We Made a Folk Album, and Jesus is Awesome

Well, as is customary with any of the blogs I've attempted in my life, there will be seasons of inactivity due to the standard excuses of general busyness followed by an obligatory apology to the reader for my inability to regularly continue that which I started. Today there will not be the apology, for I am learning more and more the importance of simply spending my time exactly where the Father wants me to spend it, and although this is certainly done imperfectly, I have also learned not to mourn the things not done (especially be it through obligation).

In our last post, I posed some questions that had been my musings for some time on beauty, art, culture, and coffee, of which I'd love to explore some more, but first I have to tell a story...

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If you were unable to read one of my previous posts entitled "Why We're Making a Folk Album," then that might serve as a proper prequel to this story. I might title this story: "We Made a Folk Album, and Jesus is Awesome." (except that title might give away too much of the plot line... it's a working title for now)

I'm in a folk band and we're called Commoner. It consists of my sister, my two friends, myself, and sometimes a couple other people. We started making music this past Spring at Nate and Mary's house on State street. Out of the blue, Jesus gave me the ability to write folk songs and over the course of about a month we had more than enough for a full album. Shortly after that, I ran into a studio producer in Mississippi who encouraged me to come by the studio and talk about recording. It seemed like a wonderful idea, but the price was a bit out of our budget.. fortunately there's this great thing called Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a website that allows creative projects to be funded online by several different people. Instead of one or a few people giving a lot, it's a lot of people giving a little (although, I've seen more generosity through the funding of this project than i've seen in quite some time).

So we made a snappy little video, put a bunch of graphics together, and recorded a few of our songs in a friends bedroom to get our Kickstarter page set up. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. To see our close friends and family giving generously, but also to see people I haven't spoken to in years give their hard earned money for our little folk songs was humbling at best! The first day, we raised over 10% of our goal, and I could hardly believe it! I mean, these were high school and college students, and people on missionary support, and families who I knew were struggling financially, and they were giving crazy amounts of money! But it's not like this was an impersonal donation to the salvation army... this was someone literally showing us that they saw the work of God in our lives, that they believed we were listening to His voice, and that they wanted to be a part of it. We didn't ask them to, they didn't have to, they just did! 106 people!!

The first couple of weeks were unbelievable. I would get the little notifications on my phone every time someone would give and it would always make me so happy, no matter the context.. so much so, that it started to control me. I have a bit of an obsessive personality and as the funding deadline drew near, I noticed myself becoming more and more upset about the possibility of us not raising the money. What at first started as an idea held with open hands, became something I tried to control, which in turn started to control me. "Maybe if I do enough on Facebook, or do another video then we'll raise our goal." I was quickly turning my eyes to what I was doing rather than what was being done. And more importantly, I was more interested in raising our money through Kickstarter than than seeking the reality Jesus' life at work in my life in the present. This wasn't a conscious choice of course... I just started to focus my attention way more on the wonderful gifts rather than the glorious Giver. This manifested itself in several long days of menial tasks in an attempt to work this thing into being.

Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?

This was His idea anyways! He told me to do it, so why did I start to freak out whenever it looked like it wouldn't happen? Because the enemy loves to do whatever he can to get our eyes off of Jesus. Satan knows what works best to get me focused on what I'm doing rather than what He's doing through me. My dad would always say "The thing is not the thing, but the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing" The thing was raising money to make a folk album, but the main thing was following the call of Jesus to the ends of the earth.

But God saves. He always does. And when you're walking with people in community, He'll often use them in the process. My amazing wife and my precious younger sister sat down with me one afternoon, as the exhaustion of working in my own strength was in full swing, and spoke truth into my life. They didn't give me an answer, they didn't tell me what they thought I should do, they just implored me to hear from the Father. They saw this thing start to control me, so they sought freedom for me.

Then God freed me.

Community is so important. Walking with people that know you and see how you spend your time and what consumes your thoughts, is crucial. It's how we were made to live.

But, it's not over!! So God freed me from this imprisonment to my circumstances to the point where I was unattached to whether or not we raised any money at all for our folk album... then He gave it to us anyways! In 1 day, we raised $1,000 which shot us far past what we needed. And!! - We reached our goal on National Coffee Day!! Come on!!! Jesus loves us so much!!

Then we went to Mississippi and made a folk album, but that's another story altogether.



-Trey

ps. the video is a poem I wrote for my church about the importance of community.

Time

Relationships take time and time has to be intentional.

This coming October will mark one year of my family living in some form of intentional community with other believers. The term, "Intentional Community," refers to a group of people that live together for the purpose of experiencing Koinonia. Koinonia is the Greek word from which we get the English word "Community," which basically means to have everything in common (See Acts 4:32). This word is used in several places in the New Testament, especially in connection with the early church.

It is interesting to me that, although this idea seems to be a direct result of a common desire to pursue biblical community and how that points us closer to our Father, most of the intentional communities out there right now appear to have a drastically different goal... mostly due to the fact that most of them don't really seem to be interested in Jesus. (You can look for yourself on the Fellowship of Intentional Communities website).

Allie and I experienced this first hand a couple of weeks ago when we visited The Farm: one of the most famous IC's in the nation. The Farm was founded by Steven and Ina May Gaskin in the 70's as a commune, but had to digress to an intentional community in the early 80's because they're were like $100,000 in debt. It was basically like the mecca of hippy-commune living before reality caught up to them. Now it's just a regular neighborhood, except it's spread out on a big farm and there's a rigid membership process. We did find some people our age, that actually cared about living in community, but even that was more based on a common interest of natural living and organic farming rather than enjoying the fellowship of living with others.

So my family and I have lived in intentional community for almost a year now, which means that it has been almost a year since we have had a home to ourselves and frankly, I hope we never go back. Needless to say, we've learned a lot in this past year. Probably the most important thing we've learned is that community doesn't work unless you want it to. And it takes no small measure of desire for it to work either. You have to want it more than you want to be comfortable, which is inherently antithetical to the typical American lifestyle. The only way community can work is if you're actually in community with the people you're around; this means spending time with them and you guessed it: that time has to be intentional.

Believe it or not, you can live with someone for a long time and never spend time with them. I had several room mates in college of whom I knew nothing about! Intentional time with brothers and sisters for the purpose of community means turning off the distractions, avoiding any kind of maintenance or logistical talk (which needs to take place but in it's own time... it's of much lesser importance) and just sitting with each other and talking. It's fine if you start off with small talk as long as your intention is to pursue community through quality time spent together. Eventually it'll lead to sharing your heart. It will lead to love expressed through the admiration of the Body of Christ. These talks are not about interests or hobbies, those have their place as well, but these talks are sometimes uncomfortable and always rewarding. These talks are sometimes messy, but always redeeming. It's sharing the things you usually don't want to talk about because you care about community. It's opening the door of unity with your family for the sake of having everything in common. Common Unity.

And guess what! This applies to all relationships! The most important tool for marriage, we learned through living with others. If Allie and I don't have these talks on a regular basis, we break....which brings me to my main point:

We need this time with Jesus.

Time.

He is our perfect picture of community, because He created it! We were created for community with Him! Not to discuss theology or logistics. Not to ask Him for things. Not to try to figure out his plan for our lives. Although these things are very good and need their own time, we need time to just to sit with our Father. We need time to ask Him what He wants to tell us and the give Him the time to do so. 

You know why we need this time with Him? Because He's worth it. Maybe you have never just sat down somewhere without distractions and didn't open your Bible or notebook but just asked Jesus to come sit with you....if you haven't done this then you must! This incredibly simple act could change your entire life! If that sounds dramatic, think about who you're inviting to sit with you! The star breather, the artist of time, the musician of nature. He's the one who crafted the Matterhorn out of nothing. He's the man who braided a whip to drive out the businessmen from His temple of worship. He's the man who lifted the hearts of the downcast so they would be certain that He loved them fiercely. 

That one.

He wants to be with you continually and if you just take the time to sit with Him and listen to what He has to say, He could tell you something that could drastically change the course of your life.

Spend this time with Him.... it could literally change everything.


-Trey