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Before I begin let me just say that I am simply thinking out loud here. I mean, what else is a blog for, right? :) I’m aware that all of this might be misinterpreted as a critique of the way things are in the church right now, but really it’s not. I’m just dreaming out loud about the things I think God is whispering to me, and I’m inviting you into the process.

I’ll be 40 years old this year, and I want to be done being critical and cynical about the church. Cynicism is so yesterday. :) Hope is the future. Right on?! I only want to dream with other songwriters about how we can take the flame of the “red hot center” (our worship gatherings) to the frontiers of our cities. If that is to happen we really must think through, and at times challenge, the assumptions that are unconscious at the center. The assumptions we make at the center are probably not relevant at the edge.

I’ll describe this in two experiences I’ve had with two of my songs.

I have a friend who is a big, big, big time music exec in Hollywood. I was in LA for a small artists gathering a few years back and got a chance to hang out with him.

A friend and I drove up to this huge compound that my friend owns and manages his artists out of. It’s a VERY impressive and luxurious property. We made our way up to his office, which is on the top floor of this massive house that’s been totally converted into an office complex. It’s awesome.

We sat down, got reacquainted a bit, and my music exec friend started playing some of his new artists for us—some really, really talented artists in development. Behind my friend and I were two HUGE Tascam studio monitors. The entire experience was REALLY loud and fun.

After about an hour he wanted to hear some of my stuff. I had recently sent him Heaven Hear Us, my second solo project. He asked which song we should listen to, and I said without thinking the title track, “Heaven Hear Us.” Honestly, I chose that song because it’s the most pounding song I have, and I honestly wanted to know what it would sound like coming out of those speakers.

Right before he pushed play one of his aids who had been away on maternity leave came in for a visit. He introduced us, told her we were about to listen to one of my songs, and she sat down to listen.

As soon as the song began to play I had a weird self-conscious feeling about it all. I suddenly became aware of how this song would sound to her. “Heaven Hear Us” was written for a certain context that was pretty different than the one we were in.

When the song was over she simply looked at me and said, “I have never heard anything like that before.”

Now, there might be a few ways to interpret what she said, but I assure you, she was insinuating the song didn’t mean anything to her. She meant that it didn’t hit her in any place that mattered to her. Obviously, she was pretty cynical about the content of the song, and that’s my point.

When I explained to her that we use that song in church to sing to God, it did at least help her understand that there was a context somewhere in the world for that kind of song—but it didn’t matter to her or her life that day.

“Heaven Hear Us” is a song written for a sub-culture to sing: my church. The language of the song keeps it in there, and it’s not easily understandable outside that space.

I’ve played “Heaven Hear Us” in so many gatherings and it has just GONE OFF! We dance, we celebrate, and that’s great. I’ll keep singing it there. All I mean to say is the song is understood by listeners who can translate its meaning because of the way it’s written. There’s nothing wrong with that, BUT I am starting to believe God might actually prefer songs that communicate to him, his people, AND the world all at the same time. Those three dimensions feel like his entire personality to me.

OK. Story #2.

I remember the day I wrote the song “After All.” It’s on my first CD, Hallelujah (let the wounded hear and rejoice).

“After All” came out as one exhale to Jesus. At the time, I was living in a loft apartment that was made of nothing but concrete and drywall. Every apartment was right on top of the other, and it was a VERY transparent environment. It was hard to hear the conversation your neighbors were having until it got loud, then you could articulate every single word.

I could not write a single lyric in that apartment without being aware of the world outside because I knew they could hear every word. Therefore, my second CD, Hallelujah, was written smack in the middle of a missional context.

I wrote “After All” that afternoon, left for the evening to have dinner with some friends, and when I came home, a HUGE party was happening next door. So I went to the party for a bit, then went home, propped the door open, and started playing some songs with my roommate.

Soon, a drunk homeless man walked in. We were glad to have his company.

After a while he looked at me and asked me to sing him a song. I thought of “After All,” and said, “OK, but it’s a gospel song, you cool with that?” He was, so I started in with the first line of the song…

I have been found
By the one
Who rescues sinners…

By the time I finished the song we were all just crying, and the feeling of God’s heart was surrounding us. It was a very cool, and very holy, moment.

What he said next spoke volumes to me—and be advised—if you are sensitive to the F-word, you might skip the next line…

He said, “You are going to be a F*%#ING MILLIONAIRE off that song MAN!” He kept saying it over, and over, and over.

In fact, he yelled it from the elevator all the way down the hall as he was leaving, “F*%#ing RICH MAN!”

Here’s the point. That song had something for him: Good News. God loves us after all we’ve done.

His language was intense, but he was simply trying to say, “Man, that just touched me where I’m hurting, and all I know to say is that song is going to do that for everyone, and that means you are gonna get RICH!” The Kingdom had just crashed in on all of us, and he used the language he had at the time to express the value of it.

“After All” is founded on a universal, shared, experiential reality. All of us have done stuff we regret.

The Good News is that God searches us out and calls us home to his heart. “After All” is simply the gospel in language we all can receive if we want it.

It’s also a song that I’ve sung in the church, and I’ve seen it go off there too. My church has had such a profound experience singing “After All” to Jesus, and we have felt him surround us with his presence. It really seems like God loves the song, and that it brings him glory.

It’s a 3 dimensional confession. It’s good for God, it’s good for us, it’s good for those outside.

It’s an invitation to us all.

Now, these are stories about two different people with their own stuff going on when they heard these songs. These things happened in an uncontrolled environment—not a clinical study—so there’s plenty to discount about it all. I am only suggesting that if we are going to take the fire of the red hot center to the fringe, which we will ultimately do if mission is to happen on the frontier of our cities, then like any good missionary we will have to translate the good news of Jesus so that people can understand it.

Point: “Heaven Hear Us” is not a missional song. “After All” is—at least more-so—though it’s not the best I’ve heard.

I have more to say about moving forward with these kinds of ideas, and I have about 1000 disclaimers to make about the songs we sing IN church (how they are indeed necessary), but this is getting long, so I’ll leave it there.

God bless.

P.S. If we plan on being better missionaries in the US, we might need to be more comfortable with the F-word. :) Just sayin’.

I saw this post on Mike Breens blog today, and just had to repost it here because it’s just rad to see other worship leader writing about discipleship and the Kingdom story. This is a great post from a worship leader named David Walker. You can learn more about David here.

Blessings to you all. Enjoy!

WHAT YOU KNOW OR WHO YOU ARE.
Posted on: December 29th, 2011 by David Walker (http://davidwalkeronline.com)

I’m a worship pastor.

It’s what I do,
what I know,
who I’ve been created to be.

But as of late, some things have been stirring inside of me that leave me unsettled.
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you are. “

Over the last 4 months this has been the phrase resonating in my life. What does it mean to invite and then give someone access to your life? I was raised to think in order to have someone enter your life you had to be this engineered version of yourself.

This concept transfers even to dating relationships. Being on your “best” behavior was something you’d do to potentially win over the one. If they were impressed enough with this well-mannered perfect version of yourself you would begin the dating process. Once you got engaged then married, slowly but surely you discover who the person really is. You discover the routines or the lack of routines in his or her life. You begin to discover where this person’s time and energy goes outside of living from event to event. You’re enlightened to the small states of being that actually define who the person is.

I’m beginning to let people see who I really am. It’s not that I’ve yet to do this, but it has now become me making the decision to do it intentionally. It’s easier to simply pass on information and never let people see behind the curtain of where the information is coming from.

The true calling of discipleship leads to someone actually wanting to imitate the patterns of Jesus in your life. Paul puts it this way: “Imitate me as I imitate Jesus.” Some of the big questions I’ve been asking myself are the following:

-Is my life worth imitating?
-Would it benefit the world to have people imitating my life?
-Would the Kingdom of God advance (people saved, healed, delivered, loved?)
-And in the same vein…”Who do I have in my life that I’m imitating?”

The goal of discipleship isn’t to have an army of robots like me walking to and fro on the earth. The goal is for people to begin to do what Jesus did through their own unique personalities. He did the works of His Father.
My good friend Elizabeth Paul put it like this: “I want to invite you into my life. Follow the patterns in my life that look like Jesus and the ones that don’t look like Him, don’t follow those. I may not be a perfect example of Jesus but I am a living example of Jesus.”

I’ve been leading worship for almost ten years. It is a gifting that I have. I have developed this over the years because it’s something that I place immense value in. I want to continue to lead and write incredible songs in and for the Church. I want to see people saved and made new through God using what I do. These are all incredible things to desire and I believe it’s the heart of God.

But it can’t just be about leading worship on a stage a couple of times a week.

When I read the scriptures, I believe at the end of this life when I’m old and grey, I want to look back most of all and identify the small amount of people that had intimate access to my life and because they did, they did the same, and disciples were made and the Kingdom of God advanced. And then those people made disciples…and the Kingdom of God advanced. And then those people…well…you get the picture…

If I’m honest, really honest, I’d have to say if I stay on the current trajectory I’m on, I’m not sure I’ll be able to say that with the assurance I’d like to.

But I want to.

And I’m cashing in all my chips to make it happen…to ensure that discipleship is the primary thing my life revolves around. That I’m making sure someone who is further along in this journey is investing into me, but, likewise, that I am doing the same thing in discipling others.

Over the next year, I will be chronicling this journey here on my blog.

I’d love if you joined me.

Many Blessings,
David Walker

Below is an article written by Dave Barrett as he unpacks the song from a theological perspective. I love it. Such a cool thing. Thanks Austin Stone. Thanks Dave.

You Are Worthy – Theology

Dave Barrett

In Acts 17, we see one of the many ways in which God is completely different from all of His creation; He needs nothing outside Himself to be complete and fulfilled. This means that he does not even need us.

“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything.” (Act 17:24-25)

So why would God create the world and all that is in it? And why would he put so much care into creating us as humans, special and apart from the rest of creation? He did so simply because he chose to invite creation, and especially us, into the joy of glorifying Him. In short, He wanted to share. Isaiah 43:7 shows us how God speaks of us as “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” He wanted to share the enjoyment in the most amazing and fulfilling thing in the entire universe – His greatness – His glory.

The song, “You Are Worthy [of Your Glory]” by Jon Shirley, is both a recognition of the purpose of God’s creative acts, and an invitation to behold what He has done and respond to it in the way we were designed.

At the very beginning of this song, we are pointed to the breathtaking vastness and beauty of the heavens above and the earth below. God created these heavenly bodies and earthly terrain in order that they themselves beg the question, “who is the being that could have created such vast and lofty things?” God has revealed Himself as the only truly powerful enough. “The Mighty One, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.” (Psalm 50:1 ESV)

So, in response we consider Him in wonder, and say in humility that ‘we’re all lost in you’, with the same sentiment as David in Psalm 139.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you. (Psalm 139:17-18 ESV)

In the second verse of the song however, a closer, more intimate aspect of God’s creation is pondered. The waves of the seas and the flowers of the field are elements of His creation that we can more personally interact with. We can splash our feet in the cool of the surf on a warm day.

We can walk among the flowers in a garden in the spring. Just as in the vastness of God’s power, we find the compulsion to worship Him in the intimacy of His creativity. We are reminded that though God is far above us in every way, He still chooses to be near to us.

In the two verses, God’s inanimate creation testifies to the wonder of God. Nature itself proclaims God’s glory even when it is not observed. But if what is inanimate ‘cries out’ for His glory in these ways, how much more so do men made in God’s image as the pinnacle of His creation have the capacity to do so?

So, in response, the chorus and bridge take us back to confess God’s worthiness of glory and our enjoyment from the truth that He and He alone is worthy of it. To our great delight as beings created for worship, in awe of God’s power and beauty through what He has fashioned, our souls are ‘awakened’ to sing a song that will be sung for all eternity:

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you have created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. Revelation 4:11

In God’s grace to us, He allows us to witness and enjoy what He has done in order to remind us both of his great power and of his intimate consideration of us. God describes his own work as “very good” (Gen 1:31), and to witness it is to witness the works of a God who is very good. God created the universe for one primary purpose; to show His glory. And He created us within it for one primary purpose – to enjoy giving Him glory!

Read more about the CD, Watch the Live Stream Release Event TONIGHT (12/6), and find more songs here.

I’ve recognized one distinguishing characteristic of the early followers of Jesus – they were incredibly tenacious.

By that, I mean they clearly had a message, and they weren’t afraid to bring it. Their witness was so strong that there was no way for the listeners to be indifferent about it. You loved em for it, or hated em for it.

That has me thinking about us. I’m asking myself how comfortable I am with their message and methods. I seem to be more comfortable with indifference than I want to admit.

Their message in a nutshell:
Jesus is Lord
He alone saves
He is alive
He will return

Not a popular word in a cynical culture. It’s absolute. Jesus is who he said he was and we are witnesses of this fact.

The result – pierced hearts and angry mobs. They didn’t seem too concerned with how it would go down.

Does that mean they weren’t smart about the way they told the story? No. And that is a huge point. It just means that they gave up trying to manage the affect of the message – no matter where it led.

We, like them,live in such a cynical time, and that cynicism has affected us more than we know. It’s one of the great deceptions facing the next generation of followers of Jesus today.

We say we want to “be like the church in Acts”, but hey, eyes wide open on this one – we would not be comfortable with them!

They seem to be the kind of church we have disassociated ourselves from. A witnessing one. I kind of mean “witnessing” in an old school way – minus the “do you know where you would go if you died tonight” question. I mean offering the truth of Jesus as forgiveness, healing, and hope to people who don’t currently experience it.

Why have we given up on that?

If I had to hazard a few answers to that question they would be:
1. We don’t want to be apart of terrible religious things we’ve seen or been a part of in the past.
2. We don’t want to break a cultural religious rule of engagement.(i.e. don’t talk about money, God, or sex)
3. We don’t want to turn anyone off of Christianity
4. We don’t know what to say to convey the hope we really believe in – we literally aren’t skilled in sharing our story.
5. We don’t really believe it, or aren’t confident in it for even ourselves anymore.

I really think we need to think seriously about this. Our silence is DEEPLY spiritual.

Maybe we could become more sure of the word of our testimony and then we could dream up smart, articulate, creative,sincere, human, and loving ways of telling it. We really don’t have to be jerks about it (or even religious), and should not be, but we can be so alive in it that it comes out of our mouths with a red heat.

Apparently songs like that would pierce hearts.

I want that.

How does that land on you?

I had a chance to gather the worship leaders for a brief breakout session. It was encouraging to be in conversation with other worship leaders who wonder what their place is when the people leave the building. The program has become the “wheel house” of the artists of the church. It’s been a place to contribute, and honestly, a place that fosters great feelings of significance. Particularly when things are going well. It can also challenge our sense of identity when things aren’t going well. What a great opportunity to show us where our identity is truly founded. In him alone, not what we contribute.

I’ve been reading a book called Thirty Years that Changed the World, by Michael Green. What a fantastic examination of the book of Acts!

In it, he sets up the Acts story by looking deeply at it’s author, Luke.

He describes Lukes passion for prayer and praise in both the Gospel of Luke and Acts.

He writes, “…the phrase ‘praising God’ comes more often in Luke’s writing than in the whole of the rest of the New Testament. There are three main words which he uses. One is to ‘glorify’, doxazein. it means the light of God be reflected in a situation and, if we recall the Hebrew background of the word, to allow it’s ‘weight’ to make it’s own impact for God. We find it most commonly used after healings, when people glorified God. Another rather general word is ainein, to lift your heart in praise and worship to God. The third is eulogein, to speak well of God. It means that we often cry out, ‘Lord, I love you. You are wonderful!’ Lukes gospel begins and ends in the temple with people praising God (1:9, 24:53), and that atmosphere is carried through into the Acts.” (page 32)

These three ideas add up to what is known as a “Red Hot Center” that is essential in the missional church (Thanks for teaching me about this, Mike Breen). People come together to warm up and heal next to the fire of God and then they are sent into his work again. A Gathering Network Celebration Service feels like a Red Hot Center. Not because we need to consume songs, but because we NEED GOD. What a profound difference.

WORSHIP LEADERS! This is where you come in! PLEASE! As you hear a lot of talk about prioritizing discipleship and mission over the program – do not make the mistake of hearing a suggestion that somehow the worship of God is any less of a priority than it has ever been.

The entire missional conversation exists for the worship of God. That is, in fact, what this conversation is about.

As you learn to make disciples, and as you readjust your life to live as a missionary – do not neglect the Red Hot Center. It is a non-negotiable for missional living!

Thoughts? Need to say/ask something? Come on people! Let’s chat!

The thought is nothing new, and it was a helpful clarification as the modern worship movement swept through our churches with new songs, cd’s, the higher profile of the worship leader, conferences, and stylistic musical preferences. After a while, it all started to feel like “worship” wasn’t always about Jesus.

As new movements begin they tend to disown the shoulders they were standing on. When the modern worship movement began to take off we rejected hymns, organs, hymnals, etc. We got cynical about those things as if God could no longer be found in them. Funny how we circled back isn’t it. Remember the “ancient future” thing? All the modern worship artists released hymn records. Ironic, and good for us to acknowledge that we had gone too far.

My thought is that the “missional movement” (if there is such a thing) would not have happened without the modern worship and prayer movement. Some people in the missional movement just rolled their eyes at that. Think of it this way – we stood in front of Jesus for two decades and said, “PLEASE HEAL OUR LAND”! I just paraphrased a million voices, a trillion prayers, and thousands of church services and events. We have sought Jesus for years and asked him to “move”.

Here’s the deal. If Jesus were to move his hand, he would move us. And here we are now – leaving to “go outside”. Of course God moves the apostles first, the “sent” ones. They are the ones, who for years, have been sick and tired of all the christians sitting in the auditorium singing songs while the world outside is wondering around hopeless. The whole attractional program thing lost it’s luster to them a long time ago. They are the ones calling us outside now, and some are just beginning to listen.

As we follow the apostles outside – do we forgo gathering to worship Jesus together? I ask that in the traditional sense. You know, the singing songs sense. If worship is an offering of our whole life, do we still need the music?

I would argue – with everything in me – YES!!!

Why?

Three things – under one big idea: Where there is love – there is always a song. As for our love for God, gathering to sing together does a few things for us….

One.
We gather to worship to remember who God is.

Two.
We gather to remember who we are and all we have in him.
We remember that worship is about our whole life – not just a moment

Three.
The experience reminds us that a WHOLE lot of people aren’t “here” – aren’t experiencing the hope we have following Jesus. Let’s never fail to remember that the missional movement exists for the worship of God.

Please pray for Sentralized. I have had a growing sense that Jesus wants all the strategy and rethinking to fall out of our heads and into our hearts. We need to encounter the Living One, the Missionary God, who would leave the ninety nine, and spend his life searching for the one. Pray that He will renew a burden for the reconciliation of the world to God, and that we won’t just brag about our own ideas for 2 days. We need God. We need an encounter. We need more than we have to bring.

THOUGHTS? REACTIONS?

Waking from the dream, ironically enough, interrupted the sharing of dreams. I was in a room with stadium-style seating that was filled to the brim with Gathering Network leaders. One by one, people were sharing the deep longings of their heart – the places and people that they are impassioned for: single mothers, impoverished areas, the workplace, neighbors and neighborhoods. One by one, my friends and comrades poured out their hearts. Oftentimes one would stand to share and others would stand to join them – signaling that they too shared that dream.

And the best part about this dream is that I know it to also be reality. In Kansas City there is a community of people giving all they’ve got to live differently, to live into these dreams that are not for themselves, but for the healing and wholeness of others that are somehow a part of their world. For some of them, it took great adjustments to move their worlds into the places of the people their hearts burn for. For others, it took awareness and presence to let Jesus share with them His heart for the people of their days. It was a wonderful dream.

I must admit that I’ve been rather lost since moving to California. The way of life I have come to know and love has been seemingly impossible to find here. Places to be where people don’t know Jesus and communities of Jesus that live in the way of those in my dream have been eluding me entirely – even though I’ve been searching. Life as I’ve known it, life as I’ve learned to thrive in, has escaped me in recent months. I’ve been dreaming and planning into the future and trying to be patient as I know this kind of “home” and way of living is going to be a slow process. And I’ve been trusting – for I know that He is working on these things even while I cannot.

But in my dream, as I sat amongst a people of many dreams and passions of the Father’s heart, His current dream for me worked its way into my consciousness – to be present. When it came time for me to stand and share, this is what I was going to say: my deep heart, passion, and dream is to simply be present. I may not have found my niche yet. I may not feel camaraderie as I have known it. I may feel alone at times – unknown and not understood. But – and yes, it is a BIG BUT – I am still Jesus with skin on, a human packaging for the Spirit of God, a Spirit that has blown me here to Fremont, California. And while I may not have found many people I connect with yet, I am still often around people and it seems that the very fact that they are next to me makes it clear enough that my Father wants to connect with them.

So, presence is my dream … and while I may be far, it’s still good to know that I’m not alone in this crazy kind of discipleship.

So thankful for Erin Simmons and her constant encouragement from California. She journeyed with the Gathering Network for many years and is a great friend. I can’t tell you how many times I walked into coffee shops in KC only to find Erin huddled around a passage of scripture with a young women – learning from her how to live a life following Jesus. She’s left an amazing imprint on our city. There’s a great pic of Erin at the bottom of this page – she’s the one all the way on the left, surrounded by our mutual friends Anna, and Kerri. Thanks Erin!

Most of you that are keeping tabs on all that’s happening here at jonshirley.com know my story – so I’ll keep this brief. For those of you who don’t here’s the story in a nutshell…

My Grandfather, Al Hay, died on a Sunday afternoon, January 13th, 2002. I was living in Little Rock, Arkansas at the time pastoring a young church plant called the River Market Church. I flew to Houston the following Tuesday and was greeted by my dad (Jakie Shirley), my brother-in-law (Jason Mirikitani), my sister (Jill Shirley Mirikitani), and their (at that time) sixteen-month-old daughter, Abby. We had lunch and began an hour long trip to Beaumont, TX. to meet my mom (Dottie Shirley) and the rest of our family for the funeral the next day. On the way we had a terrible accident, in which my sister died in the vihicle, my brother in law suffered a massive head wound and bodily injuries, my father suffered severe internal injuries, me a broken shoulder, and my niece, only a scratch.

The days that followed just did not fit in my “story”. We never saw it coming. It’s nothing we wanted. It’s obviously nothing any of us would have chosen, yet we were forced to make a way forward.

Faith has no handlebars in a moment like that. I remember feeling like all I believed had been thrown out on the lawn, and was for sale to the highest bidder. I was up for grabs.

People who follow Jesus shine in a moment like this. It’s in the fabric of who we are, and what we believe, to join people when life falls apart. This was true for us – and these people held us together – for months.

When the smoke started to clear songs began to rise out of my experience as a way of hanging on to what was refusing to let me go – Jesus himself. Deal is, my relationship with him was different then it had ever been and in a refreshing way. It was more honest then ever and was less religious than it had ever been. I just didn’t have the capacity to mind my p’s and q’s.

Interestingly, through a friend, I was led to choose whether I would bless God, or curse him in this moment. I chose to bless him – but concluded I had to be free to do it without any hint of cliche. It had to be real. Had to have integrity. Had to be honest.

So when the songs came, they came with a level of authenticity that I had never experienced before, and haven’t since, it was such a spiritually cathartic experience to write songs of worship at that time in my life. Not sure where I would be if I had chosen not to do so. The whole process kept me alive – and held me close to the memory of my sister, Jill, who was a suffering worshipper like few I had ever known.

Well, it didn’t take long to learn that grief has a community. It’s an unavoidable experience of life. All of a sudden I became aware of so many stories around me that were heartbreaking and tragic, and I noticed the comfort in sitting with fellow travelers on the broken road. That being true – there is a shocking void of help in the form of laments and confessions of faith that help us make a journey through these dark nights.

I decided to record the songs in a way that would honor my sister, be true to the moment I was in, and would somehow become a place of refuge for the broken – those who were making the choice to fall before Jesus and bless him from a puddle of tears.

Hallelujah [let the wounded hear and rejoice] was created. It was the best I could do at that time.

What became so surprising at the conclusion of the recording was how hopeful the project sounded. It’s a record of laments, that is in no way dark. There is a delicate balance of honesty, desperation, and hope. I could not have done that at that time. That, to me, has always been a miracle.

I love that it’s not marketable or really clean sounding. It’s really low-fi, the song structures aren’t the best, and in places it’s really out of tune. BUT – if it were any other way – it would not have been true. I was all of those things at the time, and I hope I’m still those things in many ways today.

PLEASE burn, rip, email, give away, this record as much as you can when you meet someone who would be blessed by it. That’s why it was made. Never ask if it’s ok. It’s always ok.

1 I will extol the Lord at all times; 
his praise will always be on my lips. 

2 My soul will boast in the Lord; 
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.  

3 Glorify the Lord with me; 
let us exalt his name together. Psalm 34: 1-3