Keynote blogs

Keynote Band, Giants Of Silence, Returns From India With Amazing Stories!

2007-10-19T18:52:00.000-04:00

Greetings from Keynote!

Thank you for your prayers for our international trips that took place in India and Central Asia. Keynote's aggressive rock band, Giants of Silence, returned this week from their four-week outreach tour in India. The band performed 21 concerts in 13 different cities for over 10,000 people. While the band was able to share the gospel at each of their events, only 13 events allowed an opportunity for a response card. At those 13 concerts, almost 800 people indicated a decision to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ!

One story in particular stood out to me as I read updates from the band:

In Hubli, the concert host found out that a permit was needed for the concert. Securing a permit wasn't as easy as just filling out some paper work. After numerous vists to the police station, the permit was granted with the stipulation that there would be no "dancing, praying, converting, etc.".

The host informed the band that although they couldn't ask people to pray from the stage, they could "inform" them of what words they could use if they chose to pray at another time. He also thought jumping would be okay because it isn't dancing!

So, a few minor adjustments were made to the band's normal set, and they shared the gospel with the 300 people in the audience. Three police officers were there and they didn't seem to have any problems with the program. The concert host apparently made an impression on the police by his persistence and unwillingness to compromise to secure a permit.

Through all of the visits to the police station a relationship began between the concert host and one young officer. Vellu, the concert host, shared the gospel with this young man and he accepted Christ. He would like to meet further with Vellu to learn more about his new relationship with Jesus.

As you can imagine, the cost of following Christ in India can be far greater than doing so in America. Many of these new believers are likely from Hindu or Muslim backgrounds. Please continue to pray for these new family members as they learn more about knowing God and walking with Him.

Thanks for your prayers! We're so grateful for your continued interest in this ministry and your partnership with us!

Singapore SP

2007-07-14T13:37:00.000-04:00

Hey all!

This is from our partner ministry, ForeRunner, in Singapore. It's encouraging to read some of the stats from their summer project!

Just as a quick report... from my recent mission trip in South Thailand & Bangkok from June 10th to 22nd.

13 Days
10 concerts
2 States (Bangkok & Nakhon Si Thammarat)
1486 heard the gospel
595 prayed to receive Christ
61 interested to know more

Would you rejoice with us, together with the angels in heaven for the many who entered the kingdom of God! =)

Our lives have been greatly enriched because of your friendship & partnership.

Thanks....
Simon & Lillian Seow
(Joshua, Emily & Zachary)

KSP Summary

2007-07-12T21:13:00.000-04:00

Greetings from Keynote!

Last week, we wrapped up our 14th annual Keynote Summer Project. As I sat at the closing dessert and listened to the testimonies of the students, I was amazed by the ways that God worked in and through these young men and women.

I know for many of the students, this was a life-changing experience. They got a glimpse of the ways that God can use their unique talents, gifts, and stories to take the gospel to a lost world. Students who had histories of health concerns (including an amputation), depression, and poor life choices were able to use the concert stage to share the way that Jesus redeemed their lives and their personal circumstances. The vulnerability of these students led to many rich, spiritual conversations following their concerts.

In just under three weeks of touring, the five Summer Project bands performed 57 outreach concerts to a total of nearly 6,000 people. They performed on military bases, in homeless shelters, on beaches, and in many other settings. And those outreaches resulted in at least 248 individuals indicating that they invited Christ into their hearts!

Please pray for these students as they return to their families, friends and campuses. Many of them are going back to situations that are less than encouraging as it relates to ministry and their spiritual life. Our desire is that these students would be use the things they learned on this project to walk with God and minister effectively for many years to come. You can also pray that many of them would return to work with us as interns or full-time staff!

Thanks again for your partnership with us!

Our Deepest Fear

2007-07-01T00:45:00.000-04:00

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. -Marianne Williamson

Mangofish Update #2

2007-06-29T15:38:00.000-04:00

Hey Keynote!

This is Amanda again. Before we left Daytona Florida for Tennesse, we had a chance to go to church on sunday! We all decided on a drive in sunday morning service! Let me tell you it was an experience! When we arrived there, we had someone meet us at the drivers side door asking if we wanted to take communion, and we were handed little cups of grape juice and bread. When we found a spot to park, we tuned our radios to 88.5 and listened to the preacher. We could see him move evey once and a while from the church balcany he was preaching at. It definately proved that you can worship God anywhere!

***THAT IS HILARIOUS!***

We are now in Tennessee at a kids camp minustry. These kids range in age from 8th graders to seniors in highschool. During the day all of the kids are gone working on fixing up broken down houses and things like that. There are two different sites for this camp. Last night we performed for the kids on the campsite 45 minutes away. It was really laid back and half of the kids went to bed or something like that. Im not gonna lie, it was a little discouraging to see, but after the concert we had plenty of kids that were excited to talk to us. I think we all realized that its not the size of the audience that matters, it is the amount of people that we touch.

Tour has definitely been an amazing experience!

Your sis in Christ,

Amanda from Mangofish

Infinit Impact

2007-06-29T12:24:00.000-04:00

Infinit Impact is our Urban Gospel group for the summer!

Impact is Campus Crusade's African-American student movement specifically geared towards ministering to the African-American community. They are AWESOME and wickedly talented this year!

Here's an update from Gabriella, their fabulous drummer this year. Keep in mind that this is a summary of pretty much every show they've played in the last two weeks, so it's a bit long:

Greetings Everyone!

God has been doing some amazing things through Infinit! The tour has truly been a time where each of us have seen God in a new way. I haven't been able to update you frequently on what's been going on so I want to take this time to tell you how the tour has been to this point so please forgive me if this update is a bit longer than you expected it to be.

Our first concert was in Lanham, MD at a a church picnic and God truly moved. We were all a bit nervous and weren't sure of exactly how things would be now that we had left the protective environment that we had at Keynote, but once we got up and began to minister God showed up. We saw eight people give their lives to Christ and although it was a church picnic it was held in a park so many people from the community came over because they heard the music. It was an awesome experience.

It was the next day that I personally felt like I saw exactly why God had us to be a part of this music project. We had a chance to minister in Richmond, VA. Although we were working in conjunction with a church, we did our concert outside of a recreation center in a housing project. It was so amazing to see how powerful God is and how he truly can use his people to be light in darkness.

Before we performed we were told that we were in the roughest housing projects in Richmond and someone had been shot and killed that very morning. But God gave us the boldness to perform in the same manner that we had rehearsed and people were literally drawn to the area that we were outside. It was about 98 degrees outside so we passed out Popsicles and just believed God to bring people out. We saw many people come to Christ and just saw a greater sense of peace in that area while we were there. That to me was the turning point in tour when we were able to see how God truly wanted us to go outside of the church and minister to all people.

We continued to see the power of God as we went to our next location in Alexandria,VA at a maximum security juvenile detention center. We saw those kids go from looking hard and disinterested to them not wanting us to leave when we finished. Many of them expressed to us just how glad they were that we came, and that they wanted to get involved with us once they got out.

One of the biggest highlights of our tour occurred a couple concerts later in Virginia Beach, VA. We had a concert on the boardwalk at 8:30 pm and 10:00 pm. God truly allowed us to be free in Him. It looked like a party on the beach. People came and were engaged. They gave us energy and were not ready for us to leave. God gave us an awesome sense of credibility with the audience which allowed us to effectively minister to them.

That brings us up to the last few concerts that we did. We ministered at both an all mens and all womens juvenile detention center in Birmingham and once again God gave us credibility and allowed them to receive us and to allow us to minister to them.

We then went to two churches one in Birmingham two nights ago and one in Alpharetta, GA last night. Both concerts were in front of youth and truly allowed us to connect with them. We saw many people come to Christ.

We have two more concerts left. One tomorrow and one Sunday. I can not wait to see how God is going to close out this project. We have all grown so much spiritually and are amazed every time God moves through us and saves his people.

Thanks for reading, we appreciate all of your prayers and support!

Best Regards,

Gabriella Cudjoe (Gabby)

Swerve Update #2

2007-06-29T12:22:00.000-04:00

Hello friends!

I write this email with a hint of sadness. We just finished our last show in Indianapolis.

I ended my last email with our show in Las Cruces. The next state we rocked out in was California. We were blessed to be hosted by the awesome kids from the Santa Cruz summer project.

Our first CA show was at a homeless shelter. The residents were so excited. God continues to humble us with His faithfulness. The shelter was very well organized and provided us with tons of yummy hot dogs and hamburgers. After the show, we spent the first night riding rides on the boardwalk...woooot for roller coasters!

Our second show was for the Santa Cruz project kids for an outreach. The students were so awesome, sporting shirts with duct-taped S's on them:). The crowd was very receptive and even moshed a little bit (haha..wooohoo!) The students showered us with food and were a big help loading/unloading the bus.

Eugene scooted us over to Ft. Collins to play at CRU's New Staff Training. The show went well and the CRU kiddos seemed to really enjoy listening! We pray that this show opened the door for more future shows for keynote.

Today was our last show as I mentioned earlier. I have to admit, while Wesley was singing the song Home I kept repeating, "No...I'm not going home, choke back tears, I'm staying at Keynote forever;)."

Swerve has been an amazing experience. I can say that God has blown us away with His love, joy, power and hope.

Sending some Swerve love
Kirsten

Jesus Camp

2007-06-28T00:55:00.000-04:00

I just finished watching "Jesus Camp". VERRRRRYYYY interesting...

I literally just finished watching it, so I don't have a response that is fully formed in my mind yet. Everything is still in "Alphabet soup" stage in my head, swirling around until words start to solidify and make sense.

Anyways, I just started looking up the whereabouts of Becky Fischer, one of the main characters of this pseudo-documentary about a kids ministry she runs that is highly controversial, mostly due to the borderline scary ways of "indoctrinating" children with the gospel and how to be an army of God to "take back America for Christ."

As I was searching online, I came across a blog that mentioned how Becky Fischer had to actually close her Jesus Camp because it was vandalized and harassed after the making of the film.

I found an anonymous comment on the post from a non-Christian, that I thought to be very interesting.

Any comments yourself, and I'm all ears:

Those kids are going to do the work of the Earth, because they're going to realize that they are the Earth...and that sense of spirit and love and beauty is much more powerful than any hateful doctorine they were fed as a kid. And they may even retain their original beliefs, but if they're really smart, they'll catch on pretty quickly that you don't get anywhere by disrespecting another person's belief system and forcibly inserting your own to replace it. They'll realize that when Jesus said "The meek shall inherit the Earth," he wasn't referring to a group of obnoxious, sexually repressed, homophobic racists with unfortunate hairdos in Kansas City who think the entirety of the human population, excepting those who share their beliefs and are not from competing churches, are going to roast in hell. He was talking about the humble who take care of the Earth and work with it, not against it.

Yes, it's a little edgy, but it's probably one of the better apologetic rebuttals from a non-Christian standpoint that I've heard in a long time. And kudos to this person for actually interpreting that scripture correctly!

Now I've perked your interest. Go rent the movie and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! Comment away!!! Have a good night!

Swerve

2007-06-25T15:19:00.000-04:00

Swerve is our Pop/rock group for the summer!

They've been touring out in towards the west in Colorado and New Mexico.

Here's what Kirsten has to say from the road!

6/15/07: Fort Collins, Co
God blessed us with amazing weather for our first outdoor show in Colorado! A local church sponsored the event, graciously providing us with food and smiles! The concert had a large amount of children, which was very refreshing. A 12 year-old girl started a relationship with God! We were very blessed with wonderful hospitality.

6/16/07: Fort Collins, Co
Wow. God has continued to teach and humble us as we continue our tour. We entered this outdoor concert sponsored by a homeless shelter a bit worried due to limited access to power. The show started out with many shelter residents, but continued to grow as the show progressed. After the show we had the opportunity to chat with many shelter residents. I can say that I was personally inspired and humbled. 8 people started a relationship with God! We are so excited and continue to pray that we (Swerve) continue to keep God as our center:).

6/18/07: Las Cruces, New Mexico
Can you say beautiful?! God's beauty was so breathtaking and majestic. We arrived in New Mexico late in the evening and spent the next morning catching up on much needed sleep while J.J. and Adam drove to Texas to fix Eugene's air conditioner (yippppeeee!) Our show was held outside in a band shelter (way cool, crazy fun paint job). We had some technical difficulties (guitar mishaps,etc.). Aaron, our guitar player, made a good point, reminding us that satan is always ready to attack. 3 people started a relationship with God! Kristin and I had an amazing opportunity to speak to a group of young girls, only one who spoke English. We were blessed with amazing host families and weather.

We are so excited to serve God and thank all of you for your prayers!
God Bless,
Swerve (Kirsten)

POP in the NYC!

2007-06-25T14:58:00.000-04:00

Proof of Purchase is our student worship band for the summer!

Yes, that's right! They were in the NYC! They played at an inner city rescue mission and also at the Empire State Building!

Here's a brief update from Corbin (guitarist/vocalist) on what happened at their shows:

Good morning, everyone. Today marks our first full week of touring.

Tonight, we will be worshiping God at a homeless shelter in New York City. We're all looking forward to this because we will be able to spread the gospel to new ears.

To get you up to date, we began our tour in Ohio. Proof of Purchase was able to fellowship with staff at King's Domain Camp.

We joined about 20 staff in the evening, and also after breakfast the next day. After the evening session, one staff came forward to a director and confessed some sin that was going on in his life. He was moved by the Holy Spirit, and didn't feel he deserved to be in this position at camp. The director took this in grace and love, and talked it over with him.

Please pray for all the staff at KD, that they would be open and let the Holy Spirit work through them like this young man. We will be heading back to King's Domain this weekend to join with all the staff and also the campers!

The Second stop of tour was Philadelphia, PA. The Bethel Temple took us in with the most loving hospitality. I felt like family the minute I stepped into the church.

The church held 2 services Sunday morning in which at least 200 people attended all together.

Also, a large youth group from North Carolina worshiped with us there. Please pray for this group as they complete their mission in Philly. Pray also that God would continue to use Bethel Temple for His glory, reaching out to the community in love. I know He will.

Sunday night we started toward NYC, until some of our housing plans fell through. At that time, we pulled up to a gas station in New Jersey to figure out our next course of action. Everyone thank Tom in marketing for opening his home to our group. We were blessed to stay in his home 2 nights, and then in a hotel 2 nights.

Monday night POP joined with the summer project Tribeca at King's College, located in the basement of the Empire State Building. There we joined with about 70 college age students, or freshly graduated adults. The team took extra time to praise God through the Psalms before leading others in worship.

For the past couple of days, we have taken the opportunity to explore the city. We've met a lot of new people, including past Keynote staff. And through meeting the city and it's people, and think we're better equipped to relate to those at the shelter tonight.

God bless you all, and see you in another week,

Corbin and Proof of Purchase

Young Isaac in Medora, ND

2007-06-25T14:54:00.000-04:00

Young Isaac is our acoustic rock group that just played a show in Medora, ND-a very interesting place!

As some of you may recall, I was in Young Isaac last summer and also played at Medora, ND! It was a really cool concert and I got to share the gospel with four Malaysians in Medora working for the summer! How random is that?! Of all the places to meet Malaysians, North Dakota. Go figure.

Anyways, this is from Ryan, guitarist/singer for Young Isaac this summer:

update three | God wins.

6.23.2007

Howdy ya'll. we're camped in the beautiful ol' Medora, North Dakota, legendary home of president Theodore Roosevelt. It's absolutely crazy; it's as if we stepped onto a different planet, a dying subculture. This is the kind of town where the state flag is worshiped. Where the "cool kids" don't smoke cigarettes and cuss, they suck on straws of hay and polish their six-shooters in public. It's quite alien.

Three people accepted Christ at this show. I don't believe you could base it on the fluidity of my message. This was completely the power of God. Or my fellow band members just have a knack for playing their hearts out. I dunno... maybe the loud train whistle accentuated the points in my message. Just kidding.

Uh-oh, I have to keep this brief (my wireless has a tendency to die abruptly). Long story short... the previous two shows were at homeless shelters. They were amazing... the people were so grateful and encouraging. They were just as much of a blessing to me as we may have been to them. We got to eat "hamburgers" with some of the residents. Sorry, they were not hamburgers. Just call them slop-burgers like they are. Anyway, get this:

Eight people accepted Christ at the Union Gospel Mission in Minneapolis!
Three people accepted Christ at the Churches United Shelter in Moorhead!

!!!

Thank you everybody... if you could pray that we will be filled with energy and joy as we continue the tour, that would be very much appreciated. Miss ya'll.

Ryan

Updates from the road

2007-06-25T14:47:00.000-04:00

So what's been happening with the Summer Project Bands you might ask? Read below!

Here's an e-mail from Mangofish about recent happenings at their concerts. Mangofish is our edgier, hard rock band that has been touring through military bases and college campuses across the country:

Hey Keynote!

Our last show was at Atlanta Georgia. When we got there, we were told to lock up any valuables because the place we were at was kindof shady. The humidity was INTENSE! After setting up our equiptment, we were told we had an entire air conditioned camper to chill out in until we performed. It was just for us, and there were no other bands that had the same treatment. This performance was a little different as well because it was more of a variety show with multiple gigs of people singing for the Lord. The setting was in a beat up parking lot of a hotel where many drug dealings and prostitution sites were held. Crazy i know.

The purpose of this concert was to bring people that are homeless and have nothing left, to Christ. It was amazing! They had stands where people could talk about God and the Gospel, places were people could get hair cuts for free, close for free, food for free and care packages for free.
And if people wanted to turn their life around, if they wanted, they were provided the transportation to a rehab center immediately! People everywhere were accepting Christ as their savior and i dont think there was a dry eye anywhere! I still think back on that day it was that AMAZING!

In Christ,
Amanda Varnum from Mangofish

SP 2007

2007-05-21T12:15:00.000-04:00

The Summer Project is alive and kicking!

We went into full swing last Thursday and had a blast doing it. Going into it, of course, was a totally different story. I liken to use the term "deer in headlights" quite often when I have a huge task that seems overwhelming to me. I can tend to freeze up and feel paralyzed just by thinking about the enormity of the tasks before me.

But praise God things went amazingly smooth-way better than we thought-and the students really enjoyed themselves, which was the main thing we were hoping for all who arrived at the new building.

With that said, check out some of the pictures from the opening day!

SP2007 Opening Day

Walking in Budapest

2007-05-14T14:29:00.000-04:00

First night in Belgrade

2007-05-14T11:51:00.000-04:00

It was wild to find myself walking in the streets of Belgrade, Serbia on a mild Spring evening. Never in a million years did I ever think to myself that God would bring me here to serve Him in missions.

It was also sobering to see some of the buildings that were bombed back in the '90s in the terrorist attacks that happened in Belgrade. I can't imagine living in a place where anything like that could happen at any given moment. We live in a country where we are so far removed from that, we can hardly relate at all.

Though in recent years with the number of natural as well as domestic disasters that have happened, America certainly has it's share of scars that can relate with the rest of the world.

Anyways, it was a really neat city and awesome to be there! We almost felt like secret agent spies with a specific mission to infiltrate the country covertly. God's special ops baby. Oh yeah.

Hungarian train ride

2007-05-14T11:48:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my Hungarian train ride! This was on our train ride from Budapest, Hungary over to Belgrade, Serbia. There's really nothing spiritual or terribly interesting about the video, other than the fact you get to see a train ride that you've probably never seen before!

Anyways, the spiritual thing about the ride was that God gave us a very smooth ride across the border, and as soon as we stepped off our train, we met our hosts and were on our way into the city! That was totally a God thing. Go God!

Battle of the Bands Pre-Show. Budapest, Hungary

2007-05-11T20:15:00.000-04:00

This was taken from the lobby of the theater we played at in Budapest, Hungary for the Battle of the Bands the Student Venture high school ministry hosted there!

It was a phenomenal night filled with different bands of every genre with a few winners in different categories of competition. We weren't allowed to enter, of course, since we were the house band :)

We had about 700 students show up and each of them left their contact info and their thoughts about religion and Christianity, so that was huge for the staff team there! Every kid who walked through those doors now had some sort of connection with Student Venture and the staff had an easy way of getting on contact with those who may have been interested in spiritual things. Praise God.

I'll be posting up another short clip of one of the bands that played "Born To Be Wild" as their entry piece that night. Just the fact that they did that song was hysterical. But they did a great job with it and I think actually won a consolation prize! Go them.

It was pretty sweet to go overseas and have this as our first gig. It was a smooth transition into brief life in Eastern Europe. We had a great time :)

Enjoy!

Serbian Train Ride

2007-05-11T19:57:00.000-04:00

Another video! Finally!

I plan to post one of these up every once in a while. I'm going to keep it unpredictable just to keep you on your toes ;)

A real quick update:

Right now I'm in the midst of Keynote's Summer Project. I'm so excited that we have begun our project and that this year the student's will be able to experience the new building firsthand. That is a really exciting thing and I can't wait until all the rehearsal rooms are full of people and music. PRAISE THE LORD!

I'll be working in the logistics department this summer, taking a break from the road. I am SOOO happy that I can just rest and stay in one place for a few months. PRAISE JESUS! I think if I toured anymore I would literally cry. Don't get me wrong. Tour was amazing, but I need my rest. There is a time to labor hard for the Lord and also a time to rest. So praise God He is giving me rest and stability for the time being.

Thanks for visiting the site, reading what's up with me, and keeping me prayer! Love you all friends.

Have a great weekend!

Beatitudes

2007-04-23T19:12:00.000-04:00

It has been a REALLY long time since I've written!

There is always way too much to say. I sit down to write and feel overwhelmed by the plethora of thoughts that come to mind that I want to share with you! I wish my writing wasn't so goofy or clunky and I could just say it all eloquently and in a compelling way so you all could experience what I have.

I actually just got back from our LAST tour of the season out on the east coast at the Langley Air Force base and the US Coast Guard that's out there as well. It was a FABULOUS time and if there was any tour we wanted to be on given how tired we still are from our Eastern Europe trip, this was it!

I'll have some of our pictures up here soon from the air show that we got to see! F-22 fighter jet's, the new F-35, and the stealth fighter that they just built! It's so secret you can't even take pictures of it! Well, you could take pictures from the front and sides, but you couldn't take pictures of the back, because that's basically a military secret the U.S. doesn't want to give away to other countries abroad ;)

I'm jumping into Summer Project time tomorrow and I'm looking forward to being a desk jockey! WOOHOO! 9-5 is good for me for a few months! It'll be a REALLY nice change of pace to have some sort of consistency so I can pay attention to the things of life I normally don't pay attention to!

Like, pick up your laundry right away, Chris! Instead of, "ahhh! I've got twenty million other things to do, so I'll fold when I get back from doing that" Yes, I do that some times. Admit it! YOU DO TOO!

I wanted to share a really cool spiritual tidbit I got from being out on the road.

I was reading the Beatitudes for some reason that day (Can't really remember why exactly) and wanted to read it another version, so I thought, "hmmm...why not The Message?"

Here's Matthew 5:3 as Eugene Peterson puts it:

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule." -Matthew 5:3

We usually read this verse in the NIV as:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Isn't that neat?? Wow...I thought that was way more descriptive for me than the way NIV puts it. Not to knock the NIV, but oftentimes we hear these great verses quoted and really don't have a clue what they really mean until somebody just explains it for you, like Eugene Peterson does!

It struck a chord with me because of how often I've felt at "the end of my rope" these last few months. It's been a difficult time and to hear that I'm blessed because of it is really weird, yet strangely comforting, knowing that what I'm going through is not outside of God's sight. And in fact, it's blessed by Him. Again, weird. But good.

And lastly,

"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world." -Matthew 5:8

Amen to that. Our emotional and mental health is just as important as our spiritual health. I'd like to believe that all of them are linked together and that they are not so separate from one another as we'd like to think some times.

We can develop whole parts of our spirituality while never allowing God to touch the deep inner parts of our hearts where emotions are pent up and locked inside where deep healing needs to take place.

Anyways, thoughts for the day. Thanks for reading. I hope you're blessed and realize that when you feel like you're at the end of it all, that's when you can come to God. 'Cause I guess when we come to the end of ourselves, we come to the beginning of God.

Be blessed today!

Sofia, Bulgaria

2007-04-04T17:34:00.000-04:00

Hey people!!!

I actually made this video a few days ago right before we left Sofia, Bulgaria our last day of tour, so what I say in it is a few days late, but better late than never!

Again, it's been hard to get internet access, so I haven't been able to post up anymore videos until now!

I'll be home on the 9th! Taking some vacation time right now!

See you back in the states :)

From Skopje, Macedonia

2007-03-22T18:51:00.000-04:00

What's up, everybody?!

Hello from Macedonia! I just posted up a video on Google video to say hi to you all back in the states! Just click the play button below!

Missing you all!

Chris

Chelvis Eastern Europe Prayer Calendar

2007-03-13T15:54:00.001-04:00

Here's a copy of my prayer calendar for my Eastern Europe tour!

I covet your prayers, so please, please, pray for us! Thanks so much friends. I'm getting really excited now 'cause in less than 24 hours I'll be on the plane!!!

Blessings and see you in April!

Spiritual Climate of Eastern Europe

2007-03-13T13:41:00.000-04:00

We're leaving for tour tomorrow! ahhh!!

I'm still a little stressed out, but as I'm plowing through my task list and checking things off, my blood pressure is slowly decreasing :) It's wonderful to see that happen. :)

"So what will our audience be like in some of the places you will go?" you might ask.

Here's an e-mail excerpt from some of the Crusade staff in the region:

Bulgaria (Plovdiv, Smolian) – Smolian – strong Muslim presence; Plovdiv – the idea of a personal relationship is very foreign to them, Christianity=relgion=tradition; pray for the extra concert to come through in Smolian

Kosovo – strong Muslim tradition; hostility toward Serbia

Macedonia - Macedonians have an Orthodox background (like Greek Orthodox). Essentially it is a spiritual tradition but has become devoid of any relationship. Easter for example is a totally party weekend. You can draw a lot of parallels to Jesus’ response to the Pharisees. They were so committed to traditions that they had lost the concept of relationship. So it goes here in Macedonia. I have even heard students say they are “Christian atheists”. It makes sense to them because their tradition has also become their cultural identifier. They are Christians and not Muslims.
Most people believe in God. They know about Jesus dying on a cross. They don’t have a clue why that is the case. They might have read some of the Bible but since they have only been exposed to old translations it was really confusing for them. Besides, only the priest can read that. There is also an irony here. They are really committed to being “Orthodox” but they really don’t trust the priests. They see all kinds of wealth and scandal and think all the priests want is money.
If you talk about true faith, connecting with God personally rather than just through tradition, being dissatisfied with life and finding satisfaction and significance in Christ. I like to talk about the women at the well. Jesus told her that one day people would worship in “spirit and truth”. What does that mean?

We are hoping to use this as a outreach to generate new contacts
We are trying to target the concert to reach students who are from Skopje, the capital city, rather than just students from outside the city.
We are also going to try and target those that are more socially strong leader types. (How do you say that in a sensitive way?)

Serbia - Ok, some things about the audience. Most of them will be people that have an idea about the main things in the Bible ( God, creation, sin, salvation, Jesus, afterlife and so on...) but it doesn't mean they believe in that. And again, most of them would say they are Christians but also believe in reincarnation, read horoscope or coffee, don't believe that the Bible is entirely authentic - you get the picture. Also the "personal relationship with God" is VERY foreign to almost everybody here.

They also believe that the orthodox church is the only one that is good ( Catholics and old protestants are ok too) but all the rest is cult.

As you can see, there is a lot of traditionalism, and the idea of God being a real person who wants to be in a relationship with them is a very foreign idea.

Pray the love of God would break through the fallow ground of their hearts and that His Word would take root.

Pray the light of Christ would shine on them and rescue them from the kingdom of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of light.

In Ephesians 5:14, it says,

for it is light that makes everything visible. That is why it is said:
"Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you"

Tour Pics

2007-03-09T14:46:00.000-05:00

Well, I finally have some tour pics up on this site.

I've been meaning to post them up for a while now but with the rest of our tour happening, rehearsals, and now preparing to go overseas, it's been quite busy around these here parts!

Anyways, without further ado, check out pictures from our gigs at San Luis Obispo, Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, and Michigan State University.

Enjoy!

San Luis Obispo

Ft. Huachuca, Arizona

Michigan State Pictures

Eastern Europe Tour Dates

2007-03-07T00:56:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I didn't post this up until now!

For those of you who don't know this yet, Chasing Elvis will be leaving for Eastern Europe next Wednesday!

Here's a link to my recent ask letter including all the dates of our tour overseas:

Chasing Elvis Eastern Europe Tour

PLEASE pray for us as we have MANY, many preparations to do before we leave next Wednesday!

Thanks to all those that have already given and are praying for me. We've got two more full-day rehearsals on Thursday and Friday and then two days of tour prep before we leave for our flight at 1:40p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.

I CAN'T WAIT to taste some great chocolate, play for hundreds of people in six different countries, and sip the YUMMIEST coffee in the world!

Night y'all

The Police

2007-03-05T02:10:00.000-05:00

It's 2:11a.m....I just finished practicing our new songs for our upcoming Eastern Europe tour. WOW am I exhausted...I need to get to bed.

One of the songs we're doing is "Everything Little Thing She Does is Magic" by The Police and MAN! WHAT A STINKIN' HARD DRUM PART! GEEZ! Stewart Copeland! Yikes...for you drummers out there, you know what I'm talkin' about.

Yes, we are taking it old school and also playing that good old school U2, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Lookin' For". Talk about a contrast in drum parts!

I charted out both drum charts for each song, and one page is covered with black notes everywhere with accent markings-32-nd note even!-and the other has lots of white space with very few notes. It's just funny to me. But maybe this is musical jargon isn't making any sense to you non-music geeks.

Everything Chris said = Playing both very hard and very easy drum parts = LOTS OF TIME PRACTICING!

PLEASE, PLEASE pray for me...I really covet your prayers at this time of "crunch time" for rehearsals and all the preparations that need to take place before we leave for Eastern Europe. I can't believe we only have a week and a half left before we go! CRAZINESS!

Pray the Lord would bring together our music, help us to gel well, and to also spiritually prepare for the journey He's leading us on. It's going to be a long one and very physically, emotionally, and spiritually demanding. We need to be prepared!

We've gotta get our Tetnis shots (hope that's how you spell it), and a Hepatitis A shot for going overseas. We've also gotta make sure all our passports are up to date, do our taxes, get all our funds in place, pack properly, put our equipment together, learn 4 new songs in 4 days, and yeah, we're supposed to sleep, but somehow I don't have a feeling we're going to be doing too much of that in the next week and a half. I'm still up at this hour!

I'm rambling now, so I'll go. The main point, please pray! Thank you friends!

I'll be posting up our tour dates on here very soon. God bless you and have a great Monday, though I know they're usually drudgery to face!

Barley Island Brewing Company

2007-03-02T16:04:00.000-05:00

Chasing Elvis will be playing tonight at the Barley Island Brewing Company at 11p.m.!

No, that is not a typo. 11p.m.! We'll be half asleep while playing, but I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun and we'll have a blast.

Two bands are also playing: Three Piece Suit, whom I know nothing about and Serebro, two members of which are a part of Keynote. They're great, so I'm really looking forward to being able to play with all those guys as a part of a concert lineup.

I wish we could all do a number together and just rock out at the end, but I don't think that that's going to happen. :) Next time!

Sorry for the discoloration of the poster! I'm not quite sure why that happened because the colors are normal when I open up the .jpeg on my computer. We look like large smurfs.

In any case, this is our concert invite for tonight. Pray for us!

Have a great weekend!

Bowling Green University

2007-03-02T15:46:00.000-05:00

We just got back from Bowling Green, Ohio where we played last night!

Chasing Elvis played three songs as a part of Crusade's seeker-oriented meeting. The topic they discussed for the night was entitled "Coffee Talk" and the topic of choice was "Why would a good God allow evil and suffering in the world?"

I'm sure you've never wrestled with that one :)

The meeting was much more casual and fun so that non-Christians would feel more comfortable being there. Two staff members sat in love seats on stage, sipping "coffee" (it was really water in coffee mugs) and talked about the topic in a conversational style to simulate a coffee shop type of environment.

Both shared some very personal experiences-one about a close friend's death and the other about a best friend's betrayal. They talked about the faith struggles they had in reconciling with God's purpose in these hard times and how they dealt with it. It seemed very natural to talk about and didn't sound too forced or preachy at all, which I think was really great and translated well to the audience there that night.

There were about 300-350 students there and about half of them were non-Christians! The staff said there were a lot of new faces and that a lot of the students there were part of the Greek community on campus. Praise God!

One really cool thing about what's happening with the Cru movement, is that the staff there are making their students leaders be actively involved in a non-Christian community or organization on campus and befriend non-Christians as part of their commitment to being a leader in the movement.

The staff "require" each student at the start of the school year to go and just make friends with non-Christians. For the first few months of the school year when they go out and witness, they are not allowed to bring any "Four Laws" booklets and are just there to make friends with non-Christians, share their lives with them, love them and build relationships.

Of course, the eventual goal is to see them brought to Christ, but the staff really want to emphasize the importance of loving them for who they are and sharing their lives with them, so that these non-Christians aren't just projects that they need to work on and convert into Christians.

They want their students to be "out there" in the world, being salt and light to their campus, and making a difference by being friends with the lost, first and foremost. That is amazing.

And after all, isn't that what Jesus would really do?

Year of the Pig

2007-02-18T16:50:00.000-05:00

In honor of Chinese New Year's 2007, the Year of the Pig, here are some fun photos I found off of Google's image search:

This one is my favorite.

This is...kinda scary.

That's AWESOME!

I already got my red bag earlier, so I'm happy about that. Tonight I'll just be eating some dumplings (I know, you're supposed to eat other traditional foods on the New Year's though. Just don't have time to make all that stuff myself and I can't cook it that well anyway!), Rice Cake (Nain Gao), sweet rice ball soup, and mochi too.

I hope you all that are celebrating have a great time with family and friends!

Happy Chinese New Year's!

Beyond the Ultimate

2007-02-08T23:55:00.000-05:00

I know...I'm totally on a sports kick, but this really is cool.

Campus Crusade actually printed this ad type thing on the back of USA Today's paper a few days ago. It was really sweet! Here's the advertisement that they printed:

Check out the website at www.beyondtheultimate.org

It includes Tony Dungy's and Lovie Smith's testimonies. I think it was super encouraging to know that the two men head to head in the Superbowl were both strong Christians. Praise God! It's really cool to see the recent emergence of major sports figures as people of faith in the sports world.

Oh, and Athletes in Action, a branch of Crusade, sponsored the ad, and they also hosted a pre-superbowl breakfast the morning before for many of the Colts and Bears players to hear the testimony of Tony Dungy and other prominent faith figures.

Again, I love this guy.

I promise this'll be the last entry about sports stuff.

Maybe :)

After the Game

2007-02-08T03:47:00.000-05:00

The Colts reign supreme...

Peyton finally gets a ring so now he can go down in history as one of the greatest Quarterbacks to ever play the game...

And how does Tony Dungy end the game in the locker room? In prayer...this is why I love this guy.

It's really encouraging to see this man carry a faith-filled mantle in the sports world where he now has even more influence than he once did, being ushered into the limelight of the news.

The Colts had quite a welcome home by the city when they landed in Indianapolis. Apparently, people lined up outside of the RCA Dome as early as 2:30p.m. to wait for their arrival at 6:30p.m. for a citywide celebration of their victory-in 20 below weather!

It's quite exciting in the city and I'm proud to be a part of it.

Well, I guess I should be proud to be living in the Midwest right now :)

Dungy's Faith

2007-02-04T11:24:00.000-05:00

This is a really encouraging article about Coach Dungy (of the Indianapolis Colts) and the faith that he has.

It's been really cool to see him using his publicity to speak about his faith rather than himself. It's also been really encouraging to see how he handle the whole thing with the death of his son just last year.

Check him out on ABS News.com:

Dungy in Big Game After Personal Tragedy

And about today's game...

BELIEVE IN BLUE...

GO COLTS!

Tombstone, Arizona

2007-02-03T19:30:00.000-05:00

Site of the famous gunfight between the Earps, Doc Holliday and the McLaury's way back on October 26, 1881. Yes, it's the actual town where all the stuff really happened like in the movie Tombstone!

Chasing Elvis is in Arizona and we're staying at a Hospitality House for the weekend. I can't believe tomorrow is the Superbowl already! GO COLTS!

We'll be playing for a Super bowl party of some type for soldiers and youth, I believe right before the game. We've got all our Colts paraphernalia ready, so we're good to go.

We're hoping it'll be a strategic concert to strike up conversations with soldiers since we won't be able to overtly share the gospel from stage. Anyways, here's what I'm waking up to each morning here.

The Lord loves me...Arizona rocks! At least weather wise around this time of year! But it's still chilly at night.

After this weekend we're off to the campus of San Luis Obispo in the Cali-forn-i-a.

Check back soon for more tour updates!

February Touring Schedule

2007-01-29T21:50:00.000-05:00

The Chelvites hit the road again tomorrow afternoon!

We'll be headed out towards Arizona and California this time around (I know, I know...real "suffering" for the Lord)

Here's what our schedule looks like. Please pray for us!

Jan. 30th - 1p.m. Leave for Ft. Huachuca, Arizona.

Pray for safe travels as we drive cross-country

Feb. 2nd - Arrive in Ft. Huachuca, AZ. Concert at 6p.m. for soldiers who just finished basic training.

Pray for these soldiers to receive the gospel well. After basic they are worn out and vulnerable.
Pray that the seed of God's Word would fall on 'good soil'

Feb. 4th - Concert at 8a.m.; Drive day towards California (We'll be wearing our Colts' shirts! )

Feb. 5th - Drive to Southern California

Feb. 6th - Possible day off

Feb. 7th - Concert at 7:30p.m. at San Luis Obispo. We'll be playing for the students' Crusade meeting. This Crusade movement is several thousand in number I heard!

Pray for it to be an effective outreach, not just another concert for Christians at the school to show up to.
Pray it would be a strategic concert where Christians can bring their non-Christian friends to hear the gospel.

Feb. 8th - Concert at 12:30p.m. at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo

Feb. 9th - Possible day off

Feb. 10th - 9a.m. to 11p.m. Keynote Vision Dinner. We'll be playing a few songs from our concert set for current and potential donors to catch a vision for what our Keynote bands do for outreaches across this country and abroad.

Pray for strength and stamina for this very long day! We're going to need it!
Pray for great financial and prayer partnerships to be formed between Keynote and these potential supporters.

Feb. 11-14th - Drive back home to Indianapolis!

We're going to be gone for quite some time, so we'll be tired, weary, and relationships can become strained under such circumstances.

Pray for good times in fellowship with each other and also for good times alone apart from each other. Both are equally important out on the road!
Pray for boldness and effectiveness in our witness.
Pray for divine appointments to speak individually with soldiers and students.
Pray for us to keep short accounts with each other
Pray for excellence in our music and presentation of the gospel. Pray our concerts would be a credible, quality product that would be attractive to non-believers so they would listen and hear the gospel clearly.
Pray for our health
Pray for continued safety as each of us take turns driving our bus!
Pray our bus wouldn't have major mechanical problems that would hinder us from being able to travel from concert to concert

I'm excited for these next few concerts! It's kind of a bummer that we'll be driving on the day of the superbowl, but hopefully we'll still be able to catch some of it that day. Go Colts!

Thanks friends!

Chasing Elvis Photo Shoot

2007-01-08T18:40:00.000-05:00

So our promo shot has been selected for this year, but I'm kind of "eh" about it. I want to know what you think.

Here is our promo shot:

It's nice, but I don't know...to me it doesn't say "we're a cool band". It says that we're fun and smiley, but I'm not sure if I would look at this on a college campus and think, "that's a cool band shot! I want to go see them!"

In contrast, I think this picture says to me, "cool, interesting band". I would look at this poster and say, "huh...cool" and I might be compelled to check it out. But with the above picture, I would just think, "that's nice...random people in front of a building...smiley girl doing a weird leg thing..." I don't want to knock the photo, 'cause it is a nice photo, but it's not my favorite.

Now, what do you think about the picture below?

That's cool, right? It's not like smack me in the face, "wow, I want to see that band." But it looks like a band picture to me and it's interesting. I could totally see our band name fitting right across the top of the purple-ish backdrop and it would look pretty cool.

And here's one last one that I thought was pretty cool too. Try to look at us without the window view and I think there's a lot you could do with this shot. I like the bubble effect a lot. It's cool. Maybe not as compelling as the one above, but still pretty cool.

Anyways, I wanted to collect a variety of comments that I might be able to convey to my band and see if they're willing to think about using another picture for other promotion purposes. It's really our marketing department and Chris Zaugg that makes the final decision, but maybe we can convince them to use another shot if we have enough constructive feedback from outside sources.

SO! Please comment and tell me your thoughts! I'd love to hear!

Georgia Aquarium

2007-01-05T19:19:00.000-05:00

Please click on the link below to see pictures of the Georgia Aquarium I visited over break!

God is SO creative. I almost cried at some points seeing the beauty of creation. We truly serve an awesome, fun, and creative God. Praise the Lord!

Georgia Aquariam pics

In ATL

2006-12-22T23:29:00.000-05:00

Landed in Atlanta a few hours ago and now I'm just relaxing in my dad's apartment off of Marietta St. in the heart of downtown Atlanta. Man, it's way different here than Indy. It's a really cool place! Again, a heck of a lot more diverse and one of my dad's friends, who's like an auntie to me now, just made me some AWESOME dinner!!!!

She made three different kinds of dumplings, bought some duck from Chinatown, and made us a sort of pork soup. GOSH, it was AMAZING!!!! Goodness how I miss Chinese food. It was so refreshing to some authentic Chinese home cooking. Mmmmm...I miss it.

Anyways, my friend sent me a fun link to a Christmas animation. It's so cheesy but I cracked up really hard at the end. I think it's hilarious.

Hope you're having fun wherever you are! And have a blessed holiday!

http://www.tvbean.com/uploaded/pipi/81.swf

podcast

2006-12-16T14:52:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention in my Thanksgiving break update to check out Jimmy FauntLeRoy's podcast and website!

Jimmy is the lead singer/songwriter for Chasing Elvis, who is wicked talented. You should definitely check out his stuff! Yes, you can finally sample a bunch of music from the group I'm with!

www.littlelordmusic.com

And for his podcast, if you have iTunes, you can open up iTunes, log into the iTunes network, punch in his name in the search box, and a bunch of his free podcasts will come up that you can download and watch!

I highly recommend listening to his song, "Before the World Was Made", which is based on a poem that was quoted in John Eldredge's book, "Waking the Dead". I love the lyrics. It's a great song.

Enjoy!

Light to Unite

2006-12-03T00:41:00.000-05:00

A friend just sent this link to me.

Bristol- Myers is donating a dollar to AIDS research every time someone goes to the web site below and moves the match to the candle and lights it. Please forward this to your friends to spread. It takes a few seconds to raise a dollar.

As of 5 am EST, this site has had a quarter million hits. Keep it going and spread the word.

2006-11-28T19:25:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving break

Sorry I haven't updated this for a while!

I've been so busy finishing up my Christmas ask letter I've barely had enough time to breathe! But now that that's finally out of the way, I can actually write something on here!

It's super late, but I realized I never wrote about my Thanksgiving vacation. It was a great time with family and friends and I was really thankful to see my church family as well.

I ate so much turkey I think I became one for a day. Gobble, gobble is right!

This was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. And it's so cool because it's one of the church kids wearing the blue sky nine sticker! hehehe

Isn't that so cute?!?!

I can't remember if that was Jeffrey or Jonathan. To be honest, I never quite figured out the difference since they're twins. Sorry H.C. and Cynthia! I have to ask them how to tell them apart next time I see them. But man...that's just so cool. I hope bsn puts this pic on their website!

Church folks also gave me a nice cake:

And I got to hang with my mom and sister. Unfortunately I only got a picture of my sister and not my mom while back home.

Here she is trying to feed my dog something:

Or maybe she was trying to keep something away from his mouth that he was trying to eat...I forget. Anyways, speaking of my dog! IT'S SHOGI!!!

Isn't he so cute?!?! He's the best dog EVER!

Here's one of him writhing on the ground or something. hehehe...

All that to say, I had a wonderful time, though it was quite stressful to be honest! I know now that the next time I go back I need to really limit my time with people and even limit my visits with people because it can become very exhausting and no longer feel like an actual vacation.

I'm looking forward to Christmas break in Atlanta, where I'll be visiting my dad. I don't know anybody there so I'll just be chillin' until the sun goes down every night! It'll be sweet.

Don't get me wrong. I love you folks back in NY, but I need to either decide to see people or not when I go back. Trying to have vacation but then trying to accommodate my schedule to see everyone just doesn't happen.

Chasing Elvis rehearsal

Rehearsal with the 'Elvites' (as we're affectionately called) has been going great! I have to admit there were some days I was little flustered at the distractions and not getting as much done as I'd hoped to, but a lot of it is adjusting to the work style of a different team.

I tend to be a lot more gung-ho and go get 'em and just plow through a lot of time with rehearsing with minimal distractions and tangents, rather than just kind of letting discussions and rabbit trails go long.

Anyways, the end of this past week was GREAT and we got A TON accomplished. I'm feeling way more confident about our material and things are starting to come along. As always, in a new situation, it always calls for a lot of adjustment, change, and time to just gel and get to know each other socially, spiritually, and musically. God has been working in all of us and binding us together in His love.

Each of us has been going through unique struggles in our lives and I'm thankful our team has been a platform for us to share those burdens and pray for each other. I've been really thankful for that and am so blessed by them. I love my team! And I'm looking forward to an incredible season ahead of us.

When we come back from Christmas break, we'll only have about a week and a half before we hit the road for our first gig on January 19th down in Florida for Crusade's New Staff Training, so it's not a lot of time! I'm praying for more consistency in the efficient use of time for our rehearsals so we'll feel well prepared.

My tendency is to go off the deep end and work 'til my fingers bleed, so I think it's a good mix for us to come to a compromise and come to a middle ground of working hard but relaxing and taking welcomed breaks when they're really necessary.

Please keep praying for us! We need it!

We also just finished our photo shoot so I'll be posting up new pictures of the band on here soon. Keep checking back for more updates! Thanks for reading friends! Blessings to you!

Thanksgiving Newsletter

2006-11-21T14:06:00.001-05:00

I've posted up my newest newsletter!

Just click on the "Newsletters" drop-down menu on the right of the webpage to view it.

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!

Updates

2006-11-11T23:52:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't updated this in a while. Way too much has been going on!

I've recently moved into a new place, which is a total praise, because I found this random guy off of roommates.com literally three days before my lease was up. My lease was up on Oct. 31st and he called me on the 28th. I went to check out his place on the 29th and it looked great.

It's been a little over two weeks now since I've been there and it's been working out great so far. He was divorced four years ago and is now still living with his kids, but both his kids are older. Ashton is 12 and Alex is 16.

I know you're thinking, "you're living with kids???" It's definitely not what I quite had in mind at first and it's taken some adjusting to, but it's really a sweet deal. I'm paying very little compared to what I actually have!

I have my own room, which is plenty spacious for me, that came with tons of free furniture! He already had a queen-sized bed in there, a computer desk and two dresser drawers, so I didn't need to purchase any new furniture! Praise God!

He's got a garage, washer and dryer, nice kitchen, a deck out back, huge living room with a huge TV, and he's allowing me to use the master bathroom as pretty much my own bathroom. So in the end, I lucked out big time.

I've already gotten into some pretty cool conversations with him about what I do for a living and what Keynote is. Interestingly enough, he has two cousins that are actually pastors! Get that! I look forward to more conversations with him when I can talk more about faith issues.

So, with all that said, my living situation this coming year looks like it will be WAY better than it was :)

What else is happening with me?

1. Regrouping - Well, Chasing Elvis is losing a member :(

Sadly, Laura Piscitello has been reslated to be in blue sky nine as the lead vocalist. Another new staff was originally supposed to fill the lead vocalist spot but the Lord led her away from Keynote and she's no longer coming to be with us. :( And she was actually part of my new staff training class too! Sad! So, with that huge need in the band, Laura was asked by the leadership if she was willing to step in and switch bands. She agreed.

BOO! I'M SAD! I already told Pishy I was upset at her >:| But what can you do? God apparently has different plans, and in this ministry, you've always gotta be flexible with most everything.

2. Church History Class - We just started our church history class today! This is part of Crusade's IBS (Institute of Biblical Studies) program for all staff while they are a part of Crusade. All full-time staff that haven't taken this course yet were required to take it.

It's pretty intense. We've got to cover everything from the 1st century church until the modern church! IN SIX DAYS! We're expected to read the entire textbook we have for the class from cover to cover. And ya know, if I actually manage to do that (I'm on p. 211 so far), it'll be the first time EVER that I've finished an entire textbook for any class I've taken. I don't think I ever did that in college once!

3. Practicing - The North warehouse at Keynote's old office has become like my second home. I'm there maybe a few hours each day trying to practice as much as I can for this upcoming new season with tons of new material for Chasing Elvis.

It's been a huge blessing to just set up my drums and virtually play at any time and for however long to my heart's content! It really is the Lord's provision. I've almost come to view Keynote as a sort of second music school for drums because of how much I practice and the musical knowledge I've been able to soak up while here.

I've been able to make huge strides in my drumming, which I know I wouldn't have been able to had I stayed in New York and not come out here for full-time ministry. The lessons I've had with Dane Clark have been HUGELY instrumental in changing the way I play and molding me into a much better drummer. I ain't there yet, and probably never will be, but man, I'm WAY better than I first started here. Praise God.

So anyways, I'll be putting in the hours and chugging along to know the parts as best as I can before rehearsal starts on the 27th, right after Thanksgiving weekend (which is my birthday by the way!)

4. Counseling - When Dave Roux, my spiritual development coach, asked me how counseling was going the last time we met, I told him that all this "stuff" in my heart keeps coming up to the surface and it's ugly and hard to look at sometimes. "So it's going well then," he said. I begrudgingly replied, "I guess..."

That is indeed what God is doing in my life. My counselor said in our last session that it seems like God is doing all this to back me into a corner until I let Him love me. He's allowing me to go all my different routes until all my efforts are exhausted, I give up all my striving, and just let Him love me. I've got a long ways to go...please pray for me.

And that's about all that's happening now in a nutshell. I'm excited for the Thanksgiving holiday and some much needed rest time before the busy prep season starts up again.

Blessings everyone!

40 years

2006-11-05T01:48:00.000-05:00

Keynote just recently celebrated their 40th anniversary! Along with that, we recently acquired a new headquarters, complete with a new, rehearsal facility that is in the process of being built! It's a pretty amazing story.

Below is the full story about us featured on Campus Crusade's staff website. I've also included the story about Carole's 8-year prayer for our ministry that was finally answered.

Enjoy!

____________________________________________________________________
Keynote Moves into New Headquarters
By Gabriel de Guia
Posted:08.Sep.2006

Keynote leadership in front of new building.

Keynote, the music division of Campus Crusade for Christ, dedicated their new headquarters on August 18, 2006.

The new site dramatically increases their space from 7,000 square feet to 42,000 square feet.

Their previous office, a converted two-story home, lacked room to grow.

The house brimmed with 45 cubicles, a classroom and a board room - also known as the living room.

Keynote and its 100 staff members needed a larger place.

"It's hard to cast vision and recruit when people see our space and don't know where they'd fit," says Keynote Director Chris Zaugg.

The new headquarters will provide multiple rehearsal rooms, enabling several bands to practice at the same time, something they didn't have before. It will also grant the ability to host concerts and fundraising events and much-needed office space.

Aware of the building needs of the ministry, a long-time friend and financial donor to Keynote contacted Chris in December of 2005 with an idea.

After initial discussions about a facility twice the size of their home office, the businessman returned to Chris a few weeks later.

He presented plans for two buildings - an existing one and one to be built.

Keynote plans to host a celebration event in their new facility as they commemorate 40 years of ministry in October.

Keynote, striving to partner with as many Campus Crusade ministries as they can, adopted the slogan, "Imagine the possibilities."

Keynote's Headquarters: Answering an 8-year Prayer

By Gabriel de Guia
Posted:08.Sep.2006

Carole and Keynote leaders in front of new headquarters building.

"I began praying that God would blow open the doors," says Carole Bongard, associate executive director for Keynote.

In 1998, the 15-year-staff member and mother of two prayed for a place big enough for 200 staff members.

They needed a facility that could house all of their summer project students and help cast vision for prospective donors and future staff members.

A year after she began praying, Carole says God gave her a vision which she put to paper. She produced a sketch of a dark, brick building with a pond, a flagpole, and an arching driveway. She also knew of a second building, but couldn't see it.

Wanting to keep the vision private, she only told a few people about the picture.

John Pescio, a fellow Keynote staff member, was one of them. He accompanied Carole on their first visit to the new site.

"Carole, do you remember that conversation we had several years ago?" asked John as they approached. "This is what we talked about, right down to the flagpole and circular drive in the front."

Tears filled Carole's eyes as they drew closer.

"What I envisioned years prior was right in front of my face," says Carole. "I couldn't believe it."

2006-11-01T01:38:00.000-05:00

I join the 'Elvi' starting today! Woohoo!

Let me introduce the new band to you! Drum roll please...

Arlee Brandt - Keyboard/Vocals

Jen Barger - Bass

Laura Piscitello - Guitar/Vocals

And, of course, our fearless leader, Mr. Jimmy FauntLeRoy - Lead Guitar/Vocals

I'm uber excited about the new band! Chasing Elvis is a pseudo-funky alternative rock band that plays a mix of originals and covers. Needless to say, I'll have my work cut out for me this year!

This will be the first time I'll be playing drums in a more funk rock based element. It should prove really interesting and a good stretching experience for me musically.

You can check out our website at www.chasingelvis.com and also listen to a sample of our music online at www.keynotefuel.com

Jimmy is a hilarious guy with a real talent for songwriting. You can catch some of his hilarity on his podcast that he has on his personal webpage at littlelordmusic.com. But please note, his hilarity is not for the faint of heart or young of ears. :) Listen with discretion!

Hope you had a safe, fun, and happy Halloween.

Night

Military Prayers

2006-10-30T15:19:00.000-05:00

I can't believe that the death toll of U.S. soldiers in Iraq reached 101 in the month of October alone! Those are staggering statistics and in light of the concerts blue sky nine just played at Fort Gordon and Fort Jackson, it really puts things in perspective...

I'm so thankful we had the opportunity to be able to witness to those soldiers going through basic training right now and that they got to hear the gospel (some of them responded) before it was too late. I see now how truly significant those concerts really were.

Please keep them all in our prayers. They really need it. Pray for them all to come home soon and for the Lord to protect them from their enemies.

Here's an article from wcbstv.com:

101 Americans Die in Iraq...

Military Miracles

2006-10-25T00:52:00.000-04:00

Here are the stats and comments from our last three concerts at military bases last weekend.

For those who received my updates, again, it was such an incredible time. It was one of the most memorable experiences in my life.

We played for almost 700 soldiers, got over 500 comment cards returned, and had 55 soldiers say they accepted Christ for the first time! Praise God!

Fort Gordon. Augusta, Georgia

27 cards

4 - interested in talking about spiritual things

no decisions for Christ

7 - wanted to join a Bible study

Fort Jackson. South Carolina

10 am show:

256 cards

54 - interested in talking about spiritual things

30 decisions for Christ!!!

41 - wanted to join a Bible study

Comments:

Thank you all for coming out today. This has helped me more than you will ever know. May God bless you all in everything --Tabitha

I have been a Christian for a long time, but find myself falling sometimes. Programs like yours are uplifting and remind me of who I am and why I'm here! Thank you! --Jessica

"Thank you. Your testimony gave me some things to think about. I have accepted Jesus in my life, but I have fallen from having a strong relationship with the Lord. I want to build my relationship with Him." --Victoria (wanted to join Bible study)

"The band today has really made everything that I have gone through make a ton of sense and I would like to thank you for that." --Daniel (Accepted Christ)

"I'm very happy I came today. I feel like today marks the day I start living my life for God." -- Alishia (Accepted Christ)

3 pm show:

257 cards

62 - interested in talking about spiritual things

25 decisions for Christ!!!

82 - wanted to join a Bible study

Comments:

Awesome. Thank you for opening a Jew's eyes to the love of Jesus. -- Jaquelyn

***WOW!***

You were the highlight of my basic [training] experience. --Amanda

You guys were amazing. Awesome. I cried but had a great time! Thank you! I have been a spiritual person all my life...your words today brought me back closer to God. --Megan

I loved the show and the spiritual comments touched me heart and soul. I say that because although I believe in God your group made me really think about wanting to go more in depth with my Lord Jesus Christ. --Tameisha

Concert was really motivating. It really got me in touch with God and really opened my eyes for life. --Eric

Loved the show. We really needed that. I feel so homesick and remembering God loves me was a good feeling. --Tracy

It was a very inspirational show and helped relieve a lot of worries and fears being here in the Army. --Sara

I loved you guys. It's one of the first times I've smiled since last week. Thank you so much. --Matthew

And the best comment I've ever gotten on my playing:

Drums were the best I've heard live --Emmit

WOW! I'm glad you think so Emmit, 'cause I know I'm not the best drums I've heard live!

I don't share that comment to boast, but I share that because I'm humbled. I KNOW that I, myself, am not the best drums to be heard live. But to know that I'm one that sticks out in his mind as the best he's heard live is really humbling. It signifies to me just how much the concert meant to these soldiers and how it touched their lives. I don't think I'll ever forget it for the rest of my life.

Thanks Emmit. And we're praying for you wherever you go in the future. We pray for your safety, protection, and salvation to be in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

Have an awesome weekend everybody!

Potomac State College

2006-10-19T13:15:00.000-04:00

blue sky nine just got back from West Virginia two nights ago. Our show at Potomac State College went WAY better than expected! Praise the Lord!

To give you some background about what the campus was like, here's an excerpt from an e-mail I received from Randy Bonner, a Campus Crusade staff worker in the West Virginia region:

PSC is a very hard place, I will be praying for you. The gay and lesbian movements are radical on campus. Many of the heterosexual females have express[ed] fear concerning the aggressiveness of the lesbian students It is a campus where, according to Tim, the administration and faculty are on the verge of losing control.

Tim, is a professor at Potomac State who heads up the Crusade movement there, and told us that the Christians on campus suffer a lot of persecution from the homosexual community. He told us how the group has been very blatantly antagonistic towards anything Crusade tries to do and how hard it is for Christians to stand up for what they believe, let alone share their faith with others.

Considering all that, we were a bit concerned and honestly, a little afraid of what might happen during our concert. We expected a lot of opposition to the gospel, but amazingly, the concert went very smoothly, and no students said anything antagonistic towards us during the concert. It was really incredible. And actually, most of our audience showed up during Teresa's gospel presentation and sat down to listen!

I remember a group of fraternity girls who wandered right up to one of the tables with benches in front of our stage area and listened to Teresa share. That was really cool to see.

Before the concert began, we had the opportunity to hear what it's been like for them being Christians on campus and we had a really sweet and tender time of prayer with them before the concert began. We prayed for their safety, their strength, and for them to continue to be lights for Jesus on the campus, though it was difficult and very spiritually dark there.

Seeing how the concert went and what happened that day was totally a testament to God answering prayer and evidence of His Holy Spirit working on the campus.

So what happened at the show??

At the end of the day, we found out that one person had indicated a decision for Christ! Praise God! Teresa also got to talk to a girl who immediately opened up to Teresa about her struggles, her life, how lonely she was on campus, and where she was with God. After Teresa talked with her, some students gathered around this girl and prayed for her. She said she's really interested in being involved with Crusade and joining a bible study!

Again, I was thoroughly encouraged by how firmly these students were standing up for what they believed and I could see the joy of the Lord on their faces even in the midst of persecution and tribulations. I mean, they even said their afraid of proclaiming that they believe in Jesus Christ to their professors, in fear that they might fail the class! I can't imagine that...

They are my heroes and I am humbled by their witness for the Lord. May Jesus continue to shine on that campus.

Please keep the students at Potomac State in your prayers.

Thanks for reading friends!

Recording

2006-10-14T21:11:00.000-04:00

So blue sky nine finally finished recording this week!

We spent most of this week in the studio, laying down three songs from our set. The purpose of the recording is not so much to give out to people as samples of our music, but to keep as permanent pieces, or mementos, of the band.

We recorded Black Horse & the Cherry Tree (KT Tunstall), Miniature Disasters (also KT Tunstall), and Landslide (Stevie Nicks). Landslide came out pretty nice, though I would've definitely liked more time to really nail down my drum part.

It was frustrating to me because I can still clearly hear a lot of mistakes I made, but hopefully I did enough takes that we can kind of hodgepodge it together and make it sound good. But I tend to think, "give the drummer (or any instrumentalist) more time to nail it down, then you won't have to edit so much!" But oh well...

I think knowing that our recording is for personal use than to actually "market" our band, helps me to let go of little gripes about it. Otherwise, I'd be super picky and don't really care if it takes me 50 takes to get it right-I want to get it down right! And I (we) shouldn't rest until it is.

Anyways, we head out for Keyser, West Virginia tomorrow. Next week will be blue sky nine's last tour for the group as it exists today. I'm really bummed that we won't be able to play at Sam Bartlow's school in Wheeling, where we were originally scheduled to play earlier this coming week (for those who don't know, Sam Bartlow was a summer project student at Keynote this summer with the praise & worship group, Proof of Purchase).

It was pretty much all planned out but last minute details fell through and well...that's how the cookie crumbles :( BOO! I'm sad we won't get to see you Sam! And your new bf (boyfriend) Cory either! Alas...we hope to see her again one day, which I'm sure we will :) We're shamelessly trying to recruit her and she's pretty much sold on coming here anyways. hahaha...right Sam?

We'll be gone this weekend until Tuesday when we come back home. We'll stay here until Thursday, I believe, and then head out for Georgia on Friday. We have one show at Fort Gordon military base in Georgia and then that's all folks!

It's been an interesting season for the band and for my life as well. I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about :)

Good night everybody! Have a great weekend!

Keynote's 40th Anniversary

2006-10-10T17:14:00.000-04:00

Hey all,

So sorry, but I didn't realize you have to actually be on staff to access this site. DOH! sorry about that...

I'll try to download the issue and post it directly on my site. Thanks!

*************************************************************************************

Hey everybody!

Just wanted to let you know that Keynote's 40th anniversary is mentioned on the staff website page of Campus Crusade!

Click on the link to read the full article:

Keynote story

Comments

2006-10-09T22:42:00.000-04:00

I've listed some comments we received from students at one of our recent shows in Iowa at Des Moines Area Community College.

This is why I do what I do...

I've been to several different churches, and I believe in a creator. I feel no religion has it right.

There is a god, but they aren't who you worship. How do you know the bible isn't hearsay?

I'm just lost & confused. I will find the right direction one day. You guys got me thinking.

I have studied the bible but I feel that the stories are only that, stories. But they help me live my life with good morals. Studying the bible word for word won't help my life anymore.

These were some encouraging comments we received:

I don't know very much about religion, because I haven't been to church since I was 5. I want to learn more.

Your message is REALLY cool! It's very encouraging to know that someone is going around sharing the gospel.

At our last show at Grandview College we had a Rwandan student indicate a decision for Christ! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Considering it was a small crowd with not many non-Christians there at all, it was highly encouraging.

Even if all we do is just for one person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, it is all worth it.

blue sky nine in Iowa

2006-10-04T02:58:00.000-04:00

We just played a concert tonight that started at 9p.m. As you can guess, we ended pretty late and I am just about to go to bed right now...it's almost 2 in the morning and we gotta get up at 7a.m.! BLAH!

Tomorrow morning we'll be playing at Des Moines Area Community College at 11a.m. and then the following evening on Thursday night, we'll be playing at Grandview College.

I'd appreciate your prayers for both these concerts! Thanks folks!

Check back for more updates :)

The Assigning of the Call

2006-10-03T12:44:00.000-04:00

I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church...
(Colossians 1:24)

This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, "If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn't object!"

But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed-you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.

I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service.

We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.

(Taken from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost For His Highest, September 30th entry)

Gosh, doesn't reading that just make you mad?! It upsets me because it's so true. "Use anything, speak to me directly, Lord, but don't use people!" It's a lot more humbling that way and I believe it takes a lot more faith and builds a lot more character and maturity.

Before my last tour through Iowa, I sat down with an older confidante, and dialogued about everything that was happening with me at Keynote. We talked about how I was doing, how tour was, but most of all, about what God was doing in my life and where He was leading me.

I shared that God had recently been increasing my burden for overseas missions and the pursuit of social justice. I told her that what I really wanted to pursue was music with a social conscience. I want to be part of a music ministry that couples music with outreach to the poor, or raises awareness of issues of social injustice that is happening in our world.

I told her about a Ten Shekel Shirt concert I went to up at Cornell University, back in 2004. That was actually the night Clearview, my former band, got to open up for them. That was a real treat!

Anyways, their concert was part of their "Stop the Traffic" tour, which involved raising awareness of the sex trafficking of children that was happening in southeast Asia. They had video footage of undercover ministry leaders whose specialties were to go into these areas and expose the leaders of these sex trafficking rings and bring them to justice. It was such an eye-opening experience and really showed me the unique power music can have in affecting change.

After I finished my story, I said to her, "that's what I want to do."

She thought that was great and encouraged me to not suppress the desires and passions God had put in my heart, and to go after them. He put them there for a reason and it took coming here to Keynote, to really bring that up to the surface. And it's true...if I never came here, I would've never realized what I really want to do with my life and the kind of ministry I'm looking for.

I've been pressed, crushed, and poured out. God is pressing and pressing me down, closing in on those things in my life that need to be squeezed out of me.

Back in New York, and just where I was in life prior to full-time ministry, lent me to take things like pursuing social justice and ethnic diversity for granted because it was all around me! But being here has been like a pressure cooker that God has used to make all these things bubble up to the surface.

He's used people, situations, and very difficult circumstances to bring all these things to light. I am being more well defined as to who God has created me to be. He is teaching me how to live out of that truth and how to live out of my identity in Christ. I should not be ashamed. I should not just try to "fit in" and suppress these desires and passions just because very few or no one at all, may share the same values as me.

No matter what, I do not serve Keynote. I do not serve man. I serve the Lord. He is my God and I am His son. I follow Him and am not tied or pinned to one particular organization or set of beliefs. All that I do should flow out of my relationship with Christ and He is leading me. Wherever He leads me is where I should follow.

God's still got a lot to do in me in my time here at Keynote, but I feel that this time here is just a season in life that may pass after this year's new placement.

Nevertheless, I cannot look beyond this time. I must prepare for the future while fully embracing the present, soaking in and receiving all that God has for me while here. I must face the challenges, stand up to the test, and go the distance. I am facing the wind, walking right into the storm, with my Lord strong right beside me.

May we rejoice in our sufferings, our crucibles, as we are crushed by His fingers so that we may be "broken bread and poured out wine."

Old Lessons

2006-09-29T23:44:00.000-04:00

As I was reading yesterday's devotional from My Utmost For His Highest, I noticed a portion of the devotional that I highlighted in orange. Obviously, at the time that I had highlighted what he said, it was very pertinent and something I should learn and really hold onto.

Now when did I buy this devotional? Probably back in '98 or '99 while I was still in college. That was 7 to 8 years ago and that quote I highlighted STILL applies to me today.

I just think it's amazing how old lessons can still be applicable to you at almost any time in your life, though you might be in a completely different stage of it.

It's like, I highlighted it because I wanted to get that portion of it into my head so I would learn from that and hopefully change and make forward progress. But I read that quote and thought to myself, "ya know, this quote is just as applicable to me right now as it was back then."

I can't remember exactly what circumstances I was in when I read that passage, but I can see the part of a person's character that he's pointing at and I still struggle with that same character issue.

Man, I'm slow...

Maybe I shouldn't get too down on yourself 'cause I'm always a work in progress and for every two steps forward, sometimes you take one step back. OR, it's just an area of your life that takes a lot longer to change...I'm grieved because I'd have changed a lot more by now.

Anyways, I'll stop killing you with the suspense. The main quote is in bold, but I included the paragraph from which it came from to give you more context. The devotional is about Jesus' transformational gaze.

This is what Oswald Chambers says:

"Then Jesus looking at him, loved him..." (Mark 10:21). This look of Jesus will require breaking your heart away forever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked in this way at you? This look of Jesus transforms, penetrates, and captivates. Where you are soft and pliable with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on having your own way, and always certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, then there are whole areas of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.

When I read that statement I just sigh...I thought I'd grown more in this area, and I have, but not as much as I'd thought. If I did, I think that quote would hit me as hard, since it's something I still see in my life; an attitude that is still prevalent in my mind much of the time.

Often I lack the humility to allow Him to gaze upon me and look into His face. I want His hands and His gifts, His blessings. But not often do I seek His face anymore. I'm afraid of the gaze and what His stare will reveal in me...but I know God's heart is good. I need the truth to set me free.

I can write tons more as always, but these are my thoughts for now :) It's late on Friday night and we leave for tour tomorrow morning.

Upcoming Tour

Pray for blue sky nine as we head up to Michigan and then out to Iowa!

We'll be in Michigan this weekend and then we head out to Iowa on Monday morning.

Pray for save travels and awesome times working at the campuses that we'll be playing.

We have one show in Michigan on Saturday night and we have three shows in Iowa on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for reading friends!

Goodnight

Summer Newsletter

2006-09-28T00:20:00.000-04:00

Just letting you know I've uploaded my summer newsletter on the website finally!

Just click on the "newsletters" link on the side tab

Enjoy!

And please feel free to e-mail me if you'd like to be on my e-mail list to receive a copy for yourself

2006-09-24T21:03:00.000-04:00

Currently listening to:

My favorite track so far: Belief

We're never gonna win the world
We're never gonna stop the war
We're never gonna beat this
If belief is what we're fighting for

What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand?
Belief can.
Belief can.
What puts the folded flag inside his mother's hand?
Belief can.
Belief can.

Great album

2:25a.m.

2006-09-20T02:31:00.000-04:00

Yes, I'm still up at this hour...

I'm trying to finish my newsletter-gah! I always take forever! And in the process I'm downloading a bunch of pics the students took so I can include them in my newsletter. AND I'm listening to Michael Jackson's Number Ones while doing that. So good! I don't know why I shared that tidbit with you all, but I thought it would be amusing :)

Last night, I finally got to talk with a good brother of mine whom I just recently gotten to know. Friend, you know who you are and I thank you for being there for me, though I originally called to encourage you! But that's what happens when brothers look out for each other-you mutually edify one another, and it's great.

He reminded me that Satan is after my mind. Satan wants to turn it into mush so I'll be dumbed down, unable to hold a thought straight, and unable to to worship the Lord. But scripture calls us to be renewed in our minds daily.

Romans 12:1-2 is a scripture I know well, yet so seldom take to heart, or consistently apply to my daily living. I am to be a living sacrifice. My body is not my own. My life is not my own. I was bought at a price and I need to honor God with my whole being.

Freedom in Christ is being free to do what God calls you to do. It's not doing what you should be doing, and you do do it, though you really desire to do something else, and deny your true desire. It's doing what you want to do. It's the change of heart to actually desire Christ's will. It's not a reluctant obedience or a forced love.

Living to just deny ourselves of the pleasure we really want is not the kind of life Jesus offers us. That's living out of a false self. He wants to redeem those sinful desires I have so that I may hunger and thirst for righteousness. He wants me to live the abundant life. But too often, I trade that life for poor imitations.

Again, I am far too easily pleased. My spiritual hunger is not strong enough. Or, rather, I've fulfilled my physical needs so much (thinking it will fulfill the spiritual as well) that it's numbed me to my sense of spiritual need, which is what brings true fulfillment. Satan wants to do that so I don't live a life full of devotion, self-reflection, and meditation on God's Word. I am to worship the Lord with all my heart, all my mind, all my soul, and with all my strength. He requires all-not some or most of these, but all. Not only am I settling for less than what Christ wants to give, but I'm also afraid of letting go of what's tangible, accessible, what's right in front of me.

Recently there have been situations in my life that have exposed my heart. I feel naked and vulnerable 'cause it's like, "hi! I've got lost of issues!" "AH! I don't want you to see that!" I run and hide...because I'm afraid what you'll see will be too ugly to accept.

So I hide...I hide behind the nice smile, the clean facade, and fool everyone. I fool no one but myself and continue to keep myself locked up inside. I use coping mechanisms, comforters, "fig leaves," whatever I can get my hands on to cover me up and escape for a while, so I don't have to deal with the messiness I see inside my heart.

I look inside and sometimes I don't like what I see...

Recently, the hardest part of my Christian walk has been accepting God's grace for me. I can't accept the fact that after I've confessed it before Him that He'll just simply forgive me after all I've done. I think to myself, "I mean, I know you forgive God, but gosh...I do this over and over again. Aren't you sick of me already?"

I have a really hard time forgiving myself. God has forgiven me, but do I forgive me? No...and I often stand in the way of receiving Christ's grace for my sin. But what it really all comes down to is pride. I'ts a form of pride.

I'm afraid and feel so horrible for failing and falling short. And I don't want to come to Him because I'm too ashamed. But what it all really is is that I'm too prideful to let Him forgive me. Or, here it is: I'm too prideful to believe that He can simply forgive me for it. I have to pay. I have to give my penance. I don't want Him to forgive me! I want to have the power to forgive myself. How crazy does that sound?!

But when I do that, all I do is estrange myself from the abounding grace and love of Jesus Christ. It never works! It just breeds more condemnation and a spirit that is ill-willed and ultimately I remain in darkness. I have to let God love me. He even loves me with all this sin and ugliness. His love never changes but I don't want Him to love something that can be so despicable and ugly.

I've got to give it to Him every time and know that His love for me never changes, no matter how many times I fall.

"But where sin increased, grace increased all the more" - Romans 5:20

No matter how much sin I do, His grace is still greater. And

"the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world" - 1 John 4:4

I remember going to a men's retreat once way back at the beginning of this year and the speaker said something that just cut to the heart.

He said, "you don't do sin. Sin does you." GAH! Stab me in the heart!

But it's true! I can't think sin is some sort of manageable thing. It's not. I cannot deal with it. It will eventually destroy me. It can "serve" my end for a while, but eventually it will turn and eat me alive. Only the Lord can deal with it, and only the Holy Spirit, who lives in me, can possibly transform my heart and renew my mind. He has put His Spirit in me to be able to fight off sin and temptation.

With all that said, I'm doing a lot better now and it feels good to not hide as much as I was last weekend and to bring these things to light. I was in isolation because I was too ashamed to face up to it and confess it before others. But I can't let myself go down the road of self-condemnation because it's a horrible place. I can't keep things to myself and go it alone. God never wants us to go solo in our Christian walk. We need good friends in the fight. We need the body.

As Ecclesiastes 4 says,

If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
(Ecclesiastes 4:10,12)

Thank you to my friends who have been praying and interceding for me. I appreciate you so much and thank you for having the courage to reach out and speak into my life. I love you for it.

Have a great weekend everyone.

VICTORY IN CHRIST!

Is there Good in Temptation?

2006-09-17T10:18:00.000-04:00

"No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man..."
1 Corinthians 10:13

The word temptation has come to mean something bad to us today, but we tend to use the word in the wrong way. Temptation itself is not sin; it is something we are bound to face simply by virtue of being human. Not to be tempted would mean that we were already so shameful that we would be beneath contempt. Yet many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to suffer, simply because we have refused to allow God to lift us to a higher level where we would face temptations of another kind.

A person's inner nature, what he possesses in the inner, spiritual part of his being, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the true nature of the person being tempted and reveals the possibilities of his nature. Every person actually determines or sets the level of his own temptation, because temptation will come to him in accordance with the level of his controlling, inner nature.

Temptation comes to me, suggesting a possible shortcut to the realization of my highest goal-it does not direct me toward what I understand to be evil, but toward what I understand to be good. Temptation is something that confuses me for a while, and I don't know whether something is right or wrong. When I yield to it, I have made lust a god, and the temptation itself becomes the proof that it was only my own fear that prevented me from falling into the sin earlier.

Temptation is not something we can escape; in fact, it is essential to the well-rounded life of a person. Beware of thinking that you are tempted as no one else-what you go through is the common inheritance of the human race, not something that no one has ever before endured. God does not save us from temptations-He sustains us in the midst of them (see Hebrews 2:18 and 4:15-16).

Taken from My Utmost for His Highest-Special Updated Edition, edited by James Reimann. September 17th entry

Oswald Chambers always did have a way with words. What exactly he means by "Temptation comes to me, suggesting a possible shortcut to the realization of my highest goal-it does not direct me toward what I understand to be evil, but toward what I understand to be good," I'm not quite sure.

If any of you have insight into what he means by all this, please feel free to leave me comments or e-mail me with your insights. I'd love to hear what you all have to say about this.

This entry could not have come at a more opportune time. It seems that each time I open up the My Utmost for His Highest devotional, I am flabbergasted by how directly the daily entry speaks to my situation.

Lastly, Martin Luther once said that his temptations were his "Masters of Divinity," meaning that, more than anything else that taught him his theology of God, was the handling of his temptations and the ability to resist them. That taught him more about God than anything else. It taught him true character and maturity.

Essentially, to him, the true mark of a person's character and maturity, was how a person handled the temptations in their life.

To the Land of Cheese...there and back again

2006-09-16T00:25:00.000-04:00

We pulled in around 7:30ish after we dropped Kevin off at the airport and dumped the tank.

Man, it's good to be home.

I'm looking forward to being off the road for the next two weeks and getting a lot of "life" done. Ya know what I'm sayin'?

I'm having my first drum lesson in a while with Dane Clark again! WOOHOO! THE MAN HIMSELF! I finally found his website online tonight. PLEASE CHECK IT OUT! He just released his new CD too.

DaneClark.com

Anyways, I'm planning to hit the road early tomorrow morning for Chicago Ridge, IL where Midwest Percussion is located. I'm REALLY hoping that they have a showroom where I can actually try some of the inventory of drums that they offer on their online catalog. I am hoping to go there to end my search for the "perfect" snare drum I'm looking for. I know there's no such thing, but I still haven't found the one that I hear and go, "THAT'S IT! THAT'S THE SOUND I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!" As soon as I find that, my search is over.

Cost, as long as it doesn't break the bank, doesn't measure the quality. I can pay a lot of money for something that doesn't sound that great, or I can pay a very small amount of money for a very high quality snare drum, so. We'll see.

I recently bought a used Uehlin snare drum custom built by a Danny Uehlin, I believe his name was. It sounds great, but if the wood hoops weren't so messed up, along with the strainer, sound hole, and such, I would keep it. But I paid $340 for a used snare that's really worth less than that. The craftsmanship really isn't all that great on it at all, but the sound really is probably one of the best sounding snares I've tried so far. But my search has been pretty minimal, so I'm hoping tomorrow will be the venture to end all ventures.

Blessings, my friends and thanks for praying for our tour! We saw God do amazing things! Read below!

University of Wisconsin-Baron County

So, for this show, we were really skeptical that any people were going to show up at all...we advertised the concert pretty well, but it was indoors in the cafeteria, it was scheduled for 7p.m. at night, AND, on top of all that, was a commuter school...

For those who know commuter schools well, students really don't stay that long on campus unless they REALLY have to. And at a campus of only 500, it's gotta be a REALLY compelling reason.

So we really didn't think many people were going to show. I was actually hoping for a lot more, but a decent amount came out. But what was most shocking were the results of the night!
We saw four people indicate decisions for Christ that night!!!! AMAZING!
GO GOD!

AND we also saw three guys from the basketball team say they wanted to be involved in a bible study. And I'm not just talking say and not really mean it, but they were like, "yeah, when is it? I'll be there." SWEET!

Teresa told us later that one of the basketball players actually came up to her after the show and told her that he was going to get involved in a bible study. He was making it a point to tell her that! I guess to show commitment and that her message really touched him and she'd be happy about that! Praise the Lord!

It ends up that we later found out, Sarah, one of the girls that is heavily involved with the Crusade movement on their campus had actually been praying for that group of guys from the basketball team for a year!!!

:O

We couldn't believe it! God answers prayers and totally showed us up! We had little to no faith and He just totally blew our socks off. Man...we are so doubtful.

It reminds me of the verse that says, "if we are faithless, he will remain faithful" - 2 Timothy 2:13. Wow. Though we have no faith, he still full of it and will come through each time and continue to bless us and meet us where we're at, even when we doubt Him! How gracious is our God! What a mighty God we serve! Praise Him!

Alright, about to jump up out of my seat because I'm so excited about that.

Again, it's good to be back in the Midwest...ahhhh...looking forward to some R&R and catching up with some of you soon as well. Blessings to you all, friends!

Goodnight.

Reflections on 9/11

2006-09-12T16:20:00.000-04:00

I remember I was walking to Korean class. We had our language lab that day and my friend, Sandra, told me about the two towers that had been hit. Her facial expressions tended to not coincide with what she said, so I wasn't sure whether or not to believe her...

I went through the entire Korean class, most of us completely unaware of what had just happen. My T.A. didn't know, neither did my classmates.

But walking to my next class, the word had gotten out quickly and everyone on campus was glued to a TV or scrambling somewhere, probably trying to call home to see if everyone was o.k.

I walked into the music building and saw a bunch of my professors gathered around a small TV screen. I was in shock and can't remember what exactly I said, but my music history professor turned around and said to me, "no, this is real..."

All of us went back to our rooms and I took the shuttle bus to get back to my dorm. On the way back I remember seeing Patty on the bus. She was super concerned about her sister and was in tears when she couldn't get through to her cell phone. Her friend Marta just held her hand said, "it'll be o.k...."

The rest of the day was just super long and I must've watched the news for hours, constantly seeing the planes get hit over and over and over again.

I remember talking to my friends down at NYU who were immediately evacuated and had school cancelled for a while...

Most of all, I remember praying for Stephanie Wong's sister, Jennifer, who worked down there and was missing after the day was out. We continued to pray for her constantly for weeks after.

The Lord decided to take her home that day...

We will always remember you in our prayers and though we cry, we rejoice knowing that you are now with our Father in heaven.

Below is a home video a yahoo! user made of where people were when they first heard about the planes. Note: if you don't have micromedia flash player 8 or above, you will not be able to view the video.

Below are some more pictures from WTC. They include pictures from around the world as well as in NY. Note: these are not photos that I personally took.

WTC photos

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!

2006-09-11T03:46:00.000-04:00

"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." - 1 Peter 5:8

Have you ever stared sin right in the face and walked right into it, knowing full well what would happen if you went for it? I do this all the time like a moth to a flame, or that mosquito (I think it was a mosquito) who flies right into the bug zapper in "A Bug's Life".

The mosquito knows he's going to die, but he still flies in. "But it's so pretty..." ZAP! That's me!
I stare sin right in the face, allured by it's "prettiness", and I walk right into imminent disaster. It's disillusionment, it's self-sabotage.

When I give in to sin, it's like I'm killing myself slowly. It's like a cancer of the soul. But the thing that kills me the most is that so many times I am in control of my own actions, and fully capable of walking away from sin. It is within my bounds to be holy and exhibit self-control. Yet I still fall in.

I am so hopelessly desperate without the redeeming work of Jesus Christ in my life. Praise God that He never gives up on us. No matter how many times we do the same, stupid things over and over again, He still loves us, still cheers us on, continues to forgive, and is ever-patient with us. How do you do it, God?

I recently watched a video sermon from the pureonline.org site about resisting tempation. Here's a really cool verse they used from The Message:

"Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life." - James 1:12

I really like the way Eugene Peterson puts it at the end of the verse: "For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life."

When I resist temptation, I get life and more life. I start to get life-true life-as it was meant to be lived. When I am giving in to temptation and sin, I lose out on that, and I experience separation and brokenness between God and myself.

If I would only believe! The reason why it's not working for me right now is simply because I am not taking God at His Word. If I resist temptation, I will be blessed and receive the rewards of life. It's that plain and simple. But I reason with myself, thinking that I might be missing out on something if I don't have this...so I give in.

Again, I am reminded of the verse Galatians 2:20 that calls me to die to myself. "I have been crucified with Christ, so that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." I need to be reminded of this everyday.

But to truly let go of me and lose "my life" for Christ's sake is a really scary thing. Who do I become when I lose myself?

That sounds like a silly question because I know that I will become more of who I am and who He's creatd me to be, when I am more connected with Christ. But I'm still afraid...it's the age old Adam effect...it's original sin. We cover, we hide, we run away...fig leaves.

I'm afraid that He might make me do really freaky things like evangelize to every known living person that I am contact with in my life. Or He might bring me over to Africa for missions. I'm not dissing missions to Africa at all, or the country, but it's scary to me to think of being a missionary over there because I've heard how hard the conditions there are.

Or maybe He'll just completely expose who I am, heart and all, "naked" before others, and people will still be o.k. with that and won't think I'm the most hideous being on the planet when they see that. Maybe I'll finally be able to just trust Him and I'll be secure in Christ instead of in my talents, abilities, "goodness", and good deeds.

I remember hearing a quote that Ravi Zacharias used once in a talk he gave. I think it was from C.S. Lewis and was something to the effect of, the problem with Christianity is not that it's been tried and found wanting, but that it's been found wanting and untried.

It basically means that most people who are disillusioned with Christianity and faith in Jesus Christ aren't disillusioned by it because they've actually lived the life Jesus calls us to live and found it unsatisfying, but they're disillusioned by it because they haven't really lived out the true life Jesus calls us to. And that is why they are unsatisfied.

C.S. Lewis says it best:

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

How ridiculous my thinking! But I am scared to risk, scared to let go of what I have. I'm fearful that I won't get something better by letting go of something that I know I will get when I do it. I'm satisfied with eating my mud-pies! A better word for it would be DUNG! 'Cause that's what it is compared to the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ!

In all honesty, my fears are simply a masked form of pride. A sophisticated way of saying, "I think I know better than you, God..."

God created us for real relationships, real intimacy with Him and others, and He promises us joy and the full satisfaction of life. But He's not going to force us to "eat it". He's not going to take the mud pie out of my hand and force it down my throat. I've gotta reach up and grab it. Sometimes He'll intercede sovereignly and stop me from destructive, harmful things for me, but He has given me free will and I have the choice to choose Him or my sin.

My prayer is that I would choose Him every time. I hope your prayer is the same.

Prayer

O Lord, may we desire the greater good, eating of the bread of life, instead of the mud pies of this world. May we be on our guard from the enemy who prowl around like a roaring lion, waiting for someone to devour. We have a very real enemy who wants to lead us away from you.

Father, protect us, guard your children. Redeem our hearts, lift our eyes to You, O God. Help us to let go of our sin and ourselves and grab a hold of You and to the life that You have promised us-an abundant life and life to the fullest. In Christ's Name. Amen.

Multiple Me's

2006-09-09T16:33:00.000-04:00

So, recently the creators of "Facebook", the online website that tons of college students around the country are a part of, has recanted its decision to start what they called a "mini news feed" that basically tracks all the different events each of your friends is doing.

The original intent was so that you could see what's been going on with all your friends, but it started to turn stalkerish when you would read things like, "Chris got up to get a ham sandwich and had an argument with the mailman today", or "Chris has a blister on his left big toe" and you're like "What?! How the heck did they find that out?!"

No, I'm kidding...they don't know like EVERY personal detail, but it was a little uncomfortable reading through a person's EVERY detail of action that relates to Facebook. "Your friend just made friends with so-and-so." "Petey just accepted so-and-so as their friend." "John is out to lunch." "Bessie just asked Louie to marry her" or something like that. It just listed way too many details about friends that you cared to read or cared to know, honestly.

Some of that stuff is just better left private and not for the entire network of your known friends to see...

Anyways, with all that said (I know, long explanation), the creator of Facebook actually wrote a personal message to all users of the service an apology letter about the mini-feed and the effect that it was having on its users. He wanted to keep the service free from online predators and for it to be a safe environment where friends would enjoy sharing information with each other and keeping in touch while in college and beyond. But with the mini-feed, people were pretty angry.

So, in response, they fixed all that, AND he started up this group called "Free flow of information on the internet" because that's what he believes in. I clicked on the link to check out the group and read some pretty interesting comments.

Most were just angry about the mini-feed, but one guy agreed that he liked the free flow of information on the web, but that it was a bit scary sometimes because he Googled his name once and found a bunch of information about himself that is floating around out there. Curiosity struck my mind!

And so, I also Googled my own name and found some VERY interesting results. If you are interested, please click below to find out about some multiple me's that out there in the world. hahaha...it's quite entertaining. If you know me and have a few minutes to kill, this is worth it. It's pretty comical.

This guy is actually a professional violinist in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra! !!!!!! It's like my dream come true! He also graduated from the Eastman School of Music! I WANTED TO GO THERE! His bio is...wow...I'm reading it and going, "Go, Chris Wu! Yeah!"
Christopher Wu-Pittsburgh Symphony

Apparently, I'm an artist painter too and have some of my works on display at art.com! They're pretty good if I don't say so myself...thank you, thank you
Art.com exhibit

I found some guy with my name with his own personal wedding page! WOOHOO! I'm married too! SWEEEET!!!! HALLELUJAH! Dreams do come true :) I think it's best not to publish his website link on my blog though. BUT, if you do google my name, you'll find his wedding page link there. hehe

No, I'm in a band called blue sky nine...not red light bandits...I like the part that says, "Destined for greatness." Nice
redlightbandits

On American Scientist Online, it says that,

"Christopher L. Wu is an assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the director of the Acute Pain Service at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He received his M.D. from the Albany Medical College in 1989."

SWEET! I'M SMART TOO!

I'm some kind of pro-democracy activist:

"Chris Wu: Leading democracy activist who was jailed for twelve years for dissident activities. Mr. Wu is President of China Spring Magazine, a leading academic journal of the Chinese exile community. He is also Coordinator of the World of Conference for Chinese Pro-Democracy Organizations. (Mr. Wu speaks English) "

And apparently, I speak english. DUH.

I'm the chairman of the National Association of Counsel for Children! WOW. VERY cool!
NACC

And I took the National Chess Competition by storm for the K-1 division! YEAH BABY! It was my third title and I became the youngest player in US HISTORY to win three national titles by the age of seven. I'm wicked smart.
Dean of Chess Home Page

And in case you need an in with Snapfish photos, I'm your man. 'Cause I'm the VP for the Snapfish mobile team! And I used to be the VP for the Yahoo! Mobile team as well. My resume keeps getting better and better.
Snapfish VP

Then there was that time I was at Yale when I was a movie maker. You can read all about it in the Yale Herald
Wu's 'Ghost' film

Along with being the VP of Snapfish, I'm also the VP of mobile imaging for Hewlett-Packard Co. Just a little aside for you to know.
PMA 2006

If I only solved world hunger...but I am helping it little by little as I can give. But for the most part I'll pray and leave that into Daddy's hands.

Anyways, hope that was as entertaining for you as it was for me! If you were bored to tears and thought it was lame-o...sorry...

No Words

2006-09-09T00:02:00.000-04:00

Quote of the tour in West Virginia and North Carolina:

"You guys were great. Play some more reggae" - student from West Liberty State College

HAHAHAHA...wow. That says it all. I thought that was the funniest comment we've ever gotten, at least while I've been on tour with blue sky nine

John Mayer Concert

I just got back from the concert at the Verizon Wireless Music Center in Noblesville, IN, which is about 35 minutes from my apartment...

Dude...the guy is just SOOO insanely, sickly talented, it's unbelievable. He's not like the greatest guitar player out there, though he's still ridiculous, but man, he's way up there. And just the feel of his songs and the band that he plays with, MAN!!!! WHAT A BUZZ THEY CREATE!

I am so inspired, I am going to go to the North Warehouse right now and set up my drums and play 'til probably 3 in the morning. If I am not around tomorrow morning, you know why. It's not like many of you see me anyways, but still, just to let you know. I'll be in bed :)

And Sheryl Crow! MY GOODNESS!!!! THAT GIRL IS AWESOME! And her drummer! DUUUUDE! Man...gosh...I wish I could lay a beat down like that. Man, just ROCK SOLID the entire show. I saw him momentarily lose his grip on a stick. But he didn't even miss a beat and was talking to someone while playing, so it was pretty insane. Gosh, so good.

I gotta go and learn to lay down the groove, baby. Just groove...

Good night y'all!

Rejoicing!

2006-09-06T08:32:00.000-04:00

The results are in from the concert last night...(drum roll please)

and...

TWO GIRLS ACCEPTED CHRIST AT OUR CONCERT LAST NIGHT! WOOHOO!

Praise the Lord! I was totally blown away by that because it was completely unexpected to me. I did not think there would be much response because I saw students who were really looking at us with pretty blank stares. But that just goes to show you that you can't judge a book by its cover, or a college student by the face their making.

We had 34 comment cards returned, which is huge! I didn't think that there were that many students watching, but that's probably because they were scattered everywhere across the quad, where we played. Some were on benches, at wooden tables, on the grass, etc.

It was pretty funny for us personally since we hadn't played in about five days. We started into "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" and Teresa forgot the lines to the first verse. haha. She wasn't going to try to keep going, so she just asked us to start over again.

And during the intro to "Somebody More Like You" I was praying that God would help me to remember everything 'cause I was so afraid I was going to blank out or something! Praise God I didn't forget anything and played it alright. But I could definitely tell we were rusty after being off the road for five days.

I wish we had more warm-up time given we hadn't played in a few days but we really didn't. Kinda disappointing...but I am a picky musician and you can't have everything in life.

Anyways, again, what an awesome blessing to know that two girls came into the kingdom last night.

Please keep these two girls in prayer. I want to trust that the decision they made was honest and true, but sometimes after someone makes a decision like that, many things start to happen in their lives to distract them from the spiritual renewal that took place in their hearts.

"When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."

Pray that the seed fell on good soil last night. I am hoping that they are not choked by the worries of this world. Especially in college, students can so easily be distracted and bogged down by tests and things that worry them and color their entire world and forget about Christ. Pray that that would not happen to them.

We're off to West Virginia-Wesleyan today. Pray for our safe travels and for God to do some awesome stuff down there as well! Have a great day.

Wheeling, West Virginia

2006-09-05T10:02:00.000-04:00

blue sky nine is on the campus of West Liberty State College out in Wheeling, West Virginia!

We have a concert tonight out on their main quad at 7p.m. Please pray our concert! Pray that people would come to our show, and that God would plant seeds in people's hearts as they hear the gospel.

So far as I've been told, a lot of the students here are fairly young Christians, so many of them have not had a lot of experience sharing their faith. We're going to have lunch with the students around 1:30p.m. to get to know them and encourage them to share their faith with others. Pray for our time together.

Tomorrow night, at 7p.m., we're playing at West Virginia-Wesleyan University in Buckhannon, West Virginia.

Both concerts should be fully evangelistic so please pray for Teresa as she shares the gospel, and also for boldness in our individual witness as we each go out and share with others as well!

Thanks friends!

Croc Hunter

On a side note, hearing about Steve Irwin's (the "Crocodile Hunter") death was very sad news yesterday...I was definitely grieved by his death. And I was even more grieved by the fact that his daughter was actually with him when he was stung by the sting ray. I can't imagine what that was like for her. He's left behind a wife and kids...what a tragic way to go...he will be sorely missed.

My prayer is that as people around the world watch the news and hear the headlines, that they would think about life and the inevitability of their death that they will face one day as well. I don't pray for this in a morbid sense, but in a sobering sense, to think about their faith in God and where they stand in their relationship with Him.

May we, as believers, also "check our hearts" today and do some soul searching about our own lives and where we will be spending eternity. May we also take time to reflect on those loved ones who we know, as of right now, would not be spending their eternity with God if they were to die today, and to say a prayer for them to come to know Jesus Christ.

If any of you are interested, here's an interesting article with a faith perspective on the death of Steve Irwin from the Answers in Genesis website. I enjoyed most of it, though it was a bit long-winded towards the end. In any case, I thought you might like it. Enjoy!

"Crocodile Hunter" dies

Prayer

2006-09-03T15:55:00.000-04:00

"praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints" - Ephesians 6:18

I heard a great sermon on prayer this morning; sweet and exegetical, which is probably why it was so good.

So often we don't take "praying at all times" very seriously, nor do we take it very literally. I'd imagine it would be exhausting to constantly have to pray over each and every little thing during the day but the preacher this morning didn't quite think that's what Paul meant.

The key, as he said was that you were to pray at all times "in the Spirit," meaning that you agree to put yourself under the authority of the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to be in submission to His will. So maybe not necessarily a time thing as much as a quality thing. Praying in the Spirit qualifies how you should pray, and how you should pray when you pray at all times.

I must admit that I definitely am not praying at all times and often stop myself from doing it. I find excuses and reasons to do it later, and I actually end up never getting around to it, maybe until a day or two later.

The preacher said that spiritual attack is certainly a very real element of a hindrance to our prayers. Satan cannot stop our prayers! He fears that and is the only weapon he cannot come against, he said. It is funny that whenever we want to stop and put in a concerted effort to pray about anyone or anything, a million things start rushing into our mind and we have to "think out" all that stuff, pushing all distractions aside before we can actually get to praying. That in itself, is such spiritual warfare. And I fail to recognize that at times.

He asked if we would seriously commit to praying today and challenged us to pray some of Paul's prayers, affectionately dubbed the "apostolic prayers".

"we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding" - Colossians 1:9

And Paul prays that they would be filled with all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

"so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." - Col. 1:10

Finally, Paul blesses the church at Colosse with this benediction:

"May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light." - Col. 1:11-12

The preacher used Paul's prayer as an example of how we can pray for almost anyone we know when we don't even really know much about them, other than their need for prayer.

I've been meaning to put up a prayer board in my room for the longest time and I think it's about time that I stop putting that off. I've made countless excuses about my apartment lease being up soon, the adhesive tape not being strong enough to hold up the prayer board, I don't have the right markers, it takes too much time, etc.

But today, I'm putting that in my mind and that's the first thing I'm gonna do when I get back home. Well, I'll drop my bags first and do some laundry, but I think you get the point.

I hope you will be inspired by this entry to also pray at all times and to pray for others to "be filled with all spiritual wisdom and understanding."

Have a blessed Sabbath day.

Preaching the gospel

2006-09-03T00:13:00.000-04:00

Today, a really strange thing happened...I preached the gospel to myself.

"To yourself?" you're wondering? Yes, that's right. I preached the gospel to myself.

I've been so caught up in how others need the gospel that I've forgotten about myself. Jesus doesn't stop working on me and it's not like I have the gospel all figured out. I need the gospel every day just as much as anyone else does on this planet. How boastful of me to think that I know the plan and now I'm here to disseminate this plan to all others who don't know it. Foolishness!

Sure, we have the Four Laws tract that we share with folks that is a great way to get them started in their relationship with God, but in many ways, that's just a starting point. I actually think conversion happens over and over again in our lives and can be looked at like a lifelong process rather than a one time deal.

Now I know you're thinking that is poor theology and sounds more like a description for sanctification, but I think you get what I mean. Christ is never done with us! And we need to believe in the gospel every single day and never forget the life that Jesus Christ has to offer us. And we should also never think at any point in our lives that we have somehow "arrived" and have really "gotten" the gospel after living the Christian life for a while.

I read through Romans 5 through 8 today, which was like reading it for the first time again. I've forgotten so much about God's grace and how it abounds more than sin. And not only that, but we've been called now to no longer be slaves to sin, but to be slaves to righteousness. For we are slaves to the one whom we obey. If we are giving in to our flesh, that is our master. If we are giving in to the Spirit, He is our master. We are living what we choose to obey...I choose the flesh.

I choose the flesh so often! I have not died with Christ! Chris needs to die!!! I cannot live this Christian life alone and expect that my striving and doing better and getting it right the next time will help me achieve the standards of holy uprightness before God! The only way that I can live the Christian life is to be dead. Dead to the flesh, dead to its passions and desires-I need to die.

This is the gospel. This is the gospel...the gospel I so desperately need to hear day in and day out. And you know what? What a relief! The weight isn't on me anymore! It's on Christ! I have just simply let Him live through me! But MAN. Do you know how hard that is?! If you're a Christian, I'm sure you do...

Letting go of yourself, your rights, your pride, your self-protection, your addictions, your habits, your coping mechanisms, your anger, your blaming others, your selfishness, your wants, is all REALLY hard.

The gospel is death and life. It is dying to my own sin, my own flesh and all its passions and desires, crucifying them on the cross, and being alive in Christ Jesus, becoming a slave to righteousness. For HE is whom we should serve. And if we are slaves to righteousness, then truly our Heavenly Father is the one whom we obey. If we give life to the Spirit and His desires, that's who will live in us. If we give way to the flesh and how we want to live, we give birth to death and that is the only fruit we will produce in our lives.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. -Romans 6:12-14

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. -Galatians 2:20

Holy Father, you know my nonsensical strivings to try constantly try to be holier from each day to the next. You know how futile it is. Your purpose for my life has never been to try to "get better" in that sense. It's to set me free and to know that your truth sets me free. It sets me free from sin, my flesh, and living life in a sub-par way. You came to give life and so that we would have life abundantly. We cannot receive that life if we continue holding onto our own. Help us today to lay down our lives, pick up our cross and follow You. Death to ourselves doesn't require much more than simply making the choice at each moment, at each hour of the day, to do things your way.

May we be dead to sin and alive in Christ. For each of us individually, we must make that choice and walk that walk. You don't force it upon us. You give us free choice. But your offer of life the way it was meant to be lived is always there for us. You give it to us with open arms. But I'm scared, God...so often I'm scared. It's scary to let go of the life we once lived to embrace new life in Christ. But I'm ready, God. I want to...I want to stop eating the mudpies of life and take your offer of a holiday by the sea. In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen.

Rocky Mount

2006-09-01T23:06:00.000-04:00

I'm still in North Carolina, staying the night with T. Stone's relatives. Kevin and Teresa are having a wedding shower tomorrow and the rest of the band has time off, so we're just chillin' in her hometown for a few days, then we're off to West Virginia for two concerts on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Her aunt and uncle have two chihuahua's that are super cute-Cocoa and Dusty. Apparently, they were named for the color of their fur. Awwww...I wish I had a camera, then I could take pictures of them and show you!

Tour was great this last week. One name in particular comes to mind when I think of our concerts-Philip. He was a student at one of our shows that indicated an interest in talking to someone about how to have a personal relationship with God. I'm always amazed to hear how God had moved in someone's life to bring them to that point as a result of our concert. Pray for him!

Well, Ernesto came blowing through and we had to cancel our last show that was supposed to happen last night at St. Andrews College in Laurinburg. We also had to wait out this morning until the storm passed through Rocky Mount so we could drive up here! Man...what a storm.

The power was actually went out for 20 minutes last night right around the time I was about to go to bed. And in the morning, our host, Jim, told us there were a few trees knocked down as a result of the storm. Jim actually had a pool in his backyard that Kevin, Corbitt, and I had been swimming in each night after our concerts. Last night Kevin and Corbitt thought it was too cold to go swimming, but I thought different.

Man, it was freezing! I actually tried to swim while there were gusts of wind and cold rain coming down. It was alright for a little bit, but then after about 10 minutes, it started to get to me.

We're safe here now and Ernesto is on it's way up the coast and hopefully will be over and out within the next few days. There has been some major flooding in other areas of the state and in other states further north though. I hope people are safe now and didn't suffer too much damage from the storm.

I'm looking forward to not doing much tomorrow but just hanging out and catching up on some sleep. It'll be nice to just be still in one place and do some reading and reflection time. Life on the road often doesn't naturally lend itself to much of that. Have a great weekend.

Fig leaves

2006-08-24T16:38:00.000-04:00

Got some? 'Cause I got TONS. And I use 'em too! They worked for Adam and Eve, so they work for me!

I bet you have some of your own...'Cause human nature? We tend to hide.

The problem with fig leaves though? They eventually dry out, fall off, and you're left completely vulnerable and naked before God. They don't last long and they're temporary. Yet I continue collecting them as I go through life. Pick some up here...pick some up there...cover, cover, cover...

When is the hiding and shame going to end? When will I realize that God still loves me even though it's so ugly inside? It's hating the sin, not the sinner...that applies to me. I have a problem with that. I have a problem accepting the fact that God would love me with all this crap in my heart. Ya know why? Because I don't accept me! And I don't love me like that! Heck! Forget others! If I can't love myself, how am I supposed to love others?!

God's been poking holes in my fig leaves. Forgive the expression but I think it's true. He's gently whispering to me, "Chris...Chris...they're not going to work. They're only going to last for so long." "But no, God! I just want to hide! I don't want to deal with it! It's too much...I'll just keep covering and then I'll look o.k."

Cowardice, saving face, lack of courage, lack of faith...whatever you want to call it, whatever word you want to use to describe it, it's all the same. We hide and hide and hide, protecting ourselves, putting up a good front so people will think everything's o.k. And I always think, "well, if they REALLY knew what I was like on the inside, they really wouldn't like me!!!"

That's lie no. 1...but gosh...what a convincing lie. 'Cause ya know what? Some of that is true! Yet, that is the characteristic of the evil one. He never gives you something so off tangent that it's completely unbelievable. He'll throw in a little truth in there, mixed in with the evil. All he needs to do is make you err in one way and soon you right off the straight and narrow path and off to some other off shoot road that leads you nowhere except to bitterness and trying to live out the Christian life in our own flesh.

I thought I've been dealing with my own stuff. But apparently I haven't been...it's been coming back...

Old issues have been coming back. Stuff I thought I've dealt with. I have but it's just a different layer this time...God's digging deeper. He is going straight in and diving right into my heart. Just digging and digging. MAN IT HURTS! GOSH GOD!

Yesterday, one of my spiritual mentors I met with told me, "So you feel pretty naked and exposed right now, huh? That's exactly where God wants you..."

GAAAAHHHHH! !!@?#%?!#?!? Don't worry, they're not curse words...just indecipherable groans of pain and agitation.

That's just hard to hear 'cause I know it's probably true...He's breaking me down until I have nothing left except the cross.

All the fig leaves I've had have been taken away. They're drying up, they're deteriorating and they're not going to work anymore.

So here I am...exposed...

Naked and vulnerable...

And it's funny because the question is not so much will God love me, but will I love myself? And will I let God love me? Will I accept the fact that nothing's changed because of these heart issues that I see and that He's still just as crazy about me now as He was way back when things weren't so ugly?

The funny thing is I actually think God "found out" about me just now when I am "finding out" about me. But He's already known and it's always been there. It just hasn't come up until now. I don't think I've let it come up to the surface until now. But He's still loved me through it, knowing full well of these issues and what my heart is like.

I need to be convinced about God's love for me as Paul was...

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 8:38-39

"But be it far from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." -Gal. 6:14

And...

"If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

Reonciliation

2006-08-23T23:30:00.000-04:00

It's a beautiful thing...

I just don't feel at liberty expunging all the gritty details of life struggles that involve certain individuals-certain individuals who may actually read some of this! So forgive me if I must refrain but I welcome personal contact to share.

But for the moment, I'd just like to say that there has been reconciliation and restoration in my life and in key relationships. I am so grateful to God for that because this has been hanging over my head like a thick, dark cloud for the past few months and it's been HARD.

So thanks for all who prayed!

I talked with some people afterwards that told me they were praying for me through that situation and man...God came through. Praise God for answering prayers and hearing me out.

Please keep praying for me...things have been resolved, but there are still many other things underneath the surface, in myself, that need to be dealt with.

But now that the storm has passed, all the debris that has been left behind by it needs to be picked up. I feel really exposed right now, like my heart's been spliced open, naked and vulnerable before other people. And it's ugly...I think the hardest part of it all is for myself to accept what I see and still believe that God loves me even with all the "stuff" in my life. In all honesty, a much stronger word would be a more accurate to say, but it might not be as appropriate.

Tomorrow morning we have our first concert for the fall tour. We'll be playing at IUPUI at noon and then we drive up to Dekalb, Illinois to play a show at Northern Illinois University at 6p.m., Friday night. Here we go! PRAY FOR US! WE DEFINITELY NEED IT! I DEFINITELY NEED IT!

Thanks friends.

Night

Urbana 2006

2006-08-20T02:03:00.000-04:00

O.k., I know I've been a little video crazy, but I definitely want to post this video up. It's the promotional video for the Urbana 2006 missions convention!

If you haven't heard of this convention before, YOU MUST CHECK IT OUT!!!

Urbana 2006

I received my calling for music & missions at Urbana 03 that ultimately led to my decision to join Keynote ministries with Campus Crusade for Christ (which is so ironic, because Urbana is actually an InterVarsity student missions convention! HA! Go figure! God certainly has a sense of humor).

In years past, they've had amazing speakers come and speak like Elizabeth Elliot, Billy Graham, and Ravi Zacharias, to name a few. Where else do you get to worship together with 20,000 other believers from all over the world?!

If you are interested in reaching the world for Christ...
If you are wondering what your place might be in God's global mission...

Then you need to check this out:

Lots more Albania clips!

2006-08-20T00:25:00.000-04:00

I've got tons of these and I want to share as many as I can, so enjoy!

The first one here is of us doing Jack Johnson's "Sittin', Waitin', Wishin'" at our concert in Tetovo, Macedonia.

For those who don't know, for that particular concert, most of our audience there was actually Muslim. I got into some really cool conversations with a few guys right of college that were working: Mark and Shkomi.

I got into a really cool conversation with them both, talking about spiritual things, life in general, how life is in Macedonia, and I got to share with them the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When I explained the part about Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for our sins as an act of grace, I see something happening in side their heads, like the wheels were turning and things made sense to them for once about the Christian message. It was really cool to see.

They didn't accept Christ but I know that God planted some seeds in their hearts. If you think of them, please say a prayer for their salvation...

Here's a prettier tune in our set, "Blackbird", at the same Tetova concert

Here's Ms. Stoudenmire lighting it up with "Life is Wonderful" at the
Tirana concert

Here I am sporting the five-string Zeta violin on "Doubting Thomas"! The coolest thing in the world was that I borrowed the violin from a violin shop in Carmel for free! Praise God!

The next clip is of us playing Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You". Now I know, I know...mixed feelings about this one. Some of you are like, "uggg..." and some of you are like, "OH MY GOSH! THAT'S THE GREATEST SONG IN THE WORLD!" But no matter what you think, the Albanian's LOVED this song. It got the HUGEST response out of any song that we played. They absolutely loved it.

They were singing along to it, waving their hands in the air, cheering...they ate it up! And praise God 'cause we learned that song JUST for the tour and it REALLY paid off. Praise the Lord. And I think Teresa's does a really nice job with it, though she personally falls into the "I HATE Kelly Clarkson" camp. :)

You may have wondered, what did you all share with them? Here's a portion of Teresa's testimony that was shared with the Albanian's. We had a translator for every show and I think it resonated well with them. Well, it must have for us to see almost 280 decisions for Christ in ten concerts! AMAZING! GOD IS AMAZING!

With or Without You-Saimir

2006-08-18T15:30:00.000-04:00

Here is another clip of us playing in Albania. This was my favorite concert we played by far.

We played in Tirana, Albania's capital city, for 550 people! AND we saw 120 people come to Christ that night! AND not only that, I got to play one of my favorite songs of all time for hundreds of people. It was a total dream come true. A really special evening.

I have three clips of the song that go together but were split when Tammy, our staff host, recorded them on her camera.

Oh, and Alteen (I'm not quite sure how to spell his name) is the one soloing in the second video. Supposedly he's the best electric guitarist in all of Albania. I believe it too! You can see for yourself in the video! He has no facial expression while he's playing his solo and he makes it look so effortless. Again, an awesome privilege playing with these awesome musicians!

Enjoy!

Music clips of blue sky nine in Albania-Finally!

2006-08-18T15:16:00.000-04:00

So yes, FINALLY. I finally have an actual video clip of my band playing live in Albania! This is us in Albania playing "Somebody More Like You," by Nickel Creek in the city of Elbasan. Sorry it took me forever to finally post it up. Given my time constraints and my lack of html ability, it took me a while to finally figure out how to do all this. It's pretty simple when I actually put myself to it but yeah...

Just to warn you, this clip was taken from a video camera, so the audio quality is definitely not anywhere near top notch. But it gives you a general idea of what we sound like and many of you have been curious about our sound, which makes sense considering we're actually a band!

SO! Without further ado...

"Groupi amerikan, blue sky nine!"

Good Kings, Bad Kings; Baals and God

2006-08-18T00:05:00.000-04:00

For the past few months I've been doing a video series bible study taught by Ray Vander Laan, an incredible Christian historian and teacher, who teaches on the kings and prophets of Israel. And the coolest thing about it is that he teaches his lessons from the actual sites in Israel where a lot of Old Testament stories took place. It's given me so much more of a historical and socio-economic context to the circumstances surrounding these stories.

And the further I go into this study, the more I realize just how rebellious and unfaithful the Israelites were. They were deliberately choosing to worship idols when they knew it was wrong and against God's Word. Like I knew they were rebellious, but I didn't know they were THAT rebellious and wicked. Countless accounts are written in 1 & 2 Kings about unfaithful kings who worshipped Baal and even built altars to these idols.

In 1 Kings 16, it says that Omri walked in the way of Jeroboam and did more evil than any other before him. In 2 Kings 10 it mentions how Jehu also did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam. And so did Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Zechariah, Menahem, Pekahiah, and then Ahab. None of these kings turned from the sins of their forefathers. They allowed the generational curses and sins to be passed down to them and continued walking crooked paths.

How God could be so patient with His people is amazing! I read through some of these passages and the written accounts of these kings and I think, "man...that's horrible." But I'm not so sure that on a heat level I'm that much better. I too struggle with an idolatrous heart, but it's just a little bit harder for me to see.

Anyways, I want to get on with it and share with you something that really struck me about all this...specifically about the whole notion of Baal worship that the Israelites so easily fell into.

Tel Megiddo

These are pictures I took on my recent trip to Israel back in March with my friend, Kevin (bassist for blue sky nine), before all this crazy bombing started happening over there...a topic for another day.

What you are looking at is a picture of a religious altar that was found at tel Megiddo in Israel by the Jezreel Valley. It was believed to be a religious altar because of all the animal bones that they found around this area. That led them to believe that there were ritualistic sacrifices made here.

Check out this short little video clip that gives you a better view of what tel Megiddo looked like and the Jezreel Valley that it overlooked as well:

I know that for myself, often when I think of Baal worship, I think it's the most repulsive thing in the world and so obviously wrong. But the scary thing I found is that Baal worship actually makes sense to me. There's an actual logic to it and I can see why the Israelites found it so attractive.

This is how Ray explains it:

The struggle for Our Hearts and Minds
When the Israelites-nomad Hebrews-entered Canaan, they discovered a lush land of farmers, not shepherds. The Canaanites attributed this fertility to their god, Baal. Because people of that time thought of their gods in terms of a specific place, the Israelites wondered if their God, whom they perceived to be the God of the desert wilderness, was still their God in the vastly different land of Canaan. The Israelites were wondering, Can Yahweh, who led us out of Egypt and through the wilderness also provide fertile crops in Canaan, or do we have to honor Baal? Or do we honor both?
An intense spiritual battle began for the hearts and minds of God's people. Over and over again in the Old Testament, we read about the Israelites' attraction to and worship of Canaanite gods, God's disciplinary response, the people's repentance, and God's merciful forgiveness. Then the cycle would repeat itself.

See, because the generations before that were disobedient all died off during that 40-year period of wandering in the desert, the new generation of Israelite people only knew God as a desert God. They wondered if He would be applicable to farm culture and lush farm land.

As the quote says, they started looking around them and thinking, why are these people here so prosperous? And they attributed that prosperity to the gods that the people of Canaan worshipped. It makes sense, right? I told you so!

And that in a sense is so similar to us! We look around us in the world and think, why are all the worldly people rich and blessed and have everything that they want? They seem so happy, their quality of life is better, they have a nicer home, nicer car, etc. If I just work those extra hours, I can get that same quality of life and have it made. I'll get what I want and be prosperous.

THAT'S US! THAT'S WHAT WE AS CHRISTIANS DO! We compromise and bow down to the Baals in our culture!

Here's more...

Baal was the one god of the ancient Near East who supposedly "won out" against the other gods of the time, the creator-god deity, El. He also defeated the deities of the god of the sea, god of storms, as well as rain, thunder, lightning, and the god of death.

In Ray's synopsis of Baal,

his victory over death was thought to be repeated each year when he returned from the land of death (the underworld) and brought rain to renew the earth's fertility.
Hebrew culture viewed the seas as evil and destructive, so Baal's promise to prevent storms and control the sea, as well as his seeming ability to produce abundant harvests, made him attractive to the Israelites. It's difficult to understand why Yahweh's people failed to see that He alone had power over these things. Possibly their desert origins led them to question God's sovereignty over fertile land. Maybe, however, the sinful pagan practices attracted them to Baal.

So instead of trusting that God was still Lord over everything and the source of all that they needed, they were influenced by the culture around them, instead of the converse of being a redeeming influence on the culture that they entered into.

And the reason why Baal worship was such a detestable thing to God was because of the child sacrifice that they performed in order to gain personal prosperity. And the sad thing was that the tribe of Levi was appointed especially to take care of the firstborn of the Israelites. So in reality, they had no excuse for offering their children (Numbers 3:11-13). God hated child sacrifice, especially among those who were called to be His people.

Baal actually had a female counterpart, named Asherah, who was worshiped in various ways, including ritual sex. It was believed that she was actually Baal's mother, but also his mistress...another detestable practice of the Baal fertility cult was the idea of "sympathetic magic"-they believed they could influence the gods' actions by performing the behavior they wished the gods to demonstrate.

And it was believed that if Baal and Asherah had sex, it would produce fertility for the land. So because of this, the worshipers would engage in immoral sex in order to cause the gods to join together and thereby ensure good harvests. And this practice is what became the basis for religious prostitution. Thus God's incredible gift of sexuality within the bonds of marriage was perverted and became obscene public prostitution. No wonder God's anger burned against His people and their leaders.

To bring it home, Ray asks how the culture back then is similar to our culture today. Do we sacrifice our children for prosperity? Have we perverted God's good gift of sexuality and used it for something other than the sexual union within marriage? Absolutely

There is abortion (I don't want to get into a political debate here), broken homes, and a very high divorce rate (almost higher amongst Christians), pornography, child prostitution, etc. Our culture really isn't all that different from back then. And I sit on my high and holy horse, thinking Baal worship is the most ridiculous thing in the world to get involved in; judging the Israelites like I'm so much better.

I'm not saying that I am involved in all those things and neither am I saying that Christians today are, but the cultural parallels are almost scary. It's frightening to think how similar they are. Fathers sacrifice time with their child because they want to buy the nicer car. And to do that, they've gotta work the extra hours. "Sorry, son...daddy's gotta work extra late today." It's no wonder why families are falling apart all around this country.

We are so driven for ambition, materialism, and personal wealth, that we'll do anything to get it. We lay our family on the line, our own personal convictions and faith. We are people of compromise and it is detestable in God's sight.

I know...pretty heart-wrenching, eh?

What do you do with all that? Well, Ray challenges us with the question of how can we as Christians be a redeeming influence on the culture around us? How can we live out our God-given purpose to touch the world for Jesus Christ? And what specific steps might God be calling you to take in order to impact your culture for Him, so that the world will continue to know that God is God?

I'd love to hear your thoughts, friends...thanks for reading!

Hope you were blessed :)

My Hope is Built (The Solid Rock)

2006-08-15T18:48:00.000-04:00

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh may I then in Him be found.
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

Attitudes for the day

2006-08-15T13:14:00.000-04:00

As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestnes this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! -2 Cor. 7:9-11

Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, but those who plan peace have joy.
-Proverbs 12:20

Under the bridge

2006-08-11T17:52:00.000-04:00

The Ohio River was so beautiful...

As I sat there, close to 1 in the morning, looking across the water, I would've never thought to ever find myself here at this point in my life. A few years ago I'm not sure exactly I was imagining for the future, except to follow God and to be doing missions work.

It was just like "wow..." You really never know where you'll end up or where God will take you. You think things will turn out a certain way-and sometimes they do-but a lot of times they don't. You really don't know what to expect and life just keeps coming at ya, not really slowing down for anyone really.

A year is a year...an hour is an hour...a minute is a minute...it's one and the same for every human being on this planet. It's just where we find ourselves in those moments of time.

I don't want to get too philosophical here, thinking about God being outside the constraints of linear time and space. But just thinking about how God sets all this up from the very beginning is mind blowing!

Anyways, back to the bridge.

I must've journaled there for at least a few hours, pouring out my thoughts, my heart, and prayers up to God. I expressed my anger, frustration, the "why is it like this?" arguments, and just letting everything out that I've been bottling up and running away from the last few months.
I haven't wanted to deal with the conflicting relationships in my life and the deep heart issues that were eating me up inside until now. The last few days before I went on vacation were especially awful and just depressing. It was good to finally say to myself, "o.k...stop running away. Stop being like Elijah, and confront the situation."

I've done amazing ministry, seen the Lord do awesome things in the summer, and then all of a sudden, I'm on the run like Elijah was. He was dealing with Jezebel. I'm dealing with major conflicts and relationship issues that collectively represent the "Jezebel" in my life right now.

But the encouraging thing is that during those few days, I went from hopeless to hopeful.

I was depressed because I saw no hope. There was no light on the other end and I couldn't see past my circumstances. I wasn't putting my trust nor my hope in Christ. You would think it would be like, "duh...trust God, Chris". But it just hasn't been that easy. My pain has become so great it's clouded the goodness and love of God to the point of not being able to see any bit of blue skies on the horizon. But thanks to the Lord for being my sunshine :) Cheesy way of putting it, I know.

Here are two reasons I now have more hope after visiting the Cinci area:

Johnny, my old college buddy is studying seminary in Kentucky right now. He drove up north to Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, where I was spending the night just to see me. We went out to a GREAT chili place called Gourmet Chili in Covington, KY, just about 10 minutes up the interstate from where I was staying at.

It was awesome seeing him, reminiscing about the old days and sharing about our current ventures in ministry. I shared a lot about my current struggles and it was good to have a fellow brother listen to me, pray with me, and be able to encourage me to have the Lord's perspective on this. He certainly has a pastor's heart and I saw it in the way he counseled me and ministered to my heart. Thanks again, brother...

Yes, this is our wacky picture we took together up top when I was staying in the Best Western Inn. I had my ticket to see...the gun show. hahahaha. Johnny! You studly man!

And E-rock!!! Eric lives in Cincinnati and used to go to my church back in Long Island. He's back in Cincinnati now doing youth ministry in a pastoral position-without the official status though.

It was great being able to relate with him on a lot of the cultural struggles and hardships we've both been through growing up as Asian-Americans in the states. He shared with me a lot of his heart for the youth of his church to work through some of the issues that came with those cultural struggles that they face. It was good just being with someone who "got it" that I didn't need to explain myself to.

We shared about our future, trusting God with our wife situation (lack thereof, rather), and what will be coming up on the horizon, over some noodles and rice. It was great having some quality Chinese food for once! Sorry Indiana...you just ain't got it. Maybe one or two restaurants, but not much beyond that :)

Anyways, it was certainly a healing time, but I still didn't completely work through all the issues I was dealing with. I am still troubled though Jesus has promised me peace...and peace not as the world gives.

Continue to pray for me as I work out these things and enter back into our fall season with blue sky nine. I have to admit I have a lot of reservations coming back in. And for good reason. Nonetheless I know that God has put me here to love others and share the gospel of Christ with those who don't know Him. Satan is working over time to split us up and so is our flesh.

Pray my pride would be crushed and for my flesh to die.

I heard in a sermon last night how when God gives us wisdom, we are to believe and not doubt.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
-James 1:5-8

The doubt James is talking about is not the doubt of asking questions or wrestling with believing Him. It's sitting in judgment on God's ways, being the one who in essence says, "o.k., God, if your way is really right, then I'll try it. If it's not, then I guess it just didn't work"

It's like, "mmmm...is your way really the best way, God?" That's what I've been doing inadvertently.

Forgiveness Your way? Got doubts for you, God...

Humility Your way? Got more doubts for you, God...

Reconciliation Your way? Love your way?

Questions, questions, questions...doubts, doubts, and doubts...

As the man with a sick boy said to Jesus, "I believe; help my unbelief!" -Mark 9:24

Thanks for reading friends...good night

Off to Kentucky

2006-08-08T18:52:00.000-04:00

Woohoo! Vacation time!

It's been a long awaited one too.

I'm headed out now to Florence, Kentucky where I'll be spending the night. It'll be a short night but I just need to get away.

Tomorrow I'll be driving just up the road to Fort Mitchell, Kentucky and spending the night there. I'll be spending most of my day checking out downtown Cincinnati. Woohoo! Cincinnati, here I come!

I'm going to spend some much needed time with God to replenish, recoop, and get my head straight. Ever since summer project has been over, my spiritual life has been on a steady decline until I hit rock bottom two nights ago and have just been feeling really crappy ever since...it has NOT been fun.

Pray for me as I go. I could sure use your prayers. There are a ton of relational issues I need to face and deal with that I've been running away from since last week. The Lord has been pursuing me and pressing His finger on it but I've been ardently resisting. Pray I'll stop running and surrender to Him today.

I'm looking forward to the drive. Right now there shouldn't be any heavy traffic, so I should get there in a relatively short amount of time. Going cheap for dinner at Arby's, do some nice reading and quiet time, then hitting the sack. Then I have lunch with my old college buddy, Johnny Choi!

I am so excited to see him. He told me today that hearing my voice was a "blast from the past." It sure is! It's already been four years since I've been out school! FOUR YEARS!!! MAN! Where the heck did all the time go?!?!

I'm signing out from the internet...taking a break for a few days so I'll be posting up some stuff once I return home...blessings to you all. Have a great week

Back from tour!

2006-08-02T21:02:00.000-04:00

WOW

What a whirlwind of a time! I just got off the road with Young Isaac and MAN...I am spent. But WHAT AN AMAZING TIME. God blessed my socks off and I was so blessed and encouraged by each of them this summer. I will miss all the students dearly (emo moment here :) )

It has certainly been a while. I can scarcely hold a thought for too long before I move on to something else. Maybe that's why I'm so slow and far in-between blog entries.

Last night Dave Roux, the Keynote summer project director, spoke of going back into the valley after our mountaintop experience. He shared with us the example of Elijah who summoned fire to burn up the sacrifice on the altar to prove that the Lord was the Lord. And right after, he retreated into the Negev desert and wanted to die because he was afraid for his life, running away from Jezebel.

He steps down from the mountaintop and all these things come crashing in around him...it's the valley. Dave Roux...truer words were never spoken by you!

The summer was amazing with all the life change happening right before me, the people I met, the people I poured into and how I loved them and vice versa (I hope :) ), and it was fantastic. But this morning I woke up to the realization that I was going to have to deal with allllll these other things that have been on the wayside since I had left...

Difficult situations, relationships, the whole shebang...my head was full of clutter as I woke up this morning and the heat is on...I feel the spiritual attack and I need my Lord to help clear up what I'm thinking of...help me, Jesus.

To all my peeps...love you all. Thanks for your prayers and concern. You students were the greatest blessing in my life this summer. Now I've just gotta deal with all the other stuff going on in my life right now!

Midnight musings

2006-07-07T00:53:00.000-04:00

12:49a.m....a little better, I guess.

Am I actually writing blog entires two nights in a row? During summer project time?! Amazing!

I'm still up late finishing my newsletter and preparing for discipleship tomorrow with Josiah.

I am really enjoying my times of discipleship with Josiah and Jeff. I never really realized how much I love discipleship and pouring into another person's life. It's kind of encouraging because I've never thought of myself as a people person before! But maybe that has a lot to do with God changing my heart.

He has certainly been convicting me that I need to love people more. Letting that subtle, yet powerful, truth sink in, has transformed me in more ways than I recognize. It's so amazing how living out your beliefs in one certain area can change the whole course of how you view life and the way you do things.

It's kind of a 'duh' statement to say that what you believe is how you will live. But I guess that doesn't really ever quite sink in until you really see it in action.

Obviously, believing in Christ guides the course of my actions, but I never thought just changing one small thought in my mind could steer the entire ship in an entirely different direction.

It's sort of like my mental rudder has been steered a few degrees and now I love people more and I enjoy spending time with them. I'm still really picky about who I do that with and still have a LONG way to go, but it's encouraging to see God change my heart and tune my sense differently to be thinking others-centered.

Wow...revolutionary. Very cool.

Anyways, all that said, I'm having a great time with the boys :) They are blessing me as I bless them. It's a beautiful thing.

Praise God for this summer. I've probably said it before, but I will say it again: I love my team! They are such a breath of fresh air and such a blessing to me. Every time I think of them, I pray with joy, thanking God for each one of them being here at Keynote right now, in my life.

Tomorrow night is blue sky nine's coffeehouse along with the open mic night. The last one is usually packed with lots of different acts since the students realize it's the last one of the summer!

Time to hit the hay...

2006-07-05T03:35:00.000-04:00

3:30 in the morning...

yep...

just finished practicing for both rehearsals I have tomorrow. Yes, you read that right. I have TWO rehearsals tomorrow.

Young Isaac is continuing with full day rehearsals and blue sky nine will rehearse during lunch time together for the first time since April! It should be interesting! let's hope it turns out o.k.

In any case, this Friday, we'll be the featured band for the coffeehouse this week. Please pray for us! I'll be posting up Young Isaac's tour schedule soon too.

Check out our flyer!

Last full week

2006-07-04T01:26:00.000-04:00

Happy July 4th!

I remembered as a kid lighting all sorts of fireworks on the 4th of July at the park with friends. We used everything from Roman candles to M80's. Let's just say...we were young :)

Tomorrow morning we start our last week of full day rehearsals. CRAZY!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE ALREADY IN OUR LAST WEEK OF REHEARSALS!

We still have our band dress rehearsals the following week, but as far as full day rehearsals go, this week is it, and then we hit the road!

Man, do I NEED your prayers!

Please, please pray for me and pray for my team as we come into this new and final full week. Pray for God to continue to do significant life change in the lives of these students and that we, as staff, would continue to be strengthened in Christ's love to be able to pour our and minister to them. I want to love my team well and know I can't really be thinking of that when all I want to do is sleep some more. So please pray for me to get the proper rest I need.

This weekend was FANTASTIC in terms of playing "catch up" with just normal, everday life things I need to attend to.

I vacuumed my room (BIG deal considering I haven't done since I've moved in!), rearranged my furniture a bit, did like three loads of laundry (and folded all of them too!), and sorted through my mail and bills.

!!!!! I know! Complete shocker. I couldn't believe it either! Praise God for helping me to buckle down and fight off the temptation of just running off to play some more. I socialize too much at the expense of doing the things I really need to get done. Thanks God for helping me to keep boundaries with myself. That's been a huge praise in my life. Wow...very cool. Makes me feel good :)

SO!
Please continue praying for my team:

Brandon
Jeff
Lindsey
Laura
Josiah
Josh
Lindsay Cole (Team director)
Benton Cole (Team director)
Dan Bongard (Music director)
myself

Pray for team unity
Pray for the attitudes of our hearts and minds to be like that of Christ Jesus
Pray for protection over our bodies' health
Pray for our relationships with God to be strong
Pray for our tour schedule
Pray for our physical energy and stamina during this taxing week
Pray for healthy, grace-filled conflict resolution when they do arise (and they will!)

Pray for blue sky nine's coffeehouse this Friday night at 7p.m.! We haven't rehearsed our set in about a month and a half, so we need all the help we can get! We'll have a rehearsal Thursday night for about two hours, but that's about it! We're a bit rusty, so I'm just praying we can clear the cobwebs and be able to click together again like we didn't skip a beat. That would be GRRRRRREAT.

1 1/2 weeks in

2006-06-28T22:53:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't written something reading on this blog site in a really long time...

You know how it goes: you have GREAT thoughts to write! Then something comes up...then you're too tired to do it...then you want to post up pictures but you need to edit them first...later...more later...man, it's been a long time. Can't write it now. People are like, "you never write blog entries that are up to date..." Man, I suck at this...etc. And the list goes on and on...sigh...

In any case, with all that said, I do want to write more often and hey, this is a start.

Summer project is in full swing and Young Isaac is doing well. Lindsey, our lead singer is experiencing some vocal issues, so you can please pray for her. She has not been feeling up to par, so it's been a frustrating thing for her to be in practice and feel tired and unable to sing as well.

What can I say about my team? They're fantastic. No, they're not perfect as no group ever is. But they've been such a huge blessing to me this summer. I'm so thankful for them and I'm always filled with joy and when I think about them.

The summer has been refreshing so far with all the new blood around, though it's been a tiring time and I'm really lacking the sleep!

I can't believe that we're already halfway through our second week of rehearsal though! Talk about FAST! GEEZ!!!

We just finished bible study not too long ago and had a great time going through Timothy 2. As a team, we talked about ways we can practically keep Christ in front of us as we rehearse and prepare to witness to people on the road.

God has been teaching me to daily commit to Him to remain pure in body and thought, and I encouraged my team to commit themselves to walking in the Spirit daily. I know I need it, though I don't do it, as we all need to do it. Just saying that I commit to walking in the Spirit today, to recognize sin right away and confess before it God, and then to receive and apply God's promises and forgiveness for those sins, is huge. It makes such a difference in my life and I intend to hold to that at least for this next week as I continue on project.

Summer project is such an interesting time. It is the most intense spiritually because students' lives are being changed everyday. The enemy is at work over time and I feel him doing it. He is distracting me as much as possible, diverting my focus from Christ to petty things and blowing the conflicts in my life way out of proportion to the point of being swayed and controlled by them. Christ should always be at the center, grounding me in my thoughts, helping me to view these problems and issues in light of the Holy Spirit. But I know I am having a REALLY hard time doing that.

You can certainly pray that I would be filled with the Holy Spirit each day, trusting and relying on His strength to get through each day and be able to do all that I need to, regardless of the situation. And you can also pray for me to have grace for my brothers and sisters. I need to forgive and let go. Holding onto those things only embitters me and contribues to a critical spirit. Life is certainly too short to hold onto these things and let them eat me up inside. I need to let them go, apply God's truth, and move on.

Tuesday was a very encouraging day however; a breakthrough if you will.

I had my spiritual development time with Dave, who is my spiritual development coach, and dialogued with him about a lot of the conflicts and struggles I've been dealing with.

To have a person outside the situation give me fresh perspective on what I was struggling with was so freeing for me. It was a release, a way to "let the bad out." That is something I need to continue to learn how to do in the context of a supportive group or community. Only there can I really begin to change and continue to grow in these things.

Anyways, I'm a lot better. Praise God. I want to continue to get better and not be so stuck.

Tomorrow is a new day. I gotta get to bed...need some more sleep. Things are going great though overall!

Please pray for the remainder of our rehearsals-we start full day rehearsals on Friday! We need all the prayers we can get. We're coming along but need to really press forward. Thanks everyone. Good night!

Israel Photos

2006-06-23T10:43:00.000-04:00

Click on the link below to view my photos of Israel!

I finally had time to post them on ofoto.com, so please check them out!

Enjoy!

Photos of the Holy Land

Newsletters

2006-06-11T00:18:00.000-04:00

Just letting you know I've posted up my April and May 2006 newsletters

Just click the link on the sidebar to view them!

Night!

Finally! Photos!

2006-06-08T22:14:00.000-04:00

Finally! My photos are here!

The link below is to all my Albania pictures. I've split them up by city where our concerts were. I spent a lot of time on it, so I hope you like it! Enjoy! Feel free to leave comments and feedback :) Have a great night!

Albania photos

Story of my life

2006-06-07T23:11:00.000-04:00

I'm still working on the pictures...story of my life...always late and needing more time to finish a monumental task that seemingly does not lend itself enough time for me to complete it in a timely manner. Sigh...alas, the great time conundrum. Even in ministry we are so consumed with doing!

I wish I had a Mount of Olives to retreat to and a Kidron Valley to pass as I walked there each day. Life would be a lot simpler. But we each have our lot in life as Jesus did. Three years...three years to save the world. HOW DO YOU DO THAT?! 'Cause He's God. And to think we have Him living in us...then why don't we have the same type of life impact ourselves?

So many times, as I'm learning about living the Spirit-filled life, we simply don't want it. We resist and rebel. We immediately harden our hearts to Him or brush off the notion of always walking in the Spirit, quick to think it's not possible. But it is. The question is whether or not we will submit to Him and allow Him to live through us and take control of our lives?

We have the gift of free will. And unfortunately (or fortunately, for those who don't really care about doing God's will) we can choose to not do His will as often as we like. The hope is that we won't, but gosh we still do. And to think that Satan was once an angel of light, the right hand "man" of God and he STILL fell!!!! Even seeing Christ in His eternal glory there! And managed to deceive 1/3 of the angels to fall with him! Man...there are just no words for that.

Anyways, I can ramble on and on about theology, but it's past my "curfew." I've been giving myself an online curfew of 11p.m. for various reasons I care not to divulge publicly, but some of you can guess why... Preparations for summer project are going well so far. I just wish I had more time to do things! GAH! But I'm so tired day in and day out and can never get the proper rest that I need.

Perhaps even when I'm sleeping I'm not really resting. It's interesting to read Jesus' words that say, "come to me...and I will give you rest for your souls." He never said He'd give us sleep or help us sleep better. He said He'd give us rest. And I think there is a huge difference. I need to learn how to rest.

I can nap and sleep often while my mind goes round and round over things of ministry and work and life like a constant spinning top. But I don't think that was God's desire for us as we serve Him. He does not want us to be anxious, He does not want us to worry. We need only to think about today and God will take care of the rest. It's a principle of trust-I need to trust Him. Help me to trust You, God.

Pray for my summer project team Young Isaac. I am excited to have the opportunity to disciple these students this summer.

Jeffrey Chin will be playing violin (from NY!!! He's the guy on the left :) ),

Lindsey Thayer is on lead acoustic guitar and vocals (from So. Cal. West Coast!)

Brandon Carpenter is on guitar,

Josiah Washburn is on bass,

Josh Weis will be our sound tech (no, he's not the frog),

Laura Piscitello (staff intern) is on vocals, and I'll be playing drums. Lindsay and Benton Cole will be our team directors (they're both from the Keynote HR department) and Dan Bongard will be our music director.

I'm really excited to be working with this staff team. This summer I'm looking forward to being refreshed in my relationship with God and in ministry fulfillment as well.

I've shared some of my struggles with my full-time band in past entries, so you can understand. Stepping out of that situation and being in another that is different will help tons. I feel our personalities and general character types are very similar and generally very moldable and able to get along well. That is a HUGE blessing and will take "less effort" ya know? It'll be nice to not have to stress out so much about conflicts and such on the team. I really hope for a great time with them. Please please pray for us!

I'm way past my curfew now.

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I will have my pictures ready VERY soon, I PROMISE!!! Again...it's the story of my life that I'm super late on this when I said I'd have it done a few weeks ago. I want it to be great and ten million things got dumped on my plate before I was able to finish this, so yeah...there ya go. Not to make excuses, but I think you can understand. Keep checking! It'll be up soon :)
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Still working on it

2006-05-24T23:56:00.000-04:00

I'm still working on it believe me...I'll be posting them up soon. Sorry for the delay!

East Coast!

2006-05-18T14:15:00.001-04:00

I fly out to New York in about two hours! woohoo!

I'm really excited to take some vacation time at home and also visit with some supporters and share more about my ministry. It's been an exciting year, so it'll be really encouraging to see what God has done as I take stock over these last 12 months of ministry. What a wild ride!

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For those of you who are looking for my Albania and Israel pictures, I will be posting them up very soon! I have A LOT of pictures, so I still need to finish sorting through them before I post them up. Please check back in a few days! Thanks!
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Blessings to you all and hope you have a great weekend! :)

Been a long time

2006-04-27T17:12:00.000-04:00

I know...it's been a while...life just got up and running in a hurry and I haven't had a chance to get caught up yet.

Ever since coming back from Israel, I haven't had nearly any moments to just stop and sit still and catch my breath. I've just been going non-stop ever since and it's been exhausting to say the least.

Top that off with all the personal issues and struggles I've been dealing with, mix it up with some other conflicts with folks and you've got a whole big exploding mess of things happening right now. If you looked at my life from a distance, it might look something like a slow-moving tornado or torrential downpour, varying in speed and intensity-that might be the entire picture, but it's darn close.

Right now I'm in the land of cheese again! We're towards the end of our tour and wow...I can't believe tonight is our last show! We'll be playing at 9p.m. tonight at this place called The Access, a young singles' adult ministry out here in Wisconsin Rapids. REALLY cool place.

I'll be playing a paired-down, Starbucks type of drum setup so I won't have my full kit :( Booo...'La-fawn-duh,' my bass drum is quite sad she won't be played to round out the end of our season, but I am sure she will be used quite a bit this summer out on the road with Young Isaac, the summer project band I'll be playing withn from the end of June 'till the beginning of August.

I can't wait to get home...there are a lot of frustrating things I am dealing with being out on the road and being around people 24 hours a day. If they were my favorite people in the world, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but...alas, it gets difficult at times, to say the least.

Please pray for me in this season of life. As I look back on this past touring season there is A LOT I need to think about and ponder. Pray the Lord would help me be Christ-centered in thought and focus. I need to adjust some expectations and just change the way I think about a lot of things. That's a very difficult thing to do given I have many strong convictions about many things.

Some of those things are good to feel strongly about, some of those things are not.

In the wise words of Pastor John Hawco, my college pastor at Union Center Christian Church, "Major on majors and minor on minors." It's such a simple concept to understand, yet so hard to actually live out. I know I should be doing that all the time but I just don't! Be it pride or confusion, I just don't get it right a lot of the time and I still need to grow.

Anyways, I can babble on for hours and hours.

I realized I never posted up pictures from my time in Israel. Check 'em out!

Here I am with Dan (in the middle), whom we met at the youth hostel Kevin (far right) and I were staying at in Tiberias. It ends up that he's from Long Island too! Sweet!
He's Jewish and was over in Israel studying Hebrew and learning about his heritage with a student program.
We had a lot of fun hanging out with him and visiting some of the holy sites together, like Tel Megiddo and Nazareth.
After Tiberias we parted ways, but it was fun while it lasted! We hope we cross paths again and also hope God may have planted seeds in his heart to think about Jesus Christ's messiahship.

YES! Here I am at the gates of Solomon's palace!!! Talk about INCREDIBLE! Man...it was such a trip being at what once was probably one of the greatest palaces built in all of history. Tel Megiddo was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. I was literally standing on thousands of history where countless numbers of empires were built and destroyed on, and where major wars were fought for this piece of land.
For those of you who know about bible history, this is where it is all going to go down in the end times as spoken of in Revelation. 'Megiddo' is where the word 'Armageddon' is derived from.

Here I am sitting atop the hillside of Tel Megiddo, overlooking the Jezreel Valley. Isn't it so beautiful?! Gosh...what a lush, beautiful land.
As Kevin and I were there, we couldn't help commenting, "no wonder why God calls this place 'the land flowing with milk and honey!'" It is SO lush and rich. The soil is rich, fertile, and there are so many beautiful natural resources. Now we see why this is the Promised Land! Good certainly had a good land for the Israelites.

CHEK THIS OUT! This is a picture of an underground water tunnel system that was built during King Josiah's reign. It was built to ensure that the city would have a water source in times of war, in case the enemy they were fighting cut off their outside water supply.
The entire tunnel is cut out of SOLID rock under the temple and connects with a well spring on the other side of the tunnel. INCREDIBLE to think of how they actually built this thing a few thousand years ago without the advanced technology that we have these days?! Absolutely incredible and an architectural marvel from antiquity and even in this day!

Here is Kevin and I in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth! Man it was so beautiful! Amazing to think we walked the streets and climbed the mountain tops where Jesus once was. Here in the background is modern day Nazareth-so much bigger than what it once was!

Here I am sitting on top of the Mt. precipice in Nazareth overlooking the Jezreel Valley, where the crowds supposedly tried to push Jesus off the edg of, as written in Luke 4:28-30.

What was really interesting was the inscription written on this rock at the Mt. Precipice, that said according to tradition, it was called "The Leaping Mountain," because it was believed that Jesus jumped off the mountain to escape the crowds. That was totally not biblical, but it was still accepted as tradition. Very interesting...

Here is the church at Nazareth, supposedly where Jesus and his family once lived! We made it there in the middle of a worship service-what a treat that was!
The group was singing "Celebrate, Jesus, Celebrate" in their native tongue, which I have no idea what it was but every word was beautiful, and I could feel God's presence there which nearly brought tears to my eyes. Beautiful...simply beautiful.

I have tons more pictures, about 680 more to be exact. If I tried posting each one of them, I think I would need a whole other blog and you would probably get sick of scrolling through each one and reading all the descriptions. So if you'd like anymore, feel free to e-mail me or let me know! I'd be happy to send some your way.

I also go to visit the Dead Sea; Qumran, where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls; Jerusalem; Masada; the Mt. of Olives; Garden of Gethsemane; and a bunch more holy sites. All were so beautiful and I wish we had another week to really soak it all in and not be so pressed for time at ecah place. More to come! Thanks for reading friends :)

Back from the Holy Land

2006-04-03T08:04:00.000-04:00

It has been an exhausting but amazing last three weeks. I arrived home on Saturday afternoon around 3:15p.m. and was totally wiped from our long flight home.

We had three flight transfers that were long and laborious, so it really tired me out by the time I got home.

Being in Israel was absolutlely amazing. I walked on the shores of the Sea of Galilee (and brought some rocks home from it :) ), swam in the Dead Sea (yes, you really do float!), went to Tiberias, Capernaum (where Jesus called His first disciples), Tel Meggido, Mesada, Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found), the Jordan River (the north side though-not by Jericho where the Israelites crossed), and to the "City of David"-Jerusalem.

I walked where Jesus walked, saw what He saw, and even experienced a bit of what He experienced. My travels through His Holy Land have bolstered my faith and I will surely have very vivid quiet times now when I read the scriptures.

Perhaps one of the most poignant sites I went to was the "Garden Tomb" where supposedly Jesus was laid after He was crucified. Inside the tomb you could see the rock on where He was laid and there was enough room in that little cave cut out of the rock for a few people to come in and sit down.

When you get up to walk out of the tomb, you notice a sign on the door now attached to the entrance of the tomb that reads "He is not here; He has risen." I have seen it with my own eyes. "See and believe."

Newsletters

2006-03-12T02:23:00.000-05:00

Hi all!

It is very very late and I am about to go to bed. When I arise, I will be preparing in my last hours before I leave for Albania. Please keep me and my team in prayer! thank you all!

Just wanted to let you know that my current newsletters are posted in my sidebar! Just click on the links and it'll take you there.

Included in my March Newsletter on p.2 is a calendar of all my concert dates that you can keep in prayer.

Thanks everybody! See you on the flipside!

Home Sweet Home

2006-03-08T01:51:00.000-05:00

I am home...I am well and I am home...praise the Lord...I am home.

This should be a psalm of some sort.

When I walked into my kitchen I hugged my refrigerator.
It's the simple things in life...

Still recovering from the long road tour.

Thanks so much for praying y'all. I love you all...

Good night.

Life on the road

2006-03-05T01:15:00.000-05:00

Missouri.

Tonight we ate at a really cool restaurant called "Lambert's Cafe-The Only Home of the Throwed Roll" Yes, you read that right. "Throwed Roll." 'What the heck is that?!', you ask? There's a guy who rolls a cart around the restaurant yelling, "Hot rolls!" and if you raise your hand and make eye contact with him he literally throws a roll at you. Yes, he throws it at you. And they're PIPING HOT!

It was quite comical when Amy signaled for one and when the roll came flying to her, her pinky went right through the middle of it and she yelled "OW! My pinky!" That was hilarious.

It was REALLY good food, but OH MY GOODNESS we stuffed ourselves WAY too much. It was a buffet-like place, so with any entree you ordered, you could eat as much as you want of it, so long as you didn't share it with anyone else. Otherwise you paid a $7.99 additional fee for an extra dish. I was tempted to get another Barbecue Pork Steak but oh man...I would've literally exploded.

Tour life has been long and adventurous. It's time to go home! I never thought I would say it, but I'm beginning to miss Indiana!

I can't wait to get bck to my own bed, in my own apartment, kicking back in my own couch and just vegetating for about three days straight. Wait, rather, sleeping for three days straight.

We're each getting to the point of being sick of being on the road. We're eager to get back and are coming to the point where we're getting a little edgy around each other and if we're on the road any longer, sparks are gonna fly.

Thanks for praying everybody. It's been tough at times but the Lord has been keeping our team in good spirits and keeping us patient as well!

We should be arriving home by about 6 or 7p.m. tomorrow night. Lord, lead me home. Good night everybody. Happy Oscars!

Daily Devotional

2006-02-27T10:13:00.000-05:00

Heavy stuff...

Hebrews 12:6 [ Greek Font Size: – / + | Toggle Font ] [ View in: BYZ / TR | Side-by-side | Greek Lexical Parser ]

[ Personal Notes: Add ]: FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES."
on gar agapa (5719) kuriov paideuei, (5719) mastigoi (5719) de panta uion on paradexetai. (5736)

(taken from studylight.org)

scourge

Main Entry: ¹scourge
Pronunciation: 'sk&rj also 'skOrj, 'skorj, 'skurj
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French escorge, from (assumed) Old French escorgier to whip, from Old French es- ex- + Latin corrigia whip
1 : WHIP; especially : one used to inflict pain or punishment
2 : an instrument of punishment or criticism
3 : a cause of widespread or great affliction

(take from meriam-webster online, bold mine)

Greek for 'Discipline':

Strong's Number: 3809

paideiða

Original Word		Word Origin
	paideiða		from (3811)
Transliterated Word		Phonetic Spelling
	Paideia		pahee-di'-ah
Parts of Speech		TDNT
	Noun Feminine		5:596,753
Definition
	the whole training and education of children (which relates to the cultivation of mind and morals, and employs for this purpose now commands and admonitions, now reproof and punishment) It also includes the training and care of the body whatever in adults also cultivates the soul, esp. by correcting mistakes and curbing passions. instruction which aims at increasing virtue chastisement, chastening, (of the evils with which God visits men for their amendment)
Translated Words
	KJV (6) - chastening, 3; chastisement, 1; instruction, 1; nurture, 1; NAS (6) - discipline, 5; training, 1;

(taken from studylight.org)

The Lord's Discipline:

Job 5:17

17"Behold, how ^(A)happy is the man whom God reproves,
So do not despise the ^(B)discipline of the Almighty.

Proverbs 3:11

11^(A)My son, do not reject the discipline of the LORD
Or loathe His reproof,

Revelation 3:19

19'^(A)Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and ^(B)repent.

Psalm 119:75

75I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are ^(A)righteous,
And that ^(B)in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

Psalm 94:12

12Blessed is the man whom ^(A)You chasten, O LORD,
And ^(B)whom You teach out of Your law;

The penultimate NT passage on the discipline of the Lord:

Hebrews 12:1-13

1Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also ^(A)lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us ^(B)run with ^(C)endurance the race that is set before us,
2fixing our eyes on Jesus, the ^(D)author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him ^(E)endured the cross, ^(F)despising the shame, and has ^(G)sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

3For ^(H)consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary ^(I)and lose heart.
4^(J)You have not yet resisted ^(K)to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;

5and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
"^(A)MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD,
NOR ^(B)FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM;
6^(C)FOR THOSE ^(D)WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES,
AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES."
7It is for discipline that you endure; ^(E)God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

8But if you are without discipline, ^(F)of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

9Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we ^(G)respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to ^(H)the Father of spirits, and ^(I)live?

10For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, ^(J)so that we may share His holiness. (bold mine)

11All discipline ^(K)for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the ^(L)peaceful fruit of righteousness.

12Therefore, ^(X)strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,

13and ^(Y)make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather ^(Z)be healed.

God's ultimate end in disciplining us is "so that we may share His holiness." God 'scourges' us and allows afflictions and these great pains and trials to happen in our lives, "so that we may share His holiness."

To be disciplined is to become more like Him.

2006-02-16T12:49:00.000-05:00

Lord, make me the man of integrity You want me to be. I long to have purity and integrity of heart.

1I will sing of steadfast love and justice;
to you, O LORD, I will make music.
2I will ponder the way that is blameless.
Oh when will you come to me?
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;
3I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.
4A perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will know nothing of evil.
-Psalm 101:1-4

2006-02-16T12:46:00.000-05:00

God, I need to cultivate my relationship with You, today. Help me to do that.

In Jesus Name. Amen.

2006-02-16T12:43:00.000-05:00

Lord, help me to die today. I need to die to myself...

Die, Chris...die...

"I have been crucified with Christ so that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."
-Galatians 2:20

"Team Steam"

2006-02-12T22:06:00.000-05:00

So it's been QUITE a week. I don't feel at liberty to divulge all the gory details of the conflict I've had this past week so I'll just say that it's been rough to say the least. Please, please, please pray for me...

Satan is really attacking me and my team right now. He is trying to cause disunity by amplifying petty differences and they are seroius hindrances to us operating together as one, cohesive unit. He's definitely working over time and OH, do I feel it.

She and I are just not seeing eye to eye at all right now and we haven't really resolved our conflict either. We have only acknowledged that there are certainly some major miscommunication problems and probably some deeper issues there as well, on both ends, I guess.

I need patience, I need the Lord, and again I need to remind myself that I need to die-die to self, die to self-justification, die my rights, and the desire to vindicate myself. The Lord has reminded me this week that He is my vindicator. I need to let Him be the one that vindicates me. I need to relinquish control and allow Him room to work.

I am always tyring to make people see me in the right light but sometimes it's just not possible and it's too idealistic of me. The Lord is trying to make things real and help me to realize that people will sometimes just have a wrong perception of me or a serious misunderstanding, and I need to let that go.

But what frustrates me most is how the conflict strikes at the core of what I've been working at with my own boundaries. I feel my boundaries have been breached and I'm not quite sure how to respond to it. I have addressed what she has done and have confronted her and held her accountable for her actions. But how do you do that while dying to yourself and your own sin?!?!?!?!

So please pray for me...I need your prayers. This is a "burden" that I need to share with you. And I hope you will share it with me and uplift me in your prayers.

And please pray for our upcoming tour.

Click on the link below to see what our schedule looks like:

February tour

Keynote Summer Project

2006-02-06T16:30:00.000-05:00

Keynote is currently taking applications for our student summer project!

We send out about 5 or 6 different bands, compromised of college and/or senior high school students to tour the U.S. or even abroad! Last summer we had a group travel through Australia, which proved to be an amazing opportunity for ministry where over 200 total decisions for Christ resulted from their concerts!

Students come to Keynote headquarters, train for about 3 1/2 weeks and then hit the road for 2 weeks. It's a tremendous time of faith building and using the musical gifts God has given them to serve and build His kingdom!

It is life changing, it is dynamic, it is fulfilling the Great Commission. Please strongly consider it or pass it along to someone who you know may be interested!

As a ministry leader, would you take a moment to consider these three questions?

•Do you know any believers who are musical and have a heart for God?

•Would you like to see them catch a vision for how they can use this gift to lead others to Christ?

•Would you like to see them spend a summer with 45 other musicians who are being trained to use their talents and impact their culture and our world for Jesus Christ?

If so, please encourage them to consider joining us for the Keynote Summer Project (USA).

keynote summer project june 15 - august 2

http://www.keynote.org/summerproject

Click on the link and let me know if you’d like more information…