Free Stuff
My sheet music and other free resources are available here. Just follow this link.
These things are under a Creative Commons license that allows you to download them and copy them freely—for any non-commercial use.
Enjoy!
Store
I have books, CDs, and a video series for sale from my store page. (I wish I could just give everything away, but one must eat!)
I’m especially excited about my new book, now available: My Burden Is Light: A Pastor’s Plea for Rationality, Honesty, and Humility.
About
Merry, Mystical Missives
Here you’ll find everything I’ve sent out to the mailing list for The Merry Mystic.
As a Deer Longs, Coming Soon
My next album is in manufacturing now and will be shipping within a week or two. It is entitled As a Deer Longs, and contains eleven original songs, including two instrumental numbers. My wife, Kelly Autrey-Webber, provided backing vocals for several songs—wherever you hear an angel singing, that’s Kelly. She also sings one song (“Fear Not, Said the Angel”) with me as a duet. The CD will ship with a 12-page booklet that includes lyrics. All the photographic artwork for the CD, case, and booklet was done with great creativity and sensitivity by Robert E. Pierson. Rob and I have dedicated the album to the students, faculty and staff of the Earlham School of Religion, which rashly graduated both of us.
I wrote the music for this album over the last five years or so. (It might properly be subtitled, “A Soul Slogs through Seminary”.) Some songs are better, and some songs are worse; some songs are reverent, some the reverse. But all of them are from the heart, and it means a lot to me to be able to share them at last.
The album will be available through various conventional channels, with CD sales on CDBaby.com and download sales through with iTunes, AmazonMP3, Rhapsody, Napster, and other e-tailers. I’ll write about it again when it’s shipping.
To Hear the Falconer
My father, Howard Webber, has published a long-awaited book: To Hear the Falconer: Song and Prophecy for the Time of War, Want, and Warming. It is an epic poem—song, prophecy, and prayer—crafted using many scriptural quotations and allusions. I remember him working on this manuscript when I was a child, and I hear his voice in every line, so I cannot help but love it. But I’ve also heard praise of it from other, more impartial readers. It’s rewarding to read, and prayerful to read aloud.
You can find it on Amazon, read the author’s page about it, or see the author’s short video introduction.
Event: Illinois Conference Celebration
The annual Celebration of the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ will be held at the Double Tree Hotel in Oak Brook, Illinois on Friday, June 8th and Saturday, June 9th. I am an “energizer” for the conference—yes, really—and as such I will be leading a workshop at 10:15 on Saturday morning. It’s session B-3.
Here’s my description of the workshop:
Surprise! Our God is a still-speaking God, a God of surprises, a God who says, “See, I am doing a new thing.” When people come to the door, this is an aspect of the Spirit that is moving in their hearts. No door is fully open if it is not open to surprises; no extravagant welcome can be complete if it does not say, “God’s surprises are welcome here.” We use music and dance in creative ways, in liturgy and in preaching, to help extend this spirit of welcome.
Well, that’s what I said I was going to do. But the truth is that I’m not sure yet. I’ve written a hymn for the event, and I’m trying to think up something else surprising (and perhaps even energizing) to do on the day. We’ll see.
To register for the Illinois Conference Celebration, see the Illinois Conference web site.
The Song Of God
For the last five years I have been in an ordination process under the supervision of a denominational committee. That committee is called the Ministry Team for Authorized Ministers; it’s a committee of the Prairie Association of the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ. In a meeting on March 29th, 2012, the committee concluded that I have now met all their requirements, and they voted unanimously to recommend me for ordination.
There still remain three final steps to my ordination process. First, there will be an Ecclesiastical Council, a meeting of the whole membership of the Prairie Association, where they will vote on whether to authorize me for ordination; this meeting is scheduled for June 10th. Those attending this meeting will be able to question me on my ordination paper (or anything else they choose!). Here’s a copy of that paper, “The Song Of God“. Perhaps it isn’t the most elegant thing I’ve ever written—I wrote it with committee members’ questions in mind—but I’m a bit proud of it anyway.
After the ecclesiastical council, I’ll need a job offer for an ordained ministry—typically, a chaplaincy or a pastorate. (The United Church of Christ tries to minimize central governance and maximize the authority of local congregations; in that spirit they view the calling body as a partner in the discernment of a candidate’s call to ordination.) Then, finally, there would be a formal ceremony of ordination.
And then, presumably, a rest cure in an asylum of some sort…
These are the (mostly video) messages sent out to The Merry Mystic mailing list.
Sermons and Such
Every week, I preach in the Open Prairie United Church of Christ in Princeton, Illinois. I’m not sending most of these out to The Merry Mystic mailing list; but on the outside chance you’d like to see a sermon, here they are.