So, our MO/MI “tour” was a blast. Thanks to Christen Cole, Carson Murphy, and Jon Rogers!!! We couldn’t have asked for better musicians or better company. We headed out on Friday afternoon and ended up in Cape Girardeau, MO in time to sound check. And were welcomed again (like last year) into the lovely home of “Grammy” who provided us with more delectable delights than we could handle. Thank you Grammy! Christen and I had some awesome prayer time on the ride to MO, and we were shocked to find out that the theme of the youth rally at Rock of Cape was “Breaking Free.” And every person who spoke touched on something that we had prayed about. Christen’s quote of the weekend was “Ha! I guess we are all listening to the same God.” 🙂 We hated to leave Christen in MO to lead worship on her own on Sunday, but we had to hit the road to get to MI.
We spent the night in Illinois and then drove in to Grand Haven. The weather was warm…but not as hot as it had been. And though storms were rolling all around us, they passed right over with barely a drop of rain. The people at Worship on the Waterfront were EXCELLENT! They were so kind and made sure we were totally taken care of. A big THANK YOU goes out to all the crew who make this event happen. We hope and pray it is keep going to years to come…65 and counting huh? It was a great venue and a great time of worship. We were also excited to get to see some of our Michigan family – Pete, Kim, Kaity, Uncle John, and a bunch of Jon’s peeps. Loved meeting all of you!
Little Tree Worship opened up for us. Sloan the lead singer is from South Africa..Joburg to be exact…so we had fun talking about our time in Cape Town. Keep an eye out for them.
I’m still praying for you lovely folks that asked for prayer after the show. May the Lord continue to show himself to you in tangible ways! Feel free to email me with updates. 🙂
After we packed up and stayed to watch the “Musical Fountain” (which is a must if you are in Grand Haven at 10pm in the summer)…we went for a stroll on the beach of Lake Michigan. It was so beautiful to have our feet in the sand watching the moon reflect off the water. I couldn’t have asked for a better ending to the day.
For now, we are buckling down getting ready for school to start and doing mostly worship stuff around home. But hopefully we will be out and about again soon! Take care!
Thursday night at The Listening Room was fun. It was jokingly was given the name “The Matt Stefanick Show” because Matt played electric for 3 out of the 4 acts. We were surrounded by people we love and just had a great time catching up with some old friends.
Saturday we played City Fest in Spring Hill, TN. It was an awesome crowd from all over the city. Matt and I did an acoustic set – well, as acoustic as Matt ever gets 🙂 And we debuted a new song called “Magnificent.” We’ve been putting the finishing touches on several new songs lately, which is super exciting. Hopefully we will be able to get some rough recordings up soon!
Ok, so I know it has been a while since the 12th and Porter show with Christen Cole, but a gig report is still in order. It was a great night! So, as Matt mentioned on facebook, it was completely random. When we showed up to load in, the stage we were supposed to play on was completely covered in gear and we weren’t able to even bring in our stuff until 7:00 (when our set was supposed to be starting). Why? Well, because it just so happened that The Jane Dear Girls were doing a live showcase on CMT in the other room. All the fancy equipment on our stage was there to facilitate the live broadcast. Anyway, it really didn’t bother us to start late. I hadn’t even plugged in my guitar when I took the stage to start the evening. We sound checked as we were playing the first song, and rocked on from there. Matt and I threw in a new tune called “All I Want Is You.” So be listening for it. You’ll have the chance to hear it (and maybe some more new ones) if you come to The French Quarter or to 12th and Porter in a couple weeks. (Just check our dates page .) After we finished up our set, we were ushered into the green room for an interview with Amped Up Magazine. They are an online magazine that tries to keep people up-to-date with what is happening in the Nashville music scene.
We did the interview while Alex Maddox played her set and then we took the stage again backing Christen Cole. It was a fun set as always. Matt was on electric, BGVs provided by yours truly and percussion brought to you by the ever talented Lee Holland. Once Christen finished up, Adam Wheatly closed out the evening. I left 12th and Porter energetic and excited, which doesn’t usually happen after doing a show in Nashville 🙂 And they asked us back, so we’ll get to do it all over again on March 8th. So thanks to all who came out, we hope to see you again soon!
Last night we had the honor of leading worship at Awaken My House in Cookeville, TN. We met in the little 2 story church building on the corner of 4th and Peachtree. It used to be called New Covenant and it was the church Matt and I attended in college. It was like coming full circle. We were asked by Rachel Jared to lead this month’s gathering. God has given this young lady a vision for a multi-cultural, multi-generational, multi-denominational time of worship, and though she has not yet graduated high school, she is following through with the vision. It’s pretty inspiring if you ask me. Anyway, the funny thing is that Rachel remembers us doing music at New Covenant back when she was just 5 or 6 years old. I about choked when she said she was 5 or 6. It just reminds me of how long it has been since we lived in our college town. But I tell you, it was beautiful! There is nothing like being in a room full of people who really want to BE WITH God! Having the children gathered in the front all bundles of joy while we sang “Happy Day” and “Shabach”, and then the group of young women who danced just made my heart swell. It brought back all the wonderful memories of when I first learned to worship in that very room. And now, here I am, 10 years later, married with three kids of my own who were dancing and worshiping with us. It was beautiful. Afterwards I “met” several of the kids I used to teach in Friday School (homeschool arts program). I was amazed that I totally recognized their faces though they have matured so much. I taught music and drama for several semesters there, and some of them are now teachers at Friday School. So many people have learned about God and how to listen to him in the little white building on the corner of 4th and Peachtree (now called Peachtree Learning Center). Shoni Smith (director of Friday school) spoke at the beginning of the evening about heritage and how it is what we come from that shapes who we are…and it is true…so true.
So, we were the last band to perform at City Fest this year. But don’t worry…it will be back next year starting in May 2011. It is a great way for the community to come together and get to know each other. The kids had a ton of fun. I think we had more “dancers” this show than we ever have. I love to see the kids running around enjoying the music. It just makes me smile. I can see why Jesus said “let the little children come to me.” Anyway, it was great having Jon Rogers join us on drums again. Brian Shind was on bass this time. He laid down the track on Fingertips for Body Soul & Truth, but he hasn’t played with us for a live show since we were in college. We opened up with Let Go and Stay Who You Are and in the middle of Rain Down….right as the song builds at the end….the power failed. The sound guys worked their magic and were able to get things going about 10 minutes later, so we finished the set with Jesus Song, Wake Up and Dream and Fingertips. And just before we ended with Fingertips, there was this amazing sunset behind us….just what the whole first verse of the song describes. Just take a look at the pic. Thanks to Amanda Hagler/Shutterbelle Photography for the pics. ~Aimee
Well, it was another great Sunday at Southview. Pastor Mark Rampulla and his wife are about to have their forth child any day now…and so this Sunday, he got to sit out in the congregation and try to “relax” a little. It was a nice Sunday for us to lead because Jimmy Leitsch was on bass and Derek Brooks was on keys…so it was like the old days 🙂 Joy and Sulu sang with us, Andy played sax, and Gary was on drums and did an excellent job.
During pre-service prayer Andy told us to feel free to move where the Spirit lead…and well…that was awesome. It’s one of the things I love most about worshiping at Southview. These people desire the Lord, the want whatever God wants. They foster an atmosphere of freedom and acceptance. Anyway, 5 minutes before we were supposed to start I felt like God was saying to do “We Lift You Up.” We hadn’t practiced the song…and no one had ever heard it before because it is one of our originals. Well, I shouldn’t say “no one” because Derek and Jimmy have played it with us many a time…but the rest of the band and the congregation had no clue. I asked Lynn to pray for me before the service started and she had no idea that I had been contemplating doing “We Lift You Up” but as she prayed, she said she sensed God just wanting us to lift him up. I wouldn’t have thought much of it normally, but she kept repeating the phrase “lift you up.” So I took that as confirmation to do our song. We opened with it and the band and singers jumped right in. Thanks guys! Then we went on with the set as planned and did Our God (tomlin), You Never Let Go (Redman), Hosanna (Fraser), Be Thou My Vision and Hallelujah. There was a beautiful time at the end where Joy lead us in repeating the Hallelujah Our God Reigns chorus while asking us to envision ourselves singing this to Our King in His throne room in Heaven. We lingered there for a while and it was lovely! I pray I can keep that focus this week.
It was great to see a bunch of you at the block party today. The weather was the loveliest middle TN has seen in months, so it was actually fun to have a huge cookout outdoors with hundreds of people. As always it was great playing with Christen Cole. Thanks to Jon Rogers and Craig Woelber for keeping the beat for us. For those of you who didn’t get to come, the special “surprise” guest that played after us was DAVE BARNES. I couldn’t believe it when we first found out. About 10 years ago, we shared the stage with Dave more than a few times while playing with our college band…Very fun to get to catch up with him after such a long time.
Brother Winger - the boy band that was started on this trip
What a weekend! Friday afternoon we met at DSM (behind Kroger in Franklin) and worked feverishly (in the 90 degree heat) to fit – 7 guitars, 3 pedal boards, 3 amps, cymbals, snare, merch and overnight bags for 5 people into our Honda Odyssey. An hour later we were pulling out with Matt in the driver’s seat, Christen Cole riding shotgun, Seth Teegarden and Nathan Seyler in the middle row, and Levi and I in the back seat with a bunch of gear. We headed up I-24 through Kentucky before we went off the beaten path in Illinois and drove some back roads to get us to Cape Girardeau, MO. As the sun was setting we were cruising over rolling hills with farmland on either side and the bright orange sun casting a lovely glow over the whole scene. We crossed the Mississippi River and in no time were pulling into the parking lot at Rock of Cape. Load in and sound check went great and before we had left the building, Christen had already sold her first CD to a complete stranger who heard us practicing.
To get some rest for the evening we were taken to “Grammy Ruth’s” house…to me it was more like a bed and breakfast. It was this wonderful house with tons of bedrooms, eclectic interior and an African granite countertop in the kitchen. The latter I must mention because it was the most amazing countertop I have ever seen…and if God ever saw fit to bless me with one, I would be more than grateful. 🙂 Anyway, some great tasting cantaloupe and watermelon were sliced and waiting on us when we arrived and after the midnight snack we headed to our rooms. We got an excellent night’s sleep had breakfast and left for sound check around 8:00am.
After a video we kicked off the morning with worship, starting with “Shout it Out” – a great song that Christen wrote. We worshiped for about half an hour and then Andrew Mellies the youth pastor for FYM gave the first message about Transformation. The day was full of different speakers all teaching on the theme of transformation – Lucas Cherry ,Greg Strange and Rachel Mellies. As a side note – Greg Strange (Comedian/Musician) is also from the Nashville area and goes to church at The Gate, just down the road from us. We had never met before this weekend, but I’m sure we’ll see more of him in the future.
We loved working with everyone there. Thanks a bunch to Ronnie the sound man and all the others who took such good care of us and showed us such hospitality.
The youth get a big huge SHOUT OUT!!! They were so receptive and willing to participate. We pray that everyone involved, especially the youth, are transformed daily by the renewing of their minds and that they always run after God.
GIG REPORT, UPDATES | AimeeStefanick August 3, 2011 | 
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