Yes = Yes, No = No

First of all, shame on me for not updating for 2 weeks!

Second of all, thanks for the responses to my last post. I got a few via email. I think that overall, I learned to stop being lazy and just get gas when my tank is low. Very simple stuff, not deep at all.

But someone did make an interesting point that I've been learning about recently:

"Ok so maybe God is trynna tell you not to let Him be emptied out of you. It may be time to refill! Sometimes we sit around saying "oh I will just get gas later". That could be true about your spiritual life. I know sometimes I'm like "oh I will get in the word later, I will worship later. Then next thing you know I'm on empty, can't move, can't do anything. I try to start up again from where I was but it doesn't work. So... It may be time to refill!"

So that's not a new concept to me, but God has been convicting me about how I give my time and energy lately. I had gotten to the point where I would give my time out easily. Then I would be exhausted by Wednesday. That's ridiculous! Even more ridiculous is when you have to squeeze time in to pray and don't even enjoy some of the stuff that you're giving your energy to.

From that God has been teaching me 2 things:
1. Let your yes be yes and your no be no (Matthew 5:37, James 5:12). For me that means, if I know that I don't have the energy to babysit on Friday nights, just say NO. Sure I love kids and have fun hanging out w/ them. But I'm tired by Friday night. Friday night is Blockbuster night w/ some Chinese food in my room. Nobody will die if I can't watch the munchkins. AND, don't say yes w/o thinking and then want to change my mind later. Here's the roadmap for me:

Request is made --> I Stop --> I Think --> I Respond --> I'm doing things that I want to do

2. Be careful how you give away your time and energy. Since we don't earn time or get it in a paycheck every 2 weeks, we have to be careful about what we do w/ the borrowed time that we have. I get work, work, work, work, go, go, go, go, give, give, give, give all day long and think that I'll be fine. I have to STOP, HOOK UP TO A REFUELING SOURCE (prayer, sleep, meditation, worship, hanging out w/ friends, etc.) and get a REFILL. Thankfully, things like prayer and worship and meditation can be refreshing.

Now, I'm being careful about what I say yes to AND what my schedule looks like. For example: Friday nights are Blockbuster nights unless something more fun (but no exhausting) comes along. Saturday nights, I have to prep for Sunday, so no "work" after 5pm.

So yeah, not a lot of deep stuff, but so important. How can I give God my full attention in prayer and worship if I'm distracted by my busyness or the fact that I'm exhausted?

Hope this makes sense. Love ya!

On Empty

I ran out of gas last night at almost 1 in the morning. Thankfully, I wasn't by myself (yay for Tonee and Terri). Now, I'm trying to find some deep spiritual revelation in the whole thing. I was able to do it when I locked myself out of my apartment, but I'm having a little trouble with this one. If I know that God was trying to tell me something thru this situation it will mostly help me not be embarrassed...lol.

What is God trying to tell me about letting my car run out of gas? Any ideas? Two points and a prize for anyone who can give a good "revelation" AND relate it to worship somehow...

Funfetti Cake Makes People Crazy

I'm having a kinda crappy morning, so I thought I'd get on here and blog. Maybe that will get me back on track.

Yesterday I had an "A HA / God must think we're crazy" moment.

Since yesterday was Valentines Day, I made a cake and brought it to work. I put the cake out in our kitchen with a note next to it that said "Enjoy the funfetti cake. Remember: You Are Loved." I didn't put my name on the note because I didn't want to make a big deal about it. What I didn't expect was my co-workers make it a big deal. The only thing that would talk about ALL DAY was "who made the cake?" They went around asking everyone (actually, they never really asked me directly...lol). They even accused a few people of making it. At first it was kinda funny to me. But as the day went by, they got crazier and crazier. People were really frustrated that they didn't know. Then, about 5 people practically attacked this one poor lady because they were convinced that she made it (ironically, she was the only one who knew that I had made it). And it wasn't even in a friendly way. They were raising their voices. At that point, I finally told them it was me.

OMG - I couldn't believe that my coworkers pretty much lost their minds cuz they didn't know who made a cake and told them they were loved!

Then I realized that many of us do that all the time. God - where is my husband? Where is my new job? When am I going to buy a house/car? Will he ever ask me to marry him? Will she ever know that I'm alive? When will I get a promotion? When we don't get an answer in the time that we think it should come, we start to lose our minds. We end up doing stupid stuff to try to manufacture the answer or outcome that we want. Buy a new, revealing waredrobe to make him notice you...Go into debt that you'll never be able to get out of to buy a house or car you can't afford...Wear yourself out trying too hard to get that promotion...Yes, sometimes we have to be proactive to get what we want or feel we deserve. But sometimes we really don't have control over the situation and we just need to wait.

The lesson: Sometimes you won't get the answer. In some situations, you'll never know why. That is NO excuse to get stupid. Learn the difference between proactive and being desparate.

Remember, you really ARE loved. God loves us and doesn't want us to settle for manufactured blessings. He wants to do exceeding abundantly all that we can ask or think. But sometimes you just have to wait on him to see that promise fufilled.

Community Part 2

Hello,

I was going to post a few quick bullet point updates, but then I remembered that a few days ago I decided I need to do a Part 2 to the Community post (originally published in November or December).

In the past few months, I've become more immersed in my church community and God keeps speaking to me on the subject of the importance of a Christian community.

I'm a big fan of community for different reasons: opportunity to be around people who have the same foundational beliefs, ability to share your struggles in walking like Christ, corporate worship, ability to get/offer prayer when it's needed, and the list goes on.

Now I have a new reason to love community. ENCOURAGEMENT & AFFIRMATION. Someone said that 4 is the number of "creative vision" and I believe it. My church is in its 4th year of ministry and the air is thick w/ new ideas, new businesses, new songs, new friendships, new plays/skits, etc. There is so much talent around me that I can't believe it sometimes. But all that talent, all those gifts would go to waste if we didn't create an environment that encouraged people to share their ideas and gifts. Christian community should be able showing people how to hope, how to dream.

Personally, I've seen this play out w/ "This is Who I Am," with my worship leading, with my album that's in the works and with the encouragement I've received about leading the Spiritual Disciplines study at USC. Wow! I don't think I've ever been so affirmed, so encouraged, so challenged and pushed in my life to be what God has called me to be. You just won't find that outside of Christian community.

I LOVE HOPE's HOUSE! I hope you love your community too!

Of course, I understand that not everyone feels that way, so here are some pointers:

• Deal w/ any insecurities that you have (ask God to intervene). If you don't understand who you are in Christ and what He wants to do in your life, you might not ever do anything. Might not ever challenge yourself or try new things. Trust me!
• Find a Christian group that will encourage you, that you can learn from, that you can serve in. I'm not telling you to leave your church if you know you're supposed to be there! That's not my place. But I'm encouraging all to supplement what you already have w/ what you need.
• Try new things. Brainstorm new ideas and TELL SOMEONE ABOUT THEM. Accountability is a beautiful thing.
• Start asking your friends what they think your gifts are. What do they see in you?
• DREAM
• Don't let your fears/doubts/insecurities talk you out of things. As P. Chuck says: "If not you, then who? If not now, then when?"

Try it!

Out of the Box

I'm so chatty this week! So many posts lately.

Lots going on for me. New challenges at work. Disciplines Study at USC met for the first time this week. I ate fruits and veggies all week for this silly detox. Planning a trip to the Bay for next weekend. Slowly planning for this album. And, I'm leading worship on Sunday.

Pray for me if you read this before Sunday (I'm sure no one will) as I step out of my comfort zone and do a really upbeat, more gospel style song. I love the song and I've wanted to lead it for months, but I'll need to be a little less conservative in order to stay true to the integrity of the song and that makes me a little uneasy. Guess I'll be practicing in the mirror....lol...Of course, I'll give the update next week...

Encounter at the Well

A friend of mine sent me a text message with an idea for the title for my album: "Encounter at the Well." He said it fit with the theme of "This is Who I Am." So I went to the bible story he was referencing and studied it. John 4 tells the story of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan women at Jacob's Well. Whether that ends up being the name of the album or not has yet to be determined. But I wanted to share what I learned from studying the passage:

• Jesus wanted to let the woman know who He was
• He told her what life w/ Him could be like (neverending well of living water)
• He said that the time will come when you will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth
• This means that our worship will push past our own previous understand of who God is and past the lies we've let ourselves believe and the barriers we've put up between us and Him.
• True worship means seeing who God is
• There is a link between me understanding who I am and me understanding who He is

I'm still trying to make sense of all of the connections in my head, but I was a little blown away because this passage tied in to a conversation that I had with a woman at our church about worshipping the Father in spirit/truth and it also ties into my song. All because of a suggestion.

This has been a weird week...

Re-Run (sort of...)

Hey All,

I'm already starting to see God move in the area of me and ministry. God has already used "This is Who I Am" to touch a bunch of people in ways that I didn't even expect. I can't explain it all, but I will say "WOW." I'm a little overwhelmed w/ what He' s already done and I'm excited about what He will do next.

Anyways, I realized last week that the people who read this blog may not have been "fans" since I started. In my first entry, I wrote about the point of the blog and my vision for ministry. Those of you who never read the first entry may not know all the background or the point of all this, so I wanted to share the first entry again w/ you all. I know, it feels like a re-run for all of you who like reading the blogs for the updates. Sorry.

The purpose of this blog is to start to share my vision (or ministry) with anyone who is interested in learning. I'd like to keep it updated as to the progress and how God starts to move. I guess it would make sense to start off by sharing The Vision.

The Background:I have a heart for introducing people to new styles of worship. Particularly, I love to show people there is no 1 way to worship God. I'm a worship leader, so I'll explain this in terms of musical worship. God doesn't value 1 style of worship music, 1 language of worship or 1 action (dance, lifting our hands, laying prostrate) over others. He loves them all. And since He loves them all, we might as well put all into practice. It keeps our times of corporate as well as private worship fresh and not stale.

With that said, I love music. I've always been around it, especially christian music. I grew up in the church, my dad is a worship leader/choir director, most of my family (on my dad's side) either sings or plays some type of instrument. Growing up, I went to choir rehearsals and concerts and workshops. I was so excited when I was able to join our church's praise team.

Because of this background, I am no stranger to gospel music or gospel artists. It's what I was immersed in almost all my life. Then I went to USC. I wanted to join a Christian fellowship and the ones I ended getting involved in mainly worshipped to Contemporary Christian Music (from now on, I'll refer to this as CCM). Wow! CCM was different. "Shout to the North"..."Did you Feel the Mountains Tremble?"..."Here I am to Worship"..."Shout to the Lord"..."Better is One Day". And I LOVED IT! It was new to me but I felt the power in the lyrics and passion behind the singing. Don't get me wrong. I didn't throw off gospel altogether. I joined the USC Gospel Choir (Saved by Grace) and even ended up being President of the choir. But I also ended up leading worship for Intervarsity (TCF), which was primarily CCM. Two VERY different styles of worship and I loved them both.

God taught me so much about worship through both of those experiences and did some major reshaping of my life. What I don't love is that there is a division in the church. People who worship to gospel music and people who worship to CCM seem to be in 2 different worlds. It's gone so far that people have started saying "black music" (equals gospel) versus "white music" (equals CCM). Not only is this inaccurate, but it's exclusive.

Okay, long story short...?

The Vision:God has given me a vision. He's allowed me to imagine that I (under His leadership and guidance) can work to bridge the gap between the two groups. The idea is to take CCM songs (which, as I mentioned before, I love because of the powerful lyrics) and rearrange them by adding vamps and making the music sound more "gospel." Then sharing that music - most likely by putting out an album.

So that was the first entry and in less than 4 months, I've already grown a lot and seen God start to turn the vision into reality. Very exciting times....