I think that Tom Davis may the the only friend that could bring me out of my extended blog break. And I know that he is the only friend that could get me to drive to KENTUCKY on a whim. Seriously though, I love Children’s Hopechest and it was my honor to meet up with Tom, Desperation Band, and Meredith Andrews last night for the launch of the Free to Live Tour.

This tour is “a night of worship, speaking, a call to action and an opportunity for you to become part of the family and movement to protect victims of the awful sex trade industry.” It’s a great night and it’s FREE (my favorite four letter word).

I loved spending an evening immersed in an amazing worship. I loved having this time to allow the Spirit to continue transforming my heart and adjust my sights away from myself and on to His passions, His desire for us to serve Him by meeting the needs of “the least of these”. Good stuff.

Here are my 5 takeaways from Free to Live (and reasons you should check it out!):

• I hadn’t known Meredith Andrews music before last night- wow… girlfriend can sing.
• I did know that Jon Egan can sing. I didn’t know that he can preach! The words he shared about Jesus’ heart for the oppressed and the necessity of our response were excellent. I was especially moved by his statement that “Truth triumphs over emotion. Jesus is our truth.” Preach!
• I love worship. Love. Jon Egan shared that “worship without action isn’t worship.” That is some serious truth. Spending the evening doing both – worship and action – was good for my soul.
• Tom shared that there are now 150 million orphans on the world. While that statistic seems overwhelming, doing something as simple as buying a pound of coffee can feed an orphan for a month. Even I can do that.
• The sign below was posted in the Orphan Experience exhibit (don’t miss it if you go) and it really, really spoke to me. It spoke to me as an orphan, a mom, a teen mom, a woman… it sung to my heart on every level. Last year we raised over $2,000 to help HopeChest build a counseling room for trafficking victims in Moldova. This may be the next push… detail to come ;)

You can find out more info on the tour HERE. Tonight the tour hits Atlanta (tickets are still available. And free!) then it moves on to North Carolina and two stops in Alabama. West coast tour dates will be out soon.

You can find out more about HopeChest HERE.

What is the one organization the makes your heart sing? Leave a comment and link them below so we can check them out!

I asked a Twitter/blog friend, Tyler Braun, to guest post today. You’ll love him, seriously. His blog, Man of Depravity always makes me think and he always has something valuable to say on Twitter. In addition to blogging, Tyler is a worship leader in Portland where he lives with his wife, Rose.

Missional.

Defined as: Christian church buzz word that no one knows the meaning of.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really get the movement going on in churches to describe themselves as “missional.” I say that because it should be something every church is obviously doing. If the church is truly the body of Christ, then we are always on mission.

With that said, let’s think about how we worship as a body when we gather. We sing songs about God, we declare Him to be worthy of our worship towards Him. We sing a lot about “me” and “I” and the importance of each of us individually aligning ourselves toward God.

Rarely do worship song lyrics provoke us to start caring for the people around us (we leave that up to the Holy Spirit).

If worship is something that only stays between us (individuals) and God, I think we’re falling short of the total goal.

Last Sunday night, I was leading worship for my church’s high school group. I explained to them that worship, in its fullness can’t be something that is only between us and God. Worship is something that should push us to care for the people around us. I had placed a piece of paper and pencil under every chair and asked each student to write a note or prayer of encouragement to somebody else in that room. And to give that piece of paper to them (if they felt comfortable) before the end of the night.

I walked away seeing a lot of blank pieces of paper on the ground. And really the point wasn’t to get everyone to write a note to their friend. It was more for them to begin realizing that their worship of God isn’t fully complete until they aren’t thinking about themselves anymore.

It’s funny to me that most churches that describe themselves as missional, still allow for a time of worship that is completely individually focused in the lyrics.

So this is my challenge to worship leaders:

Find ways to make worship a missional thing.

Worship, in its fullest sense, is something that draws us closer to God and closer to those around us.

What are your thoughts on missional worship?

I’ve also seen a lot of coverage from Haiti today. A piece in The Boston Globe really caught my attention. They ran a photo essay called “Haiti Six Days Later”.* I got my answers to my questions about achieving equality as I tearfully viewed these images.

This is when superpowers become servants, when the wealthy become paupers, when the weak become strong.

This is when race ceases to matter.

We are all equal when we set aside our differences for the common good.

We are all equal when our actions demonstrate that we all speak the same language.

We are all equal when the mighty humbly serve the weak.

We are all equal when we share our most valuable, treasured resources with those in need.

We are all equal when we experience the world through the innocence and faith of a child.

We are all equal when, at the end of the day, everything is stripped away and we begin to understand humanity.

We are all equal.

*Please view The Boston Globe article to view all of these amazing photographs.