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.