Month: August 2021

Categories
Blogging Christian God Ministry Music Radio Travel

My Top 10 Hits – Week 234

Every Monday I post my all-new Top 10 Christian hit music chart based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from the previous week. It’s the continuation of a weekly hobby that goes back 40+ years. Here’s this week’s chart:

COUNTUP MINISTRIES FOR THE WEEK ENDING SUNDAY AUGUST 08TH 2021 WEEK 234
TW LW WKS SONG TITLE ARTIST / SITE
1 1 18 Gospel Song
[2ND week @ # 1]		 Rhett Walker
2 4 11 When We Fall Apart Ryan Stevenson Ft. Vince Gill & Amy Grant
3 3 14 Yes He Can Cain
4 10 2 House Of The Lord Phil Wickham
5 5 4 Into The Wild Josh Baldwin
6 6 4 What If Matthew West
7 2 11 Be Alright Evan Craft X Danny Gokey X Redimi2
8 7 10 Until Grace Tauren Wells Ft. Gary LeVox of Rascal Flatts
9 8 5 My Jesus Anne Wilson
10 9 2 Brand New Coby James

# 1 This Week In:
2020 – “There Was Jesus” – Zach Williams Ft. Dolly Parton
2019 – “Raise A Hallelujah” – Bethel Music
2018 – “Dream Small” – Josh Wilson
2017 – “Wonder” – Hillsong United

HUGE CLIMBER – With such a tight Top 10 chart very rarely do songs move up (or down) more than 2 or 3 notches in a single week, but Phil Wickham’s “House Of The Lord” does more than that – surging 6 notches from # 10 to # 4. It really feels like a future # 1 smash on my chart (and the national charts as well). It’s currently Top 15 nationwide where it’s rapidly increasing plays on the radio.

CHART BUSTING just outside of my Top 10 this week is the brand new radio single from one of my favorite bands – We Are Messengers. It’s poised to enter my chart as their 7TH hit since 2017. The song reminds us that in every high – in every low – on mountain tops – down broken roads – He is still our rock. Our hope remains. We can rest in the arms of Jesus. “Come What May”.

Here’s the official music video for “Come What May” – featuring Darren Mulligan praising and worshiping our Lord our Shepherd on scenic Glencolumbkille Beach on the northwest coast of Ireland:

This blog is # 74 worldwide on the Top 80 Christian Music Blogs and Websites in 2021 chart. Thank You for including us Feedspot !

This concludes another weekend of blog posts. I’ll do it again this upcoming weekend – with 4 new entries on Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and Monday. I don’t blog on Saturdays. That’s my day of rest.

Your likes, follows, and comments are always appreciated. Thank You for being part of my online ministry to share God’s Good News and win souls for Christ through His music. I’m also on Twitter and Flickr.

Be blessed my friends !  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries

Categories
Bible Blogging Christian Church God Ministry Scripture

Sunday Scripture

Earlier this year I added “Singer” to my vast church résumé. It was another one of those situations within my 14½-year church experience where I was invited (asked) to do something by the Lead Pastor, and I said “YES !” without even thinking about it. So I joined our Praise & Worship team. (I affectionately refer to us as “the band”.)

Our Lead Pastor actually invited two of us to sing with him while our Praise & Worship Pastor was incapacitated. (He broke his leg skiing). Once he recovered enough to resume his duties a few months later he asked us to stay, so now it’s him and his wife, and the two of us recruited earlier this year to belt-out 3 or 4 contemporary worship songs. We’re a 4-piece band. I’m a back-up singer. I just try to blend-in with the others.

Aside from Karaoke on cruise ships, singing loudly and boldly at home, at work, and in my car, and singing a few times during some of my earlier sermons that I’ve preached – I have no real singing experience. I’m not that good of a singer. I barely have 1 octave. I’m actually a much better dancer than singer (if you can believe that). I have far more experience dancing than singing, but I left most of that behind almost 20 years ago in the trance and techno clubs. I’m 54 now. I can no longer dance like a 20-year-old in his mid-30s.

One of the songs that we’ve been singing often on Sunday mornings (almost every week) is “Way Maker”. Michael W. Smith scored his biggest radio hit since the late-1990s with his cover version of the song. (It peaked at # 3 on my own chart.)

“Way Maker” is a crowd favorite on Sunday mornings. From the stage I see the eyes of my brothers and sisters light-up, and I see smiles during the opening chords. I see and hear joy as we all sing together the words of “Way Maker” to our Way Maker.

Sometimes we need a reminder that when we sing – we don’t do so for our own entertainment. We’re not singing to each other. We’re singing to our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. He is our Way Maker. He is our Miracle Worker. He is our Promise Keeper. He is our Light in the darkness. He is our God. That is who He is.

I am the LORD – your Holy One – Israel’s Creator and King. I am the LORD – who opened a way through the waters – making a dry path through the sea. (Isaiah 43:15-16)

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries

Categories
2000s Blogging Christian God Music Radio

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – 2006

Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 25, 30, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).

It’s the 1ST Friday of the month, so I go back 15 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday August 06TH 2006:

  1. “Over My Head (Cable Car)” – The Fray
  2. “SexyBack” – Justin Timberlake Ft. Timbaland
  3. “Ain’t No Other Man” – Christina Aguilera
  4. “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” – Panic! At The Disco
  5. “Hate Me” – Blue October

“Hate Me” was a U.S. Rock, Alternative, Pop, and even Hot Adult Contemporary smash in 2006, and it was obviously a big hit on my own personal chart at the time. It actually spent 14 weeks on my chart – peaking at # 5 for 4 weeks in a row. Here’s the situation. I’ve never heard of the song before – or the artist – Blue October. So to refresh my memory I played it in its entirety on YouTube (just before I wrote this). Surely that would remind me of what this song sounded like. Nope. I still don’t remember it. How do I not remember a Top 5 hit that was on my chart from June to September of 2006 ?  I can’t explain it. At first listen it’s a good track. It sounds depressing though. It actually sounds like my state-of-mind at the time this was a hit. Christ rescued and saved me just 2 weeks later.

This is the final secular edition of RETRO on the 1ST Friday of the month. Starting on Friday September 03RD 2021 I’ll be looking back at the soundtrack of the start of my salvation in Christ. You’ll see how the music changed as my life changed. I’ll share the start of my fantastic journey with you every 1ST Friday of the month starting next month.

Next Friday on RETRO I’ll go back 25 years ago to August 1996.

It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going RETRO with me !

All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries

Categories
Blogging Nature Travel

Madeira

#TravelThursday continues, and in this edition we visit the small island of Madeira. It’s an autonomous region of Portugal located in the North Atlantic Ocean about 1,000 kilometers southwest of Portugal. It’s a difficult island to find on a map. It’s at 32.7° north latitude and 16.9° west longitude. It’s actually the top of a volcano that extends some 20,000 feet above the ocean floor along an underwater mountain range. The highest point of the island is just over 6,100 feet above sea level. The island itself is about 35 miles wide (west to east) and about 14 miles in length (north to south).

Back on November 03RD 2007 I visited Funchal – the capital and largest city of Madeira on its south coast. Over 110,000 people lived there in 2011, and that’s almost half of the population of the island. Funchal is a major cruise ship port – particularly for ships traveling between Europe and North America. That’s how I visited the island. I was on Day 7 of a 14-day Transatlantic cruise from Rome Italy to Miami Florida. That was our final port-of-call before crossing the Atlantic.

I took a shore excursion with hundreds of others from the cruise ship. It was basically a tour of the southern part of the island to include the port city as well as the mountains to the north. I forget which mountain peak we went to the top of, but it was cold up there at over a mile high.

That was a fun day on land. After that our cruise ship sailed down to about the 25° north latitude line, and then once we got there we straddled that parallel all the way westward to Miami Florida – arriving 8 days after our Madeira stop.

Join me next #TravelThursday as we visit another location on the face of this earth.

All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries