Thank you to those of you who were able to come to our Consumed Ministries open house dessert night. It was fun to chat with you and share stories of how God is moving! I am grateful for your partnership in helping me to share the Gospel through music. I couldn't do what I do without your support! Thank you!

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InterVaristy Cross Training Conference

At the end of October, I had the awesome privilege of leading worship for about 400 college students who attended InterVarsity's Fall Conference called, Cross Training. Many students were empowered to live out God's mission for them back on their college campuses and 8 students made a first-time commitment to follow Jesus! Hallelujah!

I was moved to tears after students made these commitments to place their faith in Christ as we sang, "I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. The cross before me, the world behind me, no turning back, no turning back."

​Words can't describe the joy that filled me as I looked out and saw a sea of college students singing this full-heartedly. Praising God for His great work among these students!

​Here are some videos from our time worshiping together at the conference. Be encouraged by hearing these students praising Jesus!

I recently came across this article by a worship colleague of mine, Dan Adler. Dan is the leader of a multicultural worship band in the Twin Cities called, Heart of the City. Would love to hear your thoughts!


                     A Waste of Resources?  by: Dan Adler

A few years ago, I met with a pastor and was talking with him about the vision for Biblical unity that Heart of the City has been seeking to model and call the Church to for so many years.  I spoke with him about how I feel that our segregated congregations don’t reflect Biblical values and that our churches should be multi-ethnic whenever the population around them is diverse. 

He looked at me and told me that he sees it in an economic paradigm.  He knows that for a certain amount of resources, he can plant a mono-ethnic congregation targeted to a certain socio-economic and generational demographic in the suburbs and grow a church of several hundred in a short period of time.  If he took those same resources and attempted to plant a multi-ethnic church, it would grow much slower and would be, in a sense, throwing his resources away.  Whoa… That shook me a little bit. Did he just say that? I hear the logic of it and I also understand it in the sense that you want to see your time and money be used in the most effective way it can.  But is this thinking a real “Kingdom of God” thinking or is it a “Madison Avenue” marketing kind of thinking? 

Numbers and growth, though so very exciting and encouraging, do not necessarily mean we’re on the right track or are creating the fruit of the Kingdom that we are called to.  If the only way we can grow our churches is to separate people between ethnic groups and generations and socio-economic groups, are we really growing disciples of Jesus Christ or are we just producing religious clubs that are meant to keep us all comfortable?  Is a “growth at all costs” perspective right?  Shouldn’t the Church be the ultimate transforming force in society when it comes to breaking down prejudices, injustices and barriers between us?  How can that possibly happen if we embrace a model of ethnically and generationally divided churches as the norm?

I told this pastor that, because Jesus prayed in John 17 that we would be one as He and the Father are one, we pray and work toward even seeing denominations come to a place of doctrinal agreement.  He looked at me and said, “As if that will ever happen…”  Again, from a human perspective, I totally understand his response.  But that is not the perspective we are called to live from.  The Bible calls us to such a greater Kingdom and faith-filled perspective in which we are to live and operate.  We cannot just look at what is, but at what the Bible says should be and could be!

If this pastor, and so many others who would agree with him, is right, then the message to Heart of the City Ministries is “Go back to your own churches, with your own people, in your own denomination.  Quit wasting people’s time and resources trying to bring them together.  Quit writing and using music of different cultures in worship.  Quit trying to broaden our view of the Church.  Let each church focus on their “brand” and the people who like their “brand”. .  Let Black churches stay isolated as Black churches and let White churches stay isolated as White churches.  Let the Hispanic and Asian churches continue to stay in their corners – separate from other ethnicities. And let all of them stay separate from one another within their ethnicities as well. Let them continue to build subcultures so that people from other churches feel like aliens if they visit their services.  Let them continue to keep an “us” and “them” approach to other Christians of different ethnicities.  And let them continue to market separate services that divide the generations from one another so that they don’t have to put up with each other’s music.  And let us continue to try to present the Biblical Jesus to the world in this tribal, segregated, generationally separated way. We’re doing just fine.”

What do you think?  Are they right?  Is what Heart of the City is doing worth it?  Is Biblical unity even a vision worth pursuing or just a big distraction? 

Thank you prayer warriors for praying for me while at Urbana! It was a huge encouragement to have such strong prayer support for me while I was there. Thank you for being part of my Urbana journey in this way. This event was life-changing for me and I am beyond grateful that God extended an invitation to me to be part of it. I experienced a new freedom in worship where I felt unleashed to lead the way God designed me to lead in my specific giftings. It was incredible to lead worship in front of 16,000+ people and declare Christ's name in that stadium! I feel very fortunate that my fiance', Jake, was also able to attend- and he loved it! He really felt God lay it on his heart to be part of a Bible study in the new apt complex we'll be moving into, so he's already started meeting with a future apartment neighbor and friend of ours to chat more about this . We are both thankful that we got to be in St. Louis together and Jake has already asked about going to the next Urbana together in 2015!
For a glimpse of what our week was like at Urbana, check out this summary recap video and the photo album I created on facebook. Also, here is a video of us singing "Revelation Song" in multiple languages (I am leading the verses in this song).  It was an awesome sound to hear 16,000 voices praising God in all those languages! If you have more time on your hands, here is a complete video of our worship time one of the nights (25 mins. of music).

Here are some statistics and a note from the Pres. of InterVarsity of what we saw God do at Urbana:

"This was a very special Urbana. I suspect that twenty years from now, Urbana 12 participants will be spreading the Kingdom of God all over the globe – proclaiming the Good News, healing infirmities, fighting injustice, and discipling new believers."

Many deep commitments were made at Urbana '12:

To serve at least 2 years in missions – 4,224 (2,676 in 2009)
To lead an evangelistic Bible study – 6,434 (5,034 in 2009)
To follow Jesus for the first time or to make a recommitment – 96 & 3,740

In addition, I praise God for the sheer amount of resources mobilized: 32,000 AIDS caregiver kits made, $800,000+ in offerings, and social enterprises launched.

The comments of three exhibitors spoke volumes to me:
“I need to say this: BEST. URBANA. EVER.”

“Quality of students is the highest I’ve ever seen in all the four Urbanas I’ve been to.”

“Our high-quality conversations in this one Urbana surpassed the TOTAL of the previous two Urbanas combined!”

Merry Christmas!

I am flying out tonight to head to the Urbana Missions Conference in St. Louis to get ready to lead worship. 18,000 students from around the globe will be gathering at this conference to learn about God's mission for the world and their role in it. We would love your prayers! Here is a picture of the stage getting set up from where I'll be leading. Can you imagine the sound of thousands of voices praising our Creator in this stadium?!

The conference takes place from Dec. 27-Jan. 1. There will be live streaming for certain parts of the conference including main session speakers and theater and dance pieces. Unfortunately, the musical worship will not be streamed, but you can get a small taste of Urbana if you want to listen in online. For live viewing and a schedule of the conference events, check out www.urbana.org/live. You can also check out our worship team bios, the Urbana worship CD our team recorded, and this video of our team singing Revelation Song, sung in 3 different languages.


I also want to take this opportunity to thank those of you who have given financially toward my role with Consumed Ministries that allows me to share the Gospel through music at events like this. THANK YOU! I am honored to be partnering with you in advancing God's Kingdom! If you haven't given yet but still want to, you can go to www.consumedministries.com/giving. All donations are tax-deductible. I have set a goal to raise $2,500 more by the end of the year and have raised $1,450 of that so far. Thank you for your generosity and investing in changed lives!