Can't Stop Praisin'

I'm excited!! Just finished with Ate Abbie the lineup of songs for the Praise Theme's concert this year. It's been years since our last concert in September of 2000, "Free". That was, I think, the 2nd or 3rd concert of the group. Since then we've been holding Praise and Worship gatherings and mini-concerts organized by other churches or groups or individuals, nothing really of our "own" planning (except maybe for the WORSHIP CAMP which we had December of last year at the Manila Bible Seminary, see pic below... plus more camp pics in the previous post).


The Praise Theme on the eve of the Worship Camp, December 2004

After much waiting and praying, we realized that this year is the year. Our 3rd concert, "Can't Stop Praisin'!", will be in October or November of this year (pending availability of concert venues we're scouting for). We're praying for an audience of a thousand people, hopefully more.

We've created a line-up that includes almost all the songs we've wanted to sing since the beginning (like Avalon's "Adonai" and "Testify to Love", Anointed's "Under the Influence", and Point of Grace's "Hold On"), fresh songs that we hope to introduce to those who will be watching (like "Merciful Rain", FFH's "One of These Days", The Katinas' "One More Time" and Amy Grant's "Imagine"), and not-so-new songs that we would like to present in a different light (like Kirk Franklin's "Lean On Me" and remake of the lounge classic "Lovely Day").

For me it's not just the concert that will be exciting, but also the journey we need to take in planning, and preparing for this activity. We're definitely looking at long rehearsals, possibly some traveling to promote the concert, some belt-tightening to finance our expenses, a lot of saying no to ice cream and cold drinks to prepare our voices, a lot of meetings to sell our tickets, etc., etc. but I'm sure it will be fun and worth whatever physical exertion we need to do according to--or even over and above--our own capacities.

All you who are able to read this, please pray for this activity to be used as a blessing to those who will take part in it: from the audience to the singers to the PA's to the OHP guys... Thanks and we hope to see you in November!