Sunny Florida, Hot-Spot'n in the McDonalds Parking Lot

What a great blog title huh? Well it was plagiarized. Christian was just commenting on how beautiful life is right now, and I stole his sentence. Yes we’re still in Florida but not for long. We are driving to Fernandina beach today, and that’ll be out last Florida stop. The tour has been going well. We’ve been in quite a few different places in Florida now, been swimming in the ocean thrice, and been doing quite a few concerts.
A few of them stand out. We played at probably one of the biggest stateside high schools we’ve done. Apparently it was kind of a last minute thing, but we got there and I think the message we had to share was very effective there. A lot of the time it’s pretty hard to get high-schoolers involved, ya know just because when you’re in high school you’re too cool for anybody else. This particular concert they were very receptive, they even stood up and started singing with some of our songs without us asking them too. And that’s, from our experience, pretty rare in high schools. Afterwards several of the kids came up to me and told me how encouraged they were by it.
Another school we played at really stood out to me too. As we were being prepped by the vice-principal beforehand, she told us the school was just starting to go through a revival of a sort. So she was excited for us to be there and had some pretty high expectations. But as it is in some schools when we started playing they were a little too cool for us, and right towards the end of our concert the lady we had been talking with got up and expressed how grieved she was at their response. She talked for a couple minutes and during that time the Lord laid a pretty clear message on my heart for the kids. Just about living your life to please Him and realizing that we will report to God someday for our actions and not to our friends. I was able to talk to a few younger kids after the concert and was able to speak some encouraging words into there lives.
This Sunday we played for a Presbyterian church and I was assigned to give my testimony by our faithful set list writer Carolyn (who we appreciate very much for always getting the set lists done, and who isn’t thanked for that near us much as she should be, whom we collectively appreciate very much for that) As we we’re playing the song that preluded it, the Lord led me to focus more on a different part of my testimony than I usually do. Led me to share some things that I get a little emotional about, so I got a little teary eyed. I mean of course I didn’t cry, cuz I’m a guy and guys don’t do that but nonetheless I had a problem with the plumbing in my eyes. But I’ve found that transparency and honesty are the best way to communicate effectively. After the service several people came to me with moist eyes thanking me for the encouragement they received from it. It is so awesome to be used by God! Seriously its one of the most fulfilling things and ya know what? You don’t necessarily have to be doing something like what we’re doing. Everyone’s mission field is different. Just ask God to use you where you’re at. If we make ourselves available to God he will use us.