Summer 2008

Hey friends,

So a lot has been going on in my life. Good stuff too! I got engaged on June 7, I’m turning 30 in a couple weeks, and getting married 2 weeks after that. I moved out of my townhouse-found a renter for my place, which is amazing. Chrissy and I went to West Virginia for a week to spend time with my family, especially my grandparents who might not be able to make it to our wedding.

Last week I snuck away for 5 days with Pastor Clay and Joey to West Palm Beach-we took a songwriting retreat, and in 5 days we wrote 10 songs together for the next album for the church, which is pretty exciting! The majority of my songwriting has been for artists away from Calvary, so to write worship songs for my church is a great blessing to me. It’s hard to describe the emotions in my spirit when I see and hear our church singing a song that God birthed in my heart, but I know it’s not because of me-it’s something that only He can do. If you only knew some of the terrible junk that I’ve tried to make into a song, you’d understand! :)

I’ve tried to stay up on the writing, but the last month or so has been tough. For the readers out there, I read an incredible book recommended to me by the esteemed New Testament scholar Ben Witherington called “Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes” by Kenneth Bailey. I liked it so much that I’m using it as one of the textbooks for the class I’m teaching this fall at Ocean’s Edge School of Worship .

The school starts orientation next Saturday, and the first semester I’m teaching Biblical Foundations of Worship, which is a narrative overview of the story of scripture. We walk through the Bible chronologically, studying the historical and cultural context and how worship plays a major role throughout. Second semester after Christmas I teach Culture and Worship, which takes a specific approach to music, audience and context. I use “Whatever Happened to Worship” by A.W. Tozer in that class for discussion.

We also launched our worship website at church and I’ve done a few guitar instructional videos as a resource to people who want to develop that part of their gifting. I’m not sure how many are posted, but I recorded 3 this summer which should appear via Youtube and Ocean’s Edge Music soon.

And in the middle of all that mess, I did a kitchen remodel with the help of my parents, Chrissy’s uncle and David Dalholt. New cabinets, counters, sink, (kinda new) appliances, new tile floor…and then I moved out. :( That place looks good!

It’s been a crazy few months, but some great stuff has been happening. And I usually don’t post this stuff in a blog, but I feel bad-I haven’t posted in a couple months. I’m gonna try to post a couple more before I shut down my Myspace and move over to Blogger completely. Please please please keep Chrissy and I in your prayers over the next few weeks. It probably won’t get any less crazy until a month after the wedding, so we need strength and patience!

Also, please remember to lift up my grandpa if you can. He started chemo this week for his cancer-please pray for strength and healing for him. If you ever get to meet my grandparents, they would easily make the list of your favorite people in the world. They are so awesome! Also, please pray that my grandma would be encouraged and that she would have strength to help him during this time. I really appreciate all of you and the prayers that you have said for them already.

Andrew