The Beauty of Rezonate '08

I thought I would check in and let everyone know what the vision is for Rezonate '08 and how it all came to be.

Last year I was working with John L. and Josh H. when I happened to mention that I would love to have a "Rock fest" ... and that I had something unusual in mind.

Rather than doing the typical church singing, I wanted to have an all-day concert somewhere in the middle of our fair city ... somewhere where we could draw people from all sorts of various backgrounds. I was thinking how cool it would be if people who rarely ever, or maybe never ever, get together could come together, tear down walls that divide and at the same time help out some of our Nation's poorest children. Somehow I think God would be glorified in that.

With that in mind, the idea was to invite different kinds of bands... some country, some rock, some acoustic, some folk, some Christian, and some decidedly not. The point being that non-believers will rarely if ever come to a church for anything. And besides, Jesus never told us to invite them to come to a church - he told us to go out to where they are. If we want to hang out with these folks, we have to have a neutral place to do it and not be afraid (or too pious) to listen to the kind of music they listen to. Jesus had a similar idea once when he hung out with people from all walks of life. He was criticized mightily for it by the religious leaders of his day. I suspect there will be some "Christians" today who will not understand what we are doing. That's OK. We're not doing it for them. The reason we are doing it, is to live out Jesus' words to "Love God and Love People".

So I began the process of finding a venue. Not an easy task. I had the door slammed in my face a few times - sometimes politely and sometimes not. Finally, when it seemed all hope was gone, I got a call from a friend who put me in touch with another friend, who put me in touch with yet another friend of theirs. I made the call and within hours we had a venue that was beyond what we had originally hoped for - The Voice of America Park! VOA park is has the room for an event like this (if its good enough for President Bush to speak at, its good enough for us), its location is right off of I-75 and most everyone knows where it is because its a huge piece of Southern Ohio history.

Then the bands started signing on. Bands from 3 different states have expressed interest. Some are willing to drive 1000 miles round trip at their own expense - and all because they believe if what we're doing and want to help. Amazing.

Then we had a professional artist volunteer to do our logos and promotional materials. As you can see from our logo and from the Rezonate '08 logo, he did an amazing job!

The team came together in late November and began working on the nuts and bolts of this event. They too are all volunteering their time and talent to make this concert happen. And I am continually blown away by how many people will give their time to an idea.

Yes, God is doing something. He has brought so many talented amazing people together and I have to believe that he has something up his sleeve that is going to be just beautiful.

~ Amber