Some of you are figuring out what to sing, show or speak about at church tomorrow, in light of the Haiti earthquake. Here are some resources.
VIDEO
Pray for Haiti is a video you can download and play at your church gathering on Sunday. Its free and they guy behind it is my old VJ friend Travis Reed. You might remember he and some friends started a fantastic resource company called Highway Video and then went on to do The Work of the People. He was the guy behind the video on “Please Dont Make Us Sing This Song” which a lot of churches used immediately after Hurricane Katrina. Check out this one called Pray for Haiti.
SONGS
TheWorshipCommunity.com ask the question “What songs should we sing in light of Haiti?”. Good question for you worship leaders and some good discussion on their blog.
Songs picked from TheWorshipCommunity as appropriate for church tomorrow include Our God Reigns, The Solid Rock, Whole World In His Hands. God of This City. From the comments there are plenty more songs including “Yet I Will Praise” from Andy Park and “I’ve Got Questions” from Tim Hughes.
WORDS
Christianity Today asked what pastors were preaching on after Haiti. Not sure what you are going to say but take a look at some thoughts from the Bible as given by some Haitian Christians, in particular, this post on poverty and the gospel in Haiti and this post deals with the pact with the devil issue that came up and will probably come up again.
Any other suggestions or resources we should know about???????
To be honest I think most churches will or have prayed about this in their Sunday service and will or have taken up a special offering. Hopefully there will also be prayer in prayer meetings or other gathering during the week. It might also be mentioned in discussions on the lines of why does a good God allow suffering. I might be wrong but I don’t think as many will make it a major focus of their meetings except those who are close to the disaster.
the comment by Derbyshire hit on my recent ponderings regarding evil in the world, which has led me to adjust my theology to: God is not omnipotent, the devil appears to be equally powerful and wins about half the battles against God.
Keep an eye on Fireside International, sending regular updates from Haiti on Twitter (@firesideint), photos via Twitpic, and videos via YouTube. Luke Renner is telling stories about what is happening on the ground, and he’s invested for the long-term, not just the immediate relief effort.
As well as praying and sending money, we can act to change the financial system which keeps Haiti poor. Haiti is still paying interest on loans to the richest countries, and the IMF is proposing a new $100m loan ..not grant, not aid a new loan. How is that going to get paid back? News and actions here – http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/Drop%20Haiti%27s%20Debt+4420.twl
My church had the privilidge of partnering with a Haitian congregation in our city a few weeks before the earthquake. The very next week we had a joint service together where the leaders spoke and our church prayed over them. Most of the members has family in Haiti who have died or cannot be found.
You can hear them speak (about 6 minutes) here, (http://wornallroad.org/audio.html) as well as our pastor’s sermon that followed. (both from the date 1-17-10)
sorry the ‘)’ got in the way… click this link instead http://wornallroad.org/audio.html
Here’s another free Haiti reflection piece if your community can use it…
http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/index.php?ct=store.details&pid=V00714
Lamentations. Psalms. Job.
There are such rich reserves of stories and songs of struggle, pain and hurt that we skip because they seem to be just too hard. Sometimes lamenting is the thing to do as long as we don’t wallow.