back in the USA

I LOVE coming to America!!! It’s such a wonderful place. I love the hunger of people everywhere I go to meet with God and spend time in His presence - and I love the opportunity that we all have after that, to take His presence into the streets, into our work places, to our friends, to people just ‘out there’ who haven’t met Him yet. Being a disciple is the most exhilarating life I can imagine!!!

We (Paul Baloche, Brian Doerksen, the band and I) are on the road again for our second ‘Deeper’ tour. I so loved the last tour in October - and am excited to see what will happen this time around too.

At the moment we are in Cleveland OH at Cuyahoga Valley Church. We’re doing a two day conference here with a worship concert tomorrow night - it’s already sold out, but you might be able to squeeze in if you come along :)

On Thursday we’re making our way to Pittsburgh for another worship concert. If you live near there and you’d like to come, we would so love to see you there. It’ll be at South Hills Bible Chapel in McMurray PA.

Friday night we’ll be in Eastern Hills Wesleyan church in Buffalo, NY. Saturday in Boston, MA at Grace Chapel. And then Monday and Tuesday next week we’ll be doing the conference again at Wave Church Virginia Beach, VA.

If you are hungry for God, ready to spend some time just soaking again in His presence, then these concerts are something you would really enjoy!! If you are part of a worship team and would love to get your guys along to something that will help encourage them along the way - both with practical teaching and really wonderful times of worship, then you would love the conferences.

There is still time :) You can check it out at integritylive.com

Would love to see you there!!

K

church has left the building!!

We had an amazing night last night at church! We’re currently running a ‘Church has left the building’ conference in our place. It’s something we’ve done a couple of times now, letting people come and learn how to do the ‘healing on the streets’ model of praying for people in their town centers, or wherever the Lord has opened up for them to go. At the moment there are over 600 churches in 21 nations who have been trained by Mark Marx (on staff with us here), or at our conferences - and everywhere the Lord is doing the most incredible healings!!!! More than ever we are sure that there is no ‘harder place’ than anywhere else. God is at work in the world!!!

This conference is especially wonderful because Chad and Julia Dedmon are with us from CA. These guys just have a fire in their bellies. They are convinced that God is as powerful as He says He is, and that He is Lord of the whole world. They will pray for anyone with any condition in any situation, and because of that they have seen such incredible outpourings of the Holy Spirit - both in encounters with God, and in healing for people who are just out and about doing their ordinary thing with no real thought for God at that moment. I LOVE that!!! It absolutely stirs you up again to hang out with people like this - you come away encouraged and excited to be salt and light - naturally supernatural.

I so love that we don’t have to get weird, we just have to be available. It’s the willingness to ask the Lord to come and do what only He can do - and then get a front row seat as He does ‘heaven numbers’ on people :) I’m up for that!!! In fact, I’m desperately hungry for that.... Let your Kingdom come Lord!!!!!!

p.s. If you are interested in hearing more about ‘Healing on the Streets’, or if you’d like to read some of the stories of what God is doing in Northern Ireland and in other parts of the UK, you can check out out-there.org

Does God want to heal?

Church was wonderful this morning. Alan was teaching about healing - emotional, physical, spiritual - everywhere that we need healed. He spoke about the questions around it - saying that he has a whole lot of 'I don't knows' when it comes to this subject, but that he wants to get to the end of his days on earth and be able to say he wasn't afraid to ask God to heal. I love that!

He made a great point - does God want to heal? In Luke 4 it says that Jesus was sent by the Father to 'bind up the broken hearted, bring sight to the blind, release those in prison from their chains'. And when you look at what Jesus' life - that's exactly what he set about doing. Because Jesus is the same today as He was then, we can trust that not only does God want to heal, He's ready to do it right now.... even though there are times that when we pray nothing happens.

Sometimes it's less risky, even for the health of our own faith, to step away from the call to at least ask. Sometimes it's easier not to engage with the God who heals because of the risk of disappointment when He doesn't. Sometimes it's easier to not ask for any answers rather than run the risk of having to deal with bigger questions. But what if there's more of the 'now' of the Kingdom for us than we thought before? What if in the midst of unanswered prayers for healing, some get the breakthrough their lives depended on? I don't want to miss it for those who will be healed, because I was too afraid to deal with the fact that some don't get healed... even though I don't understand the dynamics behind it all.

It's not a very comfortable road. It's a road I'm committed to walking though for the rest of my life. I have to be a 'Kingdom carrier' even if it doesn't always work out the way I longed for because the truth is, there are many times when the Kingdom does come in the most glorious & miraculous ways. When it comes to praying for people to healed I'd rather be willing to 'mess up' than 'miss out'... so I'm going to keep trying; I'm going to keep asking. "Let your Kingdom come Father - on earth as it is in Heaven!!"

going home

Wow! I can hardly believe that I get to go home today!!

We have had a great time together on this tour! The presence of the Lord has been so thick as we’ve led worship together, and watched ‘heaven touch the room’ during beautifully intimate moments in songs like ‘Holy God’, ‘Glorious’, and ‘I Belong’. I feel so privileged to get to do this with my friends - and so see songs that we’ve written doing what they written for. Every time I write a song it’s done with the express purpose of helping someone else connect the dots between their heart and the Father’s. Nothing touches me deeper than seeing that happen right there in the room as we sing the song. Amazing!! I’m never going to get tired of that!

The tour was also a lot of fun in the sleeping dept :) The tour bus was an amazing bus - but it’s still a bus, and it moves! Sleeping in a bed that moves is definitely an art form, and one that I’m not well versed in yet. We did three nights in a row - and I think we were all pretty wiped by the time we stepped off that part of the tour. Hotels are definitely my preferred option ;)

We do however get to do this all again next month!! (including the bus.... gulp). I don’t know if you live anywhere near Cleveland OH, but if you do, maybe you would like to book in for the next Deeper conference. I just think you would love every minute of it, and there’s still time to register. You can check out the details at Integritylive.com

We’ll also be doing concerts in Boston, Buffalo and Pittsburg while we make our way down to Virginia Beach for another worship conference. I’d so encourage you to make it along if you can. There is something really unique about having three people leading worship together, who are seasoned writers and leaders, and also great friends. It really has been something else in those meetings - I’d hate for you to miss it :)

Love,

K

p.s. thank you SO much to all of you who have written to me, or spoken to me at conferences or concerts. Your encouragement, and the way you’ve told me the stories of how the Lord has met with you has refreshed me to the core! Thank you for sharing your journey with me. I’m so grateful!!!

Hungry: some photos from the tour

Hungry: some photos from the tour

some photos from the tour

I just put up some photos from the first part of the tour. I'll keep posting more as we travel. If you'd like to have a look, just click the link... K

on the road again

we are already having a LOT of fun together!!! I can still hardly believe that I get to do what I do with such great friends. Don't you love that life is meant to lived in community? God knew what He was doing when He set up the local church... even with the difficulties that sometimes come with it, it's the most wonderful way to work out our stuff, and become more like Jesus.

This tour got started in Indian Rocks near Tampa on Monday night. I got in at 12.30am the night before after a 23 hour journey from home. Really did get a good sleep that night though, and when you're working through the day it helps sort out your rhythm jet lag wise - so I haven't suffered too badly.

Today, we've made our way to Ocala, and we have a tour bus!!! I have never done the tour bus thing before - I'll let you know how I sleep over the next few nights :) But, I'm feeling optimistic that it'll be alright.

We get to stay in a hotel tonight - I'm in the room right now, and it's really nice. I just wish Al could be here too!! We do a concert here tonight, then get a full day off tomorrow, and hit the road at 1am tomorrow night for the long drive to Augusta in Georgia. I'm so excited to see places I've never been before, and I love getting to meet new people too!!

I'll try and write some more in a few days time to let you know the state of play.... and I'll post more pics.

Love,

K

what's in a word

I've been thinking about writing something on this for a little while now.

Our tongue is such a powerful thing. The words we choose, and the way we say them are so important!!

As worshippers - whether leaders, teachers, lovers of Jesus - we spend our lives giving our all to Him. We've become good at making sure our actions match our hearts, and yet sometimes we've forgotten that how we use our tongue is a massive part of the same offering.

I just wanted to use this moment to get us thinking again about how we speak. Do we use it to bless and spur on? Do we use it to lift up and encourage. Do the words we choose to use reflect the honor and respect with which we treasure Jesus, or have we slipped into a way of talking that reflects only the culture empty of Him?

As James so beautifully put it in chapter 3 of his letter 'With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!
My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it?'

Sometimes the 'trend' can be to talk like everyone else - to choose words that are crass or crude, to use the Lord's name as a throw away comment, when in actual fact He is everything to us. Sometimes we've just slipped into it because we really haven't thought about what we're doing. But it honors God when we allow the challenge to come, and we have a look again - almost like getting our car serviced - making sure that things are 'running' as they should.

I know you'll be the same as me in this - that I want what I offer in worship on a Sunday morning to be as fresh water, and I long for the way I talk and think and act to be exactly the same the rest of the time too...

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this too