purely amazing

"Stand by Me" performed by musicians around the world from SKAT on Vimeo.

I'm joining Elli in her prayer,

"LORD, I plead for a heart of flesh to replace this stone. I pray for a right spirit within me that is overcome with love for people. I also pray for the patience and eyes to see the when, who and how."

here goes a little rant of a seemingly long lonesome day...
so maybe I'm just being pessimistic right now, but I'm really tired of the term and practice of the "ministry of Worship." I guess I should clarify this...
I feel like we have created a rockstar culture around music explicitly about God and happened to implicitly be all about us. Our churches over the last 30 years have used music as a means to keep the young generation in the church. We as a luxurious society have leisurely spent all our effort, and inadvertently our money, in creating and maintaining an entertaining atmosphere at church.... And we've done a really good job of it. some of the most skilled musicians of our time are using their gifts in "church music." We have now set such a high standard of musical ability in our church services that we have created an entire "ministry" revolving around the music on Sunday morning. I'm not quite at the part where my head gets a shake... What bothers me most about this is that now most of our thoughts, words and actions at or around the church tend to be focused on the music (but maybe this is just me, being one of these musicians and all) and not God. I probably know more about what different people think about the sunday morning music than what their thoughts and passions revolving around God are! that's disgusting.
This ties into my main point of uneasiness; the North American church has put so much energy and focus into the church music that now we have an utterly confused and thirsty christian youth culture that spends thousands and thousands of dollars on learning how to be better "worship leaders" in schools next to tropical beaches around the world and zero dollars towards the poor and broken in their alleyways. You want to become a good "worship leader?" I say go share the hope of Jesus Christ to those who are presently hopeless. I say go feed those who are starving for both bread and affection by offering the all-encompassing, all-satisfying love of Jesus Christ. I say if you are to go to a tropical country, sit and share a meal with those who lay in absolute dependance on their heavenly Father. I say do these things, be humbled by our God, and let Christ be the mentor of your soul and I will surely be lead to worship through Christ's testament in your life.

If I'm sounding really preachy right now, know that I am just as much preaching to myself on this issue right now!
lately I've been really restless in my faith. University never seems to help this. Today I had a really crappy day of feeling attacked by my education at large and spent a large majority of the day sitting on the couch reading my bible because I felt like if I didn't read my bible I was just going to do something stupid like look at girls on the internet or smoke a cigar and walk around town in anguish and anger/confusion. So I read my Bible. that was pretty much my entire day. it sucked big time but now I'm feeling at peace again. all thanks to the Big Guy and his promises.
"...Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace n which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5:1-5

Philippians 4:6-7 (The Message)

a sweet view of this philippians passage!...

6-7Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.


God is soooo good at displacing stress and worry for praise and beauty! I think that this is one of my major life testimonies. This is one thing that I can meditate over and smile. God's grace is REAL and is the reason a broken person like me can be and feel complete! "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us" -1 John 4:12
"I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete." 2 John 1:12

This last passage is such an affirmation that I am not crazy and the only one who feels this way! to have the desire not to write this in "paper and ink" but rather meet "face to face" and share in God's faithfulness to be full of goodness in his grace with others blessed to be a part of God's family. What a wonderful creator we have whom we can meet in Christ and be accepted as sons and daughters, loved and cared for by the one and only Almighty!

Ash wednesday is one of my favourite services. To take some time and self-reflect and recognize my place as a sinner and look back on times when humble men such as Job covered themselves in ashes before God in despair... to recite the phrase "Remember you are dust and to dust you will return" is such a somber phrase necessary to reflect on once and again to see your dependency on our Creator for life and our fragility as humans. The time of ash wednesday for me is a time to repent for all of the things I do which take God off of his throne in my life... an act of repentence. and then to look towards the time of lent where I remove those things and reclaim christ as my risen Lord! which then leads to Easter to revisit our life as people with a loving, sacrificing, and living God! anyways, sorry for the theological rant... and if I'm misunderstanding any of those church traditions (which is quite probable) I apologize seeing as I haven't really cared a whole lot in the past for the liturgical year.
anyways, have a good week and next time you meet with christians maybe take a moment to meditate on God's grace in your life and I hope it brings you a smile and causes you to sing a bit louder!
sincerely, your brother in Christ, Neil.

I love people. I watched this video and thought to myself how amazing it is that this group of singers can sing a performance like this and catch and hold the attention of THOUSANDS of people. For four minutes an entire city square full of people is silent and listening! hanging on to every breath. completely mesmerized as lyrics, music and motion captivates their entire being. This is one of the most mysterious and beautiful aspects of music!

We go about our day disconnected. I sit on the bus and rarely do I see two people speaking to each other or even making eye contact. Half of them are either on cell phones or listening to music with their headphones shoved in their ears (I'm often found guilty of both these heinous crimes). And today I even found myself wanting so bad for this guy on the other soccer team to punch me in the face just so I could return the favour!... but yet I still hold to my initial statement that I love people... even that guy on the other team. this is why I am even more fascinated by music's ability to bring people together. And how much more powerful is it when people are brought together through music which raises our eyes to things above ourselves. to speak such an important message through a medium such as music is a true gift from God.

I just thought I'd give a shout out to Andy Shauf... I met him here in Saskatoon at a house concert with sheree plett and he's a fantastic person and a phenomenal songwriter and he's got his new cd on itunes called "Darker Days" Anyways, here's a video of him that was on his myspace page... hope you enjoy it and if you're looking for some sweet new tunes check him out. adios... oh yeah, and I am VERY excited about going to my homeland in a WEEK!!! woot woot, it's gonna be a good time, I just pray I can get everything I need done finished before I leave so I don't have any responsibilities and just fun over the break :)

Bon Iver... thank you

I have been feeling really spoiled lately. I have recently noticed that I have been surrounded by amazing music music this year. Not only have I been given so many opportunities to play music with great people with great hearts around town but also I've been introduced to so many great bands this year. My brother recently introduced me to Bon Iver.... and this is what made me want to write all of this. the Lead vocalist spent a few months out in the woods in a cabin and then came out with this amazing album so I thought I'd share this with you. I have found so many musicians this year who inspire my soul. Here are some of the people who create music that manages to penetrate my soul and then explode with unspeakable goodness:
- Jon Foreman
- Aeden Chan
- Zachary Lucky
- Andy Shauf
- Ben & Robin Pasley (Enter the worship circle)
- the new snow patrol album
- Eisenhauer and Sheree Plett
- Lief Vollebekk
-Bon Iver
here's a video of Bon Iver... I haven't listened to his stuff that much yet but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be addicted really soon!
enjoy... oh yeah, if you don't know any of this music, you should check them out... not saying you'll like it but maybe :) and if you would like to maybe write a blog about your favourite musicians this year, that would be neat too. We were created in such a way that for some reason music can draw us to a place of awe and I love making use of that God given gift as often as I can! God Bless.
Neil.
PS- thanks to all the musicians mentioned above for being vulnerable in their music.