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Laundry Love Montage shown at Newsong during worship.
www.laundrylovesantaana.com
www.just4one.org

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Newsong has recently opened up a new site in Santa Ana. It’s called 511: Santa Ana’s Creative Space. It used to be a old mechanics garage, which later was renovated into a property development company, which now is the space where Artists from the community come and gather. Awesome.

This Monday, the Artisans gathering will be held there. I truly believe that this site will be a launching ground for a movement of the Artisans. The Artisans will be called and become the prophets of this generation.

Check out Urban Arts Outreach who are the Artisan Warriors of Santa Ana.

Urban Arts Outreach – A diverse multi-church fellowship of artists practicing the elements of Hip-hop Culture (Breaking, Deejaying, Emceeing, and Writing) in the worship and purposes of our savior, Jesus Christ.

What Are Our Goals?
Uplift local and global urban art communities by promoting reconciliation, encouraging and empowering servant leaders, help local means assist the poor, care for people’s health, and educate the next generation. We exist to bridge the current gap between culture and church, art and purpose–to speak hope to lives no matter who they are or where they’re from.

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Also check out her video talking about how she started singing in this style.

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So as I have been exploring the different mediums of art, I have been discovering the richness of the beauty that God has created. And only by having countless ways to express can that beauty be reflected.

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Today, in my time of silence and solitude, I came upon Psalm 104. And it blew my mind. So I responded by painting. I just starting creating without really thinking. I expressed it in the rawest form.

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Psalm 104

¹ Let all that I am praise the Lord.

O Lord my God, how great you are!
You are robed with honor and majesty.
² You are dressed in a robe of light.
You stretch out the starry curtain of the heavens;
³ you lay out the rafters of your home in the rain clouds.
You make the clouds your chariot;
you ride upon the wings of the wind.
⁴ The winds are your messengers;
flames of fire are your servants.^[a]

⁵ You placed the world on its foundation
so it would never be moved.
⁶ You clothed the earth with floods of water,
water that covered even the mountains.
⁷ At your command, the water fled;
at the sound of your thunder, it hurried away.
⁸ Mountains rose and valleys sank
to the levels you decreed.
⁹ Then you set a firm boundary for the seas,
so they would never again cover the earth.

¹⁰ You make springs pour water into the ravines,
so streams gush down from the mountains.
¹¹ They provide water for all the animals,
and the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
¹² The birds nest beside the streams
and sing among the branches of the trees.
¹³ You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home,
and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor.
¹⁴ You cause grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for people to use.
You allow them to produce food from the earth—
¹⁵ wine to make them glad,
olive oil to soothe their skin,
and bread to give them strength.
¹⁶ The trees of the Lord are well cared for—
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
¹⁷ There the birds make their nests,
and the storks make their homes in the cypresses.
¹⁸ High in the mountains live the wild goats,
and the rocks form a refuge for the hyraxes.^[b]

¹⁹ You made the moon to mark the seasons,
and the sun knows when to set.
²⁰ You send the darkness, and it becomes night,
when all the forest animals prowl about.
²¹ Then the young lions roar for their prey,
stalking the food provided by God.
²² At dawn they slink back
into their dens to rest.
²³ Then people go off to their work,
where they labor until evening.

²⁴ O Lord, what a variety of things you have made!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures.
²⁵ Here is the ocean, vast and wide,
teeming with life of every kind,
both large and small.
²⁶ See the ships sailing along,
and Leviathan,^[c] which you made to play in the sea.

²⁷ They all depend on you
to give them food as they need it.
²⁸ When you supply it, they gather it.
You open your hand to feed them,
and they are richly satisfied.
²⁹ But if you turn away from them, they panic.
When you take away their breath,
they die and turn again to dust.
³⁰ When you give them your breath,^[d] life is created,
and you renew the face of the earth.

³¹ May the glory of the Lord continue forever!
The Lord takes pleasure in all he has made!
³² The earth trembles at his glance;
the mountains smoke at his touch.

³³ I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.
I will praise my God to my last breath!
³⁴ May all my thoughts be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.
³⁵ Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth;
let the wicked disappear forever.

Let all that I am praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord!

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Saturday:
It was Saturday afternoon and I had arrived at a point in my life where I felt strongly convicted that I needed a wardrobe update. Now I couldn’t go to just any mall of course. I had to go somewhere that made a statement, so naturally I went to the Lab.  Finding a couple of vintage, (that’s hipster for used) shirts at the Buffalo Exchange I then headed over to Urban Outfitters. Realizing everything there was more money then I wanted to spend I was about to leave when there, tucked quietly away, hidden in the back corner, I spotted the clearance section.

Voila, I thought, and headed over to take a look.  That’s when I saw it, a western style shirt marked $19.99. Awesome I’ll take it, I thought, only there was one catch. I thought I glimpsed something sparkly. I held it up to the light to make sure. Dang it, sparkly silver lines ran through it like veins in a mine. It was, to say the least, a bit effeminate. For several agonizingly long minutes I debated on whether or not I could pull off a shirt that drew such obvious question to my manhood.   What the heck, I thought, it’s only $19.99 and worse comes to worse, I can return it.

Sunday:
A friend invited me to serve with the Burrito Project after church. I had always been curious about it and I wanted to serve more so I went out. Now I have worked with the homeless in the past and I was pretty sure I knew what to expect, however this time things went a little differently. It started when we met June.

June had lost her house and most of her possessions a year ago and had been on the street ever since. She says she doesn’t use drugs or alcohol and is working to get her life back together. She has applied to several homeless shelters and half way houses and is hoping to get accepted to one soon.

June is smart, she knows what the homeless need and as we talked she told us a little bit about their situation. One thing she said was that her and her husband could really use two light weight sleeping bags. She then added, to my surprise, that their biggest daily need is good drinking water. She told us that the fountain in the park was dirty and didn’t work well and that their only other options were to go to a fast food place or fill up bottles in the bathroom, and while this didn’t seem horrible, the fact she mentioned it left an impression on me. I had always assumed water was available, not to mention, as an official germ-a-phobe, the idea of filling your water bottle in the bathroom sink really grossed me out. We gave her food and water and told her we would pray for her, and then we left. But as we walked away, something struck me. The fact that two people in Fullerton were sleeping outside on the ground in a park while I was resting comfortably in my bed did not sit well with me.

On the way home from serving I stopped at Target to pick up a few items. While there it dawned on me that I should check the price of sleeping bags. After wondering around a few minutes I finally found the aisle they were on. I looked at the price tags, one read, “Special Sale, Sleeping Bags $14.99” and another “Sale: Sleeping bags $16.99.”

Immediately I was convicted. For $14.99, five dollars less than the crappy sparkling shirt from Urban Outfitters that I didn’t even really want, I could supply one of the sleeping bags for June. I slowly turned and walked sheepishly down the aisle, away from the convicting merchandise.

I went to the grocery section to shop a bit. The Holy Spirit must have been shopping there as well because unfortunately I passed the aisle with bottled water on it. Another sign: Sale, 24 bottles of Target water, $2.50. More conviction, not only would the $20 dollars buy a sleeping bag, but the remaining $5 dollars would buy 48 bottles of water, meeting both of June’s needs. I bought some water to donate to the Burrito Project and went home.

As I got home my conviction grew. I began thinking of other things I could have bought to help people with the money I had spent. As I looked around the house, I imagined myself feeling a bit like Oskar Schindler did at the end of the movie Schindler’s list, when he starts noting all the valuables he could have sold to raise more money to save more Jewish lives from the Holocaust.

It got me thinking and I started this list of things I have bought recently but didn’t need:

• The two used Xbox games I bought three months ago but haven’t touched since – 10$ or 96 bottles of water.

• Rock Band – Okay I can justify this one. Rock Band is great for community groups and Bible studies and it was on sale for 60$ however….

• The additional Rock Band downloads I did not need 25$, or one and a half sleeping bags.

• The next set of Rock Band downloads I still did not need, another 25$ totaling 50$ on downloads, or three new sleeping bags.

• Wilco’s new CD – I can justify this one too, they are my favorite band, however…

• The Wilco shirt I bought online $25, or a pair of shoes for the four year old girl we met who had none for school.

• The Lucky Strike bowling package I got suckered into by a girl from our office: $30 or several days worth of sanitary supplies.

I know, I can see it now, this is beginning to sound like a Master Card commercial. You know the one.

Price of 80 Tortillas: 30$
Price of 18 pounds of beans for burritos: 15$
Helping the homeless while gaining an eternal reward in heaven: Priceless

I am learning to see things in a different light, to see things with a new pair of eyes. It’s about more than just giving to the poor, I have always supported that. It’s more of a mindset change. It’s learning to realize that which is frivolous and how to put it to a better use.

For the record, I took back the sparkly shirt and vowed to use the money for good. I don’t exactly know what yet, but something better than myself. Something that is a blessing to others, that God wants me to do; something that will spread the love of Jesus, advance the name of Christ and, even if just for a little while, make some bodies life a little more bearable.

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As my eyes were getting heavy after a busy morning, I tried to relax and I found a March/April Issue of Relevant magazine on our office coffee table. I picked it up and opened it up to this article.

Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, wrote an article about Silence. Here are some key things he pointed out from his own addiction to noice.

“I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds… Satan is quite aware of the power of silence. – Jim Elliot”

1. Before beginning his ministry, Jesus spent 40 days fasting from food, people and noise…
2. There was silence before God spoke the world into existence.

“Could it be that silence is what allows us to speak as God intends?

I have recently been trying real hard make space and time to really spend in silence and it has always been rejuvenating. Especially when you hear God give you clarity.

I have been highly encouraging us to find silence in our Artisan gatherings, but I hope it is not the only time you seek that.

You can see the full article here. Click on button for the Digital Issue and look for the “Sound Wisdom” article.

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