http://www.valeriehess.com Author, Speaker and Musician Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:00:19 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en We are deep in the heart of Lent as I am writing this. As a church musician, I am often thinking weeks ahead of where we actually are in the Church Year, as I plan and prepare music for upcoming services. Tonight, I was thinking about Holy Week and Easter and ... http://www.valeriehess.com/generalnews/i-dont-understand If you would like to walk with a group of people who are committed to using the spiritual disciplines for spiritual transformation, join the Facebook group Master of Spiritual Formation and Leadership (out of Spring Arbor University). Starting Monday, January 18th, we will be talking about a discipline a month ... http://www.valeriehess.com/generalnews/facebook-group-on-the-disciplines I am struggling to understand where many people get their idea of when a season begins or ends in this culture. I'm primarily thinking about where Christ-followers get their idea of when a holiday season begins or ends in this culture. Do we get it from Hallmark and think Christmas ... http://www.valeriehess.com/generalnews/have-many-of-us-become-hallmark-christians A quote from Jann Cather Weaver: "Do we think John and Jesus just "knew" how to live radically faithful lives? howo to be preachers? how to be as eloquent as the Magnificat? how to be healers? John and Jesus knew how to live radically faithful lives because they were sons of ... http://www.valeriehess.com/generalnews/a-thought-for-today Watch this site for more details about a tour I will be leading to Israel with an option to go to Jordan in February of 2011. I'm working on the itinerary now and it will be an exciting time. Plan to join me. http://www.valeriehess.com/generalnews/israel-and-jordan-tour I will be teaching a course at Ghost Ranch's new Casa del Sol retreat center over Labor Day 2010. Go to www.ghostranch.org for the course catalog. The course is entitled "The Voice of One in the Wilderness" and we will be exploring new ways to be a Christ-follower. I ... http://www.valeriehess.com/generalnews/come-to-ghost-ranch-over-labor-day-2010 David Stoddard founded Leaders Legacy, Inc., in 2000 after a successful career in sales. Leaders Legacy, according to the book, "provides an intensive, value-added mentoring/coaching process for developing people, both personally and professionally, from the inside out." Its stated goal is to "establish a network of mentors across the United ... http://www.valeriehess.com/generalnews/the-heart-of-mentoring-ten-proven-principles-for-developing-people-to-their-fullest-potential-by-david-a-stoddard-with-robert-j-tamasy At first, I thought this book was going to be shallow and flip but the further I got in to it, the more touched I was by Ms. Hatmaker's story. Jen comes to realize she is bled dry inside. As a pastor's wife, she is doing all the right things ... http://www.valeriehess.com/generalnews/interrupted-an-adventure-in-relearning-the-essentials-of-faith-by-jen-hatmaker In all my years of being a church musician, I have only missed one Sunday due to illness and I have never had to leave a service ill...until today. Toward the end of the sermon, I began having chest pains radiating up to my jaw (coupled with several days of ... http://www.valeriehess.com/generalnews/the-night-of-the-heart-pain I had the trip of a lifetime a couple of weeks ago when I went with the University of Kansas on a two week tour of historic organs in north Germany. To play these old instruments brought tears to my eyes a couple of times. To be in the places ... http://www.valeriehess.com/generalnews/post-germany-trip-thoughts