Great news! Registration is open for the first Village Gathering in Corvallis, OR this April. If you go, expect it to be one of the highlights of your year.
Learn more about Village Gatherings.
Register for the Corvallis gathering.
Visit the Corvallis OR gathering Facebook group.
If you’ve been to worship@8500, maybe you could leave a comment (here or on the Facebook group) to share your perspective on what these gatherings are all about!
Now that 2011 is over, I’m thinking about our effort to give 10,000 CDs away to ministers, missionaries, and Christian workers by 2012. We didn’t come anywhere close to hitting our goal. The best we can tell, we got to about 12%.
I’m really pleased with that for a couple of reasons.
1. You chose to give well over a thousand free downloads of our music away to people you really care about. One of the best parts was seeing the notes of encouragement you sent to one another alongside the downloads and to hear about the encouragement you draw from the music. That makes Laurie and I feel honored and humbled, so glad to be a part of what God is doing in the world through you and your people.
2. We set a goal that was too big for ourselves. We dreamed something that we couldn’t do without God and without you. I think that is very important. So rather than calling it quits, we’re stepping it up.
Giving Even Recklessly-er in 2012
For a long time we’ve enjoyed having suggested donations (not fixed prices) for CDs at our live events. We love being free to give and free to receive.
In that same spirit we’re embracing a self-determined pricing model for all our albums online, with the goal of getting the music God’s given us into more ears. And hearts, through the ears.
Now on our music page you can choose to pay zero for downloads (and join our email list), or if you want to sow something back into our ministry we’ll receive it gratefully and put it to good work.
I can think of three good responses to this.
1. Think of someone you care about and take a minute share one of our albums with them.
2. Post a favorite song with a quip about why you like it on your social network.
3. Do nothing because you are so zen.
If you like options 1 or 2, there’s a button on our music page that makes it really easy to email or post a link. Click this image and observe. In Facebook it even creates a little audio player, not just a link. Slick.
Thanks for being a part of what we do, and more importantly, what God is doing. We hope this empowers your generosity even further. Have fun sharing!
Visit the music page.
Once again, along with Chris and the pleasant people at Everyday Joe’s coffeehouse in Fort Collins, CO, we present a little something nice. Click here and scroll down to the oceanic photo and click on it after reading some words from Chris. You’ll get a free digital album from us and some other fabulous artists, free for your enjoyment all year long. Unlike some presents, you don’t have to keep the fact that you’re re-gifting it on the DL–send the link for download as far and wide as the Christmas spirit inspires you to, and make a donation to Everyday Joe’s if you value good coffee as highly as we do.
If you’re like me, you’re starting to feel the pressure to get your last gifts checked off that list. Like the one for your wife. Actually, I already got it, Laurie. No peeking.
We added all three of our CDs for a merry price to the merchandise page (http:www.theblackthornproject.com/merch) as a little Christmas gift idea for those of you who are looking to share some kingdom-oriented worship sounds with that special someone. Or with that someone whom you want to be that special someone.
Gift messages and festive packaging are available, in case you are a terrible gift-wrapper (like me) and would like to leave that work to someone else.
There are also some nice posters and my book Back to Basics.
“I’ll say it again,” proclaimed Doug. “God has called us to be rulers, not reactors. For example,” he went on, “if someone comes up and does something that you don’t like, your first notion would usually be to pop the guy in the lip. Now, if you take that thought captive and know that it is not a good one to have and it is not the character of Christ, then you can say, ‘Brother, I just bless you.’ That is learning how to rule in a situation.”
“Now, you may actually say any number of things to the guy,” said Tim, taking up the imaginary scenario, “depending on how the Lord leads you, but what we’re talking about here is a ‘being in the drivers’ seat’ that is befitting sons of God. A sense that you can remain centered in who you are, no matter what the world throws at you.
“A lot of people have never been told that it’s good for them to control their own thoughts and emotions. They imagine exercising that control would lead to an unnatural, robotic life of total suppression, but being a ruler and not a reactor is actually a very creative life. Jesus said that if someone hits you on the cheek to turn the other cheek to them as well. Well, that just turns the whole situation on its head. A strike on the cheek is meant to get a certain reaction, but you don’t just give the world what it’s used to getting when you’re a son of God. You become a ruler over the basic principles of the world. As we read in Galations, ‘You are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.’”
Ben chimed in, “That must be what Paul’s frame of mind was when he said in Colossians 2:20, ‘Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules?’”
For eight days I’m posting excerpts from each of the eight chapters in Back to Basics: Eight Foundations for Kingdom Living, the book I co-authored with Doug Roberts and Ben Pasley.
Each day I’m also going to give one 50% refund on the price of the book to the first person to gift a copy of Back to Basics to a friend from our merchandise page at http://www.theblackthornproject.com/merch.
Tim and Laurie Thornton are creatives and ministers who proclaim the kingdom of God through music, writing, speaking, and relationships. Show up and say hello in person at one of their appearances below. 
