Music and Mission 24…the BIG read.

How the musicians gathered…

   The first year it felt like God’s hand placed the talent into motion. Two students from Upper Columbia Academy, two from Portland Adventist Academy, two from Walla Walla University and one from Redding, CA.

This year, most of the interest came from Walla Walla. Students that had been a part of the previous year had rallied some friends that they played with and created collective interest. The audition was a group event held in the Old Church on the Walla Walla campus. They played well enough and took direction, at least initially, and they seemed to get along well. Along with these came a young guitarist from Portland Adventist for a total of six.

   For staffing, I pondered bringing back the young lady from the previous year or going just myself with some driving help from the college students. I would drive the passenger bus and one of them would drive the Red Bus. I ended up inviting the previous leader back. A decision I’ll rethink for next year.

   Both WWU and PAA administration had agreed to provide a $1000 matching fund for the students. Inner Anvil Ministries intended to give a $1000 scholarship to each student. And the students were encouraged to raise a $1000…inviting friends, family and acquaintances to support this summers ministry excursion.

There are two big challenges in this process. The first is finding students with the right intention and attitude. The goal of the program is to give young musicians the experience of living an intentional life, advance their musical skills, learn to express their faith through music and create an opportunity for failing forward. We’ve hit a 50% success rate so far. The funding challenge is second because these ministries require a pretty big influx of support above and beyond what Inner Anvil needs on a monthly basis. Last year we had $35,000 committed by the time students had gathered. This year we had, maybe, $5,000. I seriously thought about cancelling the summer program. However, God had provided the students and I had this gut intuition that He was providing a faith opportunity…so I took it. The second part of the funding challenge is getting students to ask for support. So far, I’ve only had a couple engage the process. Most would just rather make less money or have family intercede. Still a work in progress.

Building the beast…

   The students arrive at my home, where most of them
stay, on a Sunday evening for dinner and direction.

Dreams and expectations are shared, room assignments are made, vehicles get moved to long term parking arrangements and the process begins.

   So much of this process comes out of the character driven school I ran for seven years. Students are given a broad swath of choices and helped in living through the outcomes. How this shows up initially is in meal set up. The students are given a food budget and are asked to build a menu for their weekly breakfast and lunch meals. They then do the shopping and list management and only things on the list can be purchased. This usually creates a little frustration and an opportunity for negotiations the first time they shop because they’re not used to living within their planned choices. And negotiating is the key. Life lived well is full of great negotiation.

So that first Monday I provided breakfast and lunch. The morning is broken up into two sections…Spirit and Physical. Spirit is private and communal time. The first half hour is reading and contemplating a passage and the last half hour is spent in sharing and dialogue. The third half hour is unique to this ministry…they have to create lyrics and music from what they’ve read. These components ebb and flow from day to day. The second part of the morning is Physical. Planet Fitness has a summer program for students and we take full advantage of that. Students up to 19 years of age get a free pass and for older students we purchase a Black Card membership which allows each member to bring a friend, daily. Since Planet Fitness is available every where we go in the Northwest, it is our workout, shower and get ready for the day place. We spend about an hour and a half a day at the gym.

   Then it’s time for lunch and for afternoon practice. The past two years Portland Adventist Academy has offered us practice space, for which we’ve been incredibly grateful. The process starts with students working on individual skill sets…music theory and solo performance. This first week is seeing where folks are at in an unvarnished state. No bells and whistles, just stand up and perform. There is usually a break around 5:30 where dinner is brought in and we take a break to eat. Then it’s back to rehearsal till at least 8. On the first Monday we headed off to Winco to fulfill our food lists. Day one is done and we are rolling.

   Three weeks of living with this level of intention

creates tension and incredible growth. It takes a lot of determination and resilience to stay focused and keep building on the day by day effort. After the first couple of days, what seemed hard becomes comfortable…and even though it’s not perfected, it seems doable. Week one is solo and duo performances. Week two expands into trio’s and working on harmony. Week three is adapting into full band performance and creating a secular and spiritual set of songs to be used throughout the Traveling Tour. These set’s of songs take all that we’ve learned so far…using solo, duo, trio and full band performances to create interesting hour to three hour performances. And often you don’t know how well you’ve done until you get in front of an audience. Their response tells you where you’ve nailed it and where you created disconnect.

On the road…

   The Traveling Tour starts and ends with a concert on my front lawn. We invite family, friends and acquaintances to come experience the fruit of three weeks of hard work. After we’ve gone on tour we come back and show the gains of another three weeks of work. The difference is amazing. The confidence and skill built during daily performances over such a short amount of time is remarkable. After our performance at my house we did final prepping for the road. Our first stop was Three Sisters Adventist School just outside of Bend. They have a fantastic gym/kitchen facility that they let us use. Having a place to sleep, rehearse and eat so close to our performances is really helpful. In Bend we played in several nursing homes, did three lunch concerts at The Center For Aging, did a two hour gig at the Tumalo Bite ( a food cart pod ) and closed with a great worship service at the Bend SDA church. The beginning of anything is a challenge, but it doesn’t take long before students start to build a system and find a rhythm of life that works for them.

   Next it was off to College Place where we stayed at the Walla Walla Valley Academy music center. Again, grateful for a place to roll out our sleeping bags, fix our food, rehearse…and Planet Fitness is just down the road. We weren’t there long but had enough time to play a local Sunday church, do a street gig outside of a local coffee shop, attend a jazz worship performance, play a few nursing homes and finish with a fun gig at The Smith Farm on the edge of Milton-Freewater. Greg Smith has been my friend since high school and his parents were mentors to me for the past 40 years. He has a job in town and runs a produce farm as a side gig with some friends. They have this beautiful back yard and usually 40-80 folks show up to sip a soft drink and chatter with friends while listening to the students serenade the countryside. It’s a great night.

   And then we were off to Boise to hang with my friend, Jill Cornforth. Fred Cornforth was my room mate in college. He passed away this last spring. Going to Boise was a way for me to honor our friendship, show gratitude for his support of my ministry and to check in on Jill who I have known since college as well. They have a lovely home just outside of Boise and we got there on Thursday with enough time to get Jill and the students acquainted, move in to sleeping quarters and prep for the evening concert.

   Jill has a heart for the underprivileged and has made deep connections in the Boise community as she tries to find ways to serve. One such connection was where we were playing Thursday evening. We parked the bus in the shadow of a freeway overpass, were allowed into a ” gated ” community and set up our gear. We were playing underneath a tarp awning in a courtyard where folks were being fed. We played for a couple hours and it was fun watching the visitors bob their heads in rhythm to some of the tunes and seeing the students reach out to connect with their houseless audience. The next evening we did a gig in the Cornforth back yard for 30-40 family and friends. It was a warm day. The lake shimmered in the back ground. The students did a great job starting with a secular 45 minutes and segueing into a 45 minute spiritual, enter the sabbath, closing. The next day we were off to church at Cloverdale, had lunch and then invited Jill to participate in a duo songwriting project which ended up being our entertainment for the evening.

   The next morning we are on the road by 6:30. We’re expected in Burlington, WA that evening and we have to stop in College Place to retrieve the Red Bus. The students loaded our gear onto the bus the night before, while I slept, so I was all bright eyed and bushy tailed while they got comfortable for some much deserved shut eye. It’s a beautiful drive through the mountains and before you know it the Red Bus was headed to Portland for some gear upgrades while the rest of us had a late breakfast at The Maple Counter. We pulled into Burlington that evening and got a chance to hang with our host, Aaron Mountain, while we got unloaded.

   Once again, Aaron and I go back to being room mates in college. We have common interests in making the world we live in a better place, just approaching it differently. He has built a connection with the underprivileged and has found a way to serve them by creating a shower trailer that he moves from location to location. Four restrooms, shower stalls and thousand of gallons of water get shuttled around Burlington and Mt. Vernon giving folks a chance to reset. And on the side, he drives school bus and makes fabulous pizza with his back yard pizza oven.

   I love serving in Aaron’s perspective cause it’s always a little further out than I would have thought to go. During our week we played for community centers, nursing homes, lunch/shower/music combo’s and a Wednesday evening prayer meeting out in the middle of a meadow in the middle of nowhere! And I can hardly wait to go back. We also did a worship service for the Rosario Biological Station and a church service for Anacortes SDA.

On a side note, while we spent three  weeks building an intentional life at the beginning of the summer, it’s very interesting watching the wheels come off the bus during the travel part of the tour. The need for showers kept us going to the gym but individual and corporate Spirit time seemed to get put into the category of ” if we have any extra time “. As for me, my prayer life stayed pretty constant but my time spent pausing my day for an upward moment definitely took a hit.

And that is the essence of life, right? That while we prepare with great diligence and intention, we won’t know if it works and is the right framing until we put it into real life practice.

   The last, full band, weekend was a bit crazy. For Saturday we needed to split our group. Four musicians packed up early and headed to Anacortes to present church while two musicians headed towards Hillsboro, OR to get there early enough to set up for a benefit concert that evening. The challenge was we weren’t sure the four doing church could get there in time so I sent two musicians who could perform for an hour just in case we didn’t make it. I thought it would be close:-)

   We did church and they did a great job! And then we headed south, eating along the way…focused, prepped and undistracted…only to find out that the other bus had only gotten there 45 minutes ahead of us. Oh well, sometimes the best of plans and intentions don’t create the outcome hoped for. We pitched in, served that community with our best and they were very grateful. I’d do it again. And then it was back to my house for a good night’s sleep and getting our last full gig prepped for and delivered.

   Once again, best laid plans flail at best. What was suppose to be a culminating group effort took a hard turn when we found out that one of our most accomplished vocalists was leaving before the gig. The ride he had arranged to get home didn’t want to stay for the concert. Unable to navigate or trust other options, he chose to leave. Now, on one hand, it was unfortunate. You always like to put your best foot forward, however, it was a great chance for those who had been working on their vocal skills to step up and show what they had learned. And they did!

   The concert went well. The audience loved it. Goodbyes were given and all of a sudden the band was cut in half. Three musicians had other commitments and three wanted to press on. This was a new part of the program and I was excited to see what would come of it.

The last hurrah…

   The first, post tour, week was built around a serious push towards advanced music theory and performance. I had arranged a one hour lesson for each musician, per day, that would require 3-5 hours of practice to be prepared for the lesson to be given the next day. We were doing a five day, stair climb towards higher musical excellence and the three guys did great. They went to class, practiced and then shared and taught each other what they had learned. It was fabulous!

Saturday they put on their last concert for the summer, with a little help from local musicians ( I sang harmony🙂 ) and then prepped for the unknown adventure that they had agreed to…a little something that might change their music lives for ever!

Sunday, at four a.m., we were loading the Buick Park Avenue with what we would need for the next four days. At 4:30 a.m. I was getting my Dutch Bro’s coffee on McLaughlin and turned our intentions south. We spent the day writing bad music, guessing what I had planned for them and getting some rest. We went through Medford, Redding, Sacramento…had a discussion on turnoffs to San Francisco and finally headed over the hill to LA. We wove our way down into Orange County and dropped our baggage at the Garden Grove SDA Church…thanks, Gene…and headed out for an evening snack down in Newport Beach. Everything was closing down but we found a great pizza place open and ate our fill. Still, unsure as to what was next, they went to bed full and willing to engage.

   Early, 8ish, we headed out to Riverside for our Planet Fitness time and then a couple of meetings with some professional musicians…Kurtis Lamberton and Jeff Olson. Kurtis has an incredible journey via automotive technology, drumming, photography and guitar pickup technology…and he went to the same school the college guys were going to. His time was full of rich insight about music and life. Jeff went to Adventist schools and became a professional drummer. His time was spent sharing the growth edge of musical professionalism. Such a great time with both of them. And then, off to Thousand Oaks to check into our hotel for a couple nights…and still, no one had any idea about the real reason we were here!

The Baked Potato is a world class jazz club that is open to all ages. It holds, maybe, 50 people and serves…you got it…baked potatoes. Here, the brightest and best musicians of LA and the world show up to play in an intimate environment and we were here to sit through two shows a night for two nights. The first night was a showcase for Fantasy Drum Camp where the drummers for bands such as Toto, Jewel, Moby, etc. participated with a full band to showcase their drumming skills. They were fantastic.

If you show up to a music venue like this and you share that you are staying for both shows, often you can get your pick of seats for the second show. So the second show for Fantasy Drum Camp found us on the front row, feet in the aisle that ran in front of the stage, with a close up view of all that was happening on stage. The second night was a jazz quartet…keys, standup bass, intimate drum set and acoustic guitar. Totally different from the night before. Intimate, with free flowing leads. Everyone getting their chance to shine without having to ask. Just a nod and then it was on. Fabulous.

   During Tuesday I had dropped two guys off at the Santa Monica Pier for an afternoon on the beach. The other student, who claimed to hate the beach, and I found our way to the movies. In the late afternoon we got a tour of The Musicians Institute, just in case anybody in our group wanted a different kind of musical education. We went to our second double header and then our time was up.

   Wednesday we headed north.

   Ten years ago, give or take a year or two, I had asked God for twenty years of significance…that the last years of my service life would have more impact than my first thirty. I didn’t really know what that would look like, however, these kind of endeavors that open the eyes of students to the pursuit of dreams in the real world feel like its on the right track. Relationships built through time spent in working through vision casting are a rare commodity these days. I seldom experienced it in my post adolescence, if at all, and I’ve found it is powerful tool in giving life energy to our spiritual engagement. And that is the point, I believe. When our Spirit life is integrated into our daily journey AND its dreams…it has a different impact on how we engage our lives. If God is in all things then all things should be available to God…and come to find out, He shows up.

Thanks to everyone who supports me via Inner Anvil Ministries…allowing me to have life influence, spiritually, in the lives of students past and present. I am blessed by your investment in who I am and the impact I try to have.

For those of you still reading, here are two essays written by students from this past summer experience. Enjoy.

First Perspective

   Whenever someone asks me how tour was I have trouble answering the question because tour was everything. It was so fun, so hard, exciting, and at times the last thing I would’ve chosen. I was surprised that I learned more about group dynamics, how I behave in a group, and what I need in a group more than what I learned about music. It was an experience that I’m so glad I seized as it showed me more of what I’m capable of––what my life could be. Although, I don’t think I’ve quite processed all that was this summer yet, maybe writing this will help.

   Throughout the first few weeks, I found myself settling into the rhythm and wanting to crack the code. I had this strong desire to be good. A lot of what motivates me to work hard is the desire to be seen as a good worker. So whenever I hear that I’m doing well I feel validated and know that I am on the right track. Interestingly enough, one of my takeaways from tour is that these affirmations won’t always be around and I need to be ok with that and know for myself that I am proud of the work I am doing.

   I learned that I need a strong sense of independence to function well. One of the hardest parts of the summer was not being able to be on my own schedule. Every decision had to be a group decision and that was quite exhausting for me. I was expecting it to feel a bit more autonomous and it might have if I hadn’t lived on my own for 2 years already, but it actually felt less autonomous than my normal life. It was an adjustment and a character building experience. The group communication honed my teamworking skillset as I navigated communicating with everyone in the band. I’m glad I know these things about myself as I step into my career. What I need in a group is very valuable information so that I can adjust to life in the workplace and take care of myself so that I can produce quality work. I also feel cemented in my belief that I want to work to live, not live to work. I highly value balance and working hard so that I can play hard.

   I learned that I don’t like music feeling like work. I love to sing, and I was so happy to sing all summer, but “play” was not how all of the band members approached the music we created and that made it less fun for me. I don’t believe music should be “cranked out” or produced as an obligation. I love music because it’s play, it’s creative, it’s open-ended and that is what makes it fun.

   Moving forward, I continue to use my time intentionally and am very aware of how many choices I make in a day that either grow me or keep me stagnant. I’ve enjoyed this awareness as I’ve spent rich days at home connecting with my life here. I’ve spent high quality time with friends and family and also the Kindergarten students I work with. I look forward to see how I grow in music, in finishing up my degree, in my career, and in my connections with the people dear to me. This summer was an experience I never thought I’d get.

Second Perspective

   I went into this summer with very low expectations, the vague hope of learning some things musically, and walking away with a couple thousand dollar assistance with tuition. But I now see that what Music and Mission 2024 ultimately provided for me, was a place to grow exponentially both as a musician, and a person.

When I arrived I was a complete stranger amongst five seemingly random people, who suddenly became core pieces of my life whether I liked it or not, and new sets of rules and structures and restrictions I was not previously acclimated to. However in the end I adapted to the lifestyle, and bonded with the strangers in ways I didn’t think that I would. These things forced me out of my comfort zone in a healthy way, and I walked away from it a better person

   Within day one I was suddenly presented with the challenge of singing in front of people, strangers. This was especially difficult as I had never sung before, and the circumstances of said singing was unconventional, and seemingly more difficult. However it seemed that everyone, even the experienced singers, seemed to be uncomfortable and struggling with this. So rather than feeling like an outcast whom everyone is watching taking their baby steps toward vocal confidence, it felt like we all sucked at singing together. And as we all continued to do this day after day, we got better together, and once we were doing “real” singing, it seemed much easier and less intimidating than before. Because of this mental stretching of my limits I can confidently say that I am better for it.

   I went into the summer thinking I was going to be focused on the guitar. However I was quite quickly put on the bass for the majority of the time. However I believe that this was a blessing as I had done minimal playing with a band in my musical career, and quite frankly suck at working with other people. So while I did learn some valuable music theory playing bass all day, it allowed me to sit back and focus more on playing as a band, than playing my un-mastered instrument.

   Traveling and playing music for people provided me with the unique opportunity to speak with countless complete strangers every day, which is not something I was previously good at or enjoyed doing. But as I have told many people, after talking to a hundred people you get tired of being socially awkward and just stop. I can now say that I am a much more confident person in many areas of my social life.

All in all I believe that I really grew more as a person than I did as a musician this summer. I was constantly outside of my comfort zone, failing and growing, that it felt strange at the times that it stopped. I have my regrets and my failures but ultimately I remain unfazed from those things and walk away with a clearer understanding of myself, other people, and music as a whole.