Listen to these words from Dave Grohl as he speaks on the importance of the “human element” in recording music at the Grammy’s last night.
I’d love your thoughts on this.
This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.
But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
1 John 1:5-9
Love this!
Light, in this passage, represents all that is good, pure, true, and holy.
Darkness represents what is evil.
Just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, sin cannot exist in the presence of a holy God.
That’s just how things are.
It’s impossible to love God and pursue sin at the same time.
Praise be to Jesus Christ who made a way for our darkness to be brought into the light.
I just thought I’d pass on a resource for you guitarists. Some friends of mine from Oklahoma are crafting handmade effects pedals that look great and sound sick! I love it when great art and innovative tech mash up like this. It’s very inspiring.
My good friend, Josh Riebock, is a writer with a very distinct voice. I don’t know anyone else who can craft a sentence the way he does. I’m excited about his most recent book, Heroes & Monsters, which finally becomes available March 1st. Watch this little trailer and I’ll keep you posted on how you can pick up a copy.
First off, I just wanted to say thanks for all the prayer and support over the last few weeks. It’s been an extremely difficult season for my family and all of you have been so good to us. Before the news that my Dad had passed away, I was drafting the following post. Here’s the short version: After thirteen years in student ministry, eight of them here at Willow, I’m transitioning off the Student Impact team. My final day is December 16th. On January 2nd I’ll begin my new role as Executive Producer & Worship Leader for the Midweek Experience at Willow. Here’s the long version: Student Impact has a rich legacy not only around the country but in my own life. The very first student ministry book that I ever read was titled “Student Ministry for the 21st Century” by Bo Boshers. That was my introduction to Student Impact. I was a worship leader and youth pastor at a church in Oklahoma at the time. The following year I attended my first ministry conference. I sat in the front row of the balcony in the Lakeside auditorium and watched Aaron Niequist lead worship at Student Impact. I remember being completely overwhelmed by the excellence and authenticity I witnessed among the students and leaders in that service. There was just something special about this place. Three years later my wife talked me into sending some of my music to Willow. I was hesitant because we were already a part of an awesome church full of people we loved in Edmond, OK. But I did it anyway. Scott Rubin called me and asked me to come out to Chicago and visit. I was honored. Eventually I came on staff as the worship leader of Sonlight Express. (And, by the grace of God, we changed the name to Elevate a few short months later!) Over the years I’ve spent time in Elevate, Axis, and Student Impact. I’ve built some of the greatest relationships of my life with the next gen students and leaders of our church. And despite the growing feeling that God was about to ask me to step into something new…I dragged my feet for as long as I could! I have the opportunity to travel w/ my band and visit lots of churches and student ministries. I can say with absolute certainty I’ve never found one that rivals Student Impact. The depth of teaching, the intensity of the worship, and the devotion of the leaders is unlike anything I’ve ever seen! So it is with deep sadness that I make this transition. However, I also embrace this new season with so much excitement!!!! Partnering with Shane Farmer to create an experience for the core of our church is thrilling. Each week we study the word in depth and we experience God together in new and deeper ways. I’m surprised every Wednesday night by the things that I learn and the way our community responds to God in worship. I have lot of excitement about the days and weeks ahead. Thanks for reading along, and if you’re in the area, I hope to see you on a Wednesday night soon! And if that’s not possible for you…here’s a link to the Willow Midweek Podcast. much love, brandon P.S. Despite these changes, me and the guys are still doing tons of student events this coming year and intend to keep booking them until someone tells us we’re too old!
My buddy Ryan introduced me to this version of the old hymn “Halleljuah! What a Savior” a few months ago. We worked on it in rehearsal and introduced it to the congregation a few weeks later. It is a brilliant marriage between a song written by Phillip P. Bliss in 1875 and the uber-popular “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen (perhaps made more popular by Jeff Buckley).
Here is the primary inspiration for the opening lyric:
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, He was despised and rejected by mankind, Surely he took up our pain But he was pierced for our transgressions, Isaiah 53: 2b-5 I need the reminder that Jesus was a “man of suffering”….”a man of sorrows” as some translations say. He could have come in any form that he wanted but God’s way was for him to come as a humble, suffering servant. In light of recent sufferings in my own life, I’m hoping this year to be able to identify more closely with the sufferings of Christ. I know that no amount of pain that I encounter could ever compare to what he suffered in my place. And I’m thankful to know and worship a God like that. Have a blessed New Year everyone. b
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
Eight days ago my wife, Beki, and I were getting our kids ready to go see Santa. It was a Monday morning. My phone rang and I answered. I listened in disbelief as the voice on the other line explained to me that my Dad had died. He was crushed by some pipe that had fallen over on him while he was unloading his truck. I sat in the chair speechless while my wife packed our suitcases. I snapped out of it for a bit to load the van and start driving to Oklahoma. We had a twelve hour drive ahead of us, and most of the time was spent in silence. The following days were filled with visitors, hugs, conversations, and lots of tears. I busied myself with all of the details: organizing the funeral, visitation, etc. On the day of the funeral there were loads of people there. Over twelve hundred friends attended. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. My brother and I wrote some stuff down and shared it with everyone there. My sister stood with us. My dad was literally friends with everyone in our hometown and beyond. We had visitors from multiple cities and states, friends from Chicago, and my brother’s friends from India even made the trip.
And now it’s all over. I’m sitting here in my mom’s quiet house. My wife and son are napping. My daughter is watching cartoons. And my Dad isn’t here anymore. I don’t know how things will ever feel normal again. The shining star in this entire situation is the church. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so loved. And I’ve yet to see the Body of Christ this alive. Friends from over the past fifteen years have dropped everything to be with us. And people I barely know or don’t know at all have bent over backwards to assist my family. So to everyone who made a phone call, sent a text, shot us a Facebook message, or sent flowers I’d like to say thanks. All of you mean so much to me and my family.
We still have a long road ahead of us. So we’re clinging to the hope of the Gospel: Sin has lost it’s power and death has lost it’s sting.
much love,
brandon
God will always be Himself, and grace is an attribute of his Holy being. He can no more hide His grace than the sun can hide it’s brightness. Men may flee from the sunlight to dark and musty caves of the earth, but they cannot put out the sun. So men in any dispensation despise the grace of God, but they cannot extinguish it.
…No one has was ever saved other than by grace, from Abel to the present moment. Since mankind was banished from the eastward Garden, none has ever returned to the divine favor except through the sheer goodness of God. And wherever grace found any man it was always by Jesus Christ. Grace indeed came by Jesus Christ, but it did not wait for his birth in the manger or His death on the cross before it became operative. Christ is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The first man in human history to be reinstated in the fellowship of God came through faith in Christ.
In olden times men looked forward to Christ’s redeeming work; in later times they gaze back upon it, but always they came and they come by grace, through faith.
- A.W. Tozer
I came across this quote from A.W. Tozer yesterday that speaks of Grace more elegantly than I ever could.
Grace is an essential part of God’s holy being.
I love that line, “He can no more hide his grace than the sun can hide it’s brightness.”
He couldn’t hide it if he wanted to. It’s who he is. He is a God of grace.
And why do we hide? Why do we try to run away from God’s grace?
It’s a question I’ve pondered for years. Perhaps we have a favorite sin that we can’t release or a secret that we don’t want anyone to know about. Regardless, many of us try to hide from God’s grace. We try to shield ourselves from the light of the sun.
So here’s to all of us embracing God’s saving, redeeming, and liberating grace.
I mentioned a while back that me and the guys were playing at a conference and they screened one the most compelling, disturbing, and challenging films I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s called “Love Costs Everything” and it’s all about the persecuted church. I urge you to book a screening at your church or organization.
This is a trailer for the short film that our Christmas services will be based around this year. Very excited!
