The Collingsworth Family sings at Calvin College on Dec. 11  It seems like we’re barely into the month of December and already some of the area’s Christmas concerts are in the rearview mirror.

     But there are still plenty of opportunities to join a musical celebration of the season at a number of different West Michigan events.

     For an arena-sized experience, gospel music maven Bill Gaither and his Homecoming artists mark the Christmas spirit in a big way at 6 p.m. Sat. Dec. 13 at Van Andel Arena in downtown Grand Rapids.

     Not only will Gaither sing with his Grammy-winning Vocal Band (featuring tenor David Phelps), but he’s brought along fan favorites such as The Isaacs, The Martins, soloist Charlotte Ritchie, funny-man (and former Vocal Band member) Mark Lowry, among others.

     A local choir, coordinated by Chris Hansen of Hark Up Ministries, will sing background on many of the songs.

Are you ready to be “ruined for the ordinary”? That’s what one man said will happen when you take Perspectives!

“Perspectives on the World Christian Movement” is a powerful, in-depth course on God’s heart for all nations and His Kingdom purpose for all Christians. In fourteen sessions with fourteen passionate, experienced instructors you will gain a fresh perspective on the biblical, historical, cultural, and strategic aspects of God’s global cause.

Master Arts Theatre, located at 75 77^th St SW in Grand Rapids, is initiating a six season tribute to World War II and to thank all veterans who have fought for our nation. The tribute began on November 21 with the musical, “Sanders Family Christmas”.

The story takes place on Christmas Eve, 1941, just eighteen days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.   The Sanders family is performing at Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church in North Carolina, just as they had done for the past several years. This year, however, is a little different. The country is in the midst of World War II and the family’s son, Dennis, will be leaving home to join the Marines in just a few days. The play is filled with laughter and song, but yet effectively expresses the deep emotions involved when a loved one goes off to war. The story also shows the concern the average citizen had knowing that the rationing of many items was imminent. But, as the playbill states, this musical is designed to “get your toes tapping, your voice singing, and your heart soaring in reminiscence and old-fashioned joy in the Lord.” The cast certainly accomplishes this goal with their talents and enthusiasm.

  You had to wonder: after local singer-songwriter and worship leader Tommee Profitt signed deal as a major record label producer/songwriter, would he have any time to complete a collection of his own music for a new release?

     But his (and fans’) patience have been rewarded with “Deeper,” a two-years-in-the-making combination of worship themes and heartfelt lyrics set very much in pop arrangements – some on a grand scale.

Read more: New Music Review: Deeper by Tommee Profitt Add new comment

West Michigan Christian writer Terry DeBoer surveys the landscape for the area’s faith-based arts and entertainment events over the coming month. Here are a few December highlights:

*“Women's Christmas Tea” – Susan Sorensen is the special guest at 3 p.m. Sun. Dec. 7 at Maranatha Bible Conference, 4759 Lake Harbor Road, Muskegon. Sorensen is women’s ministry coordinator at Calvary Church in Grand Rapids and co-author of the 90-day devotional “Praying Through Cancer: Set Your Heart Free From Fear” (Harper Collins). Her holiday message parallels a familiar Christmas carol. Worship leader is Sarah Whaley, chapel coordinator at Cornerstone University. There will also be a special presentation by the Muskegon Rescue Mission. Tickets are $20 general ($15 for Maranatha members) and available at www.vacationwithpurpose.org. (231)-798-2161.

Cheryl Schuch is the executive director of Family Promise of Grand Rapids.For many people living in the Grand Rapids area, the Great Recession has become a distant, unpleasant memory. Others, however, remain gripped in the economic downturn's tentacles.

Financial hardship is an especially thorny problem for homeless parents who fear loosing custody of their children because they have no fixed address, according to Cheryl Schuch, executive director of the nonprofit interfaith ministry, Family Promise of Grand Rapids (FPGR).

     This tour is different for multiple Grammy-winner TobyMac.

     “The idea is like a more intimate setting rather than in an arena,” said the inspirational artist by phone while on a tour bus traveling to Louisville, Ky.

     It’s really about having things a little more broken down and allowing yourself the time to tell the stories behind these songs,” he said.

     Toby will still have his full band complement with him when he visits DeVos Performance Hall on Nov. 23. Even his turn table DJ. But with a smaller drum kit, scaled down lighting and stage sets and a simpler approach, the artist will have a little more space and time to spill out the origins of many of his chart-topping songs.

Read more: WORSHIP, STORIES & SONGS TOUR With TOBYMAC Add new comment

During the holidays, many of you may visit the home where you grew up. Sometimes it’s fun to reflect back on what you’ve done or where you’ve lived. Recently, I was thinking about all the different houses where my family has resided in the Holland area.

I remember the first time my boys threw a ball and our daughter played with her baby doll at our home on West 20^th Street. It was wide-bodied and flat as though a giant, from on top of a beanstalk, had stepped on it. Yet, despite how widespread it was, it is the warmth and coziness that are my fondest memories.

Brittany Christopher keeps a number of photos of her daughter, Sola, in her smart phone. Sola is a spunky, wide-eyed, blond-hair cutie who quickly steals the hearts of the people she encounters. It’s understandable why the two-and-a-half year old is the pride and joy of her mother, Brittany Christopher.

“She’s rocking it out,” a beaming Christopher said of her daughter. “She’s so smart.”

Smart and very much alive.

There was a time during Christopher’s pregnancy when she was a hair’s breadth away from having an abortion. All her reasons seemed valid, she told herself. She was only 20 and single, with no clue what the demands of motherhood entailed.

Kirk boldly states, "I love Christmas!" from the start. He begins by saying that some people want Christmas toned down, while others think that looking at a Christmas tree, and enjoying Santa, and buying presents are not worthwhile experiences. He disagrees and argues, convincingly so, that they all add to the celebration of the birth of the Christ child. His brother-in-law in the film, Christian, is a killjoy Christian. Christian doesn't share the love for Christmas like his wife, Kirk's sister.

The Isaacs are one of the groups featured at the Gaither Homecoming concertYes, you can sing with a local choir at the Gaither Homecoming Christmas concert at Van Andel Arena. .
   
“Any number of singers can join,” said Chris Hansen, the Grand Rapids music director who is heading up the local choir effort.
    
“We’re hoping for about 70 or 80, but we can have as many as possible.”
    
The Dec. 13 concert features stellar artists such as the Grammy-winning Bill Gaither and his Gaither Vocal Band, sibling trio The Martins, the bluegrass-inspired Isaacs and funnyman Mark Lowry among others.

Tim Roersma, owner of Carlisle Auto Body, never planned to work in the auto body industry or start his own business, but God had other plans. While in high school, Roersma attempted to sign up for an auto mechanics class, but the class was full. The school counselor suggested he try an auto body class since it still involved working on cars. Roersma loved the class and never looked back. After studying at a tech center the last two years of high school, Roersma attended community college, and then graduated with a degree in automotive body from Ferris State University.

Roersma worked for a few local shops before his wife’s uncle approached him about starting his own company. “I had planned to work for someone else the rest of my life,” he recalled. The uncle had finances and passion to fund the startup, but no practical auto body work experience. Another partner provided a building. Roersma supplied the experience, and the three drew up papers and started Carlisle Auto Body thirty years ago.

Stuart Ray has been Guiding Light Mission’s executive director since 2009.Etched in Stuart Ray’s memory is the first time he gave a panhandler money. The man asked for 75 cents and Ray consented to his request. A few days later, he found the same man stumbling in the street, drunk.

Lesson learned: Ray’s intentions were good but the results were anything but.

Looking back on that day in the summer of 2009 — the same year he became Guiding Light Mission’s executive director — Ray says he received a sobering lesson in what’s really required needed to help homeless men discover a better way of life.

Actor Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man) along with Cybil Shepherd and Ted McGinley recently stopped by Grand Rapids on their way to Manistee to talk about a movie they were making: Do You Believe? The movieis due to be released in March 2015 and comes from Pure Flix, the same filmmakers that made the successful God’s Not Dead.

Majors stated he was the old man of the group. “I’m 57 now,” he joked, then added, “Actually, you need to invert those numbers.” The 75-year-old Majors thrilled audiences in the seventies with his portrayal of astronaut Steve Austin, who was critically injured in a test flight and became a cyborg, given replacement parts by the government including two bionic legs, a right arm, and a bionic eye which could zoom in on far away objects. “I’m not doing any more shows with the word ‘The’ in front of it,” he joked. “No more ‘The Big Valley’, ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ or ‘The Fall Guy.’ I used to run my butt off. Now, I move in slow motion!”

    Inspirational singer-songwriter Michael W. Smith still wasn’t sure exactly what songs he would include at his Nov. 8 sold out concert at Community Reformed Church in Zeeland.

     “It’s a good question,” he told a reporter by phone during a late October interview. “We’re doing a mix of songs as we figure out a way to showcase a bunch of stuff and I think we’ll come up with a pretty cool evening.”

     Smith, who turned 57 last month, said he plans to do several songs from his “Sovereign” album - a “pop” worship project released early this year.

     “I think the song ‘Sky Spills Over’ is one of the highlights,” said the artist. “It gets one of the bigger responses of the night. But probably the best song on the record is one called ‘Sovereign Over Us’ based on the fact that what it says is so powerful.”

More than 60 students, spouses and faculty gathered for WTS and IBE Holland’s first night of its collaborative partnershipThere was a time when Pentecostal and Reformed Christians didn’t associate with one another very often. It’s a new day, say students and faculty of the Western Theological Seminary (WTS) in Holland and the Instituto Biblico Ebenezer Holland who say their collaborative partnership is historical.

About 30 Latino pastors and lay students associated with Instituto Biblico Ebenezer in Holland (Bible Institute Ebenezer) will gather Monday nights at the Reformed Church in America affiliated Western Theological Seminary to study classes in Bible, evangelism, pastoral care, Christian education and the Bible.

Wedgwood Christian Services honored David and Carol Van Andel with its prestigious Doug and Lois Nagel Leadership Award, which was presented at Wedgwood’s 54^th Anniversary Celebration Dinner on Tuesday, Oct. 28.

Wedgwood provides a wide range of social services here in West Michigan in areas of abuse and neglect, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, learning difficulties, sexual abuse, school expulsions and other areas involving hurting children, youth and families.

Actor David Payne as CS LewisScholar, author and theologian C.S. Lewis comes to life in a stage production coming to Muskegon’s Beardsley Theater on Sunday December 14.

Tickets are now on sale for “A Christmas With C.S. Lewis” featuring actor and Lewis impersonator David Payne. (Details below).

Payne captures the spirit of Lewis in this one-man show, drawing from the author’s extensive books, journals and memoirs to humorously yet profoundly share his insights.

Choosing a leader who is what you think he or she is, who actually will lead, and who will be able to step up to unknown challenges ahead is a tall order. Finding a leader is sometimes more difficult than following a leader.

American politics is replete with examples of leaders who turned out to be less than advertised. Herbert Hoover was a highly successful businessman; he'd get the country's economy moving. But the Great Depression overwhelmed him. Richard Nixon ran on a "law and order" theme. Need I say more?

As we come to celebrate and remember Reformation Day this week, we have come a long way from the days when a German monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. Luther complained that salvation was a free gift of a gracious God and not something that could be controlled, bought or sold by corrupt officials. Most Christians have long forgotten Luther and Reformation Day. It has been replaced with Halloween, now the second biggest holiday after Christmas. Some churches are trying to do something spiritual during Halloween, like having a Gospel party or giving out tracts, but the real theology and the reasons for the Reformation are slipping away from America as you read this article. In the end, every society ends up moving toward freedom or slavery as their history unfolds.  This journey to slavery or freedom is at the center of the Bible’s story line, the people of Israel’s history and the destiny of all the nations on earth. When you forget what freedom is and why you have it, it is only a matter of time until you have lost it. That surely could be said for America today. Our nation is surely fighting for its’ future under the power of increasing government control, massive debt, politically correct speech and an anti-Christian understanding of the relationship between Church and State.

The recumbent bike Kelly Ellis rides represents a new chapter in her life.Kelly Ellis gingerly gets on her recumbent trike’s seat, slips her feet into the pedal stirrups and, with the grace of a gazelle, effortlessly sets the three-wheel bike in motion down a nearby sidewalk.

In a real sense, Ellis’ self-propelled jaunt represents a victory lap for what the Lord has accomplished in the valley of her life.

“I live by the promise of Jeremiah 29:11,” said Ellis, referring to the Old Testament Scripture which affirms God’s plans to prosper His people with a hope and a future.

West Michigan Christian News writer Terry DeBoer surveys the landscape for the area’s faith-based arts and entertainment events over the coming month. Here are a few November highlights:

*“The Discredibles” – That’s the title of the dinner-theatre production at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 7 and 8 and 5:30 p.m. Nov. 9 (drama only) at Blythefield Hills Baptist Church, 6727 Kuttshill Dr NE, Rockford. This original play (the title is a spoof on “The Incredibles”) features an unlikely band of underworld villains who plan “comic capers” of crime while dodging the authorities and creating all sorts of international chaos. The comedy is directed by Blythefield director of worship ministries Vicki Modert. Dinner theater tickets are $15, theater-only on Nov. 9 are $3 and $2. More information at http://www.bhbconline.org/dinnertheatre or call Christy at 866-9597 x134.