The amazingness of God!

If I've ever wondered what God is doing, and why He is doing it, the last 2 weeks of life have given me insight. Two weeks ago, we had our Vacation Bible School. We averaged about 50 kids. Our mission project for the week was $300 to a great ministry my friend's brother has undertaken called Crossing Cambodia. They feed and teach street kids in Cambodia and to feed them, it's $5 a day. So, obviously, in doing the math, our goal was 60 days. A very lofty goal, but not unattainable. Day 1, we had about $12, Day 2, we were up to about $26, and then we hit Day 3. Literal buckets of change came in and then an offer to match everything up to $300. It was on! We blew through the $300 by our last day, leading up to our final program. In fact, it was about $350 before the final program. After the final program....the final total, before the matching money was (drum roll.....) $565 and change!!! Adding in the $300 match, this was unbelievable!! Nearly TRIPLE the goal! Our theme for VBS was "Tell it On the Mountain" and we most definitely did that!!

When you think you can't come down from that high, more comes. This past week was my church body's national youth gathering, here in bright, beautiful, wonderful San Antonio. I am a member of the LCMS. That means, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. We adhere not only to the Bible, but to the writings of Martin Luther as the explanation of Scripture. No, not Martin Luther King Jr.....MLK was named for our guy. He lived in the 1400's-1500's. Well, there were 25,000 youth and their leaders who descended upon San Antonio. Yes, you read that right. 25 THOUSAND. That's a lot of folks! There were a couple of really awesome things that happened. First, at certain hotels housing events, there is "Late Night Prayer and Praise". Up until about 3 months ago, my church, where I am Music Director, did not have a youth band. A group decided to put one together to audition. And they were selected! That meant that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the gathering, they lead about 20-25 minutes of songs, prayer and Scripture. It was amazing. These folks had never, up until Monday night, led any group or been in front of people as a group. So, that was a little bit of a tightrope walk! But they were awesome, as I expected! But, throughout the week, there were groups that came to the church to work on projects. We had a bunch for them to do. Our biggest one, was taking out our previous playground equipment for our childcare, and putting in new, super awesome and cool playground equipment. The kids that came didn't complain, worked extremely hard for the 2 or so hours that they were there, and got a bunch done. But that was just the prep work. Then came Friday, yesterday and today of putting the new equipment up, putting in mulch, and getting it ready to be played on tomorrow! We had a large, large group of people all 3 days, pitching in, doing whatever they could to get the job done! Talk about being the hands and feet of Christ! It was amazing to see! The property looks totally different, with a butterfly garden in front of the childcare, fixed up picnic tables, the new playground. It's amazing! To me, the best part of it all was that it was all ages, male and female, working together to get the project completed. That's how it should be for us, the body of Christ. One unit, functioning together to change lives and change the world.

Speaking of changed lives, one thing recently, which I posted about a while back, was that I read Jon Acuff's book "Start". Amazing book. Well, I like Jon's page on Facebook, and a couple of weeks ago, I saw a post about a "super secret mission" and if interested, to email. I thought this could be interesting, so I did. I am now a part of a super secret club of about 1700 folks who responded and I guess we're at the mercy of Jon and what he asks us to do. But, it's pretty much made up of folks who have read "Start". The thing that caught me most about the book is not being average. Throughout my life, I have been 100% successful at being average. I know that I can be and do better. But Jon hit the nail on the head in regard to why I haven't pushed for more. Fear. Fear of failure, fear of criticism, fear of unknown, fear of being pushed beyond my comfort zone, just plain old fear. I am hoping that this group brings mutual encouragement to push through that fear. One of the things that I'm doing to push through that fear comes in one week. My friend Brandon has put together a CD and he's putting on a concert at my church next Sunday night. I'm his opening act. I'm doing 3 songs that I wrote. Well....2 and a half. Well.....1 where I did all the work, 1 where I had inspiration from my 4 year old, and 1 where I wrote music to already existing words. These 3 songs will have their public debut on Sunday. It's scary, but I am pleased with how these have turned out, and I think they will be well received. But, on top of that, if all goes well, either this week or next, I want to get a good recording of the 3 songs, so I can share them on Noisetrade.com. Why? Because it's another opportunity to push past fear. It's an opportunity to share the songs with a greater audience and see what the response is. Do I expect to be Chris Tomlin? Nah. That's not me. I do feel called to write songs for all types of settings (choir, contemporary worship, handbells, instruments, so on and so forth) and I know that the only way I improve is to put myself out there. To step out onto that ledge and see what happens. I'm excited, nervous, scared and plan old petrified. But I know that if this is what God wants me to do, there will be something that comes out of it. Lots of work, lots of challenges, but that is how improvement happens. That is how average becomes awesome. I'll have some challenges and bumps along the way, but I want to be the most awesome husband, dad, son, friend, musician, Music Director, whatever other hat I wear, that I can!