Directions

Where am I going? I need to know where I am going.
Where did we go? At some point I missed the note.
Why did I ask? It just makes everything last.
Will it go away? Why didn't I even think to say:

Lead me through this dark hallway,
Don't tell me where, just lead me away.
The things that hold will all be old,
By the time I'm old there will be no hold.

What was I thinking?

Rise up.

You make everything glorious.
How do you change a church?

I haven't seen angels descending down ladders, but I know He's here with me, always with me, and apparently I'm here for a reason. Not the best, most talented, and most qualified person. Me. I've been chosen like those before me to bring about a change in some way. In which way is a mystery. The road ahead is foggy and dark. I feel like I'm being led along, blindfolded, yet He squeezes my hand tight and never lets go.

I am changing. I am not the same person anyone knows, not even those closest to me. The time has come, the time is now.

I'm running...

Everything we do is for Him and no one else. I don't believe in religion, I have faith in the Lord our God. It isn't my religion, it is my faith. I don't mold, I stick out. I transcend instead of conforming. There is a greater purpose here, I can not see. I continue to run. Still blind, but led along.

It's coming like a storm front. I can feel the winds blowing, and the sky begins to change. But it isn't dark, the sky is lit up in His majesty for all of the world to see. Under the stars, His mighty Kingdom, the sky is inviting and we rise.

Now's the time to start something, as we approach the dawn. Our God reigns, his mercy and grace fall like rain.

We surrender all we are, forever.

The moment you realize you don't care about what it is you alone want to start, God starts something in you. You truly start something. We are a part of something unexplainable, unimaginable, unquestionable. Can you feel it coming? We're on the brink of something large.

Stop Being Happy!

You know, I have this overwhelming sense of hope that I have never had before. When I think about things that are going on in my life and people's lives around me, I know that things are going to be ok. Bad things happen, yes, but I know that whatever happens, I'll be able to deal with it. I thank God for giving me this certainty.

I don't care what the world throws at me, now. It's gonna be alright!

I think he'd just give us one of those ....dude... looks.

I think Christ would tell 21st century America to stop worrying so much about ourselves as individuals and start loving each other. Our generation knows pain. Kids grow up without parents or with parents that hate each other. School isn't a place to learn but a place to survive. We look on each other as inferior. Christ loved us so much that He died for us. How many of us would die for another person let alone the people of the world? We can not truly love the Lord until we can whole-heartedly love each other. There is nothing like our God and there is nothing like His love. His unquestionable and unconditional love is the cure for our Society.

I think that love is the most important aspect of being a Christian. In America, where's the love? I'm not saying that America is a terrible place, but we live in a society that is so focused on individuality that we forget why we were placed on this earth. A society whose dream is to further advance positions in the social ladder. Make lots of money. Get a big house and have kids who grow up to be baseball stars.

I don't mean that we shouldn't want good things for our future. We want to be blessed with a means to survive, and we want our future kids to be successful. But at what cost? Do we want to be so rich that we put money on a pedestal and make that our purpose in life? No. We all want to be successful in life but success isn't equated to money.

When we die, God won't care if we made a million dollars or a quarter. Instead He'll look at our impact in other people's lives. He'll wonder if we loved those around us. He'll wonder if we loved our enemies. Did we reach out to the people around us or did we live our secluded individualistic lives? Jesus would tell to love because He is love and everything He did was for love. "All for love a savior prayed."

Get Going!

Some days I get in these inspired moods to do something major. Some days I feel like it's my duty to try and change the world. Some days, I feel like I need to completely change myself.

I was watching some drum corps videos of Phantom Regiment 2004 (my favorite year) and I decided that I was going to make Phantom next year. I was going to go practice until I could play everything off of the left as fast and as high as I could. Well, I can't play everything off the left and sure can't play everything as fast as the met can go. I'm no Tim Jackson but hey, I got better even though my wrists hurt today.

Sometimes we need to feel like we can do something major like changing the world. I've expressed my interest before for uniting Christianity, and if not all of Christianity (which would most likely never happen) then uniting Fort Wayne Christians. It doesn't seem like this city has anything very exciting or out of the ordinary to offer. We as Fort Waynians seem to mock the lives of big city folk or the west coast. Why is that? I feel like this city needs something profound. Something amazing. Why can't we as Christians make an amazing and loving environment for both believers and non-believers to come and be pulled out of there bodies?

The most important thing for me is to remember that nothing gets done without starting somewhere. I can keep all of these ideas inside of me forever and they will remain forever ideas. Everything has to start somewhere.

Starting......now!

Treading Water

Does it make sense to constantly move towards something even if it isn't there? There could be something there, something awesome.... but then again, there could be nothing.

The more and more I think about this "event" we've been planning, the more I realize we are still not doing this for the right reasons. We are all passionate about music, but praise and worship is more than that. It's not about playing music. I think I have the tendency to forget that, which is really bad.

The Unity Projekt has pretty much stopped moving toward this thing we've been talking about forever and we're rewinding a little. Patrick made an interesting point a while back. He said "I am still trying to get to the bottom of what we are trying to achieve" That pretty much sums up our event, currently.

I've rambled on in detail about what I want this event to be in a previous blog, but I think I'll give it another go. My idea for this "event" is to really motivate everyone in our youth group and non-Christians to do something. My view on life in today's society is that we grow up, go to college, get married, have kids, and die. I don't think that's necessarily what God had in mind for us. I mean, the above are things we all should do but as Christians, God challenges us to be more. Not just being loving and caring but truly reaching out to people.

I tend to think of things in such a large scale that I don't notice what is right in front of me. It's a constant struggle for me to be the loving and caring Christian that I need to be. I sometimes forget that love is big part. I think I try to go for the whole reaching out thing. That's bad too. It's something I think about everyday.

But anyways, I think that the theme of this event should be a challenge for us all to "start something." We need to have the fire in our hearts be one of those California forest fires that spreads over everyone and everything. That's a pretty paradoxical way of saying that but I think it's a pretty good analogy if you can follow me...

Anyways, Ethan and I have also thought about making Start Something some kind of youth leadership group thingy. By challenging the upperclassmen, the underclassmen will follow suit.

Start Something: Make Forest Fires!

"The Event"

I have been thinking a lot about this event the Ethan, Adam, Benji, Paul, and I want to do at the church. Ethan and I recently talked about the purpose of this event. Its original purpose was to get a recording of our music so we could have some material. We've since changed our focus.

Ethan and I were talking and kind of came to the same realization that this event shouldn't be about us at all. All this time, we've been viewing this as our worship band's "coming out" but if we want the event to be for us, than we shouldn't have it at all. I want the event to be an outreach. I want to start something in Fort Wayne.

I've been listening to David Crowder Band and Hillsongs: United a lot lately. The more I think about our band and the future, the more I realize that I want to be focus on the right issues. I want Fort Wayne to be united. I want the youth to be united, under one God. The only God. I don't want to be segregated by denominations of Christianity. I want a church, not a building. I keep saying want, however. I don't want to be self-centered about this. I just don't think we're reaching kids on a deep enough level. The Sunday routine isn't cutting it. I, being a kid, want to challenge the youth to not be a part of a church but be a church. A church as a community, a community united, united not under one denomination, denominations becoming what they were intended to be: Christians.

United Fort Wayne: Start Something

In the Beginning...

there was xanga. And then, there was the myspace blog. And now I feel the urge to start yet another blog that I will probably abandon within the next year. But hey, everyone else is doing it so I might as well!

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Really, Really Old Blogs:

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Let the heavens open up. Let your mercy rain on us. Your grace, it lasts forever. Your hope will light the world. Everything connected is good. Look what God has shone. Anywhere there is truth, there is God. He saves, He wakes us, He is, always will be.

Be still and know that He is God.

In you I find everything, but in my mind I'm empty and everything is failing. All I see is you. Standing in the darkness over my shameful progress. Worth nothing but pain and heartache. All I see is you.

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Return! Return! The light returns!

Return! Return! Your child returns!

Everything is broken. Your light will show the way and you rebuild the pieces. Your life, your son, the way. See the distance, I'm coming. You were never far. The prodigal son returns. You are always there.

Return! Return! The light returns!

Return! Return! Your child returns!

And my heart is guarding, but peace you bring. It will still be harder. Now you are my king. My mind is now against me. Your truth is awhat I fear. I try to question everything. Your truth is always near.

Return! Return! The light returns!

Return! Return! Your child returns!