Pulse Outreach - Day Four Performance

I really like this video:



God bless you, and know that Jesus died in your place. Accept the gift today if you haven't yet. Either you will give an account for your own sins and end up in eternal torment in Hell, or you will be made blameless through the Blood of Jesus Christ shed for you.

Pulse Outreach - Day Five Performance

Yeah. I think there is one work-around with this internship, but I'm not fully sure that it'll work. I still have a ray of hope that this is the right place, though.

Anyway, here's Day Five's performance from Pulse. Day Four turned out REALLY well, so I'm posting that last.

Pulse Outreach - Day Three Clips & Performance

After-Show Tuesday, Preparing for The Fire on Wednesday

On Tuesday night late, we stayed with a family that cooked a little too well. I mean, really, it was better than Wildfire, so it qualifies as the best food I've ever had. Everything they cooked was absolutely and insanely delicious.

I told them about my expertise as a cook, aka that I'm the worst cook in existence ever. I've cooked sardines surrounded in swiss cheese this semester. It was really nasty. All the fish juice was on the plate, and the swiss cheese was soggy, and the taste didn't go together at all. What the heck was I thinking?!

Anyway, more on my cooking faux pas later. The family was really nice. I stayed overnight with the guys from Sonstruck, and we crashed fairly soon after getting there. I stayed up each night reading Scripture for a while, but I got some decent sleep after.

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning, we woke up to some more inappropriately-good food. Nick gave a devotion for the morning from a Charles Spurgeon book, and he asked if anyone wanted to prepare a devotional message for the evening before the show. I volunteered gladly. Nick then asked if anyone wanted to prepare a devotional message for Thursday at lunch. Nobody raised their hands, so I volunteered gladly again.

We drove to Bismarck, North Dakota, a city of 65,000 people. The trip was a good 90-minute drive. The city had a fairly big youth conference called The Fire, which usually had around 200 people. We were expecting about 800 to come out, but we found out later that there was a big high school football game going on, so we weren't sure what exactly would happen.

Evening Sterf-Devotional

My devotional for the evening was from Acts 3 and 4. In Acts 3, there was a beggar at the Temple Gate (the gate called 'Beautiful') asking for money. Peter and John went in, and Peter said in Acts 3:6, "Silver and gold have I none, but what I have give I thee -- in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." That's one of my favorite verses. Peter then grabbed the beggar by the hand, lifted him up, and the beggar could fully walk, dance, jump around, etc.

Even more, the priests did not want Peter and John to speak in the name of Jesus, even though a miraculous healing had just occurred! Peter and John said that they couldn't help but to speak about the things which they have seen and heard. They went back to pray about the situation, and praised God for His miraculous attributes in Acts 4.

In Acts 4, the Holy Spirit came as a result of their passionate prayer to Him, and there was an earthquake. The Holy Spirit empowered the Disciples to preach boldly, and there was a spirit of unity among them.

Three things I wanted to emphasize --
(1) Let's be united in one mind and spirit -- glorifying the Lord!
(2) Let's speak the Lord's words with boldness!
(3) Let's be expectant of the Holy Spirit to do amazing things, even miracles!

The Show - Wednesday Night

The show was amazing. The Holy Spirit was really present, and the results were very encouraging. We had at least 500 out, 10 or 11 of which accepted Christ for the first time, and somewhere around 80 who recommitted their lives to Christ.

Sonstruck opened with a worship set, and Hybrid Soul closed with their concert. The Fire usually lasts from 7-9 pm. This lasted until 10 pm, so many left after I played for that reason.

My brief message was on Grief, Life Circumstances, and Comfort. It was heavily rooted in 2 Corinthians 1, Job 1, Jonah 1 and 4, Psalm 37, etc. Where do you run when grief comes? Do you run away from God like Jonah, or do you run to our God of comfort like Job? See the video for more details on that.

The Lord is good. The entire week was a massive blessing to the people we spoke to as well as to ourselves. I really am kinda bummed that I'm back at school, because I really want to get out and tour more.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video! More updates later.

Pulse Outreach - First Day Recap, Sans-Video (Slow Internet)

The first night of Pulse, we had 2 people accept Christ for the first time and 25 people recommit their lives to Christ.

The Internet is weak everywhere we go, so the video performances will be uploaded whenever I can possibly find an internet connection capable of loading Gmail efficiently!

Tonight we're performing at Jamestown College.

I pretty close to nailed the first performance. Songs were Power! [Expert] (1 non-Perfect) and BabyBlue [Expert] (3 non-Perfects), both by Renard and his aliases (99.69% on a sans-Great SuperNOVA scale -- would probably have been 99.84% on a full SuperNOVA setup). Thanks, Renard, for letting me use stuff from Mungyodance/2 for the tour, that really helps, and there are a lot of songs/stepcharts that I like on the mix.

My brief message/homily last night was about setting your hearts on things above (Colossians 3:2), and not storing up treasures on earth, but rather in Heaven (Matthew 6:19-21). We need to walk by faith, not by sight, relying on Jesus as opposed to material things (2 Corinthians 5:7).

I'm honestly really depressed right now in my mood, but I know some things. I know that the things of Heaven are worth seeking, and regardless of how I feel, I'm going to press on in seeking God and serving Him wholeheartedly, no matter how much I'm hurting.

Even when I'm in the deepest valley, the Lord is literally my Good Shepherd (cf. Psalm 23 & John 10:10). I'm thankful that whenever I am frustrated or down or grieving, I have a Lord who listens and answers prayer miraculously.

I really wish the sun were out today.

But think of two things --

(1) God is good, despite of who I am
Regardless of my character or past, He is still the same unchangeable, amazing God. From everlasting to everlasting, He is God (Psalm 90:2). From age to age, He is the same. He is a God of Love (1 John 4). He is a mighty God (Psalm 93). He is a God who heals (Isaiah 53, Psalm 103). He is a God who CARES for us and wants us to come to Him (2 Peter 3:9). He is more wonderful than we could ever express, regardless of anyone's opinion of Him.

(2) [In our perspective] God is good, because of who I am
Because I'm a sinner, and I fall short of God's glory, as we all do, He shows His Goodness in His response to us, as well (Romans 3:23). He gave His Son Jesus for us so that we could have eternal life through Him (John 3:16). Because we're imperfect, IN OUR PERSPECTIVE, we see more and more of His wonder as we live life. Happier is he who has been forgiven MUCH than he who has been forgiven little (Luke 7:47).

And regardless of how I feel, I love the Lord with my whole heart, and I will serve Him forever.

So keep praying for Pulse as well as me. God bless you, and if you haven't decided to follow Jesus Christ with your life, please consider. He gave His life for you so that you won't have to take the punishment for your own sins ('missing the mark'/disobedience against God's Commands in thought, intent, or even motive).

Pulse Outreach - Day Zero

Today, I took off from Chicago-O'Hare and landed in Fargo, North Dakota for a full week of ministry with Pulse Outreach.

I checked my bags in, and the lady realized that one of my suitcases was really light. It was full, but all it had in it were my arcade shoes, a DDR pad, and the hard foam inserts (hahahaha). She told me, "Wow, this is light, you must be going shopping!" I told her that it was a DDR pad for an evangelistic tour, and I think she was skeptical as mess. haha, but my suitcase was indeed very light.

Our landing was very interesting -- we went down to land on the North runway, but there was a massive flock of birds that started to fly up as we came down. In order that we wouldn't crash and burn, the pilot jammed the plane up drastically, and we made another approach. After a few nauseating tight turns of the plane, we realized that the birds won.

We had to land on the East runway, which I thought was hilarious since we just got owned by a flock of birds. Thankfully we had no crisis or complications from the birds, and praise the Lord, we landed safely.

Tomorrow's brief homily will focus on the temporal vs. eternal -- what matters in life. See the video for a brief outline of what I'm thinking.

I also rocked out at an Assembly of God church up here in Fargo. It was bangin'. I generally love Assembly Churches, especially ones with order, Spirit-led worship, and especially solid Scriptural teaching. This one definitely had the first two, but it was a ministry show-and-tell night, so I actually went out with Jordan (a full-time Pulse Outreach worker) to another college service and listened to that message.

Know something cool?

All or Nothing

Philippians 4:13 - I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
John 15:5 - I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

So are we being strengthened to completion, or are we trying on our own strength and doing nothing significant? What really will last? Are we trying to earn our way into Heaven?

The price has been paid for us -- Jesus has already paid the price for our sins. As Paul and Silas told the Jailer: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31a).

Christianity is so basic. How much do we complicate things?

Jesus gave His life for us, so let's devote all our being to Him. Just as Romans 12:1 states, Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God!

Prayer

While we do that, please pray for the Pulse Outreach tour, that many would be encouraged and blessed, but mostly that lives will be changed through this event.