New Hope Church - no, not the Polar Bear Exhibit.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there. 🙂 I had a good one, but a busy weekend. Yesterday I did the spring tea for New Hope Church in Powell, OH, just a few minutes from my house. That’s always such a treat since I’m usually traveling all over the place, and it’s nice to just come home after an event every once in a while!

New Hope has been supporting my ministry for a long time, so it’s fun to get to be with them. This was a multi-generational event for moms and daughters, and we had everything from great-grandmas to beautiful little girls in princess dresses. They made a very elegant tea and I did the program. New Hope is also special to me because Nathan and I got married in their old building – I’ve known the pastor there for years. Our church was too small at the time to hold the wedding, so we had it at New Hope. Over the years, the Columbus Zoo grew all around the church until finally they sold the building to the zoo and moved down the street. Now the old building has become the Polar Bear Exhibit, so we always laugh when we tell people we got married at the Polar Bear Exhibit at the zoo. The kids think it’s cool anyway!

Then this morning we did a beautiful arrangement of “At the River” by Aaron Copland with the choir for Mother’s Day (along with all our normally awesome worship music!) which I loved and then my whole larger family went on a picnic and hiking with my mom. Sadly, our oldest is ill, so my husband stayed back with her, and after the hike we opted to stay in for the night so we could all be together. The kids and Nathan made a great dinner (except for the sick one – we gave her a pass) and we just chilled together. Actually, an awesome present of time for us.

Happy Mother’s Day! I hope you had a good one too. 🙂

Christ Community Chapel

They have a beautiful church.

The women getting their Spring Fling on!

Tyrone Covenant Presbyterian

Speaking at the luncheon

It was a great time!

This past weekend was really busy, but just wonderful. Nathan and I drove up on Friday for an event called Spring Fling at Christ Community Chapel in Hudson, OH. It was especially fun for me because I have a number of friends up there and several of them were able to come. My “handler” for the event was even an old family friend so it was just fun. The only problem was that it was sold out (a good problem to have!) quite a bit in advance so not everyone was able to get tickets.

It started with a beautiful dinner and then I did about an hour presentation of stories, testimony and songs. We’ve had a wonderful response and absolutely saw God using it, so it was a wonderful night.

After the program, Nathan and I packed up and drove about 2 hours to spend the night in Toledo just to get part of the way toward the next event. In the morning we drove the other hour and a half to Fenton for the ladies spring event at Tyrone Covenant Presbyterian. This was also special to us because Nathan’s brother and his wife go to this church and several of Nathan’s family members came.

We had a lunch and I did the program afterwards. Everyone at this church has been so warm, and both churches were so specific about presenting the Gospel and wanting this to really be an outreach event – it was just a pleasure to work with both of them, and I hope I get to work with them again in the future!

After the luncheon we went back to Nathan’s brother’s house for a surprise retirement celebration for his mom who was a college Spanish teacher. Don Quixote cake and everything. It was so great to hang out and see our little nieces and nephews too!

We headed home, discovering a very delicious Mediterranean place in Ann Arbor on the way and collapsed so that we could lead worship this morning. Craziness, but so many blessings, and I would do it again in a heartbeat! God is so good!

This was Holy Week, and I just wanted to take a minute to say Happy Easter! Holy Week’s always crazy for me with extra services and special music along with all our regular stuff, and sometimes it’s hard not just to wish it was over. Somehow, though, God always reminds my heart of how incredible this week is, what it means, who He is. What He sacrificed for us and why, and how that was the most amazing gift every given!

Our church took turns sending out prayers during Lent to remind people to pray and think about what was coming. I got Good Friday, so I’m leaving you what I wrote for that day:

Matthew 27: 45-54
From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

My kids asked me last night, “Why is Good Friday good?” We talked about what happened on Good Friday. How it was terrible but wonderful, how the curtain tore in two giving access to God to all who would call Him Savior. How the people coming to life symbolized that death was now defeated. What incredibly Good News that is for all of us on Good Friday.

Lord, help us all to remember what You did for us on this day. Throughout our day, Lord, bring to mind what is happening at this moment. Make Good Friday real. Remind us of how You walked the road this morning with people mocking You and spitting on You where people had cheered your coming on Sunday. How You died for these same people, and how You died for us. How the curtain tore. How the earth was dark because You were not in it. Lord, help us to really remember what You’ve done, and to thank you. Help us to realize that we are the reason You did this. That You loved us enough for this. Thank you, Lord, on this Good Friday, for making it good.

Today I spoke and sang at the Spring Women’s Luncheon at Faith Covenant Church in Westerville. If that looks familiar, it’s because that’s my church. 🙂 It was a funny experience for me – I’ve done concerts here every once in a while, but I’ve never spoken and it’s funny to tell people who have known you forever your story. What do they know? What don’t they know? And then there were a ton of visitors who didn’t know any of it, so I just did my thing in the end.

People ask me a lot why I don’t do more of my stuff at my home church, and I guess it’s because I’m always worried they will get tired of me, or that they hear me enough just on Sundays. I don’t want services to be about me, so I’m always trying to feature other people’s music and talents. Today went well, and it touched my heart to tell a story that so many of these actual people were involved directly in. These were the people who took care of my dad and our family. They were the ones who were praying for us with Toby. This is our family. Made it harder to tell my story without crying, but we made it through. 🙂

Our duck friends who followed us for a week

We had our first read-through of the play with the cast and crew on Sunday after church and it went great. I have several first-timers who really don’t know what they’re getting into (let me tell you, if you have a pack of first grade girls pinning you into a corner screaming for your autograph because THEY LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!! it’s a pretty frightening experience for the newbie) but they will all be good. I’m looking forward to it.

After that, the fam drove up to Millersburg, OH, heart of Amish country to spend spring break. We’re having a great time – there are tons of animals here, goats, cats, horses, ducks, the kids are in heaven. There’s even a little 2 week old goat who’s been following them around. And I drove out yesterday and bought new dishes at the Homer Laughlin Factory – they make Fiesta. Can I say, everyone should have another shower after they’ve been married for a while. What do you think, every 10 years? Every 15? Whatever we choose, everything we own is looking cruddy, and man, I may be shallow, but these dishes are making me HAPPY! My mom drove out with me and spent hours with me in the seconds room finding prizes and getting dirty – thanks mom.

My men working, Nathan and Toby

This morning we presented “Shelter” in our service. It’s a project by my producer, Paul Marino, and he was writing it while I was down writing with him on my last album, so I got to hear it in many stages. What a gorgeous work, and the words are amazing, most of them straight from scripture. It’s a cycle of 10 songs, many of them original by Paul but also a few worship songs and hymns worked in. It’s for choir and soloists and pretty flexible on the instrumentation so we used piano, keys, drums, bass, and guitar and it came out great. My choir did a phenomenal job, we added prayers, communion, and scripture readings and made it an entire service – everyone loved it. Paul was here a couple of weeks ago with Jeremy Johnson (another writer Paul works with a lot who also worked on my last album) and they guest led our worship and were absolutely amazing, so the congregation already knew their hearts and were excited to see what the project was about.

Lots of work, and I’m glad it came off well. I know the Lord used it!

Also, just adding a picture here because it’s too cute not to. We are remodeling our porch into an office. Now that Nathan and I are both working at home full time, the dining room just isn’t cutting it anymore. So here’s a picture of the “men” working. 🙂

Hi, all,

Just wanted to post a link. I did a new podcast interview with Creative Promotions, and it’s a little different than the ones I’ve done in the past – lots of stories about our travels and some of the backstory on the new single. Thought you might like to give it a listen here. 🙂

First time I've recorded at Sonic Lounge, and that is a pretty cool board!

I was back in the studio this weekend doing the music for our Adventure Week (VBS). I didn’t write it this year, there just wasn’t time, so I used my friend Russ’ music, and just re-recorded the vocals so they would match our classes, etc. It was a quick session, but definitely brought to mind that Adventure Week is coming! It’s the biggest outreach our church does all year, and I write and direct the play too, so it’s a major event in our family’s life. This year we’re going to Africa on safari, and it’s so fun that we can use our familiy’s pictures and experiences from when we were actually there. Twende! Let’s go!

The beautiful sanctuary at St. Susanna

The people dancing along.

I got to do a concert at St. Susanna down in Mason, OH last night. It was such a great time – I have been there once before and they are just great to work with. Chris, you rock. 🙂 They have the most beautiful sanctuary, and even though they have no video in there, they worked with me to put in a temporary system we could use. Had a wonderful time, and can’t wait to go back – I know the Lord was using the night!

Okay, I know this was last summer, but we finally got the video up and posted of me singing the National Anthem at the Pirates/Reds game last summer. Just wanted to share. 🙂