Tenth Avenue North : Journals jason

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The Inside and In Between

September 10, 2009

Well hello everyone. So I am sitting on the bus in Oklahoma City waiting for an available shower to cleanse myself of all the dirty road scum you aquire and I thought to myself… “self, let’s let everyone know how the tour is going.” So here I am ready to give you the inside and in between on the Inside and In Between Tour. I must say, BRAVO. We have really been blown away by how many of you really like us. The first 3 shows have been sold out and more people have came than we ever would have thought. And to top that off, so far we have had over 50 compassion children sponsored. That’s exciting! We really have had an awesome time with Brenton and Audrey. It just seems to be a great group of people doing this together. We just ask that you continue to pray for us and the tour. It is very easy for people to put us up on some pedestal as if we are more important than others. On of our goals on this tour is break that illusion and to really just have a conversation about the gospel with you… from one screwed up person to another. We pray that God is using us in that way. Thanks again for your support and be looking out for some video content. It’s coming soon I promise.

Jason

Tags: thank you tour

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"What's a djeridoo?" you might ask.

May 26, 2009

Well everyone I must say that the last month has been pretty encouraging when it comes to creating new music. I can honestly say that this record we are currently working on makes me even more excited than the first. I don’t want to reveal too much about it but let me just say two words… “more djeridoo.”

Things are going well in the house of Jamison. Riley has taken her first steps and in a month will be 1 yr old. Crazy. I have celebrated the day of my birth and now am at a ripe old age of 28. Melissa and I have continued to live the nomadic style of life and have temporarily moved to DE. Life is good.

I don’t have anything terribly important to share with you, but I wanted to say hello. Thanks for taking your time to read my rambling mess of a blog.

Tags: life new album

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Just whats been on my mind...

April 14, 2009

So this book that I have been reading really has been rocking my world. I am not completely finished with it, but thus far Francis Chan’s “Crazy Love” has challenged me to put to action what it is I say I believe. Far to often in my walk with Christ I find myself trying to perform or make myself better so that in some sense I can be justified before God. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know that it is not what I do that merits my salvation, it is only by faith that I am saved. But for some reason I still find myself at times feeling like I need to do this or that because it is what I am suppose to do. For example, I may go a couple of days without picking up my Bible, maybe even without acknowledging God exists. I may not go to church on the proper day, or maybe I haven’t been to church at all the whole past month. For some reason there tends to be this guilty strand that starts to creep in my head that tells me I need to do better at these things. I mean as a Christian this is the bare essentials. Right? It is so sad to think that this is my state of mind so often. I boil down my relationship with God to something that I do rather than something I am.

Maybe that last statement wasn’t so clear, so let me try and explain. I have been married for almost 6 years now. One thing that I have come to notice is that marriage changes who I am. I am a changed man. In fact the Bible tells me that I am joined with my wife and that we are one flesh. My desires have changed. No longer do I desire to only meet my needs and do only what pleases me, but rather I am constantly looking to find ways to please my wife and meet her needs. My focus has changed. My wife has in a sense stolen my focus… taken it off of me and put it on her. Do I find this as taxing or tiring? No, of course not. This is what happens when you are in love.

As many of you know, I am away from my family quite a bit these days. My wife and I communicate primarily by phone when I am away. What if I were to just not call her for an entire trip. What would that communicate to my wife? Or what if I called her because it was what I had to do? “Hey honey… just calling because I have to. Everything ok?” Wow… I could only imagine how my wife would feel. Unloved to say the least. Instead what if I couldn’t wait to talk to her. In fact I called her so much ours ears began to hurt from the phone. At times we would be on the phone not even saying anything, but we just want to be with each other so we don’t hang up. This is a picture of what I think our relationship with Christ should be like.

The love that I have for Christ is what should propel me to act. When I don’t spend time with Him it should hurt and feel like something is missing. I should desire to be with Him, because I know that in Him is the fullness of joy. No longer should this life be about me, but rather about Him. He should consume my thoughts. If my life is spent loving Him then everything else should follow naturally. In fact, it should change me to a point that I end up doing crazy things like loving other people as he has loved me. My thoughts should be so fixed on the day that I finally see Him, that the things of this world should fade away. I’d be giving my time, money, and resources away as if they were not mine to begin with. It’s crazy I know, but people who are in love do crazy things.

I know this may not be a mind blowing concept, to actually live like we are in love with Christ, but it really has been changing the way I think and act recently. Just thought I would share… I am sure I will have more to talk about as I continue to read. Until then, farewell.

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The Making of a Star

March 09, 2009

Well everyone I know that this blog may not be congruent with my last blog, but I thought I would go for it anyway. This is nothing theologically ground breaking but it is pretty stinking awesome.

So I have a child as you all know, and with a child comes many interesting tools. Now typically when I reference a “tool” I would be talking about a DeWalt drill or saw… you know something manly, but in this case I am talking about a wrap. Not just any wrap, but a sleepy wrap. For those of you who are clueless as to what I am talking about, the sleepy wrap is basically a long piece of cloth that you wrap around yourself in some sort of magical way and then you can put a baby in the pouch created to carry the child.

So you are saying to yourself, “Jason, what in the world does this have to do with anything?” Well, yours truly has recently reached a new level of stardom thanks to sleepy wrap. Check out this link to see my sleepy wrap debut.

http://www.sleepywrap.com/index.php?page=photo-gallery

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Coworker vs Customer

January 27, 2009

So the other day I was listening to a message by a pastor out of CA named Francis Chan and he said some stuff that really caught my attention so I thought I would share. He was reading out of the book of Philippians and was observing the love that Paul had for this church in Philippi. In verses 3-4 of chapter 1 Paul thanks God for them always. And then in verse 5 he says this, “because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”

If you have ever had a job before you will notice that there is this drastic difference in the relationship you have with a coworker as oppose to a customer. There is this bond that is formed between you as you labor together to perform a task or work towards a goal. Think about being a waiter or waitress in a restaurant. You can be having the best or worst day and able to talk to a fellow worker about it and be completely honest with them and they may be able to relate and sympathize. As soon as you go to interact with the customer though, you put up a facade. You have to meet their needs and make sure they are happy enough to want to come back to your restaurant. That is your job.

It is sad to say, but somehow our churches have taken on this worker/customer relationship and not the coworker relationship that Paul is talking about in Philippians. We come to church asking what we can get and checking to make sure that all of our preferences are met. Is the music what I like? Are the seats comfortable? Are the services short or long? Is there enough parking? Does the Pastor preach on things that I like? etc. Church really has somehow slipped into this consumer line of thinking. It’s all about me.

Wouldn’t it be great to get back to the church that Paul was talking about? A church where we would come together with fellow coworkers to encourage and uplift one another to continue sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. We would instantly bond with people if we knew that all week they had been sharing the same gospel that we had been. That we were doing this together. What a challenge. I pray that God will change our hearts and that we fix our gaze on Him the author and perfecter of our faith.

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