Ichthus

 So pretty much, I'm just going to post about a million pictures and describe.  Seems the easiest way to go...


We left Tuesday morning at about 11am.

Cary, driving us faithfully.

 We arrived in Memphis, TN for the night.

Our bass player, Scott.

Danni, my roomy for the week

Unloading...that's a lot of luggage!

We headed from Memphis on Wednesday morning to Wilmore, KY - to the Asbury Theological Seminary/ Asbury College campus.

Half of us (the ones of us that were spouse-less for the trip) stayed on campus.

My roomies - Danni and Mrs. Diane.  Danni lives about 2 blocks from me in Granbury, and her girls are my kids' most favorite people on planet earth.

Mrs. Diane is an incredible woman with amazing wisdom, and such an encouraging spirit!  Most of us have adopted her as our own and call her "Mom".

Love these ladies!!

We were really surprised at how nice the dorms were.  We had a suite with 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchenette.  We were pretty cozy for the week!

 We showed up the next morning at Ichthus to kick off the day with worship.  I've never experienced having "roadies" to help out with unloading and set-up before...any time I've played somewhere, we've had to tote almost everything we needed with us, and had to do all the work ourselves to set up.  But the roadies were there...and we were thankful!  This was also the first time I've gone to play somewhere and I wasn't playing my guitar.  It felt so bazaar to just be standing around while everyone else was setting up, tuning, etc.  Different experiences...

See the guy sitting at the drums in the picture above on the Right?  He was incredible.  (My mind is totally going blank on his name at the moment...it'll come to me later, I'm sure...) The schedule got changed last minute, and so we ended up not leading worship on Saturday morning.  This guy was really upset about that. He was an encouragement to us, and we were all able to pray together in the midst of a bit of frustration.

We always started out with a pretty small crowd, but it grew as we continued to worship...

It is a privilege to sing with these ladies. 

Diane, Janet, myself, and Karen

Our group led worship Thursday and Friday mornings.  We have multiple "leaders" in our group that lead worship.  Shake is awesome about passing the reigns and training up leaders.  So just like we do on Sundays at church, we passed the reigns a lot.  My turn to lead came on Friday morning.  There was no denying that the Holy Spirit ushered us deeper into Himself.  I feel like I even had some breakthroughs in worship on Friday while leading.  Amazing how God works.

We went to Northeast Christian Church to "rehearse", a.k.a worship.  Great worship time :)

Back Row: Shake, Mike, Cary, Jeff, Kelly
Front Row: Karen, Alatha, Emma, Danni, Diane, Janet, me, Gary, Scott, and Bubby (Shake and Karen's son)

Another thing that we did was an interview about multi-cultural worship.  Shake and a guy named Neil, who is a black pastor of a white Presbyterian church, talked about what the church is missing when we separate ourselves according to ethnic backgrounds within the body of Christ.  All of us were a part of the interview - which is just stinkin' cool, because that is the whole reason our group is different!  Our church is predominately white, but we're beginning to get more and more ethnicly diverse - not just black and white - but hispanic, asian - you name it!  And our praise team is great because we are so diverse!  In a single sunday we will sing anything from your typical "white" contemporary Christian songs - to music typically found in black gospel churches - and everything in between.  Hymns are sung in ways that are traditionally sung in both kinds of churches.  The amazing thing is this - take a song like Order My Steps - a gospel song that is usually sung by a large black lady that has amazing pipes.  When Alatha goes forward and is preparing to sing, there is doubt spread all over the faces of those that know that song - they have their doubts that a skinny white girl can sing it well - but she is simply amazing.  Then, once she starts singing, you get faces with eyes so wide they look like they're going to bust out of their heads!
Anyway...back to the interview...(sorry!)
The interview will be aired on God tv at some point in the future.  not sure when.  I think I'm the only person who didn't say anything in the interview.  Do you ever have times that you just kinda feel like you need to shut up because you feel like you talk too much?  That was me that day.  I didn't want to speak unless the Holy Spirit prompted me.  I didn't want to speak just for the sake of saying something.  Then, when I did feel prompted, time didn't really allow for me to say anything.  That's fine with me.  But what I would have shared is this:  In Acts 1, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit would come and the disciples would be his witnesses - to Jerusalem, all of Judea, to Samaria, and to the whole world.  And all through Acts we see how all of these people groups received the same salvation and the same Spirit - bringing unity where otherwise there was none.  The Jews hated the Samaritans, but because of Christ, they were one.  Brothers and sisters.  God wants unity.  We were never intended to be separated in worship by race, and we miss out on the fullness of God when we separate.

Shake's home church was hosting a Benny Hinn service.  I had no idea who Benny Hinn was before I went. Let's just say it was quite an experience.  One that I hope to not repeat ever again.  I could go on and on about that one...but I think it would be best for me to keep my mouth shut other than to say that I didn't just feel "checks" in my spirit - I felt SCREAMS - to get out!  And when I did, it felt like I was finally able to breathe again - a breath of fresh air after feeling pressed down in an almost suffocating-like atmosphere.
ok, ok...I'll stop now...

Saturday, we played twice at the Galleria stage at Ichthus.  It was kinda surreal.  This was the line-up:
8:10pm - Derek Webb
9:20pm - us
10:30pm - the Afters
11:40pm - us again.


Of course, this was all going on while Tenth Avenue North and Chris Tomlin were playing on the Main Stage...which is where everyone was...o well.


We received some pretty amazing encouragement though.  The guy that was the owner of the sound company that Ichthus was using told us that he was amazed that our group was able to blend (harmonies) so well, considering all the talent (ie, strong voices) that we have.  He also said that we shouldn't have been closers for the night, but instead should have been put on earlier, when more people were around to hear us. For someone that's around musicians as much as he is, that was a HUGE compliment!

 Love these ladies!!

Diane, Emma, (Jeff behind us), Janet, me, Alatha, Danni, and Karen

Oh, yes, and one of the perks of being a musician/singer/whatever you want to call us, is that we had backstage access the entire time.  Here, a picture from backstage at the end of Chris Tomlin's set - as he's gettin' down :)

Danni and I were hoping to get a chance to meet him, but it didn't happen - we didn't have time to stick around - we had to book it to our next set!

We did get to meet some other fun people though.

I'm not a person that just goes up to people whose name I know, but I have no reason to talk to them other than to simply meet them.  I mean, we are all just people, right?  But Shake introduced us to some people that he knew that I would not have otherwise met, which is pretty neat.

(I know I'm being totally vague here, but I'm not a big fan of throwing out names).

I will mention some people though, that you may or may not have heard.  Mostly because I just thought they were neat people.  And their music is good too.

Josiah James was a pretty neat guy.  I actually met him in the merchandise tent.  He was manning his own table, which I thought was pretty cool - and he had an ipod and headphones on the table for people to listen to his music that may not have heard it yet - genius!  His music is good though.  Kind of a pop/emo feel.  I bought both of his CDs - and I'm liking them!  You should check him out!

We met These guys, from Visible Worship Band, because they were the ones that took our place leading worship on Saturday morning.  Then, we kept running into Eric, the bass player, who is from Texas, and said he felt horrible about what happened that morning (even though they had nothing to do with it).  Eric is definitely an extrovert - a very fun guy!  We didn't get a chance to hear them play, but they just finished their first CD, so you should check it out!  They have a very fun, very different, somewhat folk-y sound.  Not your typical worship band.  

Look up Visible Worship Band: Forged in Love on iTunes.

Back to what we did...

 

Sunday, we had 2 sets at 2 different campuses of the same church, Evangel World Prayer Center, in Louisville.  First was City of Hope, where we lead worship, and Shake also preached.  This place is amazing.  Not only do they have a church building, but they have apartments that they use to get people on their feet after dealing with addictions, etc - as well as a food pantry and they feed a crazy amount of people every day through their ministry.  God was moving in some pretty amazing ways that morning. Meaning the Word of God was penetrating hearts, and people were being healed because of it.

Hearts were healed.  Burdens were lifted.  Victories were won.

And before we knew it, we had been praising God together for 3 hours!! 

So we were late to our next set, at (I think) the main Evangel campus - but it was ok, and worked out fine.  

Sunday night, our church decided to pamper their praise team, and had reserved rooms for us at a 4-star hotel in downtown Louisville.  The Brown.  It was a great night of good rest, and I am so thankful to have a church family that loves on us just because they want to Bless us :)

Monday morning, we headed back to Texas.  We arrived at about 3am on Tuesday morning.  I still don't think I've caught up on sleep.

All in all, Ichthus was great.  There were difinitely moments of frustration, disorganization, and difficulty dealing with traveling with 2 vans and 15+ people.  Everything takes longer.  Nothing goes the way we expect.

But God is always there in the midst of it.  He always finds us right where we are.  He uses every opportunity to draw us closer to Himself, even when we're being hyper-critical, overly frustrated, are sleep-deprived, food deprived, and have a bad attitude (yes, talking about myself here).  God's desire is always repentance.  Always to bridge the gap between He and us individually and corporately.  He has our Best in mind, when we don't even know what our "best" is.

So what's next?  No idea.  I know that we're going to continue with recording.  I know that God is continually giving me songs.  Other than that, it's in God's hands.  In the midst of it all, He is teaching me to be content in every situation.  But quite obviously, I still need some work on that one (bad attitude = not content).  So whether I'm leading worship for a congregation, or jumping and waving my arms around like a crazy person while doing music with the babies in the nursery, or I'm at home doing dishes, sweeping crumbs off the floor, and changing diapers - God is using it all.  Eventually I'll understand the big picture - I just may not understand until I see Him face to face - and then...it won't really matter.