Albums and Telemarketers

Two major things have happened since I last wrote: album making + calling drive.

Album.

We recorded a live album in tandem with the other team! It was a lot of fun, and the great part is that it didn’t detract from our ministry at all. Because it was recorded live, we still went to several different places that week and ministered to people just the same. In fact, because we were recording the whole process, we took more time in preparation of the sets to ensure a cohesive message. It was an awesome experience and it made us all think harder about our program, what we have to say, and how to share it. It was a great experience and I’m certainly thankful for it. Plus, there’s now an album of us all :)

Also, one of our concerts was in Canada, so technically we’re international recording artists.

Calling Drive.

For the last week or so we’ve been calling all of CTI’s supporters, past and present. It’s part of how CTI brings in money for our general fund. And it has essentially turned us into telemarketers for the time being. At first it was really stressful and strange… and it’s still a bit stressful and strange, but at least now I appreciate it all a bit more. Let me explain.

One day I was calling a lot of people from this one place we went earlier this fall. After calling all these people, it was clear that every one of them only knew about CTI because of this one girl who was a part of CTI years ago. Through one person, an entire area/church family became consistently involved in CTI by supporting or hosting teams. It was awesome to see the huge ripple effect she had! It was a good reminder for me in our ministry to trust in the Lord’s work regardless of what tangible effects we may see. It reminds me of a quote I found recently:

“Work should be regarded less with reference to its immediate results, or as to how it may affect this or that person; the great question is, will it, when sifted in His presence, be acceptable to Him?”

Point being, we should seek to honor God with what we do, not do whatever yields the most visible results.

Merry Christmas to you all! And I’ll be back in MD from the 14^th to the 2^nd of the new year! I’d love to see you all.

Whose Glory?

As a bass player, I sometimes think of songs as playgrounds. I know what I must play to keep the song on track, but what else could I play? Where else in the song can I do something fun? It's a game.

When I get feedback (whether self criticism or from others), it's more likely to be "do less" than "do more". The role of the bass is to fill out the low end of the sound. Trying to do more than that and fulfill a different purpose isn't always beneficial. This can be really frustrating, but it reminds me of a section of the bible.

1 Corinthians 12:12-26:

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty,24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.


It's all about how the church of Christ is made up of different parts. All the parts are just as important though they may not be as glorified. We all have different means of serving and honoring God. Through whatever ministries we have in our life we can honor God. Sometimes it isn't glamorous, or something that will get a lot of recognition, but it's just as great.

All of this was a reminder to me that I need no glorification in my ministry. If I seek to glorify myself through me deeds that are supposed to honor God, then how much am I really honoring Him? Therefore I will gladly play bass and the other instrument that get little notice (the sound board). I will gladly serve God with that which brings me no glory. After all, I'm not the one worthy of glory and praise.

What to Say

I originally posted this as a blog to CTI's website, ctimusic.org. It can be found here:
http://ctimusic.org/teams/fulltime-2012-2013/cti-1421/1389-what-to-say

On Sunday, we played at a traditional Lutheran church (much like the one I grew up in). We did an acoustic set, and I was sharing that day. As I was preparing what to say for the service, I occasionally would get frustrated because I would think of something great to say... but not for the demographic of the church I was sharing for. I knew I shouldn't have been getting frustrated with the idea of molding a set and testimony to fit an audience, but I couldn't figure out WHY it was a bad attitude to have. Later it all made sense.

We'd been doing acoustic sets the past few days, meaning I hadn't played my instruments in a while. It wasn't frustrating really, because I knew that the simple setups would accommodate the venue better. There are some concerts where doing a simple acoustic praise song will be far more appropriate and worshipful than that awesome electric guitar part to whatever song.

Then I began to realize that this principle applies to sharing testimonies as well; it's all about meeting people where they are. The set we did at that church was so simple, and yet I had never felt God’s presence more in a long time. Everyone was there to worship God, that's it. The communion, the liturgy, it all felt so purposeful this time. As if no one was doing it because it's what you're supposed to do on Sunday morning. But would all of that have happened if I hadn't planned the testimony and the songs to fit the setting?

Jesus met people where they were. He broke social barriers to reach sinners of the lowest kind. Paul even says in 1 Corinthians 9:20 that he became like those around him to share Christ with them. In the same way, we should all be willing to meet people where they are. Those who are hurting, lost, broken, etc. We should love them as Jesus loved us: by meeting us where we are.

Westward Travels!

We’ve been putting many miles on our van heading west. We started in Minnesota, then headed through South Dakota, then through Wyoming and into Montana. We just arrived in Idaho and will be heading towards Washington soon. It’s been really cool to see new areas on the country.

We spent the last few days at Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch. It’s a place for kids/teens who’ve had issues or troubled circumstances. We got to spend time with some of them during their music class, just playing songs and singing together. We also got to talk with them during meals.

It was clear that they need the love and redemption of Jesus, and it made our ministry feel very important. Our contact told us several times of how grateful he is that we came, and how he’ll be “reaping the benefits” of our visit for months to come. This was very encouraging for us.

To me being there really illuminated our need for Christ, not just their need for Christ. We may look at that group of kids and think, “man I’m glad I’m not that messed up” or any number of other shortsighted thoughts. But are we not just as messed up in God’s eyes? Does the Bible say that you can go to heaven if you are polite, donate money occasionally, and try and raise some good kids? Not quite. Regardless of who sins more or less, it doesn’t change our position with Christ. Our redemption through Christ is accomplished not by acknowledging the things we do good, but by acknowledging that we still screw up. Then, by acknowledging our inability to redeem ourselves in God’s eyes without Jesus.

Realizing all this has given me a different perspective on our ministry. It was awesome being at that boys and girls ranch, but most of our ministry is to the Church, where our brokenness isn’t as readily apparent. But we all need Jesus just the same. And I don’t think it should stop at “Jesus died for me, yay”. I believe that’s enough, but also that we should seek to understand God’s character and his will. And hopefully, that’s something my team and I can learn to convey through our concerts.

Hong Kong, Exhaustion Guaranteed

First off, here is a blog I wrote for the CTI 14:21 blog about a week into our trip to Hong Kong:
http://ctimusic.org/teams/fulltime-2012-2013/cti-1421/1369-at-a-moments-notice

It's a good insight to what I was thinking in the middle of the trip.



Anyways, back to now. Hong Kong was exhausting in many ways, in all the best ways. My arms and hands were tired from carrying things, my body was tired from always being on the go, my brain was tired from attempting to process everything, and my spirit was tired from being poured out. Let me explain that last one.

Something I've been told a few times at CTI is that we pour out of the overflow of our relationship with Christ. It's a deep idea that I'd love to unpack in detail, but it isn't really the purpose of this post so I'll keep it going. Basically, after doing these concerts, we must "refill" our relationship with God or we'll get burned out. In HK we played around 50 concerts in 19 days. Unlike our stateside ministry, our concerts involved more verbals. These verbals were before every song and given by every team member. We gave many "testiminis" between songs.

One of the ways we as a team would spiritually refill ourselves was with bible study at the beginning and end of the day. We would read a chapter each morning and would read it again at night. We read through 1 John and then through Philippians. This turned out to be a great way to book end our days.

One of the things I took from it all was a verse from Philippians 4:11. Paul describes how he's learned to be content in all situations, regardless of his circumstances. The way I understand it is more like, "you don't need to be having a good day to be content". Even if bad things happen to us, we can still chose to rejoice in the Lord always (Philippians 4:4). Considering our ministry involves a lot of people looking at us, I think this is a critical thing to understand. And in a place like HK were you can have many ups and downs in one day, this was a great lesson to learn.

One other thing I learned was how simple it was to discuss the gospel with people. Obviously it's simply, but I always build it up in my mind and I get uncomfortable about sharing sometimes. But after a few conversations with people during street ministry, I realized how easy it is. If I can talk about Jesus with people who barely know any English, of course I can do it with people in America. And so can you!

It's good to be back, and I hope I can be a changed person because of my experience in HK.

Overseas and Under Pressure

CTI has really been a lot like a roller coaster. There are many highs and lows. There will be a couple of days where we’ll be very busy and always on the go, and then there will be slow days with traveling or simply resting. It seems like the busy periods are the times God uses to challenge us and teach us.

The theme of our team for the past week seems to be getting out of our comfort zone and sharing personal things during concerts that we didn’t expect we would be sharing. I’m thrilled to be learning this lesson together with my team! It means we’re learning how to be vulnerable and how to put ourselves personally into our ministry. That’s huge! Otherwise what we do could be boiled down to a formula. Formulas are great and all, but not for things that are intended to be personal (or so I’m told).

I think it’s awesome that we’re being challenged like this shortly before heading to Hong Kong, where we’ll surely leave our comfort zone at the airport. I know I’m pretty scared of Hong Kong. It’s going to be crazy! As someone who’s new to running sound, let alone playing at the same time, I’m not exactly looking forward to playing multiple, uniquely non-ideal setups in a day for several weeks. And although I know it’s going to be an especially challenging experience, I’m still looking forward to it. Every amazing experience in my life has revolved around a time of discomfort, and usually exhaustion.

Above and beyond all of my inwardly focused concerns remains the original purpose of me joining CTI: share the gospel in any and every way feasible. In Hong Kong we will have many opportunities for this. More important than the songs we do and the dramas we perform is the message we bring. It is my hope and prayer that we will be able to share the gospel of Jesus with many in a way that they understand and connect with. And as is the nature of God, I fully expect to come out of this experience having grown closer to my teammates as well as closer to God.

What We Have to Offer

Last Saturday we played at a small church service. It was mostly focused towards an older demographic, and we had a very simple setup. It wasn’t ideal, but it was appropriate for the venue.

I love stripped down sets. They offer a totally different feel to songs we know so well, there’s a lot more room to be creative with the instrumental parts, and there’s less to setup and tear down. They’re wonderful, but it’s harder to manage volume levels. We still had a large room to fill, and few instruments could be adjusted for volume. The ones that could didn’t run nicely through the soundboard that usually resides within arms reach of me. Not a problem, I can just scurry back and forth between the main speakers and the pews, unless the service starts shortly after setting up.

The service started, and after we played our first song, I was a bit frustrated. The sound levels weren’t right, and I didn’t have to be with the congregation to know that. But there really wasn’t much I could do about it, acoustic guitars only play so loud without amplification.

As I sat there in frustration, I began to look around the church at all the church-y decorations. The stained glass, the altar with the opened bible, the cross, the giant organ, and several other things were scattered around the sanctuary. It quickly reminded me of what we were doing in a church we’d never been to before. Like all those decorations and things around the church, our music is there to bring glory to God. Our purpose is not to have the perfect mix, and even if it were an objective, achievable thing, I would still never get it. That isn’t the point of us being there. We’re there to share of an awesome God who loves the least of us.

The same lesson appeared the next day. We were playing for a morning church service and I was having a couple of issues. Afterwards though, it was clear that the concert went great. Many people were telling us how much they enjoyed the music and that they loved having us there.

We aren’t traveling to share our musical abilities with the world. Not only do we have nothing new to offer the world musically, but music isn’t the most important thing we have share. The love and salvation of Jesus is.

Sunday afternoon we led a youth event for high school kids, and through that concert everything clicked. These kids were truly worshiping! Not because we aimed big ol’ speakers at their faces but because of where their hearts were. It was so clear that they were being moved by all of the messages given by the verbal transitions, the drama, the testimony, and the mini-sermon. On top of that, each and every song tied the message together so beautifully.

The message of that night is the only reason our teams got together for a year in the first place. That message is of redemption from our brokenness through Jesus, of salvation by grace through faith, and of the undeserved love we have from our savior. This is what we (we humans, not we CTI) need to remember as the most important thing we have to offer.

All in a Week's Work

Recently, I was thinking back to all that had happened just in the last week. At first, I thought, "not much really happened". Bummer.

Then I checked my online calendar. Turns out a lot happened in the past week! Time has blurred together in such a way that I didn't realize that some of those cool things that I'd stored away in my "old memories" department had happened only a few days earlier. In the past week, we've played at two high schools, two youth groups, a church service, and a nursing home. Each place we played at is like it's own little chapter in a collection of tales that tell a larger story.

At the youth groups, we got to share with the kids about their identity in Christ, as well as God's call for us to shine our light in the world. At one of the high schools, we shared about God's unconditional love and acceptance of us. These are just a few of the messages we've gotten to share with everyone we've played for. The things we share are personal, they're ways in which we've experienced God in our lives. And everything we share reveals a part of God's character, each piece a part of a greater whole.

If we spent decades doing this, we still would not be able to fully explain, experience, or even understand God, but that isn't exactly our purpose. In this life, we'll never fully understand God, He didn't design us to. We don't need to understand every minute theological intricacy to be able to proclaim "how great is our God!" Rather, we experience little bits and tastes of the greatness of God, and that is what we want to share with people. That is what we want others to experience for themselves.

As I embrace this idea more, I find myself almost wanting to speak during our concerts. That's weird! I hate speaking in public. But I love the idea of being able to share with others a taste of how God has been present in my life.

All of these things I've experienced and learned so far have taken place in just the first week of ministry. There is so much more to come.

Never Stop Learning

I hope to never stop learning, and it will be a sad day if I do.

Learning is a wonderful thing, but it's not always easy. When I speak of learning, I mean everything everything from learning facts, methods, ways of thinking, or even growing in character, in faith, etc. With things like facts, it's pretty quick and painless. With things like faith, it often takes time, effort, intentionality, and can even be painful. Painful because to grow, it requires failure. It requires us to realize that left to our natural desires and instincts, we will fail. We will fall short of the standard set before us by Jesus, without whom we would have no means of this growth. And that's the point of the gospel, without Jesus, we aren't good enough! The point I'm trying to make is that learning takes many forms.

The past three weeks here in MN have been training weeks for myself and the other CTI fulltime members. I certainly knew that there would be a lot to learn: music, a team role, probably a drama. I did not realize how intense it would be! Sure, I've been learning a lot of music, but plenty more as well. I have two team jobs, am playing a role in two dramas, and for the past week I've been staying late with the other sound tech for more training. Those extra training sessions were definitely an eye opener. I had no idea how little I knew about sound things! I consider myself a curious guy, and I thought I'd collected a fair bit of sound knowledge over time, but I've certainly been learning how much I have left to learn!

With all of these things I've been learning, I've been getting a little stressed. Thinking things like, "Didn't I just graduate? And now I'm spending up to 13 hrs a day learning more things?" or more seriously, "I'm not sure if I can handle this". There's so much I have been learning and still have to learn, and I feel I have a lot of responsibility on my team. And if I'm going to be honest, I've been a little scared lately.

I had been telling myself that it will all be alright once our team finishes learning. But we won't ever stop learning! Sure we'll know the music and dramas, but we will continue learning about God and His character. We will continue to learn about each other and how to communicate with, respect, and love each other. We will keep learning so many of these things. But bigger than all of that, I hope that we will all learn to not attempt all of this on our own.

This year will be quite challenging as I've been learning (even during training), and I don't think we'll be able to do it on our own. My prayer is that we would not attempt to. That we would stop striving to be better, to meet the impossible standard set by God. That we would not try to become intrinsically righteous, but surrender ourselves to instead be clothed in the righteousness offered by our God. I hope you will join me in this prayer - for the CTI teams, and for you as well.

Like I was saying before, learning can be difficult, but I hope to never stop learning.

As All Things Must Have A Beginning ... + The AYNmO Prequal

I've now been here in MN since friday night. We've done a lot of orientation things, lots of team bonding, and lots of learning about how the ministry works as well as our role as fulltime team members. Yesterday, round 2 summer teams had their final concert. The purpose (besides rocking out one last time as a team of course) was to pass the metaphorical torch that is CTI on to us incoming fulltimers. Also, they used this as a time to share wisdom with us and encourage us as we begin training for a long and crazy year!

So now they've gone home, to hopefully live out all that God has showed them overseas in their home lives. And following their departure, we finally began our music training! Which is of course very exciting, but comes with it's share of difficulties as well. Professional musicians playing professional concerts make it so easy for us to live in ignorance of all the complexities that go into creating those wonderful collections of sound! Since I've been asked to run the sound board from stage as well as play bass (now the easier part of my musical duties), I have a lot of work ahead of me. On top of learning songs, chords, kick patterns, etc, I have quite a bit of learning to do as far as sound teching goes. Even after learning how that fancy sound board (which looks like the 80's' idea of what futuristic tech. looks like) works, there's so much that needs to be fine tuned, and even altered from venue to venue! While potentially overwhelming, I'm excited for the challenge!

Today we were sharing how we all ended up at CTI, and it was awesome! To hear 16 different life stories, taking wildly different paths, and all ending with the present, all ending with something like "and that's how I came to devote an entire year of my life to serving God by praising his name and sharing all he's done with the world". How cool is that!? During this experience, I realized how few people I'd told the full story of how I chose to do a second year of CTI. In light of that, this ends the "keeping up with CTI" section of the blog, and the rest will be the story of how I ended up on this yearlong journey. So if you don't care to read on, I certainly won't hold it against you!



We'll start with last summer. I heard about CTI through a college friend, and ended up going to Taiwan with CTI for about a month. It was the best month of my life! Every fiber of my being was screaming "more, more!" ... almost. There was one thing that was holding me back. As my time in Taiwan went on, I began to get more and more frustrated that we (my team and I) rarely, if ever, got to see the fruits of our labor. The ministry is often very "touch and go", so we don't spend a lot of time in one place. And when we did, I still felt like we didn't see any life change in others. I never saw or heard someone changed by God through us. How could I even consider spending more time, energy, and resources (my own and the resources of my wonderful supporters!) if the most important reason I was there in the first place didn't seem to be working! It drove me nuts!

About halfway through the trip, it was bothering me so much that I figured I should just dump my thoughts out on paper. While writing about my frustrations, the team gathered around the common room where I was and began spouting all these stories back and forth about how some one was impacted by what we were doing! Are you kidding me!! I've certainly heard "God's timing is perfect" before, but I'd always shrugged it off as a vague nicety that we sort of tell ourselves. How foolish of me to question his faithfulness, love, and mastery of time. And from that point on it was just a matter of time, and I think I knew that.

Taiwan came to an end, and I went home and quickly let me parents know that I wanted to do CTI again for a year after graduating. They had reservations, but I applied anyway, y'know, "just in case". They had typical parental worries, all of which I very much expected. Job, future, money, all those worries we focus on when the safety of the person we care about is a top priority. All valid concerns no doubt, but when God is involved, directly involved, these worries become almost laughable. "You need to raise $12,000? hahaha, I made everything! What's money in comparison?" (I like to imagine God with a sense of humor). So after the initial shock, they agreed to support me in my trip. And now, a year later, I'm here!! Ready and anxious to make disciples of all nations! That means you too USA! Watch out!

Preparations

The trip has not yet begun, however, it is quickly drawing near. I recently learned that I will be in Hong Kong for our overseas tour in October! Crazy! I hope it's exhausting. I depart to MN for training three weeks from today to meet the team of people I'll be spending the year with. During these three weeks, I need to be preparing my heart and mind for the race set in front of me. Please pray for my team and I and the people we're ministering to. Check in later for more.