Archive for January, 2013

Wow, what a weekend in St. Clairsville!

Monday, January 28th, 2013

Speaking on Esther

Leading worship with all these amazing singers!

The youth band who blew me away

Services on Sunday morning

I spent this past weekend at Evangelical Friends Church in St. Clairsville, OH, just on the border of WV outside of Wheeling. This is such a great church – I had an amazing time with them, and man, did they keep me hopping!

On Friday night and Saturday I did a women’s retreat on Esther called “For Such a Time as This.” I think this is my favorite retreat that I do, and the women were wonderful. I also led the worship for the retreat. All weekend I noticed that this church is full of outstanding singers! People were singing harmony all over the congregation and it was so fun to worship with them!

Then Saturday afternoon I sound-checked for the Saturday night “Ignite” service and then spoke and sang on the service after dinner with the worship team. They told me that one of their youth group worship bands was going to open the service. What they didn’t tell me was that they were all 12-14 years old. And they were amazing! Seriously, they did a phenomenal job led by their youth pastor’s wife – I was so impressed. It was hard to get up there after them. 🙂

Sunday morning there were three services and I gave the message and sang on all of them. They had their regular praise team on to do worship and they were also outstanding. I’m seeing a theme here – this is possibly the most musical church I’ve ever been to! I was also impressed by the music director and how many people he gave opportunities to. That’s actually fairly rare, and fun to see. I was so impressed by the humility and friendliness of everyone I met here – they truly made me feel at home. These little glimpses of what the family of God will be like in heaven are so fun, aren’t they?

My favorite moment came at the end, though. Everywhere I go, if it’s possible at all, I present the Gospel. Even when you’re in a church, you never know who’s listening and who has never heard that before. This was a very solid church, and they place a huge emphasis on the Gospel, so I was actually hesitating, thinking, “I’m sure it’s not necessary here. Everyone must know it! I don’t want the pastors to think I think they haven’t said it,” etc., etc. But then I thought, no, you never want to miss an opportunity. You just never know.

So I presented the Gospel, and at the end, the senior pastor came to tell me that they’d had several people come to him after the services and ask to pray with him for salvation. I can’t tell you how much that means to me! I love hearing about how God is changing people’s lives, and to know that He let me have any part of it is the most amazing blessing He could give me. I love Him so much!

Insight for Living with Colleen Swindoll

Wednesday, January 16th, 2013

Yesterday I did a Skype interview with Colleen Swindoll Thompson who runs the special needs ministry at Insight for Living. She is an amazing woman, and it was so fun to get to share how God has worked in our lives and our families’ lives.

I don’t have an air date for it yet, and I know it will be several months, but after it goes through editing and as soon as they let me know, I’ll let you know! They are doing a whole series of interviews and I am so amazed and humbled to be a part of this list – it includes Joni Eareckson Tada and Emily Colson, two people who I respect so much as well as many others. It’s a little surreal to get to be a part of it.

Also, Special Needs Book Review posted an article about the new video as well. They have been really supportive of my book, and I so appreciated their support for the video too!

Music News Nashville Announces Focus on the Family Debut

Wednesday, January 9th, 2013

Music News Nashville did a story on the debut of my new video on Focus on the Family’s Facebook page – it’s called, “Jennifer Shaw’s New Music Video Debuts on Facebook to 500k Followers” – you can read the whole article here. Wow, do I feel important! 😉 Seriously, it is absolutely amazing how God is sending this little video out – we had 1500 views just last night! I’m so encouraged. If you haven’t seen it, watch it here.

Focus on the Family!!

Monday, January 7th, 2013

We were told they were going to but not when – I was totally taken by surprise when we found out that Focus on the Family posted my new video for “Your Child” to their Facebook Pro-Life page on Saturday! So exciting – we’ve had so many views on the video that I guess it’s now officially released! 🙂 We put it on the media page if you want to go and check it out!

I’ve just been overwhelmed with the comments and responses so far! I am so grateful that God is using the song to encourage so many families – He is such a good God, and our children are so valuable and such a blessing. Praise the Lord!

Christian Voice Magazine interview

Friday, January 4th, 2013

First page of the Christian Voice article

Page 2

Page 3

Happy New Year! I can’t believe it’s 2013. We had a wonderful Christmas with the family, both here in Columbus with my extended family, on Christmas day with just our own family, and then after Christmas in Michigan with Nathan’s family. We ate too much, had way too many kids and dogs in one house, and all the kids tried cross-country skiing for the first time – it was crazy and great. And plenty of snow to go around this year. 🙂

I wanted to share an article that just came out in the January issue of Christian Voice Magazine. January is Sanctity of Life month, and they did an article on our family and ministry from a special needs perspective. I went ahead and put the article in the pictures to the right – to see the full size so you can read it, just click on the picture and it should pop up.

Also, we’ve already had some wonderful and exciting news this month! Focus on the Family is going to feature my new video for “Your Child” on their Facebook pro-life page. You can find that here. I’m not exactly sure which day it will post, but keep your eyes out – should be soon!

Also, we’ve had Insight for Living confirm that they will be using the video on their website and I’m also going to be doing a video interview for them in the next several weeks. I’ll make sure to post when that goes up on their site.

It’s exciting to see how God is already moving this year. Where are you seeing Him working in your life?