Women and Southern Gospel
How come women comprise only about 12% of members of the Southern Gospel Music
Hall of Fame? An
absorbing interview
with the latest inductee, Mary Tom Speer-Reid, examines this issue. October 26th, 2006
Guy Penrod - A Special Meeting
Exactly one year ago Columbus Ledger-Enquirer police reporter
Melanie Bennett died. Her heart was too small
for her large body. Before her death one of her happiest moments had been a
meeting with Guy Penrod. Now Richard Hyatt
writes movingly about Guy and Melanie and her
love for Southern Gospel. October 26th, 2006
enLighten34
An email from XM Radio’s enLighten34:
It was a great pleasure meeting you or seeing you again at the NQC.
As some of you are aware … XM Radio’s enLighten34 has a
new website
devoted to the special programming being presented on our station, along with a
photo gallery for enlighten listeners to contribute to … and an
extensive LINKS section.
We invite you to check to make sure that we have a link to your website and that
it’s correct. If you have a website and it’s not listed, we invite you to send
us the information.
ALSO … we would greatly appreciate your reciprocating by adding a link on your
site to our web address....A fair number of you have already done that, for
which we say “thanks.”
From surveying done by XM management during the Summer, enLighten34 was already
one of XM’s more-listened-to channels, even though only having been part of the
satellite service for less than three months.
Please keep praying for us … as with this rapid growth, who knows what Satan may
try to do. October 24th, 2006
Golden Road Quartet I've
received an email from Lance A. Hamann, pianist with the Golden Road Quartet:
We have recorded several CDs and are attempting to market them and get some
air time. If it would not be too much trouble, could you be able to assist me in
figuring out the best way to do such? We could send a demo and give you a little
bio on the quartet (such as opening for the Florida Boys, Legacy 5, and the
Chuck Wagon Gang).
Their website is
here, and they look a great bunch of guys. October 17th, 2006
Mark Lowry - Back on His Feet
A welcome
reMARKs newsletter from Mark Lowry, the first
in a while. He writes:
For those of you who've asked, my leg's still giving me some pain but I'm
walking unassisted. I found out recently that, due to my surgery, my right leg
is 17 mm longer than my left leg so I need to have lifts made to go in all my
left shoes. But it's good to be back on my feet! October 12th, 2006
Kirk Talley
takes part in a Macon church outreach program
on Saturday aimed at reaching out to gays and discovering if they can be
"reoriented." According to a
promotional website:
In addition to sharing the gospel message in song, Kirk now shares a personal
message about how God lifted Kirk out of a horrible depression and gave him the
desire to live when he wanted to commit suicide.
Just how far he strayed, Bishop doesn't say. "To go into any kind of detail
would probably cause unnecessary hurt and embarrassment to people who don't
deserve that," he said. His wife, Debra, divorced him, citing an "irretrievably
broken" marriage. They share joint custody of their two teenage children.
...Bishop said he essentially became rebellious.
"When I was living in my rebellion, I honestly despised the church and anyone
who had anything to do with it," he said. "I was angry with God. I was angry
with anything spiritual. I didn't want anything to do with God."
Gradually, over a period of years, the singer said his focus turned from serving
God to serving himself. He said he became greedy and self-centered.
"The scripture says pride goes before a fall, and I had a long way to fall
because I had built myself up pretty tall," Bishop said. September
25th, 2006
An Atheist Or Two Might Slip In [Clarke] Beasley said convention surveys have found that more than half the
attendees are Baptists, with Assembly of God members next and most of the rest
fundamentalist Protestants. An atheist or two might slip in, but Beasley said
Catholics don't seem to be "into commercialized Christian music. I am not sure
why."
RIP Steve Irwin
The past few days have seen many hundreds of hits to a
website article I wrote nearly four years ago,
when the Gaither crowd came to Sydney. In my article I poked fun at the fact
that - thanks to Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin - the Gaither people seemed to
expect to find crocodiles everywhere.
All the hits have come via search engines, with people particularly interested
in learning whether Steve Irwin was a Christian. Sadly, there no evidence (of
which I'm aware) that he was. September 8th, 2006
We Had Music in Our House Too - So Why Can't I Sing Like David
Phelps?
David Phelps is interviewed by the Deseret
News:
"We had music in the house all the time," Phelps said by phone from his home
in Nashville, Tenn. "And we were a faithful family and I had plenty of
opportunities to sing in church. So those things came together, and that's why I
do what I do." September 8th, 2006
Everybody Was on the Same Page
"It just kind of came up. I don't think anybody really planned for it...But it
came up and everybody was on the same page with it."
Why Ethel Horst Listens to the Booth Brothers Every Sunday
Night
Moving story in The Patriot-News:
As Walter Horst lay dying in May, he asked to listen to a compact disc of the
Booth Brothers, according to his wife, Ethel.
"They just touched him," she said yesterday before the Booth Brothers performed
in the 31st Blue Mountain Gospel Music Festival at the Lebanon Expo Center.
"Sunday night he listened to them and Monday he was gone. Now, every Sunday
night I put them on." September 2nd, 2006
I've
received an email from Lance A. Hamann, pianist with the Golden Road Quartet: