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Sam introduces Nancy and talks about the Ministry Plan. Also gives 10 ideas in 10 minutes assignment.

Here is the assignment. 10 ideas in 10 minutes about Loving God and Loving People.

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“Leadership is about self-awareness, recognizing your failings, and developing modesty, humility, and humanity.”

And I am concluding my second year as the Creative Director, I have come to be aware of my “failing” as a leader.

I am a creative person and I love to communicate ideas through abstract and intangible mediums. I love to verbally process my thoughts with friends and write it down on in my journals. However, the delivery of these visions and values, especially for the Creative Ministry at Newsong has been weak and/or lacking.

So I have converted the purpose of this blog to strengthen the delivery of stories, vision and values and critical information to you, members of the team.

Please engage and use this as a tool to interact with me: To pick my brain, give constructive feedback or learn to better Love God and Love People.

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

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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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Today, as Justin, Angela and I were in the car heading toward Long Beach for our lunch gathering with Mosaic, Ed Salas walked out of Newsong getting ready to leave for the lunch as well. For some reason, I felt I needed to jump in his car and ride with him. I realized later,  it was what God had intended.

In these past few weeks since my Chicago trip, I have learned that God is always speaking to us. And I have begun to listen. And in our car ride to our lunch, God spoke through Ed Salas. This is what he shared.

I began sharing about the story God has been writing in my heart in regards to our Artisan movement. And Ed shared with me two things that brought affirmation and clarity.

(1) The Creative Arts Ministry’s purpose has been about creating an environment for people to experience God. To help our church experience the AWE of God. BUT how can we create the environment when we ourselves do not know what experiencing God is. Which affirms God’s calling for the Artisans to “Seek Him First.”

(2) Then Ed shared 2 Kings 3 with me. This happened to be his reading that morning. It’s a story of the three kings of Israel rising up together against the Moabites. “After a roundabout march of seven days, the army had no more water for themselves or for the animals with them.” So they called for an prophet and Elisha was the one. What did he do before he prophesied?

“But now bring me a harpist” (2 Kings 3:5 NIV)

He asked for a harpist! A musician. An Artisan. Why? I believe he worshiped.

5 But now bring me a harpist.”While the harpist was playing, the hand of the LORD came upon Elisha ¹⁶ and he said, “This is what the LORD says: Make this valley full of ditches. ¹⁷ For this is what the LORD says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink. ¹⁸ This is an easy thing in the eyes of the LORD;…” (NIV)

When Ed read this to me as we were parked outside the restaurant, I felt so affirmed. God has been beating me up, wrecking me, making it real clear what he want us, Artisans, to do. He wants us to first Seek Him. So let’s do it.

¹² Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. ^[b] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29 NIV)

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