8 teams………7 bands and 1 short film team…..
We traveled 23,407 miles
We had 93 concerts.
We saw 13,090 men, women, and children hear about Christ.
The angels rejoiced over the 349 new decisions for Christ.
Month: August 2008
My Faith Has Found A Resting Place
After a couple of crazy months, I finally have the time and motivation to post again! One of the things that kept me busy was planning and leading worship at my church a couple of weeks when our regular worship leader was out of town.
On the day we started a new series from the book of Jude on contending for the faith, I had the congregation say the Nicene creed (see this post) followed immediately by this hymn. At first glance that combination may seem odd, considering the first two lines of the hymn say “My faith has found a resting place, Not in device or creed.” But here’s what I told the congregation:
I grew up in a church that said the Nicene Creed probably every other week, and I think I saw it as a part of a ritual I was relying on to make me right with God. After I came to trust Christ to give me a right relationship with God through His death on the cross, I had a really negative opinion of religious ritual. But since then I’ve learned some things about the Nicene Creed that have made me appreciate it more. It is a statement of faith hammered out by the early church during a time of heresy, and now I see it as a way to publicly declare my faith in the one true God.
Even though this hymn was written many centuries later, and in a more emotional style, it too is a public declaration of faith in the one true God.
My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device or creed;
I trust the ever living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.Refrain:
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.Enough for me that Jesus saves,
This ends my fear and doubt;
A sinful soul I come to Him,
He’ll never cast me out.
(Refrain)My heart is leaning on the Word,
The living Word of God,
Salvation by my Savior’s Name,
Salvation through His blood.
(Refrain)My great Physician heals the sick,
The lost He came to save;
For me His precious blood He shed,
For me His life He gave.
(Refrain)– Eliza Edmunds Hewitt (1851-1920), under the pseudonym of Lidie H. Edmunds
Mangofish Says Goodbye
Hello,
This is the last update from Mangofish!! We’re back in Indianapolis after our last two shows. We played in Fort Collins, Colorado, in the Larimer County Jail. It was completely different from any show we had played before, and was a little bit intimidating. At the same time, it was amazing to know that we had the opportunity to make such an impact in the lives of the people in our audience. We had seven people mark down that night that they had started a relationship with Christ, and we feel so blessed to have been allowed to be a part of that. Unfortunately, due to the prison’s rules, we weren’t able to talk to people after the show, but it was still a really great experience.
After Colorado we headed to Ames, Iowa for our last concert. We played in a concert venue called Zekes, which is owned and run by a local church. This show was bittersweet, but we had a blast and finished strong. Most of the members of our audience were members of the local church, and it was great to feel their hospitality and support as we finished off our tour.
We’ve been back in Indianapolis for three days now, and are getting ready to go back to our homes and campuses. Thank you so much for your prayers and support!!
Mangofish (Brandon, Ethan, JJ, Josh, Lindsay, Nolan, Sarah, Travis, and Stephanie)
Film Team: The Final Cut
For this being the first ever Film track for the Keynote Summer Project, and with a human plan defined as “wet jello”, I’d say God has a definite plan for the use of film in ministry. We have had so many blessings in the past six weeks that looking back on it, there is no way this would have happened without Him. Our film was written, shot, and edited within two weeks. That may not seem tough, but basically God handed us our actors, the location to shoot at, and students each with a different talent that have somehow managed to get along for the past 1008 hours. Not only that, but we got booked for 6 outreaches (thank you Pam :D ).
Our audiences consisted mostly of believers, but that’s not to say it didn’t have an impact. Here’s a comment from one of the viewers at our outreach in Carmel:
“I thought the films were just as important for a Christian audience as a non-Christian audience. There are a lot of things that could be taken away from the films and be an encouragement and good reminder to Christians.”
So I have no idea how God is going to use what we’ve done, but I have complete trust and faith that it will be used in one way or another or two ways or a million. By the way, that Carmel outreach was at a retirement home, so it was a bit of a difference from high school kids. We did have a good turnout though and out audience had some good thoughts, but sadly we didn’t get that many comment cards back because Bingo started at 2. Seriously.
Our last outreach was in Chicago where we teamed up with the Chicago summer project. We actually got to be at the beach Saturday night handing out glow sticks with them, so that was pretty awesome having sand between our toes…
Here are some more comments from our audience:
“I loved it. Marissa’s story really hit me hard because my story is very similar and it reminded me that God loves and forgives.”
“These films were a fresh look on the freedom Christ gives. To the
emcees—THANK YOU for being so open. I was very encouraged today –
very well done.”
“I appreciated being able to see how God can use short films to spark discussion and gain wisdom about who He is.”
This summer has been freakin awesome. I never thought I would get to know so many different people so well in such a short amount of time, but it happened. Now as we are about to disperse to our respective origins, Keynote Summer Project 08 will go down in history. God bless
Forever in Christ,
The Film Team:
Will
Brian
Lisa
Marissa
Derek
Film Team Wranglers:
John & Pam
Sharon
End of Touring for Swerve
Well here we are, back in Indy. Swerve has had an awesome tour! I know that we have touched many lives but I think that all of our lives will never be the same because of this summer. God has shown himself to each of us and has exceeded our expectations time and time again.
Last Friday we were at Langley Airforce Base. We played at a pool party. It was a small crowd but they were enthusiastic and by the end of the night we all got thrown into the pool! We weren’t able to do comment cards but there were some good conversations afterwards.
We traveled 15 hours back to Indy on Saturday. Sunday we had 2 concerts. Our first one was at the Indiana Women’s State Prison. This concert was amazing. There were 11 women who accepted Christ and many of them came up to talk to us afterwards. It was very moving to see how willing these women were to hear us and hear about Christ. Then our final concert was at our bass player, Brad’s church in Anderson. It was for a back to school youth group gathering. We had 13 people come to Christ! It was incredible. God amazed us beyond words that day.
So now we come to the end of the road. As I look back over these past 7 weeks there has been so many relationships built and memories made. I saw the Lord take a group of 14 strangers and transform them into a great team. I think the Lord blessed us greatly by showing himself to us through each other and through all the people we came into contact with. Throughout the summer we had 1,040 people hear the Gospel through us. 52 of those people accepted Christ and 30 of them came up to us after the concerts to talk about spiritual things. The things we experienced this summer are not expressible in words. Praise be to God our Father for all the miracles he did this summer.
Please keep us all in your prayers as we now go our separate ways. It’s such a bittersweet time but I think we are all excited to take what we’ve learned back to our homes and schools. Thank you so much for your constant prayers over the summer.
God Bless,
Lindsey, Anna, Christine, Charity, Liz, Bevan, Eli, Brad, Jordan, & Desi