The Dream Giver

The Matthews rock. If you know them, you're probably nodding in agreement. They decided to have a "Dream Gathering" where lots of people in our community posted their dreams (God's dreams) on a wall to be prayed over. Apparently there are over 100 dreams on the wall...and it's growing. I haven't officially contributed to this yet as it kind of makes me nervous for some reason. I guess perhaps it would mean that I am committing to a vision or dream God has laid on my heart.

Last year, I wrote about 25 dreams down on a piece of paper. I am going to attempt to try it again below (this may be a work in progress). However, I do feel it's important to only focus on one or two...not 25 all at the same time. Here's my list of dreams...

• Record and distribute a CD
• Form a Harp & Bowl worship team
  
• Play local venues
• Lead worship at major conferences and houses of prayer
• Write a book about worship
• Develop and facilitate a worship workshop
• Study at the Forerunner Music Academy
  
• Step out in faith and start an entrepreneur business
• Help launch Thomas Lift
• Design and produce some cool t-shirts
• Short-term missions trips to anywhere...Jamaica, Ghana, Mexico, India, China, Mozambique, Brazil, Fiji, Tahiti, Australia
• Be a part of a 24/7 prayer movement
• Play a more active role as a sponsor of our Compassion child
• And of course...be an awesome husband and daddy

What are YOUR dreams?

The Beauty of Simplicity

Life is full of seasons so it's no surprise that it seems like I am midst of a simplification season.

After our first short-term missions trip as a married couple and Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, we quickly decided it was time to trade in one mortgage for another. So we put our house up for a sale a little over a year ago and prayed for a buyer. It definitely wasn't the easiest process in the world and we were near our end when a young couple walked in and fell in love with the place last April. A month later we were moving into an older home with a considerably less monthly mortagage payment.

Now my wife is enveloped in her first family garage sale, and it seems we're committed being that the ad was placed in the paper yesterday. The nice element about our first garage sale is that my wife has a retail background so it's going to be one of the nicer garage sales Des Moines has ever seen. I'm kind of amazed at how quickly the garage filled up with stuff for sale. The funds from the garage sale will go towards some new patio furniture she has her eye on at Target. I'm hoping the extra proceeds can go towards a digital SLR camera, but that's just me.

In preparing for the big garage sale, my wife decided to conduct some research by hitting the local garage sales in our area. She happened upon some friends of ours from church, who are selling their house in order to simplify their lifestyle. Being that Brad is the newly crowned missions director at our church, it's no surprise what God is doing in his life.

Another friend of mine is really simplifying her life by going on a four-year journey into the missions world down in Kansas City as she studies at the International House of Prayer (IHOP.org). God's really been working on her to live a VERY humble life, a very simplified life, when utter and total dependence on Him alone. She's going to need to rely on Him to provide for her financially, which He's already doing to equip her for her trip. And she's going to need to cling to Him as God molds and shapes her into a new creation. While you may look at her and say, "Dang, I can't imagine someone being any more humble." God says, "More." To quote my friend, "I'm going to spend the next four years of my life eating carpet," as she lives a fasted, face-down lifestyle.

I bumped into another friend from church yesterday that has Haiti on his heart. I actually chuckled from the irony of simplification when he said, "I'm getting a word from the Lord that I should sell all of my stuff and move to Haiti into full-time missions work for two years." Go Tim, go!

And here we sat together as a family on Saturday night encouraging my sister-in-law to sell all of her possessions (so we wouldn't have to move them to California) as she heads off to graduate school in August.

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Acts 2:42-47

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

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The Beauty of Simplicity by Telecast

It's the beauty of simplicity
That brings me down to my knees
I'll praise You for eternity
And Lord I love you
because you, you first loved me

It's the beauty of simplicity
that fills me with eternity
I tasted your divinity
and Lord I love you
Because you, you first loved me

and all God's people say
we, we love you
we love you Lord
we love you
and we, we love you
we love you Lord
we love you
we love you

It's the beauty of simplicity
That brings me down to my knees
I'll praise you for eternity
And Lord I love you
Because you, you first loved...

You gave yourself away
Just that I could stay
You took my place and love
And knows that I could stay
But you are holy
And you alone
Deserve my praise

And all God's people say
we, we love you
we love you Lord
we love you
and we, we love you
we love you Lord
we love you
and we, we love you
we love you Lord
and we, we love you
we love you Lord
we love you
we love you
And we, we love you
we love you Lord
we love you
we love you

Singing in the Spirit

Quote of the day: Your worst day with God is better than your best day without Him.

So my friend April told me about a Jason Upton song called "Fly" in which an angelic voice appeared on the track of the song. After some brief research, I found that Jason wrote a bit about this, I believe on his CD liner.

There is no explanation for the last song, Fly, except that during the "do you see what I see" portion you will hear a soaring voice over the top of the other voices (6 minutes and 11 seconds into this section). At first we thought it was an ambient microphone picking up an overtone. During mixing all of the channels were searched and we found that this 'boys choir' type voice was not on any of the other microphones, but was bleeding through my own microphone ( which would make it impossible for it to be an overtone because it was not present on any of the other microphones). If you listen carefully you will hear it again later in this section; it's not quite as clear because, unfortunately, my voice is prominent on that microphone. Interestingly, a boy came up to me that night and told me that he saw an angel standing about fifteen feet behind me.and another one behind our drummer. At the time I doubted that; but after hearing the 'voice' alone during the mixing process with no other instruments around it, I do not doubt it anymore. It was very humbling and convicting for me to realize that I had not believed the boy. I sometimes wrestle with why I so often disbelieve the supernatural (why would I first think it was something natural like an overtone, instead of believing it was an angel). The Bible tells us that we should not be surprised by angelic visitations; but I must admit, I was surprised!

Ironically we had a similar experience down at KHOP on Tuesday night. While Justin cried out to God in prayer, Bill, Joey and I played the chords to "40" over and over ushing in the Holy Spirit. It happened subtly as I thought perhaps Bill, Justin or Joey were singing, but after quickly scanning the stage I realized that no one was on the microphone singing this angelic chorus. Joey and I tried to sing the same chorus but fell WAY short of matching the tone and quality of these voices. I truly can't explain it other than it was from God and it was awesome.

Now there's no need to make a great pilgrimage to KHOP to listen to these angelic voices sing along with a few worshippers trying to figure out Harp & Bowl. You're not going to see Mary reflected in the glass windows or Peter in the clouds. We're doing this to bring honor and glory to God alone. Sure we'd love to have you come, but be prepared to meet Jesus here. =)