Worship Fast

Fasting is important. We know this. Many Christians do not fast nearly as much as they should, myself included. We don't fast because we think that we can't handle it, we are selfish and just don't want to do it or we don't fully grasp the importance of fasting to our lives as Christians. This blog is not to discuss fasting food even though that is the standard and most effective way to fast. My topic of discussion today is fasting music.

Music is a big part of my life. I don't go more than an hour or two with out poppin my iPod in my ears. By my calculations I listen to music for a minimum of 90 minutes every day. With the average song lasting about 3 minutes that means I hear about 30 different songs throughout my day. I have the one of the most random itunes libraries I've ever seen. It is about 7,000 songs ranging from musicals to country(like 10 songs) to worship to heavy metal and everything in between... like I said... random. Many youth pastors strongly encourage students to listen to only Christian music. While I do encourage young people to steer clear of secular media, I have to admit that a large chunk of my music is not by Christians. I do avoid content that is profane, violent or sexual in nature, but if it is clean and has a good message chances are I'll give it a listen.  I wish the Christians had better music... however, that is a whole different discussion. I think what you can "handle" listening to depends on your current spiritual level & how much that music affects you.

Time to contradict myself... you cannot say that the music wont affect you. Humans are very impressionable beings and what we let in is what will come out. We can see this natural principle in the Word of God. Matthew 12: 34 tells us that "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." Whatever you let into your eyes and ears does make its way into your heart. I know that by listening to love songs you aren't just going to fall in love. I also know that listening to the Wicked soundtrack doesn't make you believe in witchcraft. I understand that your music does not directly change your thoughts, but it does start to play in your mind and heart. One of the greatest attributes of music is that it has the ability to make you feel things when you hear it. There are songs that can make you happy, sad enough to cry or pumped up to work out. This is where the fast comes in.

Over spring break I got to spend a few days at Southeastern University with my oldest friend, and a guy that I just met (but I am sure that I will stay friends with). During one of our many conversations throughout the weekend the guys told me about a fast that they had done. They said that they set aside a certain amount of time and listened to only worship music. I told them that it sounded like a really cool idea, but I left it at that. Throughout break and my first week back at school I just continued to listen to random music. Lots of the usual pop-punk and Christian jams (Christian doesn't necessarily mean that the music is about Christ... anyone else notice that?) I have gotten really jaded by worship music lately. Other than a few standout artists (David Crowder Band, Hillsong London, Worth Dying For just to name a few) all of our current worship music sounds the same. I realized this when my sister asked me if  a band was gospel before I put the CD in. She assumed in advance that the CD would be boring if it was Christian just because that is the lovely reputation that we have given ourselves. God has recently birthed a strong new desire in me to write worship music that kids like my sister will actually enjoy listening to. I have gotten off-topic, but all that to say that worship music is not the majority of what I've been listening to.

This weekend I started listening to worship music a lot more again. No reason really, I just came across a Planetshakers CD in my library that I haven't listened to in a while and got addicted to it again. Through the weekend I kept listening and then sunday I wrote a new worship song. I haven't written a full song in a long time. And as far as upbeat songs for worship this is the first one. That is when it hit me. What I was pouring into my ears & spirit all weekend through listening to worship had came out of me through my writing. This morning I remembered what Brandon & Justin told me of in Florida and I have now started my fast. From now until next week I won't be listening to anything but worship music as long as I can help it. I am not just doing this to improve my worship songwriting, but to renew my mind. The same renewal that we receive through reading the Word can come to us through listening to it in music. For as much as I listen to music I know that using this time to worship will put my focus on God for much of my day. I'll be blogging about this again in a week to let you know the great things that God did through this time. I encourage you to pray about it and give this fast a try for yourself. If you do it please leave me comments on my facebook or on my blog to let me know how it goes.

Be Blessed and stay electric!

Brandon

Lovequest: Intro

A little over a month ago I began something that I call my Lovequest. Early last semester God called me to take a period of time to focus on Him and give Him my heart completely. One day in the prayer room at school I felt impressed upon to start writing a book and the name Lovequest came to me and stuck. This is the opening pages of the book. I will explain more after you read the beginning pages of my Lovequest.

I now stand facing my 20^th birthday with less than a month left to call myself a teenager. I am a college student and while it feels like a great portion of my life is behind me I am aware that this first quarter of my life has been a great time of development. Many people would not consider this to be an ideal time to begin work on the daunting task of a book, but I find the timing to be perfect. This book is all about searching for God and more specifically about searching for love. What better time for me to write about this search than when I am actually in it. I have not found what love is completely, nor have I stopped searching for God even a decade into Christianity. I am fully aware that this search is one that will last my entire lifetime, so essentially this book in your hands should never have been published, but I am trusting God for a release to stop writing at some point in my search in order to help others get to that point. I cannot say when I will reach that point. It may take until my next year of school, my first year of marriage, my 10^th year of ministry or some other milestone, but I do plan on giving you a timeframe throughout this book. I want you to be able to fully experience this quest in the way that I do. If at some point in my quest I have a change of opinion I will not go back and edit out my previous thoughts. I will just add a chapter with my new ones. I understand that this is unorthodox and frankly quite confusing, but that is part of the quest. To fully learn and grow in love the way that I am going to you have to be willing to change your opinions even after you think you are fully established in your thoughts. The first group of chapters is full of my previous changes of opinion. My belief in the one true God of love has never changed, but subsequent beliefs have not always been so definite and you will discover that about me very quickly. By the time you finish reading this book I pray that you will have an idea of what my heart looks like. Through that I hope that you will be able to more greatly discover your own. I should warn you right from the start that the image you will see is not always a pretty one. The heart that you are about to study is one full of scars and broken ties, but never forget that it is covered in the blood of Christ and to see it for all that it is you have to look into Christ first. Please press on and keep reading through the tough parts. You would have a very distorted view of love if you stop reading this book halfway through one of the many stories that are about to unfold. Our quest will be one that is not always easy, sometimes scary, full of vulnerability, eye opening and one that leads straight to the cross and the epitome of love. I genuinely appreciate you for reading this far and I hope that you will join me on my quest for love…

Well that's it. That is what I will be focusing on during the rest of this year and the rest of my life for that matter. God needs to show me what love is and I cannot wait to figure that out. God is always amazing me with His love. I keep seeing how much more chill it is than I ever knew. God smiles a lot. In the month that I have been looking at the subject of love I have seen it more places than I ever have before. there is so much love out there. We just have to choose to receive it. I've been waiting all week to hear from God about some stuff and in His usual loving nature He decided to show what I needed to see in the most unlikely of places. I'm sitting in an airport thinking about the love of Christ. His love is amazing. The Lovequest will continue and I have much more to share, I just wanted to give you a basic idea of what I was doing.

God Bless You

I love you

Brandon

John the Baptist Generation

John the Baptist's story is very well known. He is viewed as the man who prepared the way for Jesus' ministry. In modern terms it was John The Baptist's job to do advance public relations for Jesus. He got the word out and told his disciples of the man who was to come. It is now 2000 years later and I believe very strongly that God needs to prepare another John the Baptist. He needs a group of people who will prepare the way for Jesus' second coming just as John did the first time.

My generation is that group.

It is very clear that teens and 20 somethings are the most publicized group in the United States and the world. Most media is geared toward us, politics are finally recognizing us, the work force will soon be run by many of us and most importantly... the church has begun to move with us.

Over the past few years the church has not only recognized youth culture, but they have begun to embrace it and in some ways allowed it to affect and change their church's vision. Many modern churches are now offering contemporary services to attract young adults as well as multiple small groups and youth/college age services. The media content in church has become much more trendy graphically, the music is a few decibels louder, the dress code is more "hip" and the messages are less focused on the working class adults and are being tailored to cater more to the church as a whole... which is starting to gain more and more young people.

We understand that the world and the church have put the spotlight on us, but now we need to embrace that. Our age group is being looked at to see what the future holds for the world. As Christians we need to provide the world with a hope of a bright future. With economic downfalls, more wars, less national focus on morals and radical religions getting more radical it is obvious that our time left on Earth is real short. It is our job to show the world the truth at a time when the truth is so hard to find. Jesus' return is imminent and Christian young people need to prepare the world for it. We need to be the John The Baptist and prepare the way for Christ. I would wager to say that our generation will be the last one to have this opportunity. We should consider ourselves blessed if we get to have families and grow up, but we certainly aren't missing out on anything if Jesus gets here before that. For the saved... the future is much better than anything this temporary place has to offer. We now need to live our lives completely abandoned and make every day count. We don't have enough days left to waste a single one...

Check out my previous blog on the end-times mission without fear if you havent read that one yet...

ORU Week 1

I am a failure.

Between my internet not functioning, my busy-ness and my bit of laziness I have been unable to get a blog up since my actually moving in to ORU. It has been a blast! A bit overwhelming and very tiring, but it has been a total blast and I am so excited about my college life here. So since I have dropped the ball I will recap on my first week here in one long blog.

Friday 8/8/08: Move in day

After a night of anticipation and very little sleep I woke up @ the hotel and drove across the street onto campus. We pulled in through a tunnel of cheering upper-classmen welcoming us to the campus. Our cars were immediately rushed by R.A.s, Chaplains and other students who were helping with freshmen move in day. The rest of that day was spent unpacking and getting my student accounts set up. At night we all went out with our wings for ice cream.

Saturday 8/9/08: Harbor craziness

This day was solely devoted to getting us all acquainted with ORU and with each other. We did tours, devos, games etc. We also had our commissioning service. All of the new students received prayer from the RAs and chaplains while the ORU worship team rocked it on stage. It was awesome.

Sunday 8/10/08: Sabbath

The school made sure that sunday was a free day so we could all find a church and spend it relaxing. We visited Victory Christian Center, which is right across the street and is a great church. Afterward we ate lunch and just relaxed for the afternoon. That night is when I had to say goodbye to my parents because they had to leave early Monday morning. It was very sad, but we all got through it okay.

Monday 8/11/08: Registration

I had to start getting classes settled and set my room up on Monday. 

Tuesday 8/12/08: Worship Audition

I was very nervous, but the audition and placement test for the worship arts major was very easy and I had no problems at all. Once I got through the audition I got my schedule set up and picked up my books. My roommate moved in so it was nice to finally meet him.

Wednesday 8/13/08: Scheduling Craziness

I thought my schedule was done on Tuesday but it wasn't... at all. It took hours of meetings with teachers to get my schedule set up right but I got it all done. I also got to spend some time with Desi's parents before the headed off. Last night we all went to the movies and I really enjoyed a fun night out before the start of classes.

Today 8/14/08: Class begins

Today I had 4 classes. That's a lot for one day in college.... but I have that much everyday. The classes seemed manageable today, but i wont really know until next week. I just know that I am way exhausted and I have to get organized. I will definitely sleep good tonight. Tomorrow is another introductory day for classes and then we get a weekend for all of this to sink in. I hope to keep the blogs up through the craziness. Once life gets into a rhythm I'll return to writing about things more interesting than my life haha. 

But until then...

God Bless & Stay Electric!

900 Miles on the Okie Trail: Travel Day 2

We made it!

Today was our final 5 hours of travel to Tulsa. The driving was a little rougher than yesterday due to heavy rain and sheer boredom, but we got into town successfully and we can finally relax for a little while before the chaos of college move-in begins. 

On our previous trip to the school I put the wrong address into my gps and we ended up in the ghetto of Tulsa (yes they really have one and it is quite creepy). Due to having to redirect we then had to go through downtown to get to the campus. This time we had the right address in and we got to go around the city through a very nice residential area. We pulled up to the school and ran right up to the huge praying hands statue to take our first picture at the school. We decided to get some registration stuff done in the admissions office and I got to get my ORU lanyard at the bookstore. Woot! 

Now I'm sitting in the lobby of our hotel because you have to pay for in-room internet... 10 bucks a night to be exact... I know, ridiculous. I think we're gonna grab some grub that is not fast food for once and then just chill here for the night. Tomorrow is a way hectic day with moving in and all so I might write in tomorrow night, but I don't know when I'll end up getting time. Either way keep checking in and I'll be writing more soon.

Stay Electric!

Due to driving I wasn't able to take many pics today. I'll be taking more pictures of the school throughout the week and today's pics should be on Flickr later or tomorrow. 

900 Miles on the Okie Trail : Travel Day 1

 I am currently writing from a hotel room in the small town of Sullivan, Missouri. It is about an hour west of St. Louis. We have almost exactly 5 hours of drive time left until we get to Tulsa so I am very happy about that. 

My day started with a frantic hour of last minute packing for the trip. After having a breakdown with my sister as we said our goodbyes, I grabbed a drink at Sbux ( an iced caramel macchiato to be exact... just in case you were curious) and we hit the road. It was a pretty easy drive, but it got long. I've never driven further than 3 hours at a time and today was more than double that so it took a toll on me. Destiny kept me company for the majority of the day and we had the iPod so it was fairly smooth sailing. 

As far as the sights out west go there's not much. Just a lot of green flatness. We did get to see Indianapolis and the massive Colts arena which was awesome. We also saw a humongous cross, fighter jets doing flight formations over head and the famous St. louis arch. I've seen this all on previous trips, but it is still a cool experience. After fighting through St. Louis traffic we decided to find a hotel. We werent thinking about the fact that Six Flags St Louis was in its busy season and all rooms within 20 some exits were booked solid. That brings us to now. Were in a very nice Baymont inn and we are that much closer to our future.

I'll have another more detailed blog soon talking about the overall experience of packing up an moving out to school. I'll also be putting one up tomorrow night after we're settled in in Tulsa about tomorrow's trip.

Thanks for reading and next time you hear from me I'll be an Okie! (not really... I hate that word... I'm a Pittsburgher ... I just live  in Tulsa for a while)

A few pics of today

900 Miles on the Okie Trail : Final Prep Day

The packing is finally finished. After hours of hauling boxes to the van in the heat all of my stuff is finally out of the house. I was particularly impressed with the way that my father configured all of my junk into a mini-van jigsaw puzzle. I must admit trying to get all of my stuff together was rather stressful but now that we're done I am very relieved and I am nothing but excited to get goin

I know that I didn't get the pictures uploaded last night, but no fear... my pictures of my packing adventure are now on my new flickr page! Click the link to check em out and feel free to subscribe to my photocast in my favorite blogs list on this site. I'll be writing from the road tomorrow afternoon. Here we go!

ORU Packing Day Photocast