When was the last time you...

Got to watch an entire sunset, from start to finish? I mean...not from 6am to 8pm, but from about the time the sky starts to turn into brilliant shades of red and orange to the time when the moon begins to take its place as the prominent light in the sky. 

Today, I did. 

It was a rare occasion but I happen to be driving home from set-up at Move in Bolivar, MO, and the drive is about 1 hr and 45 minutes...just long enough to watch the sun set. 

First of all, let me say that my sunset experience was not completely unadulterated, I was heavily under the influence of Hillsong United's "Across The Earth". The sun began its descent behind the clouds during their song "You Hold Me Now" here were the lyrics I was screaming along to on my drive as the sun came crashing into the horizon: 

Where the wars and violence cease,

Where creation lives in peace,

Let the songs of Heaven rise to you alone

No weeping, 

No hurting,

No suffering,

You hold me now, you hold me now. 

No darkness,

No sick or lame,

No Hiding! 

You hold me now! You hold me now!

(cue air guitar) 

Besides the desire to fall flat on my face, overwhelmed by the glimpse of God's glory he allowed me to see on my drive home, two things came to mind. 

1. We sing a song called "How He Loves" in which John Mark McMillan writes, "Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss, and my heart turns violently inside my chest", and I couldn't help but gasp at the amazing visual analogy of the sun crashing into the horizon, and heaven crashing into earth. To think that I could never put words to the amount of brilliance and color the sunset produced, and to compare this to how beautiful it is when the Church invites Heaven to invade, or crash into, earth, and God's will to reign among us is something only God could show us. I literally can't even find a good way to flow these two sentences together. Today, during church, Jeremy (drums) and I were discussing how beautiful John Mark's lyrics are in that line, and how sad it was that Crowder would alter them. In Rob Bell's book "Sex God", Rob describes how Jewish scholars believed Heaven and Hell to be realms just outside of our own, and Heaven is where things are as God intended them to be, and Hell is where things are apart from what God intended them to be. That at any time, we could invite Heaven and Hell to earth by our actions, and it seemed to be happening right before me eyes! 

2. I cried...no...I bawled. I'm not a crying person...ask my wife, but I couldn't look at this picture God had put on display just for me, and hold my composure. I probably freaked out the drivers around me, I was crying, and shouting the words, and flailing my arms like Jeremy when he goes penta-sayin. 

I took two pictures, with my phone, and the fact that I'm no photographer, combined with a 2.0 megapixel camera phone at 70 mph did absolutely no justice to the sunset, but as you look at this, remember these words from John chapter 1. 

"The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it." 

"The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world." 

"No one has ever seen God. But the unique one, who is himself God, is near to the Father's heart. He has revealed God to us." 

Just as I, by no means can describe the beauty of Heaven on earth...I can't even describe the beauty of a sunset, the sky, in all of its glory, cannot begin to depict the true light that Jesus brought into our world. 

Holland Michigan

So, this past week we were able to go lead worship for our first CIY Move conference of the summer in Holland, MI. What a way to start a summer. The students were so incredibly friendly and responsive, right out of the gate, they were willing to listen to God and let him "Move" through them. This submission allowed them to throw down their ego's and embarrassment and raise their hands and jump around as early as the very first song of the very first night. It's funny, actually, how much maturity they showed in doing things that most people would think to be the opposite of mature. This naturally compelled us to drop the ego's and pride of being the "band", and drove us to raise our hands and jump around even more (which eventually led to Matt's broken back), which in turn let the students jump around more, and this cycle continued, building momentum, until it grew into a crazy, out of control, God-honoring, mess of flailing limbs, screechy voices, and vacation bible school songs being shouted at the top of our lungs. 

I think it was the most fun I've ever had. 

If you didn't get the chance to take part in the chaos, look us up on youtube, and you'll get the idea. 

Many thanks from JHB to the students and youth leaders of MI1 Move. 

In addition to the awesome evening sessions, if you've never been, Holland, MI is one of the best towns to visit ever. period. 

The entire town seems to be built around Hope College, which conveniently is the campus we use for Move, so students and staff can pretty much get anywhere, and anything their heart desires within 5 minutes of walking. 

Here's my top 5 things you should do in Holland, MI

1. Visit Holland's RIT music store on 8th street. Even if you don't play an instrument, the guys who work in there will talk music with anybody with a mouth and ears. Plus, they have cheap soda's...so you can chat about the latest U2 album, and enjoy an ice cold Mountain Dew for way less than the restaurants surrounding the shop. If you do play an instrument, especially guitar, these guys have assembled a great collection of solid boutique gear. Not the huge selection of Guitar Center, but these guys don't carry a single thing that they wouldn't trust on stage themselves, that says something about a store.  

2. Go to 8th street grill and have the corn chowder. It's full of MSG and even Jeremy will eat it (4 bowls worth), need I say anything else? Just don't ask the waitress if she's dutch because she lives in Holland.

3. Go to CityVu bistro and get the lunch buffet. I'm gonna save you a lot of trouble and stomach space right now, and impart this wisdom upon you: salmon pizza, and bacon balsamic vinaigrette. That's all you need to worry about when you get there. I think by the second time we went I found myself pushing old ladies* out of the way to get to the salmon flatbreat pizza when it came out of the oven. It's that good. 

4. Go to the "beach" and join a random sand volleyball game. The nets are $5 to rent, so you save some money by being social anyways. I've found that even if you're as bad at them as I am, sports tend to break down a lot of barriers and ease up the friend-making process quite a bit.

5. Go to either Lemonjello's or JP's coffee house, decide which one you like, and become a die hard fan (which is not hard, both places have excellent coffee). Tourists tend to turn it into somewhat of a rivalry, in which groups become arch enemies first thing in the morning, when they need their coffee fix. It's all good fun, it's somewhat similar to having a congregation full of football fans on the eve of the Superbowl, a little trashtalk (so long as nobody is attacked personally) can be a lot of fun. In reality, both coffee houses are delicious, and you can't lose. 

To sum all of my blabbering up...I love Move, I love Holland, MI. 

Thank you to everyone who was there to experience it with us, I hope God worked in your life, and you truly experienced his greatness, and his presence, as much as we did. 

-Michael

*This is a joke. No old ladies were harmed in my consumption of salmon pizza. 

New Web Site

What's up everybody!  Just wanted to drop a quick note and tell you that we have a website up and going!  The url is jordanhowertonband.com.  We will be blogging a lot more...so check us out regularly!  Adios.

Bad Worship Songs...

Hey Everyone!  Thanks so much for checking out the blog.

I have been writing a lot lately for the upcoming full-length album.  I am always looking for ways to make my writing deeper and grounded in the Word.  A big challenge that can come up is trying to make sure that the lyrics are clear and true without being too wordy or rushed.  At the same time you have to not allow any song sound too familiar with another one of your songs or any other song for that matter.  It can be a very complicated and frustrating process.

I was reading a blog by Chad Brown just the other day.  (Chad works for the Discipleship program at CIY)  Chad highlighted a great article written just for worship leaders and songwriters.  This article does a great job of expressing some tactics that should be AVOIDED when writing worship songs.  Please don't read this article and think that it is full of things that you should do, because IT IS NOT!!!  You can click here for the article.

I hope you enjoy and learn from this article.

Adios!