What does a weekend in California look like?

It looks beautiful. Gorgeous lakes and mountains. Fantastic, loving people. Showing God’s love and plans for other people. 5-mile walks. And now, a bike ride to Starbucks.

-Day 5-

Can I start out by saying how nice it is to be in a city with everything within 5 miles? I biked to Starbucks, which was only like a mile away. And I’ve walked all around town. Everything close makes a city so much more lively. I find it fun and adventurous to walk and bike places, since I don’t have a car here, which is a weird feeling.

 

Anywho, my first weekend here, and my fifth day here is about to conclude. Anytime someone is involved in a worship team or ministry, they can become busy or distracted. But at something like this, you can completely soak up everything God is doing. After being in like 5 services this week, I felt I needed to pour what God was giving me out. So I joined Bethel for a treasure hunt they did Saturday. Not the pirate-type treasure hunt, however. Here’s what they do for “treasure hunts.” They go into their city and pray for people. Not for everyone they come across, but for the people God highlights.

First, everyone meets together and prays for God to show them different things to search for when traveling throughout the city. Like hair color or clothing color of people, or different places, or people’s names, or random things like a windmill. Afterward, groups of like 4 pair up and compare their lists. Usually there will be similarities between people’s list, so then they go and search for what they feel God wants them to do. It may seem weird, like, “God is showing you where to go and who to pray for.” But it’s really not. All you do it pray and have God show you pictures or names or whatever. And the first things that come to mind, you write down. My team went out, and nothing crazy happened or any healings, but we got to encourage some people and explain to them how much God loves them and how he has a plan for each of them. One thing God showed was someone with red and blue clothing, like patriotic colors.

Toward the end of our journey, we stopped at an In-N-Out, which is a California burger joint. It was my first time. Pretty similar to 5 Guys, and about the same taste. We all noticed a guy like 16 years old who walked in with red and blue clothing, and all my group urged me to go up to him. At first, I tried making excuses to not go up to him, because I was scared. But then I realized God’s love and plans are way bigger than mine, so I need to forget about myself. I want up to him, and just talked with him, asking if he needed prayer for anything. He was around friends, and you know how much we try to impress those around us, so he was a little uncomfortable. He told me how life has been pretty sucky lately. So all I prayed was for God to reveal His love over him, and that His plan would be revealed to the guy. And that this time would not last long, that God would transition into a better period in life. After that, he was really appreciative. Nothing may have happened right there, but I hope that it planted something inside of him that he would think about and hopefully move in action towards. Ministering to people, crazy miracles don’t have to happen. The deep problems require not only prayer, but a transformation of the mind, which can start with just one thought.

 

Later Saturday, I went and visited with some friends I’ve met this week. We started out with 7 people, then some people decided to have a worship night there, and within an hour, there were flipping like 20 people there. So for the next two hours, we had an acoustic guitar, flute, and cello worship night. It’s pretty cool to be around people that plan that kind of thing. I like the idea of it, I just couldn’t really connect too well. Honestly, since you can hear everyone in that atmosphere, I wanted to sound good and add cool harmonies to the sound. But my pride totally disrupted my worship, and pride will do that every single time. I’d say pride is the most difficult sin to deal with, because it’s a continual struggle. And where pride is, jealousy starts making you wish you had someone else’s life or ability, which is like saying to God, “Well thanks for making me the way I am. I guess you messed up.” Not good at all.

 

Today I went to the 8:30 am service at Bethel. Earliest service I’ve been to in a while. Good service, about men being virtuous and upholding moral excellence.

Thennnnnnnn, went with some friends to most gorgeous beach lake I’ve evvveerr been to. Picture’s at the bottom. The lake’s called Whiskey Town Lake. Freezing water, but beautiful place.

And noowwwww we’re here. Time to catch up on notes and teachings from this past week, and to get ready for another fantastic week of the School of Worship.

 

Thanks to everyone who’s reading. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and great morning in church.

¡Adios!

Whiskey Town Lake!

Third Day! NOT the band…

Day three:

Like I said yesterday, we don’t worship God to feel emotions or have something crazy hit us. But man, today was so powerful. I started praising God just for who he is, and out of that, His spirit just came over me and really connected with my heart. I always love seeing the way God touches us after we focus on the sole purpose of glorifying him.

We had the general teaching after worship, and Jenn Johnson spoke. Wowww. She is where passion meets transparency. No matter how much skill or how prepared someone is, transparency trumps all of it.  Since she’s a mother of three, she understand parent-child relationships so well, and she related a lot of her talk to this, explaining how we should not put up a front for God, because no parent likes their child doing that.

Also, she discouraged us saying to God, “I am bad and worthless.” It is true that we not worthy of God’s holiness, but who made us? And in whose image did he make us? God! And God is good. Therefore, God has made us good.

Then she went to discuss faith. She explained how faith and responding to God’s voice in small matters will take you to big faithful actions.

This story’s quite interesting:

One of the men Jenn looks up to heard from God one night that he was to walk up to a man in a restaurant and bite his ear. What??? But he thought, “What do I have to lose?” and “What do I have to gain?” So, knowing he was hearing the voice of God, he went up and bit the man’s ear. Immediately the man began crying (I would too if a grown man bit my ear). The man’s wife was a Christian but he was not. And the only way the man would ever let his wife talk to him about God was when she got close a whispered into his ear. So the man gave his life to Christ that night. We should compare this level of faith when we’re scared to even say, “God has a plan for you” to someone.

Then, Jenn branched off and talked about relationships. She discussed choosing the right kinds and types of friends. And explained the importance of carefully choosing them, because anytime you connect with someone, you’re taking your heart out of your chest and making it sensitive to them. Afterward, she was praying for us, and I had this image come to my mind: It was a heart (like an organ, not the shape) wrapped in saran-wrap, but there were scissors cutting the wrap off. It was windy where the heart was, so when the heart was unwrapped, it became sensitive to the air. I don’t fully open up and make myself vulnerable to many people at all. And I felt like God was and is helping me become a more outwardly expressed person who (after choosing the right people) really makes myself vulnerable and trusting with others. That is my prayer to God.

Later, there was a pretty rad Bar-b-que held at the person in charge of the school’s house, Kathy. They have a huge house and property with a gnarly pool, volleyball, ziplines, and everything. It was nice relaxation time.

On Friday nights, Bethel has services, and the guy leading worship tonight was Kyle, the one I had lunch with. So I wanted to go but didn’t have a ride. I ended up riding this old bike that was too small and had a rusty chain for 4 miles to the church. But it was well worth it. Powerful worship and good teaching on transformation by Chris Overstreet. By the way, you can check out most sermons online at iBethel.tv.

A lot has changed the past 4 days since leaving Florida, and I am totally loving it. Tomorrow’s Saturday, a completely free day to chill with people and explore the town.

I hope everyone has a good, not-too-hot Saturday!

I didn’t take any interesting pictures today

Buenas noches.

Day two at Bethel!

Howdy! Well today was day 2 of this transformational time in my life. I met some incredible people and took some bold steps today.

My trip to Bethel started with a Mustang ride, and any day starting with that is definitely going to be a good one. This morning, two individuals from Morning Star led worship. One’s name was Amber Brooks, but I can’t remember the guys name.

Coming out of worship, I felt slightly disappointed, because I didn’t feel the same emotions and changing powers as yesterday, but I had to remind myself of something: Worship is not about feeling emotions. With this focus, we’re worshiping for OUR sake. We worship, though, out of who God is, and we celebrate in all He has done. So no matter how someone feels, they must press into God with everything they have simply because of who He is.

Jeremy Riddle preached the word this morning. He spoke on the disconnect between the words we sing in songs and the actions we live. For every week church goers, hearing a song about God ruling and reigning over all the earth and holding the universe in His hands doesn’t really grab us. But take someone who has never stepped foot into a church, and they will realize the true magnificence of the earth-shattering statements we claim about God.

It’s like a church singing, “We stand and lift up our hands, for the joy of the Lord is our strength.” Yet their hands are in their pockets and they’re checking what time it is. Or singing, “I believe you’re my healer” and not going into streets and acting out of God’s healing power. If we are to sing about God, we must connect our faith with deeds (James 2) and live out of who we believe God to be.

After Jeremy spoke, he started praying for God’s spirit upon our lives. Then a capella, he sang “Fill Me Up God.” 400 voices began singing together in unity. Then others sang harmonies and added other sounds of worship, and the place sounded absolutely heavenly. For the next 30 minutes, instrument-less worship resounded throughout the place, changing from song to song. This is the kind of unified, passionate worship God desires to inhabit from his people.

I had lunch one of Bethel’s lead guitarists and worship leaders Kyle Couillard at Red Robin for the first time. It was nice to hear his experience with the school of worship and traveling with all the worship leaders from Bethel.

Then came the songwriting class with Brian Johnson and Jeremy Riddle. 150 people chose to attend the session, and Jeremy started by saying, “We’re not really teaching in this. We want you to come up and play your song in front of us, and we will critique you and help you with it.” From this, my heart started pounding, but I knew I had to do it. There are too many opportunities missed from timidity. So four people in, I stood up, used Brian’s old Martin guitar and played a song I’ve been playing with lately. My voice was shaky, but I didn’t care. I had to close my eyes to reduce my nervousness, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I was being bold and stepping up to the plate. If I, or anybody, wants to do great things for God, they must forget about their fears and just jump into things. It would be quite the emotional and exciting story to say, “Half-way into the song, people stood to their feet and being exclaiming the song! And Brian liked it so much he wants to put it on the next album!” But that would take away from the fun of the truth. It took 5 minutes of Brian and Jeremy critiquing to say something positive. They didn’t really like it. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was me stepping on that stage. And the information they gave me will be incredibly useful throughout every other song I write. God can do more through situations like this than fairy-tale events.

Later tonight, I went to a restaurant where they were having open-mic night, and met some incredible people. During my shuttle ride from Sacramento to Redding, all four people in the car were going to the school of worship. And one of those individuals was at the restaurant, Grila Bites. So I talked with her and she introduced me to her friends. Within 30 minutes of knowing them, I laughed harder than I have in weeks or months. It was just really cool to have community with other Christians and instantaneously feel the love and friendship in the atmosphere. So praise God!

One more paragraph, then I’ll be done, promise. One of the things I am most grateful for here is the continual Christian atmosphere surrounding me. I attend Bethel from 10-5, then come home and spend the rest of the evening with the incredible Christian example I am staying with, Larry. There’s time to even think about not spending time with God, and I love it! Larry explained to me his experience going to Israel, and seeing where David chopped Goliath’s Philistine head. And he explained how one little guy could change the course of the Israelite’s history with one rock. So what can do with what God has placed within our hands?

Nite!

Kyle squared lunch.

Pomegranate and strawberry yogurt from the delicious "Spoon Me." Haha!

AweeeeeeeKyle squared lunch.

Day One at Bethel School of Worship!

Wow. What a transformational day to start out a 3-week and 4-day conference. I began my journey this morning at the Bethel School of Worship in Redding, California. It took 7.5 hours of flying and 2 hours of driving yesterday to get here, but I did, thank God! Yesterday, my host, Larry Rostocil, gave me a tour of the town. He is an incredibly wise man and has already imparted so much upon my life. It’s a beautiful town in Northern California with mountains outlining three sides of it, including Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen. The best part: All the driving we do is in his 2007, convertible red Mustang!

Anyways, today the conference began. Seeing all the worship leaders and musicians in person that I’ve listened to for the past two years was truly a blessing. I happened to be sitting right behind Brian Johnson during the sessions, so I got to speak with him some. I met Kyle (not me , a worship leader and guitarist at Bethel… We’re going to have lunch together tomorrow.

From the time worship began, the atmosphere completely changed. I’m not sure what it’s like on a Sunday morning (yet) at Bethel, but being at a School of WORSHIP, from the time the first chord was played, hands were lifted, and voices began crying out to God – such a sensitive and expectant atmosphere.

I’ve come to the realization that Bethel is not such an anointed school just because the leaders and amazing individuals on staff, but because the willing and expectant individuals who walk into the doors of the church. Any church with people excited about God and actively pursuing him will see his Spirit do mighty things. In the middle of worship, a girl came up to me and said, “I know it’s weird since I don’t know you, but I feel like God wants me to tell you something.” From there, she spokes things into me to confirm the things I have felt God has called me to – worship writing and leading. She referred to the story of Bezalel in Exodus 31 where he is gifted because God has given him His spirit. She told me to not let my assessment of skills be a hindrance to my work for God, and to know that he will take me through his plan simply because his spirit is within me. Powerful stuff!

 

The rest of the day was wonderful learning from a guy named Dano. He spoke about being a writer and worshiper who acts out of what’s happening in heaven, yet making it relevant to this world. He encouraged not being culture imitators, but defining culture through music.

Many great men spoke of the importance and impact of music, including Plato, Blaise Pascal, and Albert Einstein.

Einstein even said, “If I were not a physicist, I would be a musician.

Well it’s 11 PM here, 2AM in the Sunshine state. Please pray for a complete life transformational for me while I’m here at Bethel.
I’ll try to post as many updates as possible.

Thanks!

Cheesy mirror picture, but it's the only one I have of me.

Brian, Kim, and many other great worship individuals.

Not a bad ride, I suppose...

View from the Skyline Bridge

I'm actually here!