Spring Break 2012! Indiana/Nashville.

My parents and I drove to Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana for a couple of days during spring break to check out the campus.  We also checked out the University of Illinois at Urbana.  Apparently I need to be considering different options for graduate school already...so this was the beginning of campus tours (...again...) for the next phase of my "adult" life.  It was very interesting and nice to see these very prestigious schools in person, and all of the history associated with them.

To wrap it up, we decided to make a stop in the magnificent town of Nashville, TN on the way home.  We ate at a really awesome restaurant called Jamaica Way, that was actually featured on the Food Network show "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives".  After eating some great Jamaican food, we made two more stops: Grimey's and Trader Joe's.

Trader Joe's is a fantastic grocery store, with really cool food items you can't get anywhere else.  For example, I bought a jar of Habenero and Tomatillo salsa.  Definitely worth the stop.  Next was Grimey's, the most incredible, unique, best-stocked music store I have ever been to, ANYWHERE.  I have never seen a more vast collection of CDs and vinyls in such a small area.  It was great to just chat with some of the employees too, and hear stories of some of the bands they have been able to get in the past to play in-store shows.  One guy I got to chat with told me the story of how they got the Black Keys to play, before they made it big time.  If you want, check THIS VIDEO of them playing one of their old hits, "Your Touch", in store!  It gave me great satisfaction knowing that I stood in the same spot where Dan and Pat had graced the store with their prescense.  So the story goes that the employee I talked to had heard about the Black Keys before they went big, and he had to ask them to play a show in-store.  The Black Keys remembered that favor, and actually came back to play again as a "thank you" to the store for giving them a gig as they were trying to make it to the big leagues.  We also talked about how I heard about the store from watching THIS VIDEO of the Avett Brothers playing a show during Record Store Day a couple of years ago.  I will definitely be going back there.  I really like Nashville as a city too.  Who knows, maybe I'll end up living there when I grow up.

Purdue!

University of Illinois campus

Pictures of Nashville

GRIMEY'S

Great sunset pictures.

(My treasures from Grimey's.  From left to right: Andrew Bird's new record, X&Y, Tallest Man on Earth, Mutemath's Odd Soul, and a Cage the Elephant Live @ Grimey's recording CD)

Passion 2012. Isaiah 26:8. For His reknown. Parte Uno.

This is a story about Passion.  What is Passion you ask?  It's a conference in Atlanta, GA that lasts about 4 days in January, mostly geared towards college students, where they discuss a certain issue that is affecting the world's population, and how we can all try to solve the problem by working together and doing our own little part.  They also are a big part of the reason why we should do these good acts.  The reason to help these people is because God has already given us so much and has blessed us with so much...most importantly through dying for us.  For you and for me...sinners.  Those who have rejected Him and want nothing to do with him.  Those who live selfishly in this world we have been put into, just to live for ourselves and make ourselves more comfortable, not for one second giving the One who made it all a second thought.  Passion helps with reminding us about the even bigger picture of spreading the LOVE of God and helping those who are in need have a tangible experience of how this great God loves them.  Click HERE (<---over there...) for more info. Otherwise read on!  This is a huge play-by-play of what I experienced there those four days.  I might have forgotten some of it, but hopefully the main highlights have been transcribed here for your enjoyment:


PART 1:


Day 1-

Good drive down there.  Check in to the hotel went smooth!  I had to wait in the lobby of the hotel to wait for my group from the Wesley foundation back at MSU.  I looked around and it looked like the student union during rush food hour.  College kids EVERYWHERE!  Little did I know it was just the beginning...


Registration was the first stop.  One would think, "Oh this will be FUN!  Just have to go to the front desk, tell my name, and get my cool new wristband for my family group!".  It was fun.  I did get a cool new wristband (that has somehow managed to still stay on...).  But instead of being a quick ordeal, it took about 2 hours just to get to the desk!  Can't expect too much better with 45,000 students there trying to do the same thing.  And this would definitely be foreshadowing for the days to come.
  

45,000 people.  45,000 college students.  It began to sink in a little, but it didn't really hit me until we entered THE DOME.  We actually got there late after registration, so the night session was already beginning.  Loud guitars, drums, and singing were going on all around with prayers and just plain focused worship, straight to God.  You could kind of sense most of the "Passion newbs" (including myself) being a little hesitant singing at the top of our voices, but things were just getting started.  Then Louie Giglio gave the first talk, about how we are all dead as sinners, but that Jesus raises us from the dead.  He compared it to the story in Luke 7 where Jesus walks up to the crying woman and shows her compassion by reviving her dead son.   


The next step that came was the so-called "backbone" of Passion: the community group.  These were huge groups of about 3000 or so Passion-goers that were then divided into even smaller groups within their comm group to form family groups (yeah...shows how many people were there).  So I met my little family group and we just had time for introductions before it was time for...LATE NIGHT!  Late nights were the extra concerts that were put on every night.  First one up: David Crowder Band.  A lot of people afterwards said it felt like the shortest concert they've ever been to, and I would agree.  They played a lot of their hits like 'No One Like You', 'Shadows', '...Neverending...', and some new songs too off of their new CD.  34 songs on it by the way.  Its fantastic.  Give it a listen.  I mean who can turn down Crowder renditions of old hymns with a bluegrass vibe?  Speaking of bluegrass...they actually played some bluegrass tunes as closers for the show.  It was just great to see them at one of their last shows before they broke up for good.  May your music live in infamy Crowder band.  FORever, and ever, and ever, and ever...


Bed didn't come until 3 am or so.  And 630 was the wake up call needed in order for us to get to our community group on time in the morning.  And this was just the first night.  But oh was it good first night.

Day - 2

Woke up with the roosters to pay my parking for my car.  That was a pain, because for some reason the parking ticket at the place I parked at expired at 6 am.  Of course it would.  So not only was I running on 3 hours of sleep, but I had to deal with this parking issue.  Good did come of it though!  I figured out how to pay for the parking through an app on my iPhone.  Thanks Steve, just saved me one there.

Morning session was good; talk by Beth Moore.  She discussed how God knows everything about us, every little secret that we have about our lives.  Then was lunch, and afternoon session!  The afternoon speaker was Christine Caine.  Yeah, I never heard of her too.  But then she talked, and I just knew she was from Hillsong church "down unda".  The funny thing was she basically just shared her life story, and how God got her to her current place of working full time towards the cause of stopping human slavery and sex trafficking (the main issue discussed at Passion 2012).  Sometimes, those stories are the most relate-able because they are about a real life person and what they are doing as a result of themselves being radically changed by this awesome Savior we have.  I know there was more to it than what I've mentioned, but I seem to have forgotten.  I'll have to listen to it again myself.  It's one of those talks you need to hear every once in a while just to get your mind grounded again.

Then came night session.  The speaker: FRANCIS CHAN.  Surprisingly enough though, it wasn't deep or mind blowing.  It was just, real.  A real guy, just telling us about his life of just reading the bible.  Just sitting down, and reading it.  As if it was a history book, or any other book for that matter.  Except, he believed it.  He believed that everything he read was the truth, and that it really happened, and that it applied to every human being on the face of the earth.  And being incredibly struck by it, it changed him from the inside out.  Being changed in a way that makes him now want to follow the commands Jesus gave us, as literally as you can read them.  To give an example, he shared an anecdote with us.  He said he and a group from his church in California were reading the story in Luke 14:15-23 where Jesus tells the parable of the rich man that sets up a banquet night for all of his rich friends.  They all had excuses of why they couldn't attend though, but he didn't put it to waste.  He then told his servants to go and bring the lowest of the low.  Those that had no food or a place to stay.  To bring them in, and have all of this feast go to them.  Just because they were human.  Just because they needed a helping hand.  Francis and his team were so struck by that story.  It made him say, "Guys, why can't we do this?  What is stopping us from making this a reality?".  So they did.  They had a photographer.  They helped them all get dressed up.  And he said they all had a great time!  But more importantly, they were able to share God's love to these people by this simple act of kindness.  They actually LIVED out what they read and claimed to believe in.  That is the difference, the crucial difference.  And that is what made the talk by Francis Chan so memorable.


And then, worship that night, with Hillsong United for late night.  But that night something special happened, and it wasn't worshipping with 45,000 other college students with the awesome United band, even though that was an experience of a lifetime.  The lights and the building drums, and the praising God with our voices was great.  Inspiring for sure.  But one thing stuck out to me more than anything else, and it's one of the few quotes that I remember from Passion directly.  During our worship after Francis' talk, he stayed up on the stage.  You could sense he was singing every word with the meaning right behind every syllable, every word straight the God of the universe.  Then he said something that struck me.  It's like the on switch turned on.  It's like God was literally telling me this through Francis.  And then he said:



"Realize who you are singing to!  The words of these songs!  This GOD you sing to!  The Holy Spirit may be asking you to do some crazy things right now.  And everything inside of you is screaming at you 'Are you CRAZY?!?  Don't be ridiculous!'.  Don't listen to them!"  



"This God is worth DYING for!".  


God.  Our God.  We can only call him "ours" because of what He has done.  And what a wonderful blessing that is.  But He is worth dying for.  DYING for.  Paul says in Philippians 3:7-8 that "To live is Christ, but to die is gain."  Dying with the security that you will spend all eternity in heaven with your loving Savior is nothing to be afraid of or to prevent.  It's GAIN.  That is where we will have everything we need and more.  This God is worth dying for.  


Not saying you need to go out to some remote village, proclaim God's name, and get yourself speared.  Or maybe you do.  If that is God's call for your life, do it.  Don't hesitate.  Nothing in this world can ever take away God's love for you.  Not pain.  Not loss.  Not even death.  And it's a wonderful thing to remember.  Do we have that fearlessness within us?  Does our security in God allow us to not have to cling to our bank accounts, our possessions, or even our loved ones?  God can use all of those things for good, but if those things take away our love and devotion that should be going to the one and true God of the universe, then that is when things need to change.  That is when we need to let our bonds to the temporary die away, and become alive once more in God's everlasting love.  


Part 2, to be continued. 

Take 2

So the blog thing didn't really work last time.  Maybe I was trying too hard to think of clever things to write about.  I'm ready to try again though, but it's going to work differently this time.

My blog is going to be like my journal.  Which means I'll mostly be writing about things that happen in my life, thoughts that I have, and everything in between.  And since my life has been given to the service of the one and true Lord of my life, Jesus Christ, a lot of the posts are going to be related to my faith.  May it be thoughts on scripture or a book that I am reading, observations on walking the walk, or just other musings.  I will post other things, trips, concerts, maybe a music video or two.  But I'm going to use this blog as a place for me to write about things and ideas that I come across in life.

And to begin, I'm going to post a little review of my time at the Passion Conference 2012 at the Georgia Dome this past January.  It was a great inspirational week with 40,000+ of my new college friends learning about the horrible tragedy of Sex Trafficking and Human slavery, but also learning about what we can do to stop it.

But more on that in the next post.