Our church has no paid staff, and while I think that's a good thing, there are definitely some drawbacks.
When you are part of a church that has no official or salaried positions, it's all on you to make things happen. No one is going to do this for you. As a result, not as much is "done." It just takes a lot of initiative to do things that are out of the box.
But every once-in-a-while, someone takes such initiative, and it almost always ends up being something awesome.
Enter Amy.
Amy decided that we (our church that meets in homes) should have a Shaun Groves concert.
Oh, and Amy also decided it should be in my house.
Yes, I had a choice. But how could I say no when someone else is taking all the intiative to make this happen? Amy knew that Amanda and I were trapped.
Enter Shaun Groves.
I did not know much about Shaun. I knew Amy liked him, and I had heard a couple of his songs through a teaching that Amy did a while ago (see above about "initiative").
To keep this post reasonably short, let me just say: I was touched and impressed.
Shaun came with his friend Micah, and the two blessed us immensely. More than 50 people came, including my mother (which was such a blessing). We had a potluck dinner at 6 and the concert began before 8. We moved our piano into our "family room," and I had my guitar set up just in case Shaun wanted to play it.
From children to adults, I was in a room of people enthralled by his music and his heart. He talked about each song, and I could tell this is a man who has a real relationship with Jesus and who writes songs from that relationship. He shared about his personal journey with God, and the songs just seemed to flow out of those stories.
Shaun now works for Compassion. When he talked about the poor, he wasn't preaching. He was once again sharing his story. And he talked about the poor with an authentic grace and honor that was humbling. I think it was Shaun's story that led families in our church to sponsor 8 children that night.
We sponsored a little boy from India (shout out to the homeland!). Amanda and I gathered together with our three children and selected him together. His name is Sanjay and he lives just south of New Delhi, where my dad was born.
Most of the songs Shaun played came from Third World Symphony, his latest album. I've been listening to the CD since then, and I love it. I'm now wondering who will be the next musician to rock my living room. Shaun does say that his advocacy for the poor leads to comparisons to Bono...