Oddwalk Ministries

Category: Judaism

announcements, bible, catholicism, family, Jesus, JesusJusticeJoy, Judaism, liturgy, ministry, music, oddwalkia, prayer, reflection, saints, scripture, shrine

Guard Your Lions

Apologies for the unannounced four week hiatus from our Jesus-Justice-Joy posts here at the Oddwalk central. On the other hand, no one has been banging on our houses’ front doors demanding their return— Yet, today they do return.

But first, a brief word of explanation. Shortly after our most recent post of September 11, significant events occurred in the lives of Orin and Shannon. Orin’s dad, Orville “Doc” Johnson, passed away on September 17 – more on that in a moment. On the Cerneka side of things, Shannon’s wife Erin lost her job at very nearly the same time. On top of and in-between those occurrences have been other things, like a couple Oddwalk engagements, and, of course, all the personal and professional things that some call “real life.” While generally speaking all are doing “okay,” to pick a most vague and not-especially-descriptive term, please do keep us in prayer.

Last Friday night, in St. Louis, some local to STL friends and family of Orin gathered in a service of remembrance for his parents, Orville and Eva (Eva died in 2008). For this week’s return to JJJ posts, we share here the Gospel passage read at that service and Orin’s preaching on it.

Orville and Eva, at Orin & Erin’s Wedding in 2004

Luke 12:35-40
Jesus told his disciples: “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks: Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

PDF of Orin’s Preaching: “Guard Your Lions”

catholicism, Jesus, JesusJusticeJoy, Judaism, Justice, ministry, music, prayer, reflection, video, Welcome

We Are Welcome, We Are Love

As a sort-of follow up to last week’s Jesus-Justice-Joy post from Shannon, Orin writes this week to share a new lyric video of a song he recently wrote which has also been published.

The song has two Hebrew words as its title and part of the refrain: Hachnasat Orchim. This most simply translates to “hospitality,” but in the world of the Jewish faith, it’s more specifically about the welcoming of the stranger.  This song is included in a book of music for the Reform Judaism movement (you may recall a few times a month Orin plays for services at Temple Shaare Emeth) titled, in English, “Jewish Songs of Protest and Hope.”  While writen for Judaism, I think it’s also not hard to hear in the lyrics Jesus’s similar teachings of welcome and love – He was, of course, himself a Rabbi and teacher during his earthly ministries.

I hope the music inspires singers and listeners to prayer, and then to action: bringing hope into the world, and making that hope real by action and change.

announcements, catholicism, friends, joke, Judaism, keytar, liturgy, Mary, ministry, music, NCCYM, odd, oddwalkia, parody, pets, pOddcast, video, website

Songs We Should Never Record – NCCYM 2014

Hello NPM 2021! Thanks for visiting. We had a great time at this year’s convention, and hope you did too, whether in person or virtually. Below is the webpage we set up when we debuted “Songs We Should Never Record” at NCCYM in 2014. Enjoy watching the video of that below!

You can also check out older videos of The Liturginerd Olympics and “May God Bless and Keep You” as well as the rest of our site of course. Thanks again for dropping in!
 
 



songsweshouldneverrecordHello everybody! Boy, did we have a blast at NCCYM in San Antonio this past weekend – we hope you did too. We’re happy to make available to our visitors, absolutely free, our small piece of the Friday Night Youth Ministry Extravaganza, “Songs We Should Never Record.”


g
g
g
g




We also want to add a special word of thanks to our friend Mike Kivett, who penned the words to “There They Go, Lord.” Mike is a great live audio technician, he helped us with our first couple self-produced CDs, and most importantly is an all around good egg. When he heard some our silly stuff we were asking him to record, he shared with us his little creation, and we’re certainly glad he did. Thanks, Mike!

And thanks as well to the NFCYM for a great conference as always, and great NCYCs the other years. See you next fall in Indy!

PS – A couple people have asked us about the lyrics to the “Stand By Your Man” parody we sang as part of the finale of the night. Those words were written by Bob Rice, here they are:

Sometimes its hard to be a pastor,
Caring for all those ministries.
Absolving all those sins, the roof is caving in,
And the youth room needs a 55 inch flat screen high definition TV.

Stand by your man,
Give him an ear to listen.
It’s hard, he’s always giving,
And you are kind of needy.
Stand by your man,
And even if he’s awkward,
Make him look as cool as you can,
Baby! Stand by your man.

catholicism, family, holiday, Judaism, odd

Easter Roundup

A couple of Cerneka-related notes from this past Easter weekend. First off, we would like to congratulate Shannon and Erin’s brother-in-law (and all-around Oddwalk friend) Andy Puckett, for his entry into the Catholic Church on Saturday night. We are all very proud of him and wish we could have been there to witness it. The…

Read more →