Still on the road...

Hi guys,

I wasn't able to upload any pictures of the church Sunday, because I forgot my USB cable for my digital camera. I'll get some up next week. Things are going well, and I was able to make some very good contacts for our ministry while visiting TGP church. I still have another meeting, and I'll elaborate more when I get back home. It was really great to just soak in the worship in those meetings, and to really be free to let God minister to me with no time constraints. I was so touched by the Lord, that I couldn't stop myself from crying for several songs. It was another wonderful time for me personally.

I am now visiting my parents for a few days before returning home after any other meetings that I can get arranged. The weather here has been great. Mid 80's and sunny every day. It's already starting to get more humid though, which is something I dislike about Florida. It just seems that it's almost always humid here. In South Carolina, sure it's humid in the summer just like Florida, but the other three season seem to be perfect as far as a lack of humidity is concerned. Sorta like the humidity just takes off and heads for Florida for those seasons :)

Well...not much to report right now. I'll check back in later.

Update...

Hey guys...sorry for the lack of posts. I have been out of town some this past week gathering missionary videos for the HOWI promotional DVD and making connections for the ministry. I am in Orlando, Florida now and have been visiting a great church and meeting some new people. The Pastor's sermon was amazing today. More on everything tomorrow with a few pictures.

Sunday...

Today is my birthday. Spent the day going to church at Foothills, eating, and working on HOWI stuff so far. Church was fun this morning. One of the songs we did was "Here is Our King" by David Crowder. Our Youth Pastor Scott led it, and he did a great job. It's like that song was made for him! He doesn't lead very often, but when he does, I am always blessed because he has a great voice, and he doesn't try and perform when he leads. He just loves to worship and God definitely has put an anointing on him to do it. I didn't want him to stop leading that song! Pastor Greg preached a great sermon on "Goodness." Check it out at: http://www.foothillscc.org

Well...Not gonna type much today, cuz I need to chill out the rest of the day and night. I am scheduling trips for the next month and making as any contacts as I can for HOWI. It's gonna be an interesting week. More on some new developments later. For now...check out a church of about 3000 that I'm going to be visiting soon in Florida: http://www.tgpworship.com .
Can't wait to go and meet people with a friend of mine Dennis!

HOWI Update...

Hey guys! Well I am finally able to pick up a guitar and play some. The back is healing up. Thanks for all our prayers! I have been working on a song for HOWI called "What about the Lost?" that I wrote and performed last year for a church's "Missions Sunday." It was a church called Faith Harvest near Orlando, Florida, that we helped plant in 2006 by providing a full sound system with JBL speakers, a Mackie mixer, microphones, and a bunch of other stuff. Here's a picture of the gear we delivered. and another below of me playing and speaking there. I ended up being there for two Sundays.

I never did chart that song out in 2006, but I have just finished doing that, and now we are looking into tweaking it a little and recording it. We want to use it as part of a DVD video promotional presentation that we are also hoping to develop using video and pictures from the places we have helped over the years. That's gonna take money, but we know it is the next step in getting the word out about HOWI. If you haven't donated in a while, or even didn't donate last year..Now is the time!

We continue to be in touch with Pastor Davies from The Voice of God Ministries in Malawi, Africa. He just got back home and sent me a message on Wednesday that he will be getting pictures of the ministry there to me, and also putting me in touch with some missionaries who travel there several times a year. We are hoping to help them out within the next few months with a complete sound system and musical instruments. For more info on the Malawi connection, see my post from several days ago entited "Malawi What?"

The DVD that we want to produce is so important, because we will be able to send it to churches, ministries, and just people in general to raise awareness about HOWI, along with the worship CD that we produced in 2006. It will be a great pre-cursor for churches to play before I sing and preach also. As many of you have suggested, we will also then have something to send to major ministries and Christian TV shows to try and get booked on them. Ya think Oprah would be interested? :) Hey you never know!!

So that's about it for now. We love you guys, and appreciate your prayers and support. Thanks for reading the Blog!

For who you are...and HOWI update later

I have been listening to songs from the Hillsongs Mighty to Save Cd lately and one song in particular has really touched me. My favorite song is "For Who You Are." It's a simple mid-tempo song that just moves me. I'm gonna add it to my list that's for sure. The verse says:

"Standing here, in Your presence, thinking of the good things You have done.

Waiting here patiently, just to hear Your still small voice again.
Holy. Righteous. Faithful 'til the end.

Savior, Healer, Redeemer and Friend!"

Then the chorus just simply states "I will worship You for who You are, Jesus." Powerful!

There are some great young worship leaders being raised up out of that ministry. So much of the music is powerfully anointed, which in my experience is much more important than being great. It's no wonder their worship ministry is impacting the entire world in such an amazing way. I can recommend the album whole-heartedly. A lot of people seem to think that Hillsongs is just youth-type worship, but that is just one part of their ministry. They have a lot of great adult worship, along with the youth stuff. I dig just about all of it though!

Well...just wanted to throw that out there. I'm gonna post again later today on HOWI Gotta run now.

It has to come out...

The other day I was taking a shower, and using that also as a time to just pray out loud for all sorts of things. I'm sure many of you do the same thing sometimes, but probably wouldn't admit it to anyone :) C'mon...you know you pray in the shower or bath! After about 10 minutes of that, I began to sing to the Lord and just make up songs of praise to Him. I mean loud! I sang with all my heart for another 10 minutes or so just letting unknown songs of praise flow from my heart, until the Hot water was starting to run out. During that time, I was amazed at the flow of the praise that was coming out. Not that I sounded great or anything, but I was amazed at the worship and flow of the songs while I just let myself be free. Just like that water was flowing freely from the shower head with no blockage, so flowed my praise. There were no worries of anyone being critical of me or feeling I'm not good enough or whatever. No trying to play that chord right, or hit that certain note. No worries of performance. I knew in my heart that My Father and Lord and Savior were getting it. I seemed to have a "direct line." They were taking it in, and it was a sweet sound in their ears. It was a great time of personal spiritual renewal and fulfillment.

That time reminded me of the sort of worship that truly touches God's heart and changes life as people know it. It reminded me to keep my heart pure in worship at home and in the public, and that sometimes it's really good to just lose it before the Lord and forget about everything else in life. In all my many services of organized worship this past year, I think I forgot that a little bit. I was starting to try and be fulfilled just by leading organized worship at churches and in ministry meetings. When your heart desperately longs to worship the Lord...I mean when you have the heart of a worshipper as so many of us do...organized worship in song just ain't enough! You need more. It HAS to get personal and hit you where you live.

Just as it is with our whole spiritual life and how we can't expect to grow only from going to church once a week...it's the same with our worship life. It takes more than just singing at church. It takes effort on our part. Worship is action. And sometimes, God just wants you to personally worship Him however you want to all by yourself. You have to remember to break up the patterns and the monotony in your own personal worship life away from your church. We love to worship in song at our church, but it has to be limited in certain ways because of our purpose for the services. God is blessing it so much! It's awesome. But let me take this time to encourage you as a worshipper. In your personal life, sometimes it's good to just sing or say out loud to the Lord what's in your heart, and not what someone else has written, and not what you have prepared. Try it, you may find as I have over the years, that there is freedom it.

Another update on H.O.W.I. will hopefully come tomorrow. Sorry about the delay!

Malawi What?

I have had several conversations in the past few days with people about our ministry at Heart of a Worshipper International. Yesterday I finally was able to speak with a Pastor from Malawi, Africa whom I have been desperately wanting to help through our ministry for the past 6 months. I had never heard of this place until last year. You see, Malawi is a land-locked country in Southern Africa, which is dealing with some huge poverty and AIDS epidemic issues.

It is estimated that about 30% of the population there has aids, and the average life expectancy is only about 36.5 or so years. They have 1 million orphans in Malawi now. Can you believe that? 700,000 or more of them are orphans because the kid's parents died from AIDS. It is truly a heart wrenching story.

But as I spoke with this Pastor about how we could help them, he told me of people whom God had healed of AIDS, salvations, and other miracles and great things that God is doing for His people there. In such a tough situation, God is still bringing His power, salvation, healing, and life! The ministry there is growing, with church plantings and regular conferences and large meetings. The pastor told me that they have 300-1000 people or more at their meetings, but they do not have sound equipment (unless they can rent it somehow), and the only musical instrument they have is an old small portable keyboard.

These are the types of places where when we get them gear...the ministry explodes and God reaches many more people. Imagine the positive effect of bringing sound equipment and instruments to a place such as this. We see it all the time. God takes that sound equipment and uses it for His good. He gets those instruments to the people, and all of the sudden worship leaders and musicians are raised up to lead and play.

My heart is so burdened to help people this year that I can barely stand it! I have felt it before, and it is of course what drives me to try and help make an impact for the kingdom of God. To make a mark on eternity by doing what God has called me to. But I know that I have to cast that burden back upon the Lord, and let Him raise the funding, and just be willing to put in the travel and the hours it takes to make that difference. He is a truly great and wonderful God. Powerful and worthy of all our praise. A God of great provision, who can and will make a huge positive difference in these places He leads us to such as Malawi, Africa and the many other places and ministries we are endeavoring to help this year.

You guys that are our friends and supporters...Please join with us in prayer and believe that God will help us to raise more funding this year than ever before.

Groundbreaking Sunday and the Back...

Sorry bout the lack of posts, but the back has been an issue all week, and I haven't been able to sit long enough to type. I'm on the mend, but after leading all the services Sunday and the Praise service at the ground-breaking, my back was injured much worse than before. The services all went great, and the praise time was awesome and rowdy. God helped me to get through it, although I was in intense pain most of the day. Before I left for church, I was having back spasms that would bring me to the floor. In no way did it look like I could lead worship, or even stand up for very long, much less play a guitar and sing. But from the early morning on, I just kept quoting the scripture "I can do all things through Him Who strengthens me" and I made it fine. God really pulled through for me, and some of the worship team members helped me get up the stairs and get my guitar on and off when needed (thanks!) I don't think any of the church members really knew what was going on, but a few of the people asked me after the services why someone helped me with my guitar.

Sometimes you just have to step out in faith, even when it hurts you to do so. Even when in the natural, it looks impossible. You just have to believe that God will back you up at that moment. I think the key is in stepping out. God may not come through until you are actually in the moment, but He has His own timing, and in the end it works. He is reliable, and will not give us more to do than we can handle through Him. In a few of those services Sunday I was in intense pain until I stepped up to the microphone to lead, then the pain subsided just enough that I could get through it and enjoy the worship. I went to the Chiropractor Monday to find out that my ministry on Sunday had really pushed my back into a much worse injury. Who can understand God? The way He works is truly mysterious sometimes. But we can still step out in faith, and I believe He will always back us up. Who knows...Someone could've truly gotten saved, or had a life-changing experience in those services. Just that thought, makes it worth any pain I endured.