Finding Community...

This past weekend I had the privilege of participating for the 3rd year in the King David Christian Conservatory annual worship concert.  It's a chance to use dance performance for ministry and this year's show was amazing.  Every year it just keeps getting better and this year was no exception.  Inevitably the day after the shows are over there is a bit of the performance blues.  Spending a weekend being able to do the 2 things I'm the most passionate about: ministry and dance makes it hard to settle back into the normal day to day routine.

This year I was reflecting back on the season and was struck at how much I had found a sense of community within the dance studio.  I felt as though we were a tight knit group.  There has always been a sense of family but for me that family atmosphere increased.  The directors, Sal and Barb, becoming not only mentors but like second parents for me, the other students becoming like sisters and the younger kids becoming like my younger siblings I found myself in the midst of a community that I didn't expect.  I've watched a group of people share life together.  Sharing the ups and downs of life, praying for each other, encouraging one another, sharing the same passion, laughing, crying and creating memories.  I've seen how this studio has become a safe place for many.  For me personally, living hundreds of miles from my family to pursue the call of God is hard.  To find community is so important to me and God brought the most amazing people into my life.  They keep me going when I want to give up.  They encourage me to keep pursuing my dreams.  They keep me laughing.  It's beyond just learning how to do a plie or a double pirouette.  The technical aspect is there but it's also a community and what the Body of Christ is all about.

As I've have watched and experienced this God has opened up the vision in my heart for the creative arts centers I want to open in Israel one day.  I pray that I can create the same type of place.  A place for kids and young people to come where they have a safe place if they need it.  The arts has a way of drawing people in but has the potential to become much more than a place to learn a craft if the right atmosphere is created.  I pray that with God's help I can create the same type of atmosphere where I can love on the people, create a safe place, and a strong sense of community.  I certainly don't have any answers to the issues in the Middle East but what I can do is love the people.  Onward.

Humor for a moment as I brag on this studio.  If you are in the Charlotte area I highly recommend King David Christian Conservatory if you or your kids are interested in dance classes or piano lessons.  For more info visit www.kingdavidchristianconservatory.com

 Advanced Class prank :-)

 Advanced Jazz just before going on stage

 We are family!

Best directors ever

The Line Starts Here...

What a weekend I had in Orlando.  I attended the Onething Regional and prayed before I went that I would meet the Lord there.  He did not disappoint!

Without going into a lot of details that would probably only mean something to me personally I wanted to try and put into words a little of what was deposited into my heart.  Whenever God does a deep work in my heart I always feel inspired to write.  The only problem with this is that I usually can't put into words how great God is and how great a work He has done and is continuing.  I will try -- bare with me if I ramble :-).

So I guess one of the main aspects of my life that God reminded me of was my roots.  If you didn't know I was saved in 1997 at the Brownsville Revival.  If you don't know anything about the Brownsville Revival just google it or look up youtube videos (ignore the nay-sayers...).  God did a MIGHTY work in that place for several years and I'm a product of that revival.  My entire life shifted.  I had no idea that I could experience God the way I began to experience Him and His presence.  I had no conception of actually knowing God -- like really knowing Him and having a living relationship with Jesus.  Getting saved in that kind of environment basically ruined me for "normal" church or church as usual.  I had encountered the living God!  I had been shaken spiritually and literally sometimes.  My heart was awakened to Him and in those early days of my salvation I had such a hunger and passion for the Lord.

Over the years when I left Brownsville and the revival came to a close I struggled to fit in with church again.  I found that my experience at Brownsville and the deposit of revival that is in my bones was often misunderstood.  There were people who thought I simply lived in the past or that revival is dead, move on.  Except that when you have revival in your bones you never really "move on" from that in a sense.  Revival will always be a part of me and there is no getting away from that.  I agree that no one should live in the past but remembering the past and living in the past are two different things.  I don't for a moment want to go back to those days in Brownsville as wonderful as they were.  In that sense, I have moved on (and moved on years ago) but I will never forget those days.  It's my roots. 

In comes Onething.  During the worship at one of the sessions I had realized that God had stoked the fires of hunger that were buried in the recesses of my heart.  It had been covered up with the things of life and the things of this world.  All of it wasn't stuff that was even necessarily bad but just distractions.  I think that's what the devil does -- if he can't get us in sin he can usually get us with distractions.  Anything that can take our gaze off the Lover of our souls starts to take us on a path to a cold heart.  And many times we will still think we are burning because it's subtle.  It's a trap that has happened to me until before I know it my heart is dull and finding Him is much harder than it used to be.  He isn't really the center of our lives although we like to say that He is and justify our time wasting activities.  We all have them and have all used them at one time or another.  I digress...

As I was feeling this intense hunger for Lord I was reminded of my roots.  The hunger I had in those days.  The intense passion I had to go after God and all He had.  To know Him deeply.  Then I was reminded of this:

It says: Line Starts Here.  This is painted on the sidewalk in front of Brownsville Assembly.  It was painted there during the revival when people would stand in line all day to get into the church for the service at night so that people would know where the line started.  For me, spiritually speaking, my line starts there.  My hunger intensified to know God even more and encounter Him in even deeper ways than I had before.  Brownsville is only something I look back on as my starting point.  What happened there was a drop in the bucket and barely scratched the surface as to what God can do in a person, in a church, in a community, in a city and in a nation.  He showed me where I started to reveal where He can take me -- and that's so much further than where I started.  There's no turning back.

My heart's cry is to know Him so much deeper than I ever have.  To be able to love Him well.  To live a life that's worthy of the calling.  I want to hear His heartbeat and let my heart beat in rhythm with His.  If I can dance to the rhythm of a song I want my heart to beat with His rhythm.  I'm on a pilgrimage to discover His mysteries, the deep places of His heart and I have no idea where it will take me or what it will look like but none of that matters.  I have to make a choice to shut off the distractions around me and pursue Him.  Being in His presence makes it easy to do because everything else can't begin to compare to how wonderful His love is and being in His presence.  I love the description of Jesus that says He has fire in His eyes.  What passion!  He's passionately pursuing me so passionately pursuing Him in return makes for a beautiful collision (to quote the David Crowder Band album title...).  A constant gaze into His firey eyes will surely make everything else around me pale in comparison.  We have one life -- our 70 year internship as Mike Bickle calls it -- and we need to make it count.  It's going to mean nothing when I stand before the Lord if I can tell Him who won this season's American Idol.  I want to make my life count and get all of God that I can while I'm on earth.

So there is a song that I've been listening to over the last couple days and it's been on repeat today.  It's called A Life That's Worthy by Jon Thurlow.  I've posted the lyrics below.  I can't find link for you to listen to it but you can find it on iTunes. (He also has a great song called A Storm All Around You that can be found on youtube -- the Onething 2011 version is excellent!) 

My heart is full and I didn't do justice in this blog to what I experienced this weekend but hopefully my feeble attempt made some kind of sense and stirs you to passionately pursue Him.  It's definitely worth it.


A Life That's Worthy by Jon Thurlow

I've felt the pain of compromise deep inside
I've known the tension of a heart that's divided
I've tasted and I've seen You're good and now I am
Ruined for less than all You have for me

The more I see of all this world the more I am
Convinced I'm called to be a stranger to all its ways
So do not hide Your laws from me
For I know that they are my doorway to eternity

I want to live a life that's worth of Your calling
Remove the things that hinder me from loving You because I
Don't want regret upon the day I stand before You
May I be found a pure and spotless bride ready for a King