Today was a great day! Our team was in sync, the place looked great, people came, and God showed up in a BIG way! We've worked so hard for this day for so long, and the service went great! I could list our service order, and tell you all of the great points of the message in this post, but more powerful than the music, more powerful than the message or any media pieces we used, were the AMAZING stories that came out of today! Every person who showed up today had an incredible story about how they landed at Church at the Triangle today. The one I'm most excited about right now is Josh's story.
Finding musicians in Raleigh is no easy task. Steve has been working hard at getting just a few band members to commit a few Sunday's to us. We've had lots of great leads and even promises from people, but we've had even more closed doors. Needless to say, this stress ball (me) has been FREAKING OUT about trying to find people to play. Seriously, banging my head against a wall would be more enjoyable. Steve, of course, never stressed. He kept reminding me: "We're here doing exactly what God has called us to do right now. He's faithful, and in total control of EVERYTHING." After reminding myself of that a few dozen times, I decided to do what I always feel led to do when I'm in a bind...pray, then type www.craigslist.com into my web browser! I forget where I found that passage of scripture.
Anyway...
I posted an ad on Craigslist that read "Need a bass player for THIS Sunday. Willing to compensate, must be able to read simple chord charts and make a 2 hour rehearsal on Saturday night." In the hour after I published the post, I got about 12 inquiries. (People like last minute stuff on CL, just FYI.) I responded to the one that said he had his own gear and that he could read chord charts. His name was Josh. Steve called him and asked to meet him at a mall nearby where he could give him a cd of the songs we're playing along with some music charts. When Steve got home, I asked "what he thought of the guy". He said he seemed to know what he was talking about, he's in his early 30's. He told Steve: "I've never played in any kind of church, are you ok that I'm Jewish?" It was, of course, ok. It was great! He came to rehearsal on Saturday, waited WAY to long for us to set up, plugged in his equipment, and played each song lick for lick. He didn't need any coaching and was able to sync right up with our drummer immediately! I was so happy to know that he was going to be a GREAT add for our launch service. After the walk through on Saturday, we were all chatting and walking to our cars. Josh then told Steve "Hey, I know you're paying me for this weekend (we payed him close to zip-o), but if tomorrow works out, and you think it sounds good, do you think I could maybe start playing with you for free on Sunday's?" Of course, we had to do a lot of thinking about that. NOT!! Steve arranged to meet with him this week to learn more about Josh's story, go over songs, and what the next few weeks look like! They're even going to check out some venues Josh is familiar with to try and find more local musicians. We were simply amazed at how the whole thing happened! Full credit to the faithfulness of God!
On our way home from the walk through, Steve and I were in the middle of talking about how great Josh was, and how bad I felt for making him stand around for so long on Saturday, Steve got a text. It was Josh. His text said "That was fun, bro! Thanks for having me!" I seriously got goosebumps because of the timing of that text. Not only did he not freak out about waiting around, but he enjoyed his time!" Sweet!
Josh showed up this morning excited to play. We played an awesome worship set, he was able to sit in for the message, and he hung around to talk to everyone afterwards! He'll be playing with us regularly! As excited as I am to have Josh here as a GREAT bass player, I'm even more excited that he's going to start being part of a community of Christ followers! So Cool!!
There are plenty more stories just like that one that came out of today! I'm sure I'll share more in the coming weeks. Pictures of CATT's first official service soon to come!! Thanks to everyone who's been praying!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
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4 comments:
Could God not have orchestrated that any better? What a beautiful story . . . excited to hear about Josh's relationship with Christ take off in a huge way! Love the stories . . . keep them coming!
Yeah! I'm happy for you Lauren. Goes to show you can work your butt off and prepare, prepare, prepare but there is still last minute, critical stuff that will always trip us up. Good thing God is big enough for all of that. Maybe on my big endeavors coming up I'll try and anticipate the things that inevitably will stress me out and expect God to work in that. And maybe I'll have a story to share too. Congratulations on your launch. Looking forward to seeing pictures or video.
God ROCKS ... all the time!!!
Too cool! Sharing your stories encouages us! Keep 'em coming Baby!
Luv ya!
M:)
Service WAS great!!! I cannot wait to come back this Sunday! I love these stories :) and it's amazing how cool the band was and how willing and excited Josh was. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!
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