Tonight I was scouring my external hard drive for music projects I had created in Sony ACID and Cubase, and I happened upon an absolute gem.
It wasn’t an audio track that I created, but rather someone had recorded a message I spoke to the youth group at Lakeside Church in Newport News, VA on April 28, 2005. It was entitled “Who Cares?” and it was about spreading the love of Jesus to a lost and hurting world — and more importantly, each other.
I listened to the entire thing, all 39 minutes of it, and my mind wandered to the point two years ago when my faith was at the highest point it had been during my entire profession of Christianity. I was an assistant youth leader at Lakeside under John & Barbara Stevens’ leadership, and our youth/college group was 50 strong.
I was only 20 at the time, I had not met anyone from Springfield (much less even been here), and I had received word the week prior that I was slated to deploy to Iraq that October. It’s amazing how two years has changed things.
Listening to the message I shared that night, it was amazing to see how easily the points I wished to communicate found their way to everyone there. I remember the altar call and seeing nearly everyone step out, pair with someone and pray with each other. It was probably one of the only instances I can remember of when I really allowed the Lord to teach me as I shared His Word with others.
I feel compelled to share the audio clip with each one of you, my readers. If you can spare 40 minutes, or if you’ll be dinking around or working on your computer, click the play button below and let it play in the background.
It restored my faith to a good portion just to hear this clip and remember what I had allowed God to do in me. If He did it before, He can most certainly do it again, even after all I’ve been through after this audio was recorded.
The audio is a bit overblown in many portions, the file is 46 MB and 40 minutes long, but I think there’s some tidbits in there you’ll enjoy, if not the whole thing. Plus, you get to sorta get a feel as to what my teaching style is, and how I interact with a decent-sized crowd.
[audio:http://www.chris-brewer.com/showreel/04-28-05_youth-service.mp3]
That was good!
I only made it through a bit but I will listen to the rest in a couple hours.