God is Good.

Currently, I have no job. I have bills that need paid, but no job. We all know that this situation doesn't work out too well. Being honest, although I love it up here in Detroit, I love my job as a worship leader and the work/planning involved, my job situation is beginning to really discourage me. Thankfully, I have Janurary's bills paid for, but I'm running low on everything else, and I dont have much money left... With all that said, I've been having a tough time the past couple weeks. I keep most things bottled up inside, and unless you know me very well, you probably wouldn't even know that I've been pretty stressed out lately. On the inside, and when I'm alone, the lack of a job/lack of money, is really getting to me. I've been praying constantly that God will give me a job! A good one that pays the bills and gives me the ability to set some money aside to save. I also pray that until I can find a job, that He will give me the funds to be able to pay my bills without having to worry about being late on payments... Well, God is good! The other night, Josh handed me a check. Someone from Evident Church who knows my situation decided to help me out! Its such a blessing! I was blown away! I actually opened it up in front of Josh, and did a pretty good job at keeping my cool while I was with him, but once he went upstairs, I fell to my knees and cried. :) I'm moved to tears now just thinking about it. I am more grateful than you can imagine. I serve an awesome God who loves me and provides for me. Thank you, Jesus.

And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:19

I just wanted to share this praise of mine. :) Its encouraged me, and hopefully will encourage you also. God provides! Its not always in ways that we would think, but He comes through, and His timing is PERFECT!

Your Love Never Fails.

I strongly recommend that you all go out and buy this CD! I'm not sure what stores its available at, but I know you can get it on iTunes, thats where I got it. This CD is great! Its a great worship album! My Brother, Seth actually told me about this one, and I believe we share the same song as our favorite: You Won't Relent. Go buy it. You won't regret it.

Here's a link to listen to You Won't Relent:
http://free.napster.com/player/?play_id=24885087&type=track

Flying Sports Cars and Nifty Jackets.

Its 2009!! Gosh! I'm starting to feel old, and I'm only 24! I feel like my life has flown by! Its funny, I remember-what seems like ages ago-when I was younger, my brothers and I liked the Back To the Future movies. I think its in Back To the Future II where Doc and Marty McFly hop in the Delorrian and time travel to the future... 2015. Haha! We aren't quite there yet, but thats only 6 years away! Where's all the flying sports-cars and sky highways? Or those inflatable, auto-drying, re-sizable nifty jackets... or HOVER BOARDS! Now those would be sweet!! -Stay away from the water though! But for real, its 2009, time flies!

I was talking with my brother tonight about worship stuff, trying to get an idea of something to share with my church to lead into the worship set, and of course, being the awesome, worship leading, older brother that he is, he helped me out. I think we tend to overlook what worship really means. What is worship? I feel like the typical answer would be "singing songs to God", right? Yes, and no; it goes deeper than that though. Worship is our outward action of showing God how much he really means to us-how much he's worth.
I Googled the question, "What is Christianity?" The first definition listed was, " a monotheistic system of beliefs and practices based on the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus..." Christianity should be more than just a system of beliefs; more than a religion. Its a relationship! Its not something that is required, rather, its our response to how awesome our God is! Think of all the things that God has given us... Now, how much of that do we deserve? None of it! We don't deserve anything! As humans, we deserve death-its the result of our sin. We are born with it. There's no getting out of it. God, however has given us so much! He's given us everthing! The very breath in our lungs is a gift! What a great reason to worship!
One of the songs that we're singing this morning is I'll Stand by Hillsong. I love this song. The chorus of it goes like this:

I'll stand with arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all
I'll stand, my soul, Lord, to You surrendered
All I am is Yours

Now, they don't know it yet, but I'm going to encourage Evident Church to sing this song in response to everything that God has done for us. Its a new year, just looking back to 2008, God's done countless things for all of us! But I want to focus on the words for a second... Why do we stand when we worship? Standing is a way of showing honor and respect for something or someone. -Makes me think of our American flag, we stand for our flag, we salute it, we honor and respect our country by standing for our flag and singing the national anthem. In the same way, we stand and sing to God in reverence. Why do we lift our hands? Lifting our hands is a sign of surrender or submission. I picture a police officer shouting at a gunman to stick his hands in the air! Or in war, when a handful of soldiers have been caught and surrounded by the enemy, they lift their hands in the air as an act of surrender. Now, God is not our enemy (maybe I picked a some bad examples, lol), but we lift up or hands to show God that we surrender! We give up! Its up to you God, you're in control now. Thats what the song is talking about. But anyway, I'm rambling, and I need to go to bed. Haha! its late. Good night everyone!

Evident Church Mailer.

Oh yeah! I forgot that I wanted to put this picture up! I think its awesome! Its our Winter Mailer! We sent this out to thousands of people in the area and it just tells about who and what we are at Evident Church. I just wanted to share this with all of you.

There's a cool story behind it too! Josh designed this mailer (good job Josh) and actually knows the girl in the picture! Its the daughter of a friend of his! Haha! Isn't she just the cutest thing ever! I laugh every time I see this. -In a good way. So there, I got the picture up! I just wanted you all to see it.

A New Year.

For starters, HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!
I have high hopes for 2009. I'm so excited to see where God takes me in my new life here in Detroit. I'm excited to see where God takes Evident Church too! I've only been up here for nearly a month, and I feel like I've already grown in so many ways! God is good. Its my prayer for this year that He shapes and molds me into something awesome, and that I will be willing and open to be and do whatever God is calling me to. I'm looking forward to it.

I've started a new book.
Its called Death By Love written
by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears. Even just the cover is cool; and there is some sweet artwork inside as well! But, for real, what I've read of it so far has been awesome! I bought it yesterday with Matt at Barnes & Noble (we're planning on reading it through together and talking about it). But I opened it up last night planning on reading just the Introduction... I got sucked in. I ended up reading all of the Intro, chapter 1, and the beginning of chapter 2! I want to tell you all about it, but I don't want to give anything away! Haha! I strongly recommend buying this book though! I'm really excited about it. Just from what I've read, there are some deep truths that I've been able to pull out and apply to my life.

"This book is brutally honest about sin and suffering, and wonderfully hopeful as it points us to our true Savior." -Timothy Lane

"Practical and Powerful. It applies the sufficiency of Jesus to the real-life challenges we face in the church every day." -Dan Jarrell

This book gives an eye opening perspective on the story of the cross. I've never read or heard the story told this way, and It really spoke to me. Seriously. Buy it. Read it. You won't regret it.

Anyway... Its late, and I should be heading to bed.

Highlight of My Christmas.

So I'm home for Christmas.

Home. Its funny how, I don't apprectiate Home until I've actually moved away and found my own home somewhere else. And in all reality, this "new" home of mine isn't really home at all. It doesn't feel like Home; it doesn't have the memories of Home; it doesn't have that familiarity of Home that makes you feel like everything will be okay; it doesn't even smell like home... It's lacking the Home-ness that is required for it to be called MY home. It takes time for a place to become a home. Home doesn't feel like Home until its been lived in, until its built up a good portfolio of stories and memories. Home has squeaks in the floor; dents in the walls; stains in the carpet. A toilet downstairs with a broken handle; a room upstairs that is always either way too hot, or way too cold; a dining room thats always being remodeled; a broken dishwasher, water spots in the kitchen ceiling because the upstairs toilet overflowed 2 years ago... *Sigh* ...thats Home.

So the highlight of my Christmas though, was last night... Seth, Cameron and I stayed up through the early hours of the morning playing Super Nintendo! We broke out the SNES! Haha! That system controlled our lives when we were younger! 1994. We got the SNES with Donkey Kong Country for Christmas in 94. That game revolutionized gaming. Haha! We loved that game, and to this day, we still remember all the secrets and tricks of every level! We may have been a little rusty at actually playing it, but it was still loads of fun! For a couple of hours at least, we got to re-live our childhood. Just hearing the music of the game brought back so many memories! So fun.

Updates. -And a Cool Story to Finish It Off...

Well I'm living in Detroit now. Macomb, MI to be exact. Its one of the northern-most suburbs of Detroit, so I don't live in the ghettos or anything. Its actually really nice up here! I really like it! And if Jodi ever reads this, she'd be proud of me that I said "up here", since it doesn't matter where I'm referring to, I usually tend to say "down there", or "down here." I've got the correct phrasing down now though. But anyway, I'm still on the job hunt. I have applied at a lot of places actually, and have followed up and went back and checked the status of my apps; and still haven't heard back from a single place. Its a little discouraging. Just gotta keep praying about it. God will provide.
Aside from looking for jobs, I'm actually staying really busy with my worship position at Evident Church. -And I'm REALLY enjoying everything that I'm doing in regards to worship! Its a dream job. Really. Hopefully someday, this can be my full time job. A Career as a full time worship leader. But yeah, thats the gist of things for now...

My cool story is that I almost died last week. I'm positive it was a God-moment. He saved my life. Haha. I was driving home from Archbold, on a back-road outside of West Unity, coming up on a hill in the road. Its big enough that it covers up a whole vehicle until you're pretty much on top of or over the hill. So, like I said, I was coming up on this hill, going the speed limit (really, I was. 55mph. Better gas mileage that way), when I got the chills and had the sudden urge to slow waaaay down. So I slowed down to a near stop right before the hill, when a big electric company truck came rushing over the hill ON MY SIDE OF THE ROAD! Not just left of center, but completely in my lane. If I hadn't slowed down when I did, I'm confident that I would have had a high speed, head-on collision with the truck. Once I realized what I had just escaped, my heart started beating like crazy and I got all shaky. I was kinda in shock in a way. I just thanked God over and over again! Haha! It was great.
But thats my cool story. God's not done with me yet.

Peace Out.