We arrive at the Tralf Music Hall for the local Battle of the Bands and personally I can hardly contain myself at this point. This is a place every musician dreams of playing at, and now I know why. Once you step into the place you feel different because you know many a great musician has played here, and you are reminded of that fact by all the photos along the walls as you walk in. They say it is the best room in Buffalo to play in, and I have to say it was definitely the best sounding room I have ever played in. As a musician I am awe struck by this opportunity to play here, but as a Christian I am here for a completely different reason. When we were asked to play here I don't think they knew we were a Christian band and I didn't offer up that information either. Not because I was ashamed, but because I wanted to have a chance to play music at a venue outside of our Christian walls. We are called to be fishers of men, yet it is as if we are fishing at our local church which is like a pond instead of the oceans of the world. We are to go out into the world and catch the fish, and maybe that is why we are not seeing that many people getting saved anymore. The pond is empty and it is time for us to replenish our ponds with fresh fish! I say all this to mobilize the church and to get us out into the world. We are the salt and the light of this world. What good is the light if you don't share your light with someone that is in darkness? To him it has no value at all, and serves him in no usable way. It is not until you share your light and give him light to his path that he is grateful for it. I have for many years hesitated to share my faith with people in fear that they will reject me or worse I would strengthen their resolve in their minds that there is no God. This idea is truly from the devil and is only to put fear in us so that we will be silent when the Holy Spirit calls us to speak out to the lost. Let us all repent and move forward now with boldness and with our heads held up high knowing we serve the ruler of the universe.

Lately at our church we have been talking about how the atmosphere is changed when we play music and the impact it can have in the room and also our city. I wanted to put this atmosphere to the test in an environment that was hostel towards it. I knew that we were going to inject the presence of Heaven into the air and I wanted to be ready for it. I was extremely enthused to have an audience made up of non Christians that would be more or less forced to listen to the gospel through music for 30 minutes. I was hoping more fellow Christians were there to help bring in the fish once we cast the nets out and were ready to bring people to an encounter with Christ, but even so God was faithful. It was a truly difficult test with the atmosphere that was created before us. Six bands played before we prepared to play, and the air was full of youthful rage and life's misfortunes. With every band that played I was told by the powers controlling the room," You don't belong here, this is not the place for your band." I began to think that a crowd of punk rockers and metal bands might not like the style or the message we were about to bring. I put that out of my mind and rested in the thought that even if they did not like us, they would have to listen to us for 30 minutes, and we had no intentions of winning the Battle of the Bands any way. Once we got on stage I said to myself,"it was too late to walk away now." The first song we played was called Lay My Burden Down, and my dear friends, from the very first note the entire room's mood changed. What once was loud music and vulgar language now spoke of repentance and faithfulness. An audience, made up of mostly the bands that came out, was now watching intently on a band that sounded nothing like them, but after the first song I knew we had their attention. There is something to be said about playing skillfully to The Lord, and I could feel the energy in the air because of it. Now the last song we planned on doing was called Faithful To Me. It is an original song and near the end of the song the band does a breakdown and Mel leads the audience to help her sing the song. We really had no idea if anyone was going to sing with us or not, but we stepped out in faith and lead the club in a joint chorus of "faithful, faithful, You're faithful to me." Mel sang it and then we had the audience sing it, and then we had everyone sing it together. Now from the stage I could see a few people's mouths moving and singing, or at least mumbling it under their breath. It was not easy to hear them, but a few of our friends said they could hear others in the crowd singing with them. To me, that is a victory!  Such an amazing moment to be able to speak faithfulness and grace into their lives, and have them declare it back to us. Once we were all done and we were all back stage packing up our gear, a funny thing happened. Other bands were coming up to us and telling us how much they enjoyed our songs! We were able to talk to some of them, and give a few of them our CD we had. I was able to pray with someone outside that needed some money. I gave him some money and the comfort of knowing God would help him get back home. I was able to give a CD to someone who had once gone to a Christian school, but was now in the army. He like the guitar I had and I let him play it outside as I had already packed it up in my car. If it wasn't for this person asking about the guitar and me offering to let him play it. I would never have gone outside and let him play it, which is what lead me to be able to meet the man whom I prayed for and gave some money too. God truly orders our steps. There were so many great things that came out of that night I am not able to put them all down in this blog, and it is already going longer than anticipated. All I can say is be faithful and be willing to leave your comfort zone to reach the lost. Some times God leads them to you and some times you have to go out and find them yourself.