In 1994, a Campus Crusade music team from Singapore named ForeRunner came here to be trained by my teammates and I in music evangelism. In 1998, I went with our team to Singapore to teach them how to be trainers. They now run a summer project like ours, where they train students using Keynote’s materials and to prepare them for a musical missions trip. This year God had several surprises in store for a student named ZhenPeng, who writes this (spellings and abbreviations are his):
The very 1st week, the Forerunner staffs shared with us their aim of this trip. I was suprised to find that the aim is not “playing professionally”, neither was it “save as many souls thru good music”, but it was “enabling an atmosphere of life-changing among us”. I had no idea wot it meant, so what i could do was to bring this aim back home to pray about it. I prayed that God enable me to experience a life changing experience thru this trip, without knowing what entailed….
More unexpected lessons awaited ZhenPeng on tour in Thailand. First, at their first concert:
Our stage occupied half of the church already. I thot to myself: ” No no, I dun travel all the way from Singapore to perform in such a place!!”, but God was gracious to me and enable me to finish the concert. And the best thing was, out of the 50 pple who attended, 11 received Christ. Back at the hotel, i told myself, at least i can still rejoice in the fact that 11 pple recieved Christ.
At their 3rd concert, held in a high school for 600 students:
…When the concert starts, the crowd cheered us so loudly, that it was almost deafening. We were very very excited!!! And to me, i told myself,”yeah man…this is wot i am looking for, the superstar treatment!!!” But hey, i forgotten the fact that the actual superstar of the nite was Jesus!!! This concert was the best and the worst i have ever played in. It was the worst becos we as a band made the most mistakes. We played wrong chords and notes, started songs wrongly, and I did a guitar solo without stepping on my volume pedal ( basically soloing without volume)…Alot of bloppers. Half way thru the concert, i told myself…..”this is it, noone will ever recieve Chirst…..No one…., Becos our music [stinks]!!!” I made a huge mistake by thinking that the power of salvation was in our music and not in Jesus!!! !!!” … After the concert, I was overwhelmed…..totally blown away by the fact that 372 students received Christ!!
And finally at a concert for a transient crowd of roughly 10,000 — an audience so large that most musicians only dream about it — but where they were not allowed to give a message:
I thot i would be excited, but i wasn’t. When i was playing on stage, God was working in me….asking me alot of qns and gave me answers for some of the qns. I drew a conclusion at that point of time. I prayed to God to really allow me to use my gifting in music for God and God alone. I want God to take the rightful place in my heart, and not music!!
You partner with me…I trained ForeRunner…ForeRunner trained ZhenPeng…388 Thais came to Christ, and ZhenPeng’s life was changed…and God continues to forge new links in His rescue chain!