Dare You To Move

I want to start off by saying this: Our God is the most wonderful and awesome Creator of this earth that we live on. He is in the sun, moon, stars and every living and non-living thing on the earth. This omnipotent, omniscient and holy God has been speaking to me a lot the past couple weeks and trying to tell me something. Last night, I believe I figured it out. Here's what is going on.

First some background: About a week and a half ago, God finally answered my prayers and provided me with the job I had been praying about for a long time. I am now part of the tech staff at Calvary Church that does special events. I basically do sound, lighting and/or whatever else is needed with a particular event. Since then, I have actually been at church quite a bit, not necessarily related to that of course. Also, I've been running tech for the high school ministry for about 6 months and the college ministry for about 3 years now. I'm at church at least 3 days a week, regardless of what else is going on!

For the past few weeks, I've been talking with a friend in the college group who has been very encouraging to me. He knows I've been wanting to work at Calvary for awhile and has reiterated several times that I should get paid for as much as I do help out. Not that this has any more weight than any of the other things, it is just pleasant to be encouraged. Thank you Tommy!

This past Wednesday, I had one of the best encounters I have ever had in the high school ministry. The night had just wrapped up and I was beginning to unwind. As I stood there talking with Blake, a couple of students walked over to us. The female student basically says to me: "Hi, I don't think we've officially met; but you're our tech guy and you're awesome and.....you have amazing hair. I just want to thank you for being here and.....ya. I'm Madison." That seriously made my week up to that point and will be the measure by which every one of my experiences as part of the high school ministry will be stacked against. Sure, it's good to hear how glad Doug, Melissa and Blake are to have me; but, it's infinitely better to hear it from one of the students themselves. Thank you Madison!

The following evening, I had the opportunity to go to Catalyst West, a conference for church leadership (or as Mary Jane described it, VBS for adults). I have wanted to go to this event for years but, as I have not been part of church "leadership", have not been able to. I was only able to go this time because Anna had to come back for an art festival event. She offered to let me use her pass for the evening because Chris Tomlin was leading worship and he is one of my favorite Christian artists. I literally jumped at the chance to finally go to this amazing conference. When I first walked into the sanctuary with Ben and Danielle, I could already tell the atmosphere was different than anything I'd experienced in quite some time. As worship started, I felt my heart opening like it hadn't in quite awhile. It was amazing to finally be able to worship my Creator, uninhibited and undistracted. With everything that I do at Calvary, it always involves worship. For the high school, college and young adult ministries, I run tech; for the Elevation service, I run lighting once in a while and am head usher so I always have those duties in the back of my mind during worship. I haven't really been able to fully experience the worship of my Savior in a long time. That night was incredible! The speaker, Louie Giglio, delivered a powerful message that resonates deep in the heart of all leaders. But for me, the greatest experience was the worship. Chris Tomlin is an amazing worship leader and man of God. He has a way of picking just the right songs for the response that is appropriate to the message. Worship leaders should be able to do this well anyway, but Chris just has so many songs that create the right mood of worshipful response. My soul felt completely overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit! It was especially therapeutic for me because I have been helping with the art show at Calvary this week. I helped Anna with setup and have been watching the art overnight since Tuesday (and will be tonight as well). In that time, I've actually only been home for a total of about 3 hours! It's not like I'm tired from all of that, at least physically; physically, I've had mountains of energy this week. I have felt a little drained mentally, but I've been on sort of an emotional high. It felt good to relax and worship in that room full of amazing Christian leaders. It was a truly amazing night of worship that I hope will not fade from my memory. Thank you Chris; and from the bottom of my heart, thank you Anna!

My soul yearns for that feeling again. I don't want this to be an annual thing; I should be feeling like this a lot more often than that! I'm not sure what to do about it, but I welcome any suggestions. All of this has led me to the conclusion that this is where God wants me to be. I've been contemplating and praying for a long time for God to show me where He wants me to go. I'd been out of a job for a year and a half before God finally provided the job at Calvary. Even though it isn't anything consistent right now, I'm praying it will lead to the job that I would love to have (and am actually pitching to leadership in just over a week). This all has shown me that God wants me to be here at Calvary and that I'm not being self-serving in pursuing more opportunities here. I love volunteering for anything that comes up and working with everyone at Calvary. For me, this is the ideal place to be and I can't think of anywhere else I would rather work (though I might have a job at Apple in the next couple weeks and am really looking forward to that if I can do both). As I type, I am still sitting in the Worship Center lobby because I just don't feel like leaving yet, even though I don't have to be here right now.

Again, thank you to Tommy, Madison, Chris Tomlin and Anna! You guys have had more of an impact on me than you may realize (especially Chris since I've never actually met him before) and I could never thank you enough for that! I know I have the most amazing friends in the world and I love you all!

Peace, love and soul.