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Worship at the Bonfires

3 out of the 6 nights that we were at the camp, we had these huge bonfires. They would spend the whole day collecting huge pieces of wood and building the bonfire, and at around 10pm at night, they would light this huge bonfire! The first night we had the bon fire, withLove and I started to lead worship with some songs we knew in Romanian. I was having a blast singing and shaking my tambourine in a rhythmic jam, Jordan grooving away on the cajon for the whole mountain to hear, Stephen, Derek, and Larry (one of the translators) playing on their guitars, and Rachael singing her heart out. We became one big choir that night! To my surprise, Larry, who claims that he “used to” be a worship leader, started to sing other worship songs in Romanian, and the whole gang sang along! That first night, we got hip to all the Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman songs they knew and to some cool folk-sounding Gypsy worship songs that are popular in their town! They took so much pride and joy in those songs and we loved singing with them even though we didn’t know the words! The Spirit of the Lord was there, and we were all singing praises in different languages! What a beautiful sight! I was pleasantly surprised at how many American songs they knew in Romanian and the experience gave the band some more songs to sing in worship for the rest of the week (songs that they would know in their language!). So here I am dancing around the fire like Kanye West trying to chorale the group and sing the whole time while catching their attention with my awesome tambourine skills! As one church, we clapped, we sang, and had an amazing bonding time in an atmosphere of worship and fun! The fire was so big and hot! We had to sit like 10 ft away from it so we wouldn’t get burned. But of course, crazy me was dancing like 5 ft away from it, every now and again getting hit by a flaming ember! But it was worth the dancing fun!

Pork Fat, Smores, and Toilets

The 2^nd night, we did the same thing, but there were added treats: Smores. We were so excited to have a taste of back home! Unfortunately, since the fire was so big and hot, only a few dared to get close enough and stand the heat long enough to get that perfectly melted smore. I was dancing around eating my smore, I noticed this older gentlemen that had this hunk of white glob and an onion on a stick. I asked Naomi (one of our translators) what is was, and she said it’s pork fat. I was like “what?!”, who eats straight up pork fat?! But apparently Romanians do around a nice campfire. They heat the pork fat up to a nice slimy drip and soft enough to slice small chunks off with a knife. Then you take a piece of onion and place it on a bread with the pork fat chunk, and bottoms up! I guess that’s the Romanian version of the American smore! Stephen, Rachael, and I tried it. I thought it was pretty good, I had 2 servings. Stephen didn’t think much of it. And Rachael seemed to have found the next best meal of her life! She kept eating one chunk of pork fat after another. All I remember were 2 things from that night:

1. The toilet the whole next day that Waddy and I endured and we vowed to never do that to our bodies again.
2. Rachael going to Hateg, the local town, to get her own glob of pork fat for the next bon fire!

It was still an experience to never forget to say the least!

The 3^rd night of the bonfire, it was nearing the end of our stay at Bradatel. It had just been raining for a brief time in the evening, and Pastor Danni decided to move forward the bonfire. Rachael was ready and excited to light up her pork fat. We had the bon fire going for about 20 minutes and then it started to POUR DOWN RAIN and we all had to scramble back to our rooms. Rachael was the most bummed, because she couldn’t have her pork fat, and decided to give it to one of the older men to eat. I was thinking, the Lord just saved Rachael’s stomach from having to process that craziness and who knows what else….

Worship 101

In the middle of our stay at the camp, withLove and I taught a music workshop to about 50 youth. I kicked it off with a basic 101 on what praise and worship is, what a worship leader’s role is, why worship leaders are important to the church, and so on. I also talked about how there are 3 main barriers that block a lot of people from true worship, which is fear, pride, and confusion. Derek chimed in some his golden nuggets of worship wisdom and then I began to talk about song writing.

Song-Writing Workshop

My heart for them is that they would write songs from their own hearts that reflect their culture, story, and sound instead of singing every Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman song known to man. They would often complain to me that they would rather sing American songs in English because everyone translates the American songs differently and when they sing together, it’s one confusing dysfunctional mess. So it gave me all the more reason for them to write their own songs in their own native tongue where there’s one translation! I talked to them about the basic parts of a song like the verse, chorus, and bridge and the purpose behind each part. I talked to them about the creative process and how everyone’s process is different and encouraged them to keep writing bad songs until they write their great songs! It takes writing a lot of bad songs before you write your good one!

Naomi, one of our sweet translators, wrote a beautiful song that was close to her heart called “Free” and wanted us to put music to it. So we used her song as a demonstration to show what song-writing feels and looks like. After I found the basic chord progression of her song, Waddy (electric guitar), Derek (acoustic guitar), and Jordan (drums) added their spin to the song and it became this great song within 15 minutes right before everyone’s eyes! Even though it was a very simple process for us, their eyes were lit up with amazement and excitement about creating music. When we finished Naomi’s song, they erupted into a roar of applause.

Music Workshop

Then, we let the youth come up on stage to practice playing together as a band. Since they all knew “Here I Am To Worship” by heart, we had them play and sing the chorus over and over again as we switched out singers and musicians throughout the segment. They were so excited to play each instrument and get behind the mic as they played and sang their hearts out with a big smile. As soon as everyone got a good feel for their parts, they started to sync and sound together as one beautiful sound. As they started to sound pretty good, their eyes and ears lit up with excitement as they noticed! It’s beautiful to see how music inspires and excites these young aspiring musicians to love God even deeper through this magical experience. And my heart is that it would inspire them to take what they’ve learned and to keep growing to be skillful musicians to their heart’s desire. And what’s even more beautiful is that they use their gifts to not make it about them, but to make it completely about others discovering God on a deeper level!

Reflection

Music really is a powerful tool to connect with people even when there is a language and cultural gap. And my hope is that our music would inspire people to discover God in the power of His love as young worshippers. That withLove would have a hand in inspiring a generation of truly passionate worshippers that would worship the Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). And worship leaders that would take the time to disciple each other to be great men and women of God accountable to one another in enriching relationships and leading each other into deeper worship with God (Hebrews 10:23-25, Colossians 3:16). This is the withLove vision coming alive before our very eyes and it’s a blessing that we get to do it at an international level. The vision has already been written (see the vision here) and it came from above and now God is doing amazing things through withLove step by step, and I’m blessed to be a part of this amazing journey!

So the main purpose of this 1 week camp was to train many churches from the young charismatic to the older conservative denominations in Discipleship and Evangelism. And then to go out to the local towns and share the gospel applying what they learned. Danni and Chippi, the leaders of this effort (Check out “Multicultural Worship” to hear more about them) also wanted revival to take place in their hearts as a fire under their belly to share the gospel. And they sought to do that effectively through music and great examples of servant-leaders, which was mainly why withLove was brought to the table.

Evangelism Xplosion

Some of the training was taught by Danni and other well-experienced veteran Romanian pastors. And most was taught via video tutorials from the Australian ministry called Evangelism Xplosion. They would spend 3-4 hours at a time in the main sessions watching clips of these zealous Australian teachers and Danni, Chippi, and other pastors would facilitate smaller groups to discuss the lesson. There was a lot of good information that the band was able to learn through our translators. One thing I really remembered were our “spheres of influence”. We all have our network of people through different avenues of life whether it’s at work, home, school, church, the gym, etc. Those places are called your “spheres”. You encounter certain people in those places that you may not encounter in others. And those people have their relationship with you in those “spheres” that allow you an opportunity to speak to them about Christ – hence your “sphere of influence”. And if you drew this out on paper, you begin to see large networks in family-tree like fashion being created because every person that you encounter in your sphere of influence has their own spheres of influence to share the Gospel in. And this begins a snowballing domino effect where if you reach 1 person for Christ, there is potential opportunity to reach 20 others through direct and indirect connections that 1 person has! So what’s the point? Sometimes it takes 1 person to come to Christ in order for a whole generation to know Christ! How your seeds multiply in the harvest in later seasons…. the possibilities are endless! Where there are failures, there are successes and you can never stop trying to reconcile people back to God’s love!

Dwight and the Super Translators!

But the training was definitely a lot of information over long periods of time and I’m not going to lie, it was hard to keep up with, even for the translators. They worked so hard and consistently to translate everything that was going on for us! Dwight and his team of translators did such an amazing job being our liaison to the Romanian leaders and congregation. They put in a lot of work translating our songs, including our original songs, for each set! But it was fun for all of us to lead worship in 2 different languages. It’s definitely a unique multicultural experience!

To the Streets!

On the 5^th day of camp, we went to a local small town called “Hateg” (Pronounced “Hot-Seg” – we liked to call it “Hashtag” lol) to share the gospel. This truly was a small town because we were able to walk the whole city in about 1 hour! They had a beautiful park in the middle of the city with a this beautiful fountain in the middle of the park. It was right in front of this grocery store and looked like the main hang out for a lot of gypsies. The strategy for evangelizing was via this simple questionnaire that the students used to start a conversation. It basically quantified the quality of life without Christ and the quality of life possibly with Christ. For example, “How satisfied are you with your life from 1 to 10, 10 being the best?” or “How important is having a spiritual life to you on a scale from 1-10?”. In about 8 more similarly derived questions, it led to a conversation into the “unknown”. The “unknown” meaning, the space that was created in conversation (through the questionnaire) and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide your conversation to wherever he may lead you, whether that is in prayer, encouragement, or salvation. We were able to debrief afterwards back at the camp and found out that out of the 115 people that went out to evangelize, 5-6 people came to Christ with many more considering going to the local church to find out more. And that was worth all the more to keep trying!

Concert in Hateg!

On the 6^th day of camp, withLove played an outdoor concert at the park in Hateg. This concert consisted of old and original upbeat, LOUD songs (finally); testimonies from the young adult Romanian Leaders, from Rachael, and myself (with our translators of course). This was capped off with Danni sharing a beautiful 5-minute presentation of the Gospel. The concert was so much fun! This was a cool Friday afternoon, the speakers were up, the amps were turned up, and the tents gave us shade from the sun! We were ready to play! As you heard the lovely sounds of splashing water in the nearby fountain, David was playing his double-edged sword of the key bass on one keyboard and main keys on the other, Jordan was playing as loud as he wanted on the drums in the large patch of grass, Waddy was shredding his guitar through this giant amp, and Derek and Rachael were foot-stomping, guitar jamming, and tambourine shakin’ the evening away! Our original songs “After Your Heart” and “Worth It All” were a big hit with the crowd as people all over the park were dancing and singing with us! We were hitting on all 12 cylinders that night, all in the name of Jesus! It’s a great feeling when people can have fun and dance to your own original music! People came to Christ and many others were prayed with by the end of the night! In the excitement of everything, everyone was taking pictures with us and shaking our hands, and then helped us break down the set and pack it into our 2 vans. We rode off in the sunset back to the mountains where our camp was. We left just in awe of the work that God was doing in that community. Souls and hearts were definitely stirred that night!

Reflection

Although it was a lot of intense teaching, all I can say about all this evangelism and discipleship training is that I have never seen anything like this in the states where multiple churches from multiple denominations come together to learn and train together; and then immediately GO OUT into the community to apply what they learned in the same week to reach souls for Christ! That is unheard of and yet it’s so beautiful! We have a lot to learn from what the church is doing overseas! Unity is lacking in the church, and for a country like Romania, where the church is redeeming itself in comparison to the rest of the world, they are starting on the right foot by reaching people for Christ together! My heart is the same as the Romanians with The Love Sessions where we can all worship together no matter who you are or what church you’re. It’s a beautiful and powerful thing that as 1 UNITED church, WE can bring people to Christ as one outreaching arm rather than in our own divided glory.

John 17:22,23 saids “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Unity is what God has given us as our symbol of LOVE to the world – that even as imperfect and as different as we are in doctrine, race, or preference of worship, it’s because of His love that we can harmoniously come together under one name, JESUS. And that alone is a huge testament to God’s glory and love to the rest of the world!

I wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to leading worship in an entirely different culture and context. We came prepared with 5 popular songs in Romanian which were: “Here I am To Worship”, “How Great is Our God”, “I Love You Lord”, “Oceans”, “Nothing but the Blood”. Here we are, an alternative ROCK band brought to lead worship in a conservative context where most are used to boy choirs and pipe organs. Dwight must have seen something in us to have asked a rock band to come out Romania to lead worship through music. They are 25 years out of communism and are just getting hip to Chris Tomlin. That means that people 25 years and younger are just getting hip to new contemporary Christian music outside there hymnals. So throw out the gospel music, the shredding guitar lines, and the bumping bass, we had to throw ourselves back about 10 years in the song books to when Michael W. Smith, Matt Redman, and Chris Tomlin were the headliners!

Danni and Chippi

To put things into context, withLove was working with 2 relatively young church leaders named “Danni” and “Chippi”. Danni was recently ordained as an evangelism pastor for a new church plant in Timisoara which is part of a big church in the area call the “The Vox” or “The Voice”. Chippi is Danni’s disciple who he has been discipling for years. Danni has been doing ministry for 20 years and has an incredible life story of how he came to Christ and doing the work he is doing today. (His story will come up in a later blog, so stay tuned!) Let’s just say that he came to know Christ while being a part of the Communist revolution….

So Danni and Chippi have a huge heart and vision of revival and evangelism in Romania and have mainly been doing that through youth rallies throughout the years. For the first time, they gathered about 10-12 different churches with their prominent and rising church leaders from all over Romania at Bradatel to receive evangelism and discipleship training and then apply what they’ve learned by strategically sharing the gospel in local cities. These churches ranged from young charismatic denominations to older conservative denominations varying from different styles of worship on both extremes. A majority of this crowd were young ranging from 16-25 years old. And 25% of them were older. So as a band that has to lead worship with all these denominations in 1 room, you can begin to see the challenge that was before us…

Worship in little steps….

We get to Bratadel on a Friday evening and spent the rest of the evening tirelessly setting up the sound system in the cafeteria. We’re jet lagged and little flustered because we kept flipping the fuse box switches because of the power of the sound system we were setting up. We had to pray over the fuse box to let us have the power we need for the sound system. And sure enough, we did! The local church gave us some great sound equipment that was suited for an outside concert of about 750 people if we wanted! So when we got this equipment we initially assumed, let’s rock out!

We were scheduled to lead morning and evening worship sets for the next 7 days. So when Saturday morning came, we started with a simple song to sing called “Fill Me Up” by Jesus Culture….. Talk about a tough crowd. You could see excitement in some people’s faces just because we were an American band, but many were not feeling our music because they said it was “too loud, too repetitive, and too free”. Free? They called our worship “Free Worship” because we didn’t sing from a hymnal or have any structure to our music on a project screen or paper – which they are not used to and made them uncomfortable. So in response, we turned down the volume of the sound system. When evening worship happened, we sang our songs in Romanian and they were highly impressed that we sang songs in their language! They began to warm up to us more. But it was still too loud. So we turned it down some more. This happened over and over again until the volume of the sound system was as close to 0 dB as possible.

The Conversation

Danni began to worry that the “loudness” of our music would turn off the conservative churches and ruin his reputation as a new pastor. Personally, he loved our music and said that he would love to have us play at his church playing as loud as we want, but for this context, he has been carefully playing a fine balancing game between appeasing the conservative and charismatic church. My response? I said, “withLove is here to serve you and work with you as 1 team. Our only agenda is to help propel your ministry to the next level and not slow you down! We want to honor how you do ministry in your country! This is about Jesus and reaching souls for His kingdom. Let’s embrace this challenge together!” From there on, there was a feeling of unity, despite our cultural and language barriers, and were able to move forward with a mutual understanding of the challenge that lied before us!

Chipping at the Ol’ Ice Block

By the 2^nd morning worship set, we decided not to shock everyone with our “loud” music and do an acoustic set. Piano, acoustic guitar, cajon, and a quieter bass. This worked out well with the crowd as the older folk decided to not run out the cafeteria. As the band and I were sitting in our rooms between sets strategizing and praying over our worship sets, I painted this picture of chipping away at this ice block that has something special from God in the middle. Each time we’re on that stage, we’re chipping away at their ice block of life circumstances, their questions about God, and about themselves – and warming them up to be free to worship Christ with a renewed sense of faith, hope, and love! In this context, the first night was an introduction to withLove. We welcomed them to be comfortable in worship as we loved on them, but at the same time challenged them to step out their comfort zones to go to the next level with Christ as they worship! And so the second night, they were more comfortable with our sound and style of worship and we challenged them to begin to surrender to God and to indicate that by standing up and raising their hands! And so many did, from young to old! Again, Danni, Chippi, and many other church leaders were surprised to see this happening!

The 3^rd Night….

The third night, the chains fell off. I challenged anyone that was willing to step out of their comfort zones and step into the next level, that they would symbolically come to the front and worship with us! And practically the whole crowd packed the front of the stage! They were singing their hearts out to “Here I Am To Worship”, raising their hands in surrender in tearful joy, and some were even bowing down on their knees to God. On other songs we did, they were dancing in circles and clapping their hands, it was a beautiful rare sight! Dwight and many other church leaders were in tears of the revival that was taking place. There was a realization that no matter the music, or the method, that this camp was about bringing people closer to Christ and that’s when we worshipped as 1 church.

After witnessing the “free worship” that his Romanian counterparts were now capable of, Danni decided to move worship in the evening to the end of the session to allow more time for “free worship” and to allow the old heads that absolutely don’t like the music to leave and go back to their rooms! Like I said, we were chipping at the ol’ ice block and after 3 nights out of the 7, God opened up hearts and minds to His love through our music and message! This continued for the rest of the camp!

Reflection

It’s amazing to see people worship the same God we worship in their own culture, language, and style! It paints the beauty of who God is and what He sees in all of us as His own sons and daughters. The most translated words in any language are “Hello”, “How are You?”, “Thank You”, and “I Love You”. And when you can create an environment and atmosphere of worship with those gestures in mind, especially in a multicultural context, it allows a platform for people to want to step up and draw closer to Christ with a renewed, faith, hope, and love. 

“To be a diverse group that creates music that REVEALS the truth of who Jesus Is by reflecting God’s love world-wide”

That is our vision and mission. And this was a glimpse of what withLove did at this camp. Revealing the truth of Christ in our lives through His perfect love….