The Official Jars of Clay Email News
CONTENTS:
*Introduction
*On the Charts
*Matt writes again!
*Message from a subscriber
*Petra tribute album
*Christmas EP
*Crossroads Article
*Prayer Requests
*WWW site update
*CD-Rom Update
*Jars' favorite scripture passages
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*Introduction:
Hello again and welcome to the many new subscribers we've picked up. I hope you all enjoy this issue! I'm hoping that some more people will send some comments, questions or concert reviews to be included in the next newsletters. (hint-hint) :) Thanks to "Athena1972@aol.com" for the jar insignia above...if anyone can or would like to try to improve on it, feel free to! Thanks for all the correspondence, it's kept me busy but I am learning a lot from all of you sending in mail. The issues are being sent about every 3 weeks or so, I hope this is a convenient "pace" for everyone. Enjoy, and thank you all for the prayers, once again!
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On the Charts: CCM Update 8/28/95:
FYI: The GMA has added some new categories into the Dove Awards voting...including Alternative/Modern Rock Album of the Year and Recorded Song of the Year... hopefully this will keep Jars from competing against Petra, WhiteHeart, etc...
Christian Retail SoundScan album chart:
1-My Utmost
2-Concert of A Lifetime- Ray Boltz
3- Jars
4- Gravity
5- Sing Out with Ron Kenoly
Adult Contemporary Chart-
Love Song moves from #34 to #29 in its sixth week- #23 in airplay...its also the number 10 most added AC song
CCM Overall Chart- The CCM 25- combines AC, Insp, and CHR charts Love Song debuts at #24...
Christian Hit Radio Chart-
Love Song slips up from #2 to the #1 spot in its sixth week...Michael W. Smith is hot on their heels moving from #8 to #2 with Cry For Love.
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*Matt writes again! :
From: Odie74@aol.com
(Matthew T. Odmark)
Readers, friends, etc.. Thank you all so much for your response to my letter in the last issue. I was both humbled and encouraged by the responses I received. It is amazing how when God teaches his children he is not content to simply teach them one by one but he delights in the sharing of our burdens, struggles, and joys so that others may be encouraged, uplifted and challenged as well. What a tremendous God we serve! You all have inspired me to continue sharing what God is teaching me, so this is kind of a "part two" to some of the things I shared in the last issue.
If I take a step back at the "big picture" of where the Lord has been taking me lately, it all kind of centers around living life with a spirit of thankfulness. Realizing the tremendous gift of God's creation and being challenged to engage it has really just been a part of this long process. The Lord has constantly been convicting my self-pitying heart and challenging me to continually ask myself, "what does it mean to live life so completely consumed by the gift of God's grace as expressed in his gospel that it permeates every corner of my heart and moves me to live a life of thanksgiving?" After all, is this not what God ultimately desires from us? "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 5:18).
I have become convinced that it is God's desire for us to live courageously and thankfully in the "gift of each moment". Do we (or I for that matter) really see each moment as a completely free and precious one time gift straight from the giver and arbitrator of all life? Or do we spend most of our time looking longingly into the future, or sentimentally trying to conjure the past? How much of God do we really miss? I addressed this briefly in the last issue with regards to creation, but what about with regards to relationships? If there is much to learn from God through how he has chosen to reveal and express himself through creation, how much more is to be learned about our heavenly Father through his crown of all creation, the only member of creation formed in his own image, man. God has been working hard on my stubborn yet weak heart on this particular issue. He is constantly asking me over and over again: Do you really know that you and all the people of the earth belong to me? Do you understand that each relationship in your life whether exciting or frustrating is not given to you because you somehow deserve it but purely out of my good pleasure and staggering grace? How often do I look at the gifts of God and treat them with the contempt of a slob who thinks he somehow deserves them, especially in the area of relationships.
I have found that part of the key of living in this light of true thankfulness lies in our understanding of ourselves and our standing before our Father. I so often have such a lukewarm and wimpy picture of God. Do I really look at God daily in light of his utter and unfathomable holiness, and completeness? I so often flatter myself by thinking as though I deserve something from God or that he needs me in some way. I feel as though I don't deserve the pain I am experiencing right now in a specific relationship, or that God is somehow depending on me to fulfill his will for that person, when in fact God does not need me in any sense, he is a complete God who is redeeming his people and whose will for this world is being effected, and when I stand before him in the total mess of my own sin, I deserve nothing but judgement and death. (Eph 1:11-12, Is. 43:1-2)
It is only after we understand our deserved standing before God as contrasted to our actual standing that we can get even a miniscule pin-hole view of the overwhelming enormity of our Father's love and grace. The grace imparted in each breath, movement, day, raindrop, sunset, friendship, meal, broken heart, and ultimately in the free redeeming gift of his son, begins to become real.
This reality has been deeply engraved in my heart over the past year, and has been something that it seems I relearn as the circumstances of my day to day life ebb and flow. God is constantly challenging me by forcing me to continually hold on to this worldview as the only stable anchor in the midst of an ever changing and violent world. For instance, lately I have been in a real dark place relationally, experiencing some real rejection and loneliness, and almost immediately I knew that the Lord was looking at me thinking "Let's see if he really believes all this stuff he has been learning". So I have been challenged to determine what it means to live with a thankful heart in the midst of pain and authentic struggle.
I have discovered that when we struggle there are still things, places or people in our lives that we can and must give thanks for and that there is true comfort in knowing that the Lord is faithful to us in using these struggles to bring us to a place where we must cry out in utter hopelessness to the giver of hope.You see I am no longer content to put on the "Christian happy face" and go around denying my pain and settling for superficial healing. Even our feelings are a precious and beautiful gift from our father. We do not have to spend so much time trying to repress, ignore, or control them, as if we really could. But in this freedom we can actually thank God for our feelings of love, comfort and security as well as our feelings of pain, brokenness, and loneliness, because only a broken and unguarded heart, the heart of a child, can experience all of these.
It is my hope that as you read this you don't hear in it an easy answer for pain, or a quick fix for adversity. It is my belief that only the Lord's grace can cause us to feel pain or to be freed from it. Rather this is what I have discovered on my humble quest to understand pain from a biblical perspective. I have decided that hard logic or systematic analysis is rarely the correct route for trying to deal with such issues, but if we can learn to understand these things as they relate to the Lord's desire for us to render ourselves completely to him, crying out for his warm and complete embrace, then our approach to them can be helped. At least I feel that mine has.
May the Lord continue to extend grace and peace to all of you.... --with perseverance, your friend, --Matthew Odmark(Odie74@aol.com)
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Message from a subscriber (and ultimately from God!):
Subj: Re: Thanks!
Date: 95-09-02 02:32:13 EDT
From: jbow0@tiger.gtc.georgetown.ky.us (BOW)
Jars, Thanks so much for keeping me posted on your lives and mininstry and prayer concerns. I've been so discouraged by the lack of passion in some of the new "modern Christian rockers" that your music is truly a blessing from God. I got the opportunity to serve as a missionary over the summer and it was like God chewed me up and spit me out a new person. God's placed me in a lot of leadership positions on campus with leading Sunday worship and Fellowship of Christian Athletes and I never understood fully what it meant to be a Christian until God totally worked me over.
God kept saying...how can you call me your best friend if I only get maybe 5 minutes of your time each day...you can have all the religion and knowledge and good morals and praise from your peers but if you don't truly have a relationship with Christ you're nowhere. The greatest advice I got this summer was that love is meeting needs...just as Christ stayed on the cross when he could have gotten down any time he wanted to, he knew that if he did get down we were going to hell, so because he loved us so much he stayed on the cross to be humiliated before the world. We so often get under the misconception that we deserve love...but none of us deserve love and Jesus Christ was the only one who did deserve it and He still didn't get it.
Biblical truth supports this theory in 1 John 3:18 "Do not love in words or in tongue but with and in truth". We can tell people and God all day that we love them but if we don't show them and meet their needs it never becomes real. The way that we show God that we love Him is by obeying Him! Basically, I just want to thank Jars and their ministry for meeting the needs of Christians by their music and lyrics. It's incredibly hard for me to see Christians in leadership positions on campus and in the community who really just don't have any clue about what it really means to be a Christian and aren't worried about being just a "Jesus Cheezy Cheerleader" if you know what I mean. God teaches me everyday to be conscious of performing for people when I'm on stage playing my guitar or speaking at churches or youth weekends because it's so easy once you get comfortable there to showcase your talents as a worhip leader instead of leading people into the presence of God.
I've learned that if don't daily fill myself up with God in His Word and in prayer that I give people myself and not God and I can't save anybody...only God can so I must make sure God is what they are getting whether I'm speaking or playing or eating lunch at the cafeteria.....Christianity is full-time! I just want to encourage you guys and let you know a college sophmore back in Kentucky is praying for you and hopes that God continues use you in an incredible way. The newsletter is great and please continue to let me know what God is doing in your life...I encourage you and myself to really strive to KNOW God. God is awesome!
Following the Leader,
Jonathan Bow
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*Petra Tribute Album:
Jars have decided to record a song for the upcoming Petra tribute album (which will mostly include old Petra songs). They have been working on "Rose Coloured Stained Glass Windows" off of the More Power to Ya album. Apparently they're quite happy with the results, and they feel as though their sound is becoming more "smooth and defined". And of course they're realizing daily that all that is happening is through Christ our Lord, and the music is directly inspired by Him.
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*Christmas EP: The guys have also finished work on three songs to be released on their Christmas cd in October....it will include "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", "Little Drummer Boy", and an much different new acoustic version of "He". It was mixed at the Elefante's "Sound Kitchen" by JB. Watch for it soon!
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*Crossroads Magazine Article: There is a great new Christian Magazine, entitled Crossroads, which comes packaged with a cd (every issue). As far as I know it is only a mail order magazine, unavailable at newsstands, but they've done one of the nicest jobs I've seen. (Much better than the secular released magazine "Shout") They also review some secular releases. Jars of Clay has a large article on them in it, right after Amy Grant's, including a fun interview they did. It's too long to type out here, so I hope you all find it! :) The cd enclosed with it has as it's first track, "Liquid" and they also do a separate 10-song monthly video, the first which has Jars' Flood video on it.
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*Prayer Requests:
Subj: earthen vessels prayer requests
Date: 95-08-23 16:26:48 EDT
From: Meaningles
To: Earthpots
Please pray for God to guide and direct us high school seniors as we face decisions that affect the rest of our lives!
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*WWW Site Update:
The www home page site for Earthen Vessels/Jars of Clay is now at: http://www.grfn.org/~qwerty/jarsofclay (It can still be reached by the old address) I have sent out a large amount of material to possibly be included at the site. There are some graphics there presently. We hope to eventually include some sound bytes, video and candid photos of the band. Any help would be greatly appreciated if you have anything we could scan, etc. We are collaborating with Steve Carlson, the owner of the page, and Phil Pankow, a video/computer technician. Thanks Steve and Phil, for all the help! All back issues and the FAQ can be located there. The site is very easy to get to, so please go check it out!
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*CD-Rom Update:
The cd-rom appears to be coming along quite well, according to producer Michael Wilson. There will be many unreleased video segments, interviews with the guys, back issues of Earthen Vessels, the complete Frail demo cd (compressed) and plenty of other great surprises! Michael is doing an incredible job and has included some things that no other cd-roms have ever attempted. Look for this release in January of '96.
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*Jars' favorite scriptures:
I should note that this was asked of them a year ago and these were their answers- they may have changed by now! :) Following the reference is the comment they made when asked "why?":
Dan: Psalms 27: "Because it has pulled me through many, many difficult times."
Charlie: Romans 8:38: "An incredible promise from God that *nothing* in this world can ever separate us from His Love."
Steve: Hebrews 10:23: "It's God's promise - He will be faithful. It encourages me to serve Him with all my life."
Matt: Phillipians 2: "The entire Christian walk, summarized simply and profoundly."
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END