In a public venue, The Arts House,
A really cool artsy performance space downtown,
a place that wasn’t church,
didn’t feel like church or look like church,
some Christian artist friends of mine and I wanted to invite people to come and enjoy a night of great music
and hopefully in that, experience the presence of God.
You know, at the end. We wanted everyone to just say,
“[sigh] Isn’t God amazing to create music?”
We didn’t want it to be a “Christian concert.”
But…we’re Christians. How can we get on stage and be ourselves and not have people be touched by God? It was kind of like an experiment.
Three women, artist friends of mine here in Singapore,
we just wanted to be ourselves.
Donna Ong, a visual artist organized this thing called Alabaster Jar 2,
and was quite frankly, giving us a chance to show off
and tell our stories.
Have a chance in a normal non-preachy kind of a way to tell people how real God is in our day to day lives…
And how much he loves us.
You know, “this is how faith works out in my life. Let me sing you a song that’s spoken to my soul about this, or that, or something else.”
So many of us, as Christians don’t live it out in our daily lives. Our Christian life is relegated to Christian activities, like quiet times or even more sad: only when we’re attending worship on Sunday. Jesus just isn’t invited along with us in the commuting, or the laundry, or the kind of music we listen to or the movies we watch. And (pschaw) we have an even harder time talking about our faith with people who aren’t Christians! What is that?
So, with these friends of mine, these passionate believers in Jesus, these artists who don’t necessarily feel like they fit at church into the typical “ministry opportunities” in a church like cell group leader or usher or bulletin stuffer, we made up our own ministry opportunity. One that suits our giftedness and passion: a performance!
Every step along the way we’re asking God for inspiration and his involvement. What songs should we sing? for Dawn Fung it was also in writing new music and lyrics. What order should we sing them? Who would be willing to play for us or with us? Could the whole process of creating be worshipful and enjoyable and not just the event itself?
Yes….YES!
It was a rush. It was a total rush. Every step along the way was sheer delight. There was such sweet unity and encouragement among the gals and our musicians, and then tonight was amazing. It surpassed our expectations…even our dreams! The place was packed, I heard they turned people away. The crowd filled up the seats and then the aisles and even the floor in front of the stage area. And loved each set.
Dawn sang her folk music on her Yamaha guitarelle and everyone loosened up when she was freezing cold and said, “I think I’ll run backstage and get my sweater.” Everyone knew this was a place to chill (literally!) Then her poetic lyrics stretched us and made us think, her casual- at ease attitude…She started things off and warmed up the crowd no matter how cold her bare feet were!
Shan came next with her sassy attitude and splash of fushia in her hair. And her bossanova and ballads. She sat down at the keyboard and sang as if she did this everyday. Isaac her guitarist was way too cool, and talented too. I don’t know. All of the musicians who came alongside us that night were too good to be true. We could have just made it an instrumental evening and we’d have all been blessed.
My set was a compilation of songs that tell my story in Singapore, so I wove that in as well. The crowd laughed when I talked about wheeling my little grocery cart to and from the mall in the hot sun and that this jilted lover song “Romancin the Blues” was what I felt like singing to God for the way my life was turning out. To share with them them why the gospel songs about Gratitude or the miracle of mercy gave me perspective even when life doesn’t seem to make sense. It cracked me up that when I sang a popular Chinese song they got out their cell phones and waved them in the air to the music. I loved closing my set with Anything Can Happen. I seriously felt like the hope in this encouraging song hit the target of everyone’s heart.
The crowd cheered us on. They laughed and and they cried with us. And, when it was over, after our last encore when we sang together, the audience seemed like they didn’t want to go home.
One man, I’d never met before, was standing around when nearly everyone was gone. He said, “It just seemed like rain was falling. I saw rain over the audience. God’s love and healing was raining down on everyone in the room. It was amazing.”
Yeah. It was. I can pretty confidently say that everyone there, whether or not they’ve submitted their lives to the King of Kings, and Lord of the Universe, had a powerful sense God was personal and real. Because he was there. My prayer is that as even the skeptics ruminate over what happened tonight, they don’t let it become just a neat experience, but that wherever they are in their journey of faith, because of Alabaster Jar 2, they’ll give give their hearts more fully to Jesus.
(here's a shot from our warm up at Arts Cafe at Esplanade the week before!)
