Ahhhhh!!! I don't teach seminary anymore this year! Such trauma! : )
BUT I am still committed to studying and completing my scripture mastery video helps. I started out teaching Old Testament my first year of seminary and the genesis (no pun intended...or maybe intended) of using video to help my students happened shortly after the first few scripture mastery verses were introduced. I realized that this new generation of MTV and texting culture needed something more relevant and 'hip' to help them memorize. I don't know if this is effective in the long-run but it has provided me nearly 4 years of engagement among my students. They LOVE memorizing their scripture mastery verses this way. So.... here's the first.
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Four years ago, the then seminary president, Nathan Camp, a gifted jazz saxophone player collaborated with me on a song that I wrote to introduce the seminary theme for the year which was based on the first 2 scripture mastery verses. The making of the song is an interesting story in itself. After a few days of pondering, it suddenly occurred to me that what I needed to start writing the song was a "hook". So one morning, I had a more specific favour to ask God...I needed Him to provide me with a "hook" so I can begin writing. After a few moments on bended knees, the 'hook' came to me...it was "make us one mind and one heart". I then hurriedly went down, sat on my piano and began to write the music with the lyrics. It only took 45 minutes to write this song after a prayer with an inspired, specific plea. I had never before written anything this fast...let alone lyrics with a melody. You can hear Nathan's saxophone improvisation midway into the song. Gail Bennett-deJesus, an actress/singer who plays the role of Queen Esther in one of the CES OT videos, generously and gamely recorded the vocals for us. My daugther, Hannah, plays the piano and my son, Jordan, provided the bass line.
This video was shown during a couple of seminary breakfast/morningsides. Please enjoy!
