Friday, August 31, 2007

Sabah Trip

TjAs a full-time worship ‘minister’, it doesn’t take too much before certain things begin to feel a little dry. Suddenly trying to stir people’s hearts in the presence of the Lord becomes something it should never be; nothing more than a duty, a responsibility that you bear the burden to carry. Even as you get more skilled at playing the songs, or more accustomed to building the environment with your instrument, there is still a stark difference that shows and comes through when you’re not there yourself for God, not tuned in to worship yourself. It’s something that can’t be explained.

Our first concert in Sabah went pretty well by technical standards, hardly any mistakes, the flow went down smoothly, a ‘performance’ by any means in which you’d expect a roaring uplifting of great enthusiasm from the congregation. However, sadly the reality was they didn’t sound much more than polite claps, it didn’t look as if they were ministered to very much if at all. There was something missing that night; it was the tangibility of the Holy Spirit. If there was one thing I learnt this trip, it’s the most important component to any worship service. Too many times we over emphasize the importance of skill, playing the right notes at the right time, and while nevertheless important, we forget the most important part, the part that makes the biggest difference; the Holy Spirit.You could visibly see the difference in environment when it came to our second concert. This time we took the time to prepare our hearts, internally and externally, to make it a point to worship him ourselves, and repented for not doing so in the concerts we did not. Most important of all, we humbled ourselves, that despite all we’ve been through, we still needed God to do anything at all.

To be frank, the 2nd concert wasn’t that much different in how well we played. However, it was how we worshipped, and how we brought worship. The congregation went crazy, they lifted their hands, some bowed, some cried. The difference? It wasn’t us, it was presence of God.It teaches me that you can’t depend on yourself to make a difference in worship.

Make a prayer to God when you minister, we need Him.TJ1am

Kuching Trip

Kuching Trip

It was a journey home for me, back to a familiar territory…my comfort zone, the land I left not too long ago before God challenged me to walk on waters. This time around I didn’t head home for what would normally be a leisure trip for me; it was more of an assignment...the kind that caused us all to settle for nothing less than being totally Sold Out to His call. Secularly, it felt like a Home Coming Concert for me…in my dreams…

Cuzario

The few days spent in the land we call the Cat City has evidently helped me, or us all as a band, unearth some of the needs the locals are desperately seeking help in. For most, they know very well it is about time for them to escalate their worship to greater heights but there is just no clear direction on how to get there. Some are just hampered by the absence of a visionary in their midst. The whole picture is like wanting to drive a car forward but can’t keep your eyes off the rear view mirror.

From our own workshops I personally discovered the importance of being able to gel with people of different generations especially when the only language you and the other person could converse in is music. For the young punks, they’d grumble about the elders for not being able to fulfill their demanding musical needs. On the other hand, the seniors can always be heard nagging about how intricate the music of today’s shocking generation has evolved. More than often, this is one of the main and obvious reasons we seldom see a mixture of age groups being put together to serve in the same band. Imagine the blend of flattering sounds produced should the best of these two worlds are being put together!!!

Another significant moment worth freezing from this trip is when I took the band for a simple dinner with my clan…to the historic spot where I was ejected from my mum’s womb. Though the food was traditionally exceptional (and it was fun witnessing Neil confessed to enjoying something his taste bud has been rejecting) but it was truly the chance for the band members to speak into some of my relatives’ lives that caught my attention.

On one end, Neil was seen paying undivided attention to every word my uncle spat out while Kelvin was caught mingling and exchanging thoughts with my dad. On the other end I saw PC was engaging in a deep conversation with my other uncle who once was a faithful servant in the house of God until the storm in his life struck causing him to not wanting to be associated with church at all. I have no clue what PC said or how God used her that evening but two weeks after that short talk with her, that very same uncle of mine finally found his way back to the church he left more than 10 years ago! I was just so amazed at how God could timely use a deliberate person to defrost a frozen heart!

Overall…convinced with our growing strength and passion, in the course of this trip I’ve seen God helped us unlock doors which were right in front of us (or was it only me?!) but never saw. No details can be confirmed yet but definitely something hot is in the pipeline for the very near future. Somehow we are all so inspired to do greater things as were sinking into 2008!!! Slowly but surely are we gonna be stepping really hard on our spiritual accelerator pedal as we are gearing to yet another exciting new year. That I can be very sure of…

Do what we do best

Do what we do best

NeilBangkok Jazz experience was just cool. It was a good night for the band as it helped us increase our confidence in the things that we do for God. It was also totally awesome. Why? Coz God was present.

After a night of worship concert on Saturday and an opening service of our sister church (ECF Damansara), I can tell you that the band was already tired. Daniel the most since he had to help out with the videos for the opening service and play for Sunday service in the morning.

When we got there, I could hear music from outside, songs being played by other bands. There were about 18 bands all together I believe, and 1a.m. were the second to the last band to perform. The bands present were not bad. Some had skills, some really surprised us with their skills like there was this really young band and man they ROCK! I’m in my early 20’s and I’ve got areas to improve in music but they look like they’re just 15 so imagine with me on how they would be when they reach my age?

Well, as our turn to play drew near, I was in a position that I really needed God. Personally, I was nervous, how would the people react? Will they boo us off stage? Joke about us? You have to understand that we are playing our original songs from our next album and man the songs clearly speaks of our creator, our savior, our God right on the dot. This ain’t switchfoot.

I went back in to listen to the other bands for a while, did my normal stuff to observe how the sound was and just when I was doing that, Doris, one of our church members who came along to support the band came to me and praise the team that we’ll do great but the thing that caught my attention was when she said that “ Do what you guys do best”.

When she said that, I asked myself the same question “What do we really do best? And in a few seconds the answer to that was “Worship”. With that, I found comfort. We may not have the best musicians or vocalist in the world but it is worship that we do best. A responsibility that we as a worship ministry do is bring down God’s presence and man we wanted Gods presence to be there. Guess what? The presence of God was there in fact HE was there watching His kids play. Front row, front seat.

Just before our turn came to play, I gathered the team and reminded them about what we do best. I reminded them to worship God with the talents God had given us and not be distracted by how good other bands were. Our goal was to bring down the presence of God in Bangkok Jazz and there he was.

God was so good were just before our turn came, the band before us were singing praises to the Lord. We were shock coz we thought we were the only Christian band there. Hearing them sing that, I could tell that set the tone for us 1a.m. Personally my spirit man worship and praised God when that song was playing and was ready to do what I’m called to do at that moment, at that time and place. A moment prepared by our God for us as a team.

So here we were. On stage, sound check done and ready to worship in front of different people, cultures and religion. We struck the first chord of the first song (Pour Out) and when the music came out of our instruments, I felt that Spirit of God just explode in that room. (It was like a grenade that exploded).The respond was quiet receiving that they enjoyed it. We ended with our second song and the rest is in the history books of heaven. We came out with a very positive respond that after our “so called GIG” people approached us and said a lot of overwhelming comments. Glory to God! The team gathered together with the people who came to support us outside Bangkok Jazz and prayed to God giving Him the Glory.

I am excited for what the future brings for this ministry, step by step God has opened doors and I tell you, it’s always challenging than the previous which only makes us stronger and better ministers of God.

We did the show to represent the God that loves us by doing what we do best which is “Worship”. People may have not understood what we did but we planted a seed. And in faith, just like a seed, God would cause it to grow and at the end of the day God’s people will reap a harvest.

Worship!

August 07 Onwards

Wow...

A lot of things has been happening and this section hasn't been updated. Sorry for the delayed updates in a lot of things. Will try to update everything as fast as I can.

Heres whats been happening (in short) and what to expect :-

1) The band has toured around East Malaysia, Kuching and Saba. Did a couple of concerts in Kuala Lumpur. The most recent one is @ EFC,PJ. We're gathering up testimonies from the team to be posted up here in the blog soon. Bangkok Jazz testimony will be up as soon as I'm done with this.

2) Win an IPOD promo is out. 80 Gb guys so who knows, if GOd is willing, YOU might get it. Plus loads of other cool prizes to be won like Ipod Nano's, etc,etc...

3) Indieheaven Momentum Award 08 is up so Vote for 1a.m. Oh by the way, the song "Always in your heart" is up so go to FanFaves and vote the song to climb up the charts. www. indieheaven.com

4) 1a.m is in the process of releasing its 3rd album. This will be different as the youth will be taking over. An EP album is planned to be released early next year before the main album so stay tune. Previews, V-blogs will be up in a few weeks so be excited ;)

5) 1a.m future tour dates 08 will be up soon. Please email us early if your local church or some event (regardless of whatever nation) wants to invite us .We will need to plan and arrange dates so that it doesn't clash with what our local church(ECF) is up to.

Thats it for now,so keep logging in.

SOLD OUT

Neil1am