Today

Today was a good day. I got to be reminded of some of the reasons I was here this year. Got to hear words that remind me to be confident I was here for a reason and you were supporting me for a reason. God worked through me and others felt the impact. I saw a few tears and heard about others. There is a lot I am leaving behind here and I'll probably add my own tears to the pool as soon as I have time to slow down and digest the last few days and the past year. There is also a lot to return to if God calls me back in this direction after a time.

Just wanted to share the joy of seeing God's work and use of His tools and vessels. It's a great thing to be a part of.

Saying Goodbye

Every goodbye here in Ukaine gets a bit harder. Leaving here is not easy. I feel a lot of emotional stress and pressure to get things ready in order to leave. Also, I am up against some strong personal and relational challenges right now. Please pray for me.

Thanks,

Josh

The News

I am moving back to the US on April 18th! It has been quite a process to come to this decision. To summarize in one paragraph I would say God spent some time stripping me of things I thought were relevant towards a decision to stay in Ukraine but in fact were distractions. There were emotions, fears, comfort zones, and assumptions about remaining tied to ministry I have been a part of. I feel God is calling me to go the place I had become a bit afraid to go: Nashville. I was worried it was the easy out, for one. And worried about the "unknown" of returning to Nashville and finding God's calling there. I had a pretty good idea what His calling would be if it was in Ukraine and what my life here would have looked like for the next year. I have developed roots here in Ukraine and they will be hard to give up. But I believe God is calling me to put down roots in Nashville in a way I never did before.

The main thing is that I cannot return to the life I used to have in Nashville. Well, on some levels it will look the same. But I really need to incorporate the lessons God has taught me and experiences He has brought me through during my year in Ukraine. I think God will lead me, if I am willing, to new ministry to be involved in. I recognized this year how satisfying it was to be a part of a team that was doing something great for the kingdom of God. I learned to hold less back from God and this greatly increased my understanding of being satisfied in Him. Seeing two of my brothers working in churches in the US helped me understand that what I experienced this year is not limited to Ukraine. Ukraine was certainly God's kickstarting point for me. But He has shown me that what is most important is to go where He leads and to take an attitude of being open to what He says to do, letting go of the "I won't like doing that" idea that has often been on my mind. He is freeing me.

To all of you who supported me, thank you! This year has been irreplaceable in my life. Even though I am moving back to the States, maybe forever, I have absolutely no doubt that Ukraine is where He wanted me this year. He used your support in the lives of students, worship teams, and friends. And He used it in my life in the areas of trusting Him, learning first-hand that His ways are the ones that satisfy, and teaching me to be willing to expand the circumference of opportunities and situations I will give a "yes, God" response to. And lastly, He has been teaching me a lot recently about pride, having an accurate view of myself, acting out of love, and the need to rely on Christ's love and redemption.

God knew what He was doing with me this year. That only keeps becoming more clear, and I imagine it will become even clearer as more of life passes and He continues to guide me, teach me, rebuke me, and be faithful to me.

So thank you to all my friends for your support of all kinds. I will be back with you soon!

I'm Coming Home For A Visit!

Itinerary:

4:09 PM Thursday, March 22 - Arrival in Nashville
 - lots of time with friends, maybe a birthday celebration on the 30th :)

12:15 AM Saturday, March 31 - Greyhound departure to Dayton, OH
 - two days with my brothers Caleb and Joel who attend Cedarville University
 - visit the church where Caleb serves at worship leader

9:25 PM Monday, April 2 - Arrival in Manchester, NH
 - time with New England family and friends
 - possibly a visit to the church where my brother Jake is a youth pastor

12:22 PM Thursday, April 12 - Depart Manchester en route to Ukraine.
 - return in time for Ukrainian Orthodox Easter (April 15)

All along the journey - much prayer about the future

I very much hope to see anyone who has the time to catch up with me. If you have a tight schedule, please let me know what might work for you. I need you guys. This has been a great year in Ukraine but a very difficult one. Things right now are at the hardest point and amidst what's going on I need a lot of prayer and support to understand and be ready to tackle God's plan for the future.

I appreciate you all and I am looking forward to being with you soon!

Josh

Videos of Worship Team

Since I have been speaking about the college/young adult ministry's worship team, now seems a good time to share some videos of worship services. Our usual meetings are Saturday evenings in the basement of the church. We do not have video of those, but we do have video from some Wednesday night services where this team led worship for the main church.

NOTE: For those of you reading this in an e-mail, please click "Josh In Ukraine" at the top of the e-mail to transfer you to my blog page where these videos will be viewable.

Acoustic Worship From January



Points of Interest:

• 6:00 - Music starts
• 22:00 - One of my favorites (“Center” by Charlie Hall)
• 59:00 - Band plays song between first and second block of sermon
• 1:38:00 - Last block of worship starts with another of my favorites (“None But Jesus” by Hillsong)

Worship From Last Spring



I am not sure why the fast forward/rewind feature is disabled on the embedded version of this video. But if you go to the original here you will have the benefit of that feature.

Things Are Happening!

God may be leading me to one of my callings for my second year here! The situation that I asked for prayer for is developing in a good way with a lot of unity from the leadership team. I could use some prayers to make sure I am supposed to step up and participate in the future in some ways that have been proposed to me. I see a lot of wisdom coming into play in how the leadership is planning to address this situation and provide healthy structure and flow of authority in the team for the future.

Please keep praying that this will be an opportunity for one of our servants to not push herself away but to grow inward instead. The plan that is forming has this as one of its very strong goals and I highly respect the ideas and desires our leadership is putting forward. The follow-through will be challenging, but please pray that the individual who stands to gain or lose the most from this will allow God to work and show His love and consideration for her.

Immediate Prayer Request

Guys, there is a situation happening right now that really needs prayer. I will try to explain it in a short version and a long version. Take your pick, but please pray :)

The Short Version

Please pray for spiritual guidance for our leadership team and for myself as we come together to figure out the best way to approach a delicate situation on our young adult worship team. God's work is being inhibited by one individual's tight grip on her reigns of power and inflexibility to accept some changes that are needed in order to foster a spirit of worship and the ability of this team to lead worship. This situation is on the point of eruption. Because it has been so delicate, it has been avoided at all cost in the past. But a few members of the leadership are really struggling under the reality that one individual is allowed to retain an unhealthy role which does not encourage worship but rather stands in the way of it. As a whole, the leadership team discussed this issue in our meeting on Tuesday and now something has come up that steps up the urgency even further.

The Longer Version

There is a situation on the young adult worship team where the woman who has the most authority is making some poor choices in her leadership decisions, ones that do not reflect an understanding of our primary goal being to lead worship or an understanding of how to create an environment in which to encourage the most from the musicians. This situation has been years in the making. But as she has felt threatened by the presence and experience of a few new people who have been involved in worship this year, things have possibly gotten even worse.

This is the woman who's place I helped fill while she was gone a few months at the beginning of my time here. This leader, unfortunately, wants to lead everything except worship because she is uncomfortable leading spiritually. Rehearsals have gone steadily downhill since her re-involvement in the fall. The band is fighting to maintain a sense of their true desire to worship and lead worship for others. Individual members of the team do truly have that as their primary desire. I have spoken to her privately and also made suggestions in front of the entire team in order to help us take steps to have an environment where we are free to worship rather than distracted by stress. Lately she has been making us do too much new material (two new songs per week in some cases) and she makes changes to the songs that are very abstract and make remembering them more difficult. She is unwilling to see that her ways of running things are not encouraging a healthy atmosphere and are not positive for worship. But my suggestions are met with the response, "Am I the leader, or are you the leader?"

There are a lot of things that come into play in all of this on a spiritual and personal level. She has done the church a great service and is a steadfast and dedicated servant. She stepped up a few years ago in a time when nobody else did. She has great qualities as a leader if she is willing to understand that part of that role involves taking all assets of the team and making something truly great out of them by combining ideas and experience that can compliment and add to her own.

I have talked about things recently with the leadership of the young adult ministry and two of the three are completely on the same page. They see the same things and have seen them even before the time that I arrived. It would have been nice to have the luxury of some more time for us to all come to a better understanding of how to approach this and to all be completely of the same vision.

However, this person really played her power hand this evening by putting three new songs on the setlist. We will not have our usual Thursday evening rehearsal this week, but rather only rehearse on Saturday before the service. I have great respect for our musicians and what they are able to do, but I recognize when too much is too much. These are not professional musicians and they have busy lives. I can also put myself in their shoes and remember what it feels like to struggle to wrap my mind around too much new material and have it ready to "perform." And approaching new songs this way does turn it into a performance. The musicians have to try very hard to focus on what they are doing, not in the sense of worship but simply just to get through the music.

I have addressed these issues personally with this woman over the last few weeks, but she has stepped things up a notch rather than cooling off and accepting reality and remembering the pinnacle goal of the team. Since the ultimate cost of these desicions is worship, the very thing we are supposed to be doing, I sent her an e-mail in response to the setlist. I readdressed the issues I have spoken with her on in the past and asked her if she is willing to try some new things and to view leadership as a responsibility to "benefit from your own experience and from other people's experience and put it all together for something really great and very powerful."

This situation needs prayer. There are many of us involved and we need wisdom. We need to know what God is saying for right now and what maybe needs to wait. He knows how He wants to work, and we don't until He tells us or guides us with the right words to say at the right time. That's what we need at this point.

This individual also needs your prayer. She needs to know she is being held tightly in God's arms at every moment and that He loves her. To understand that this love does not call for fear or protection of oneself but rather enables open eyes and a responsive heart.

I hope to be able to meet with this person tomorrow to discuss things that have been coming up. I guess I will find out tomorrow whether or not that is a possibility for her. That conversation is another specific aspect to keep in prayer.

Thanks for helping. God can really use this situation for His glory. He can do great things and I know that He finds great pleasure in seeing them through.