Sanctus Real Interview

Hey guys, the first video is finally here!  As Aimee commented earlier, we had major technical difficulties and it looks like my hard drive is about to cave in.  Thankfully, my mac is still running on what little fuel it has left.  Anyway, we hope you will enjoy this video! 

Thank you Mark for giving us a few minutes of your time to do this interview!  

coming soon ...

While at the Tsunami Student Conference (http://www.studentwave.com/) the last week of December we had the opportunity to talk with Matt Hammitt and Mark Graalman from Sanctus Real!

For those of you who are fans, you'll be happy to know that these guys are super nice!  They were happy to come and share some encouraging thoughts with us so that we could then pass them on to you.

The problem is, we've had a few problems since then.  We're currently experiencing technical difficulties (actually, major computer issues to be exact).  So for those of you who knew that the videos were coming, please continue to be patient with us.  For those of you who had no idea that it was coming, suprise!  But please be patient with us.  We will get the videos up as soon as we can manage it.

In the mean time, we're still waiting to hear more of your stories ...

Know Prayer, Know God

What we believe about prayer hinges on what we believe about God.  A healthy prayer life requires a proper understanding of who God is. 

Have you ever thought about the fact that if you aren’t regularly turning to God in prayer then it means that you don’t really trust God?  I (Aimee) don’t think that I truly attached those two points together until maybe two years ago.  If we claim to have faith, and then we don’t turn to him with our cares and concerns, our praises and thanksgiving, then something’s wrong.  Having faith means believing that He is faithful, He is trustworthy.  That means that we believe Him when He says that He's listening, that He is always with us, that He will never abandon is, that He loves us.

While God is our heavenly Father, He doesn’t have the flaws of our earthly fathers.  Our heavenly Father is never too distracted, too tired, or too busy to listen, no matter whatever else is going on anywhere else in the world.  Our heavenly Father is able to listen and individually hear every single one of His children when they speak to Him, even if we were to all speak at the same time.  Our heavenly Father always knows what’s best, is never clouded by bias or an urge to over-protect.  Our heavenly Father always loves us, always desires a relationship with us, is always watching over us and protecting us.

God is not limited by what limits us!  Praise God!

God knows everything that’s in our hearts and minds.  He doesn’t need us to tell him our needs or desires.  Prayer isn’t to inform God of what He doesn’t know, but a conversation between a loving Father and His adoring child.  Conversations build relationships, and the Creator of the Universe desires to have a relationship with you.  He wants to hear all about your day—your joys and your problems—not because He needs you to tell him, but because He desires the relationship!  He already knows what’s going on.  In fact, very often He knows even better than we do. 

In our conversations with God, we’re talking and sharing with our loving Father for our own benefit.  We’re being honest and transparent to bring about our own healing.  We’re encouraged and grow happier in praising Him for His blessings in our lives.

Being a conversation, we should remember that prayer doesn’t have to be formal to be effective.  We can speak to God the same way that we would speak to anyone else.  That's because of Jesus!  He came down to close the huge gap between us and God.  Because of the work of Jesus Christ, we don’t have to set aside special time to talk to God—although setting aside special time is definitely a good thing and is something that I would recommend happen on some kind of regular basis.  But prayer can happen anywhere and anytime.  In fact, ideally, prayer should happen everywhere and all the time!

Being a conversation, we should remember that prayer is two-sided.  We don’t do all of the communicating (that’s a lecture, not a conversation).  We should be open to hearing God’s answers, while at the same time always remembering that because God isn’t human He doesn’t always answer in human ways.  Sometimes He answers in silence.  Sometimes He answers in the events of your life.  He’s very creative … after all, He did create everything!

Prayer - What are Your Thoughts?

Happy new year everyone!

I (Aimee) wanted to start 2011 by talking about prayer.  I hope that’s ok with you all.  It’s my plan to put up several posts about prayer.  I don’t know exactly how many… we’ll just play it by ear.

So, let’s start with a few questions:

What do you think about prayer?

Do you pray on a regular basis?

What kinds of things do you pray about?

Do you think that God is really listening?

Do you think that God really answers prayers?

If you had asked me those questions when I was in high school, or even early in college, I would have said:

What do you think about prayer?

“I think that prayer is a very useful tool when you’re in a difficult situation.  I find it very moving sometimes when we pray together at church.”

Do you pray on a regular basis?

“I pray before eating dinner almost every day.  And I pray when I need help with big problems.”

What kinds of things do you pray about?

“It all depends on what I need.”

Do you think that God is really listening?

“Yes.  Absolutely.  He’s listening.”

Do you think that God really answers prayers?

 “Yes.  He answers prayers.  He just doesn’t always answer them the way that we would expect.”

If you asked me those questions today, almost every single one of those answers would be different, except the last two:  Yes.  Absolutely.  He’s listening.  Yes.  He answers prayers.  He just doesn’t always answer them the way that we would expect.  My other answers would be different for the most part in that they’d be a lot longer and more involved.

I had such a simple idea about what prayer was when I was younger.  I didn’t question it.  I was taught to pray a certain way and at certain times and that’s what I did.  It wasn’t until I was in my early 20s that I started questioning my previous practices.  And it wasn’t until about 2 years ago that I really started studying what the Bible and what scholars had to say about prayer. 

Since then my perspective has changed so much.  I pray much more often now, not just over food and not just when I’m in distress.  And it’s made a world of difference!

For now, I want to encourage you to think about how you would answer those questions:

What do you think about prayer?

Do you pray on a regular basis?

What kinds of things do you pray about?

Do you think that God is really listening?

Do you think that God really answers prayers?

And if you’re inclined, I’d love it if you shared your answers.

And I’d like to encourage you to pray about it.  Turn to God and ask Him what He’d like to reveal to you about prayer.  There’s nothing wrong with praying about prayer.  There’s no rule that says you can’t.  And you don’t have to feel embarrassed because they only one who knows about it besides you is God, and He loves you.

Pray about it.  And I’ll get back to you with some more of my discoveries and thoughts soon.

The Best Presents

After a summer with no job, not working a full-time job now, school loans coming up due, and on and on and on, my (Aimee's) Christmas budget is tight.  Actually, tight is still putting it lightly.  It makes for a crushingly-tight Christmas budget.  I have 6 little ones to shop for this Christmas, and while their moms and dads will make sure that they get plenty for Christmas, their Auntie or Nina (depending on which child it is) wants to give them something special, too.  And then there's my brother and his wife and my mom and my grandma and ...

Oh yeah!  There's Jesus!

There really isn't any gift that I can give to Jesus that can ever compare with the gift that He gave us.  But I'll tell you one thing, having less money to spend on gifts makes the gifts that you do purchase more thoughtful and moves your whole Christmas focus from the presents to where it's supposed to be.

The focus belongs on Jesus.  It's not about the presents or the decorations—although those are fun!  The presents and the decorations are symbols to point us in the right direction.  When your focus is in the right place, then having less presents to open on Christmas morning doesn't mean that it will be a less special Christmas.  In fact, it gives my family the chance to make things a little bit more special by filling the time with conversations and songs and stories. 

The best gifts that we can give back to Jesus is to focus on Him and His love.  When we do that then we remember to love our neighbors.  We can donate food or presents to needy families or individuals.  We can teach our children that Christmas isn't about how much you get but about how much you can give.  After all, tomorrow morning there will be hundreds of thousands of families in America alone that will wake up and open tons of presents and then go on to eat a huge meal with their families.  Meanwhile, at the same time tomorrow morning, there will be thousands of families that will wake up and their children will have only one present each or maybe even no presents and they will be happy to have any kind of meal that evening, whether it's with family or not. 

We need to remember the blessings that we have and thank God for them.  We need to review what we have to give and then give generously to those who make it by everyday with little, so that they can have enough.  When this Christmas has passed, I pray that we can keep that generous spirit and continue to remember those who do without out the little luxuries or even simply do without, period.

That's the best gift that we can give to Jesus.  And since it's His birthday we're celebrating, He does deserve a special gift.


Merry Christmas everyone!  We can't wait to hear all about your special Christmas gifts that you were able to give away.

one of those days...

My (Sherann) life right now is in chaos.  And the only thing that I have on my mind is Tsunami.  Not an actual tsunami, but our Tsunami Student Conference.  Our preparations for this conference start in January and we keep going until the actual conference.  It's 9 days away and I feel a bit anxious and excited at the same time. 
We have an excellent line up this year, but more importantly, I expect God to do great things.  For the last two weeks, God has really convicted me of the same thing... He's reminded me that He is God and I am not.
There have been many times where I got discouraged about a certain project that didn't "make it" per se or no one is participating in a particular activity. Basically, I was complaining.  Then it just happened to be through conversations where God truly began to convict me and remind me that regardless of a project that didn't make the cut or even when my expectations were not met, God is still sitting on His throne.  He will take the sessions, projects, events, students, etc. and change the lives of students and student leaders that will be there.  He does not need me to accomplish His will.  He does not need my approval.  He does not work according to my agenda.  No.  That is not the the God who I worship.  The God of the Bible says that He is full of grace (hence, He uses sinners such as myself), He is love, He is the everlasting God, and He is God Almighty who will do His will as He sees fit.
And all I can do is... seek Him.

The Cross and Christmas

So my (Aimee's) Grandma walked up to me the other morning and asked me about the cross that hangs in our living room near the front door.  I had draped a red cloth on it (which we've done at Christmas time for many years) and she wanted to know why.  I explained that I did it because red is the color of Advent and that I thought it looked pretty.  She responded (I may not quote her exactly, but this is essentially what she said), "Yeah, but what does the cross have to do with Christmas anyway?"

She didn't really finish her thought beyond that.  At the time I was wondering if she was about to suggest that the cross be taken down during Advent.  I asked her if that was what she wanted, and before I really gave her a chance to answer, I told her that I would not take it down because the cross is very relevant to Christmas time!

Christmas is special.  There is no question of that.  But we have to remember that Christmas wouldn't matter if it weren't for Easter!

"The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."  John 1:14

Praise God that He loves us so much that He sent His Son to us!  The important part of all that, of course, isn't that He came, but why He came.

Jesus came to redeem us from our sins.  As one Christmas carol puts it, He was born to die.  Jesus came to earth and became a man so that He could die on a cross for our sins and so that God could raise Him from the dead so that we can have eternal life with Him in paradise!  If Easter hadn't happened, Christianity wouldn't have happened, because it would have meant that all of the bad things that people were saying about Jesus was true: that He wasn't sent from God and that He wasn't performing miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit, that He was a blasphemer, etc.  If there had been no Easter, if He had not died, and if God had not raised Him from the dead, it wouldn't matter that He came at all, because it all would have been a lie and His death would have been the end of it.  But praise God!  His death was not the end.  And because of that, we know that our deaths are not the end.  Hallelujah!

Christmas matters because of Easter!

We may not dwell on it.  And that's ok.  We tend to spend this time of year focusing on the joy of His arrival.  On the mystery of His birth.  And there is nothing wrong with that.  But somewhere in our minds, maybe in the back there, we need to remember that all of that joy and excitement and hope that came along with the birth of Jesus was actually all because of the reason that He came.

If you ever have trouble remembering, even somewhere in the back of your mind, then I suggest singing more that just the first verse of most major/popular Christmas carols.  The third verse of "Joy to the World" says:

          No more let sin and sorrow grow,
          Nor thorns infest the ground.
          He comes to make His blessings flow
          Far as the curse is found,
          Far as the curse is found,
          Far as, far as, the curse is found.

The third verse of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" says:
          Hail the heaven born Prince of Peace!
          Hail the Son of Righteousness!
          Light and life to all He brings,
          Risen with healing in His wings.
          Mild He lays His glory by,
          Born that man no more may die;
          Born to raise the sons of earth,
          Born to give them second birth.

The second verse of "What Child is This" says:
          Why lies He in such mean estate,
               where ox and ass are feeding?
          Good Christian, fear; for sinners here
               the silent Word is pleading.
          Nails, spear, shall pierce Him through,
               the cross be borne, for me for you.
          Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
               the Babe, the Son of Mary.

Need I continue?

Christmas is special.  Jesus Christ came down in the form of a little baby.  He took on flesh ... and He took on our sins.  We just need to make sure we don't forget that.  We don't forget why He came.  Afterall, that's the thing that makes Christmas, and that special gift we all recieved on that first Christmas, so special.