were 2 draft versions of the video which helped us to reach the final version of the interview and the comments and ideas generated from the first two drafts helped the final version to be more polished, more engaging, and better edited.
Well, that’s all…and that was a LOT. I hope that it might be helpful for those who are interested in filming and interviews–especially in the non-profit realm of the world. Feel free to contact me for more info or to collaborate on a project. There is a wealth of resources in the area of ‘how to’ and there are many excellent film makers out there helping to ‘tell the story’ of all the amazing things that are happening out there. May it continue.
Today is a day of prayer for Exploration 2011. Exploration is a gathering of people ages 18-26 who are discerning, wrestling, or just trying to figure out their call into ministry. It is a weekend of people gathering from all over the church to pray, worship, teach, learn, listen, and hang out with other people who are asking some of the same questions about ordained ministry in the United Methodist Church. Exploration 2011 will be held in St. Louis, MO at the Millenium Hotel November 11-13. Registration is online and TODAY is the last day of earlybird registration!
And now, a prayer for exploration 2011:
God,
you know all people and you have made all people in your image, you love us and know us and we thank you for your love and call upon all of our lives:
for all of us: a call to work, live, and love people.
And today we especially pray for those who are discerning your call on their lives
to Ordained Ministry as Elders and Deacons in the United Methodist Church.
We pray that you would guide, equip, lead, and develop them into servants of the whole church and the whole world.
We pray for exploration 2011–that your Spirit will be obvious and apparent to all who gather.
Rev. Dr. Joseph McBrayer 
