"Let me make the songs of a nation and I care not who makes the laws"

      I've been looking for this quote forever and I finally found it! I read this quote way back in Music History class in my junior year of college, I believe it was, and loved it. But I could never find it again after that semester.

      I think it's so true that the power of music can oftentimes be more powerful than the laws of a land. You give politics they moan and bicker and disagree. But put politics into profound prose and a catchy tune and you've got yourself a much stronger medium of influence that oftentimes can hold more power and sway than other forms of mass media.

      Plato's quote futher bolsters my belief that people today just need to appreciate music for itself. They need to see and understand that it has intrinsic value in and of itself, apart from any endeavor to use it as a means to another end. If it's that powerful, maybe we should take the time to understand its power. For anything that is powerful can either be wielded for good or for bad.

      Unfortunately society doesn't tend to think so, as is evident by the value that our national education system puts on music. When a school budget is tight, what's the first program that gets cut and has to go? Music. It's always music.

      Don't want to get on my soapbox for too long, but I want to say that people don't think it's good to just learn about music. Most people think music education is good because it leads to being good at math or science, though there is no direct scientific evidence or proof for that. Take me for example! I STINK AT MATH! CASE IN POINT!

      Quotes like the one above confirm my belief that music has intrinsic value in itself and not just value in being a means to another end. It's not just good to learn about because it'll make your kids better at math but it's good to learn about simply because it's good to learn about!

      In James 1:17, it says that "every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights." Music is a good gift given from the Lord above. And if music is a gift, then it should be held with as much value as any other gift the Lord has given us.


sorry I haven't been writing that much about my past experiences...still editing photos from Pass Christian, Mississippi which I'll be posting up soon! come back in a little bit!

K, so, a fun fact we learned about this whole deal with people who live in the Upper Peninsula versus those who live in the lower part of the peninsula.

Susan Michaels, on staff with her husband, David Michaels at Northern Michigan University, told us that apparently those who live under the bridge in Northern Michigan are affectionately called “trolls.” And the “trolls” call the Upper Peninsula people “UPers” (pronounced “youpers”). No animosity here. Really, none at all. Just hearing the term trolls reminds me of either Gremlins or The Lord of the Rings. That’s just mean to call people trolls. Unless you have cool wacky, spikey hair like those troll dolls have. Then I guess it could kinda be a compliment…but maybe not.

Before I go on to Northern Michigan University, I forgot to include some visuals of our time in Wisconsin. If a picture is worth a thousand words, well, I think these pictures are worth just that and then some. Check it:

“Look grandma! That’s the biggest cheese wheel I’ve ever seen! It’s GINORMOUS!”

“My, oh my, do I look good in these pink shades. Just call me Joey Ramone. Look grandma! That is a huge cheese wheel! And that’s a huge chunk on your head!”

Anyways, Northern Michigan University!

NMU is where Phil Britton, a guitarist for this past summer project’s Mangofish is from! And Phil was actually the one show set up the whole thing. It was sweet to get to see him again.

I really thought this show was a real treat for us. It was a great way to end our week. There were about 68 people in the audience, mostly Crusade students, but still a handful of people who were definitely non-believers, about 25% of the audience.

But the best news of all is…
drum roll please…

SOMEONE MADE A DECISION TO ACCEPT CHRIST AT OUR CONCERT! Woohoo!!

His name is Dennis and apparently grew up with Phil! Cool! So Phil, along with a few other Crusade guys, know him and will be able to follow up with him no problem. Praise the Lord. I was so excited to hear that. You always hope for lots of numbers for people that accept Christ but if God meant for us to travel all the way up to the cold Upper Peninsula just for one student to accept Christ, it is definitely all worth it and a priceless reward for our ministry efforts.

57 comment cards total were returned. In addition to Dennis accepting Christ, there were also 6 people interested in a bible study and 3 people interested in spiritual things. Dave and Sue Michaels really believe that the students definitely caught a vision for how they can use a keynote band for an outreach event in the future.

Cool story:

Teresa got to talk with a student named Johanna who was really encouraged by her message and our band coming to their campus.

Apparently Johanna was not a Christian before she came to college, yet when she and her friend wrote out a list of things they wanted to do when they got to college, one of them was to check out religion.

Lo and behold, shortly after getting on campus, she was invited by one of the guys in Crusade to come to one of their weekly meetings. She didn’t go because she didn’t think he was cute! HA! But I think it was the next week that another Crusade guy asked her to come to their weekly meeting and she did end up going because she thought he was cute. Attraction evangelism. Ha! Gotta love it. I should coin that phrase! JK

Johanna came to that meeting and the very next day she accepted Christ! Praise the Lord! So, spiritually, she’s only two years old! How cool is that? Funny how God uses those things to save us. Praise the Lord.

And that sums up our time in the UP! Lake Superior was gorgeous! The guys had the privilege of staying in a beach house right off the coast of it. Fun times. Please pray for Dennis and Dave and Sue Michaels as they continue their ministry up there. Thanks all!

Our gig at North Central Technical in Wausau, Wisconsin:

Deborah Graff was our main contact for the NCT as well as our host! We also got to meet her two daughters, Lindsay and Courtney, who actually help her mom out with the Crusade chapter at NCT since there aren’t a lot of student leaders there to help with the movement right now.

During our debrief time, Lindsay explained to us that the previous semester there had been a good number of students and some momentum to their movement. But come this semester almost everybody left and their numbers dwindled down to four students and it felt like they were starting all over again from scratch.

Being a two-year college makes it extremely difficult for them to have any sort of continuity in the chapter, so it was a huge help to them to have us do a concert on their campus to help them gain momentum for their movement.

Lindsay also told us that she and her mother really didn’t know what to expect when they asked us to come in. They just thought we were some group and were unsure of the quality of our band. She said she was quite pleasantly surprised to find that we were a professional group and was quite happy about that. Sweet!

To her that spoke volumes about the credibility of Keynote’s ministry, the quality of ministry service we have to offer those we partner with, and the effectiveness of using a Keynote band, especially on a campus such as theirs.

They gained 12 contacts, which isn’t a huge number, but considering it’s triple the amount of students they have in their chapter right now, it is a big deal!

They were able to give out about 10 FSK’s (Freshman Survival Kits) and free popcorn to dozens of people. Written on the popcorn bags were the meeting times and places for Crusade, which was a great way to advertise their weekly meetings and raise awareness of their presence on campus.

They also had people fill out quick spiritual surveys, most of which indicated positive responses to at least wanting to know more about Crusade.

After the show Deborah said that things like this never happen at NCT so it will definitely create a buzz on campus for weeks to come and be a great conversation starter with students to talk about God and hopefully invite them to Crusade.

We were even featured in the school’s video announcements and also included in their October 3rd edition of “College Connection,” a campus wide flyer of announcements and happenings on campus.

The announcement read:

“Blue Sky Nine Concert at NTC! Watch for the Blue Sky Nine concert in the NTC courtyard during the noon hour on Tuesday, Oct. 4. This acoustic band concert is sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. Come and check it out! Campus Crusade for Christ will meet from 12-12:50p.m. on Tuesdays & Wednesdays in Room F206. Watch the TV monitors for future dates.”

Sweet!

A lot of the school faculty also came out to hear us play and gave Deborah a lot of good feedback. That’s huge! They were definitely glad that Deborah had organized this event and hoped for more things like this to happen in the future.

After the show Kevin and I talked about the response of the school faculty and thought that maybe God is doing something different on the campus here that might not have to do so much with the students as it might be with the faculty. And maybe we should get some Crusade staff to reach out to the faculty on campus! Who knows?? Just a thought.

Please pray for more student leaders to be raised up there and for their numbers to grow. Pray for the contacts that they call to be good ones who have a genuine interest in getting to know Christ or coming to Crusade.


Cool things that happened:
I had a cool conversation with Nick, a freshman at the school who had walked just after we finished our concert. I invited him over to the Crusade table to pick up a free FSK and put him in touch with Lindsay, who actually already knew who he was. Praise God!

He said that he had grown up religious but came to the realization that he didn’t need church to “follow the way,” as he put it. When I asked him what he meant by “following the way,” he couldn’t really give me a straight answer, other than being a good person and doing good things.

Later on, Lindsay told me that he had a Catholic background but was afraid to say that for some reason. I wish I had challenged him more and been able to share with him what the message of the bible is and what “following the way” really means, if indeed, he was talking about following Jesus’ way. Please say a prayer for Nick.

As we were praying before our show, a lady walked over to us and asked if we were believers. She had been looking for Crusade on campus and was hoping to get involved again. It was cool to see God to just use our very presence there to help someone get connected! Praise the Lord!

A woman named Wendy came up to me while were breaking down our equipment and asked about booking our band in the future. I gave her one of our new nifty business cards and said she could contact us to set something up, so who knows? Future gig! Sweet!

Here's an update from the road that I didn't get to post yet. Lack of e-mail access this past week made it difficult to post entries on my blog!

So this was a cool little note that someone left on the windshield of our tour bus at our gig in Rhinelander, WI. Again, that gig was at Nicolet Technical and we had a blast ministering to the campus alongside

The note read:

“I’m a prisoner on work-release. I’ve been in for over a decade. Dan Brygar who works for Campus Crusade for Christ discipled me and came “in” every week for year to not only share Gods Word with me, but his heart also-I listen to your songs on Christian Radio everyday. J My parents & all my siblings are born again new! Peace. Loren.”

We’re not quite sure what he meant by “I listen to your songs on Christian Radio everyday,” since we play all secular music, but it was still encouraging to hear that he was blessed by us. It’s also cool that he said he was discipled by someone in Crusade a while back but we’re kinda wondering what happened if he’s now been in prison for over a decade…

Please say a prayer for Loren. I hope the reminder of those years will bring him back to Christ if he has strayed from his walk with the Lord.

Here's a BEAUTIFUL picture of Rib Mountain that we got to visit after our gig at Nicolet Technical. It's quite gorgeous!

So I tried my first bit of authentic Wisconsin cheese this morning! Had a slice of vegetable cheddar. Mmmm...'twas delicious :) <--also the face that my tummy is making.

We have a show today at noon at North Central Technical College and then we'll be travelling up to Marquette, Michigan for the remainder of the week. We have one more show up there and then we leave for Indiana on Thursday morning.

Please pray for our show today at noon and for the rest of our week up in Marquette! The rest of our touring season doesn't look very full anymore, so please keep the rest of our performances in prayer!

All I know as of right now is that we only have three more places that we'll be travelling to. The whole mishap with Mississippi looks like it will be rescheduled to one of these upcoming weekends. We'll also be most likely travelling up to Chicago to help lead worship for the metro team up there, though that's out of our element, and lastly we have a performance at Indiana State University, which will be nice since it's a local show.

It's only been two days out on the road, but it feels like I've been out here for a week already! The demands of the day are quite exhausting but the Lord is faithful and always gives me the strength to follow-through. Please wrestle with me in prayer for the lost souls on these campuses.

Pray that I may be bold...there are times I feel I am missing opportunities to share with someone and have a great conversation with a student. Pray the Lord will give me the words to speak.

Blessings my friends...