Yesterday morning 140 people (not by accident) were directed to Epic Life Church’s Easter service. I was given the great opportunity to put together the most passionate choir you will meet in this life time. This small group of about 15 individuals rocked Epic’s face off with the Holy Spirit pouring out of each individual in a very unique way. We have also been blessed with musicians who are experienced and would give all they are for the sake of glorifying Jesus Christ. This last month we have been practicing for yesterday morning and you can bet that these dedicated individuals were timely for the practices, patient and encouraging to each other, and had strength and endurance to put in long hard practices…all accompanied by prayer for the Holy Spirit to be the one moving our hearts to understanding our roles as leaders on stage. Just by stepping into the practices one would be so compelled to know, “There is a God and He is passionately after your heart”, with out anybody speaking it at all.

…now bring all this prayer, practice, passion, and gifted obedience to the stage of an Easter morning at Epic Life…and you get transformed lives. The place erupted from the first note! Keith looses his notes after the music and preaches solely out of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Felons and prison goers , x-users & users, moms and dads, people who have never stepped into a church in their life were crying every where. 5 people decided to start following Jesus Christ yesterday morning!! We ended with Shout unto God and He reigns and kids jumped out of their seats and were dancing in the aisles, so others HAD to join! How REAL and POWERFUL is our GOD!?

I could write forever…but I wanted to keep this short because there is so much to listen to as well so I posted the music for you to listen to on my wall if you care to take a gander:)

Lately, I have been being lied to…a lot. There comes a time when you hear something enough times, even if it’s not true, one begins to believe it is true, and this is devastating to a life because belief is everything. If I were married and someone told my wife that I was having several affairs behind her back even though it wasn’t true it shouldn’t matter because…well the truth is is that it’s a complete lie. However if she BELIEVED that it was true, despite it not being true, our marriage would either be ruined or there would be years worth of turmoil. Belief is everything.

So, when you believe one lie, generally you begin to believe more. And this has been going on in my life for some time now. So much so that my life looks the way I believe it. Sometimes, it feels like there are hundreds of voices screaming in your head that I am pathetic, that I need to give up and go home before I make an even bigger fool of myself. It is generally even uglier than that, but I am going to spare details. Long story short, we dig ourselves into this hole that is impossible for us to get out of on our own.

Last night, I stepped into a place that was obviously going to be filled with the HOLY SPIRIT of our CREATOR GOD. So, what happens? I begin to feel those lies arising. And thick. Almost like the evil one knew where I was going… and like standing up against an abusive father as a young child, he had his way with me.

Now, here comes the part of the story I detest describing in word because one, I am a man with a very small vocabulary and two, you CANNOT explain the presence of our God even if you have the greatest vocabulary of all time. God generally speaks to me through an experience with music…why? I don’t know…that is how He chooses to speak to me. Last night was far more than speaking. Here is my attempt to describe the picture that I was given and what was happening in my heart: God was like a five star trained general, who is passionately in love with his bride, has a hatchet in his right hand and walks into a room full of unarmed young teenage boys raping his wife. Get the picture? The next two minutes is going to be justice at it’s ugliest/ most beautiful.

He cleared the room in my heart…looked me dead in the eyes with passionate tears flowing from His face: “you are worth every breathe of My life”. and when God, the One who breathed the stars into existence, the only opinion that you very quickly realize matters, speaks this…a man is changed. Amen.

As a young man, I have discovered the one thing in this life that is worth living for and worth dying for:  The glory of Jesus Christ.  The depths of that discovery is a whole epic story in itself and I would love to share if you are interested, but for now, I proceed.  2009 was one of the craziest years of my life; taking on new battles and discoveries as a young man and a young pastor that many men may never get to experience in their lives.  One of my great discoveries is that even when a man obtains the profession of his dreams (or should I say ESPECIALLY when) life is NOT fulfilled and actually becomes MUCH more difficult.  Life is fulfilled when one asks the Creator of the universe to be the master of the heart inside that persons chest, BUT fulfilled is also fully stepping in to what that truly entails…and THAT, my friends, is where that title I am dying obtain derives.

What I pray to discover even more in 2010 is what exactly is going on inside of these men’s chests that allows them to REMAIN stedfast to the greater picture EVERY day, that pushes them to CHOOSE what is right EVEN when it seems like it wont effect the greater picture, and to gain an understanding in how these men GRASP the concept and tangibleness of the living, true and powerful HOLY SPIRIT  in their every-moment-lives.  OOoo…I just got goosebumps dreaming about THAT kind of man in me.

Lord, I ask that you forgive me for the ways I have fallen short of this in 2009, and I pray that You open my eyes to the TRUE ways you desire this manly heart to grow in 2010.  May Seattle experience the TRUE HOLY SPIRIT via the church.  In Jesus Christ’s name, amen.

Today (a month later) he calls me and tells me that he needs help.  He began explaining that he hadnt called because he was too prideful and thought he could do it himself.  Well, all he needed was a place for his car because for the last month he has been living out of it and there have been warnings that his car will be towed soon.  ”Ironically” I have a space that I dont use because it costs $20 a month, and I would rather just park on the street to save money.  Anyways, I encouraged him and thanked him for his humility and I told him that he’s about to experience how the church is meant to take care of each other even if it means sacrifice…so I told him that I would pay for this spot if he would let me.  He was very thankful, but he said, honestly, I think I would be able to pay for it myself but if he needed help later he would let me know.

We have to go through some paper work to get this all situated, but it was cool because he said, “do you think I could come to your church tomorrow to meet up with me so we could talk about it more”…and how he has been dying to get back into church.

Anyways…he was just super excited about coming to church and to see what this Epic Life was all about…AND…he has a place for his car and this means he will be living right next to me so I will get to see him a lot!

Praise Jesus Christ!  please pray for this man.

I was at a worship leading conference a week or so ago and one of the producing managers there proclaimed humility to be this:  accepting what the Lord has made you to be and doing it with all your heart.  So in this, I started thinking.

My time with the Lord generally looks like this:  wake up, sit on the couch waking up for a while, maybe repeat the first two:), spend time studying certain areas or the bible or a book or sing, then I generally spend time just asking God questions and just talking with Him…then…when I finish that, I start dancing and playing air guitar, and wake up my roomies, and run up and down the hallways of my place…not because I have some hyper disorder, but because I am zealously in love with Jesus Christ and just the thought of Him even though I have basically been married to Him for several years.

Now…not everyone responds this way when they are in love…but I do.

What if I brought that to the stage of a church?  The general idea, is that that would probably be really distracting and inappropriate for a church.  My thought:  The most moving concerts I have been to and the most powerful worship that I have engaged in is when the front and center person was pouring the passionate depths of their hearts into what they were doing via their body and voice.  why?…I don’t know.  Somehow, it feels like their body represents the way their heart longs after something.  And when I see that, its like it re-awakes MY heart in a way that screams,”I want to long after my Creator like that”.  AND, their confidence/ carelessness brings some sort reassessment to my heart that it is okay to allow your body to respond like that in these moments.

My thoughts…I think holding back is more distracting than not:)  I also think the church is meant to be more attractive than we know it to be and if we had that kind of passion/confidence/humility/carelessness/talent and excellence on stage…who could resist to be a part of something like that.  And we are only talking the music aspect of a church.

Your thoughts?

It was just cool, because we just talked like we were friends, and I got to share a little bit of my life and how I gave it to Jesus Christ, and a little about Epic Life.  The guy was homeless as of now, but was super excited because he was waiting for his next pay check so he could get a place that he was in the process of purchasing.  I just encouraged him a bit, asked him what he needed and if I could help and dropped him off at the corner he slept at.  It was also cool, because he asked me what I liked to do and we both agreed on how much we liked movies…so we are going to catch a movie soon.

God is crazy cool.

Anyways, I am constantly in a state of recruiting musicians from craigslist.com, campuses and many other venues.  I meet with new musicians almost on a daily basis and am continually building relationships with others.  Building a worship band for a new church is one of the hardest things to do considering we don’t have the multitudes to pick from in our church body, and when one recruits musicians, he is also recruiting church members.

So…I have been meeting many musicians.  Period.  A very select few have been tingling in the back of my head.  2 that don’t attend Epic Life Church, but seem to repeat the same words to me that my heart is lead towards…phrases like, “I want to do nothing less than change the world via music”, “It hurts to not do music”, “This music needs to be brought to the dark”, “What I wouldn’t give to put sweat and blood into a band focused on Jesus’ vision for us”.  So, I began to think and pray about the ways to be wise, not selfish, and also most effective in my ministry.

This last Sunday, a musician I met a couple weeks ago came to our service.  I was excited because I knew he was a professional sound engineer for 30 years and played keys/synth professionally for many years as well.  Long story short, this guy (now my friend:) asks me if he can take me out to lunch.  Hiding my excitement, I said, “yes”.

While at lunch, he begins to explain to me many of the things that he has been praying for and his heart for creating music to invite people into the presence of the Lord, and began using many  earlier phrases that linger in my brain.  Long story short, he asks me to consider some things…basically telling me that he wants to start a band with me.  hmm.

I’m not trying to go too long, so long story short…I’m gonna start this band with these guys, all of which whom have toured for years, played professionally, and are significantly older and more skillful than myself, and yet for some reason, these doods see me as a leader.  funny.

Anyways, we are going to start writing and playing together very soon.  We are still in need of an electric guitar player, which we are praying for and really seeing how the Lord will guide us with this.  This could get super interesting/ exciting.

Funny enough…I hung out with a stellar electric guitar player tonight who I am just getting to know, and he asked in general while we were driving with a bunch of guys, “I wonder if Epic Life would let me play for their band”, and I turned around and said, “well, you could ask the guy who makes the decisions for that”.  (I was referring to myself:)

oh…ps…I entitled this “project”: [Epicology] just because it sounds sweet, and our entire team is all about creating something epic, but at the same time, never wanting to get to a place that we can refer to our creation as completed, thus we are always in a state of growing and learning…and thus, “the study of epic”.

It all of a sudden became one of those moments when you realize that you are not accidentally there.

Allison, came back, sort of…embarrassed if you will.  She quickly poured us more water, and turned around to walk away.  Before she completely turned around, I softly grabbed her arm, and turned her around, and said,”excuse me, what is your name?”.  After telling us, I ask her if she wouldn’t mind articulating what she was trying to say earlier so we could understand her heart ache.  Of corse, she broke down again and quickly explained her story of one of her friends who’s cigarettes caught fire while he was sleeping and died last night, and how she just found out.  She then stopped, and looked at Ben and I and said…”you aren’t accidentally here are you?”.  I then asked her to grab a chair for a brief moment.  Allison pulled up a chair and I held out my hand cueing her to place hers into mine, and I asked her if we could pray for her.  She continued crying and said that that would be ok.  Before I started, I explained to her that it is moments like these that challenge us most in life, because it brings out a side of our God that is most difficult to understand.  But with the loving fire of the Holy Spirit in my eyes, I looked her dead in the eyes and I said,” His reasonings are far beyond our understanding, but what I do know, Allison, is that everything He does in your life, everything that He allows or takes away in your life is to draw you closer to Him”.  And I encouraged her to draw close to her God in these times.

obviously, this was a powerful encounter because the Spirit of God was present, but the thing that is most inspirational, were the things I was praying earlier for…To be able to be in places that the Lord has lead me, to notice opportunities that the Lord desires to use me in (and to partake in them), and for people to know our meeting is not accidental.

So, I encourage the reader to partake in this series with me.  Maybe, to take to heart something that has been learned, to ask yourself the same questions, to debate some of my thoughts, or even to ask a question that you may have in relation to the blog or just in general.  The goal of this series is to possibly bring to attention things that need to change (maybe in the church and in one’s heart), to NOT do things just because it works for others or because “That’s just the way things are”, AND…HECK…to bring a more authentic offering to Jesus Christ our Lord.  These are things that I am dying to learn and equip myself to bring to my Church Body.  Here we go…

Raising Hands:  “Why do Christians raise their hand(s) when praising God?”

As I began to look through the Bible for examples of people raising their hands towards God, I found that most circumstances were directly related to people praying.  Here it turns out that back in Biblical times, lifting of hands generally signified prayer.  In fact RARELY did the lifting of hands accompany praise towards God.  Interesting.  So, where does it come from?

The perspective I think we are missing here is culturally.  In Biblical times, CULTURALLY, the lifting of hands signified prayer.  Today, from my perspective, the bowing of heads and closing eyes is what signifies prayer for our time (personally I think our culture is beginning to lean away from that being the only means of signifying prayer…sorry, off topic).  So I began to brainstorm some of the reasons why people in general raise their hands in our culture.

First thing that came to my mind:  asking a question in class.  Hmm.  Well, I get this feeling that all those people at church gathering probably don’t have a question (some 2:) due to the fact that nobody is calling on anybody:)  So, I think that’s out.

Second, I remembered this time I was assisting my Dad in moving logs for a camp fire.  He told me to hold out both of my hands so he could stack the logs in my arms.  My arms had been out-stretched to receive what my Dad wanted to give me.  Now, physically, I don’t see a lot of “logs” being placed into the arms of the praiser (apparently praiser is not a word…so I call that it is in this series), but I CAN see it being an act of accompanying the receptive heart of the praiser.

Third, (and probably my favorite) I thought of the Huskies game I just watched with some friends.  The whole time we were just sitting there watching.  But, when the Huskies did something that was amazing, the whole room jumped to their feet with their hands flailing in the air.  Now THAT, my friends, is a celebration.  Do I see flailing hands at church?  Yeah, sometimes.  Like a football game?…mmm…not really.  I CAN see jumping to our feet and flailing our hands in excitement as a means to accompany our celebratory heart towards God.

Forth, I was working at the Book Store as a Loss Prevention Officer and saw this student walking out of the store with merchandise he had not purchased.  As I approached him to detain him for shoplifting, he stepped back to swing at me and my fellow LPs and I had to wrestle this dude to the ground and he WOULD NOT give up.  Finally this Police Officer runs up, pulls out his gun and screams, “Get your hands in the air!”.  Amazingly, the student came to a complete halt, slowly stood up and placed his hands in the air…no longer fighting.  In our culture, raising our hands can signify surrender.  I CAN see the praiser praising God with his/her hands accompanying a heart of surrender towards God’s will.

Fifth, I saw this kid playing with some of his friends the other day.  He then stole a toy (or maybe it was like tape or something…sorry off topic again) from one of his friends and bolted away.  Now this child’s coordination was fair at best.  Long story short, he took a digger into the concrete.  His response:  He got up with a blood curdling scream and ran in circles seeming to look for something.  He finally discovered his Dad, ran directly to him, and raised both his hands high in the air signifying his desire to be picked up and taken care of.  I CAN see the praiser praising God with his/her hands accompanying a heart of need and desire to be taken care of towards God.

Sixth, I went climbing with a friend of mine a couple months ago.  We went all the way to the top of this mountain, and sure enough, the top of this thing had a cliff like no other.  So, what did I do?  Well, naturally I ran to the edge threw my hands in the air and screamed at the top of my lungs  (and I threw some rocks off) Not so much in an act of celebration or any of the above, but more because of the sense of freedom!  It was like my body was responding like that because it sensed radical freedom!  I CAN see the praiser praising God with arms accompanying his/her experience of God’s freedom that He brings to His people, in all kinds of things.

I think we can all see that there are many reasons people choose to raise their hands in a church gathering, but I think the challenge here is not so much choosing which is right or wrong for me, but how does my praise towards God fit with the culture I am in, what are ways it needs to be culture-clashing, and are my hands AUTHENTICALLY responding/ accompanying my heart of praise towards God?  Another thing I think we need to keep in mind is that the raising of hands does not signify praise towards God.  The heart does, and people can’t see that…that’s between you and God.  The way people respond with their bodies should only be their bodies ACCOMPANYING their heart of praise towards God.  That’s a difficult pill to swallow considering I know there are times I just lift my hands because everyone else is even though I have no desire at that time to praise God due to my selfishness.  It also, makes me think of the times I experience revelation or closeness to God when I am all by myself.  Basically, I run around the house half-naked, screaming, my heart beating like a mad man due to so much love hemorrhaging from my heart that I can’t contain myself in praise towards God.  Now, there should be a respectable means of praise towards God in a church (clothes on), but I think this leads me to my next question…  you’ll see:)

please respond

last night i went over to sean’s house with the bible.  when i got there, he was excited to see me and he lead me to his room.  he started showing me new songs and replaying old ones that moved his heart which we normally do because music is our biggest form of communication.  as our hearts were softened through chris tomlin, jeremy camp, and falling slowly youtube music videos, the night progressed towards Jesus Christ.  we began to talk about the baptism that took place.  he began to explain to me that he wants to do that so bad but he doesnt know if he has the strength or the guts to do it.  i was then given the opportunity to speak more clearly on exactly what baptism represents and the purpose for doing it.  I began to explain that there is a time in a christian’s life, whether it be gradual or instant, that he or she has to ask Jesus Christ to come into his/her heart to change it and that that is what brings brand new EPIC life to a human.  As we talked, he was looking at me with awe.

Sean began to explain to me that when he first met me he only had $400 in his bank account, But because of that extreme kindness and generosity i was showing him, he told me he wanted to empty his bank account and everything he owned into my hands because he loved me so much and he felt like he could never pay me back.  BUT he than began to explain that tonight he understands why david is so kind…he said that he now knows that it is not david being kind but it is GOD inside of david being kind and that he desires to give everything he owns into GOD’s hands because it is Him who he loves so much and could never pay back.  I then said, “how did you know that?  i never told you anything like that!”.  He said he knows!  he said that he was just realizing it right now because GOD was opening his eyes.  He stopped and said…i think it is time that i allow God into my heart.

He asked if i would explain exactly how to do this and if i would lead the prayer so he could follow.  i explained how to do that through prayer and encouraged him to talk to GOD like He is a human…to be himself and yet to respect His greatness.  So i prayed for sean that his words would be what they need to be and that they would represent what is going on in his heart.  after that, sean opened up to THE LORD!  he was talking directly to him and he explained everything that he was experiencing in the past couple months and how he knew it was HIM, GOD.  after telling Him that he wanted to give everything to Him, he then asked if God would come into His heart.

directly at that moment, sean became extremely, strangely, uncomfortable.  he looked up at me and he couldnt get the words out.  he couldnt explain what was happening to him and he kept on getting extremely frustrated about what was happening and that he had no means of explaining what was happening to him.

honestly, it was scary.  i new it was evil, and i new it was an attack but i didnt understand how this could be or the extent of it.  Sean finally could get the words up to explain what was happening.  he told me that for the first time in his life he understood that there was a God, and he explained that by making a sphere with his hands on the outside of his body (like holding a ball).  but he then explained, while still holding onto the “ball”, that as he was praying, he could see into his heart.  sean then looked down at his own chest and said, “who are you?”.  he said he then realized that for the past 20 years satan had been ruling his heart and that he never even knew that he was there.  he then explained to me that the reason he felt so uncompfortable was because he didnt think that satan was that bad, and that, he thought he was living a full life.  he explained to me in a way that the life he is living right now doesnt fit what the “ball” demands.

I then got the opportunity to explain that the heart can only have one master.  i lifted up my hands, each having one finger pointing up representing two different masters.  i showed him that by putting one to my chest and the other out in front of me was  the only way a man can live.  i put both to my chest and explained that this is not possible.  i then explained that if a person desires for the GOD of this universe to enter into him, he has to rid of the master that rules now and give full control to the real master.

we ended up talking forever about it and he pretty much ended with saying that he knows the path that he is on now doesnt seem that bad but will lead to stealing, killing and destruction, and that GOD’s path will lead to full life, but it was so hard for him to see right now.  he said that he feels like he stepped in front of a fork in the road and that he needs to choose one way and only one way.  he seemed scared, and he asked if i would be praying for him during his trip.  the night was terribly late, and needed to come to an end.  we hugged like there was no tomorrow and looked into each others eyes like Christ was glowing on each of our faces.  he said he was going to miss me and then ended with…oh by the way david, i am gay.

Sean seemed to take great pleasure in my facial expression due to his laughing until it hurt and him trying to explain that he really wasnt gay:)

anyways…what happened in sean’s heart is supernatural.  period.  if sean has the God of the universe in his heart is not for me to decide, but is for me to pray about, and i am asking that you would pray with me as well for sean as he is gone.

May Jesus Christ reign in the heart of sean.