FCA

This week has been refreshing and rejuvenating after a very busy summer of traveling across the country. This is our last week of camps together and the beginning of the week has been spent working with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Camp here on campus at IWU.
Being on campus has been a blessing for us as we have had the opportunity to see and spend time with friends who live on campus as well as enjoy the comfort of sleeping in our own beds. We have also enjoyed the opportunity to record some of our summer repertoire in our chapel auditorium, which has a stunningly high quality recording system. Andrew, our sound engineer, has been very instrumental in setting things up and is excited about the opportunity to learn about recording and producing. What we found through the experience is that recording isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially for a live band. Patience and endurance were certainly tested during the experience and will hopefully have some good results.
Last week we wrote a song, currently titled “The Holy Spirit Song”, which we were able to record for the first time ever in the chapel. Mike and Denny wrote most of it, and we then put it all together for the camp in PA. I won’t give away the PA camp awesomeness but the teaching of the week focused on the fruits of the Spirit. We were asked at the beginning of the summer to have a song for the camp that covered the fruits of the Spirit. So after thinking a little about it and realizing that there are no songs for the fruits of the spirit (other than VBS and Veggie Tails songs (excellent songs by the way)), we wrote a song for the family camp. Both the camp and our team really loved the song and the words written for it. Hopefully, once published, we will be able to post a recording on the blog.
Anyway, back to this week. The kids at FCA are incredible. The camp is very leadership oriented, teaching the kids through different activities and groups what it means to be a leader for Christ in the place where God has them – specifically on an athletic team. The kids seem eager to soak in the gospel message and are excited to get to work sharing back in their homes and on their teams. The staff at the camp is also an incredible team. Each huddle leader was handpicked for their exceptional athletic ability at their schools, their leadership presence on their teams, and finally, their commitment to Christ (a rare sort of individual to find in colleges today). One of the biggest reasons the camp is so successful is that the leadership team of the camp is strong, united, and committed to Christ. We had the opportunity to meet with Craig and Ty to plan the week on Sunday evening and talked about how the goals for the week were to give the campers significant knowledge about the gospel (know what you believe and why you believe it) as well as to provide an avenue for them to draw near to God. Our part this week is to play for the kids in the evenings, putting together worship music and a service that allows them to meet in a close way with their Creator. Tears have been a regular part of the evenings.
This evening we have our last service with the FCA camp at a banquet and then begin the National Bible Bowl camp. All in all, a great week so far, full of celebration and rest. A fitting beginning to a final week!
Praise God for all He is doing in our lives and how He is continually molding, pruning and shaping us so that we can bear fruit for His kingdom.

With gratitude for your support and prayers,
Revolution

PS Happy birthday Caleb Russell! My sister is making me an uncle today☺


pics on the way to FCA

Kane PA

Hello; Denny here.

Our last true camp was located in Kane, PA, far from the hustle and bustle of anything one could call a city. It was rustic, simple, and focused on the Lord.

We felt so loved by the people at this camp. They did so much for us. We had our own room, a place to retreat at the end of the day, and we had plenty of time to rehearse. One of the cooks took our laundry to her home and washed all of our clothes for us. God’s love shone through the servant attitudes of the adults at this camp.

God further blessed us with the opportunity to learn from Reverend Tim Bell. He led us and two other college students in a Bible study on Galatians 5. He had so much knowledge of the scripture, and it was wonderful to study God’s word as a team.

This was the first family camp for the AEC (Association of Evangelical churches) in 10 years. It was a landmark event, and we were glad to have some part in it. The campers and leadership focused their energy not on extra-curriculars, but on growing in Christ and growing as a body. The worship service was the central event of the day. They started out right, putting God at the center of their endeavors.

The camp leadership asked us to choose a theme song for the week that focused on the Holy Spirit. We brainstormed, and—since we could not come up with anything other than VBS songs—we wrote and arranged our own song. Currently it still exists under the acting title “Holy Spirit Song.” I hope that that will change. A recording may be posted in the near future! Keep checking!

God worked so much this week at refining us. We learned and we grew as a team and as individuals. It was a great week at camp!

Bay Shore

Hello from IWU!
It seems to have gone too fast to be true but we are beginning our final camp week today with FCA. Later this week we will be serving at the National Bible Bowl, which is also held on campus. Our last engagement together is this coming Sunday morning at College Wesleyan Church here in Marion where we have the opportunity to lead Sunday morning praise and worship music.
Unfortunately as you may have noticed, “blogging” this summer has been a bit of a challenge for us since we have very inconsistent Internet access/time to blog. However, now at IWU, we will be able to catch up within the week!
In other news, so far we have a green light to record our music in the new chapel at IWU, a multimillion-dollar facility with cutting edge sound system and recording equipment. With that in mind, we will do our best to keep you updated about that and hopefully get some our music to you that is quite a bit more quality than the last two rough live recordings we posted.
So finally, after all of the catch up and introduction, I would like to tell you all about our week at Bay Shore camp (now two weeks ago).
We arrived at Bay Shore and were happy to be reunited with our friends from last year. Kent Fishel was again the speaker for the camp and many of the counselors returned, some of whom we have kept in contact with fore the entire year. Monday morning we lead in worship for the counselors and staff and went around the room sharing Scriptures and areas of our lives where we had seen God working over the past year. The maturity and spiritual adeptness of the counselors at Bay Shore is a rare and beautiful thing to be see and was a privilege to be a part of. The strength of the staff was revealed during the week, and is a big part of why I believe we saw such spiritual growth in the kids at the camp this year and last year. Godly examples speaking hope and truth to people brings change!
Our team made up a big part of the male counselor team. Michael and myself were with the juniors, Aaron with seniors, Denny with sophomores and Chris and Andrew with freshmen. During our cabin time this week we were all able to witness young men open up their lives in ways that some of them had never done before. We were able to speak truth, challenge and encouragement into their lives and watch them grow tremendously from day one to our goodbyes.
Bay Shore stands out for many things, one of them being “Puttin on the Hits”, an event where the kids perform songs of their choice, acting them out or dancing to the songs. The performances are judged and the winner decided. This years winning group performed Lay ‘em Down by Need to Breathe and may have possibly been my group ;) The song pictured an impassable river, which lead to a church and place of hope, demonstrated with a preacher and gospel choir. On the other side of the bridge, weary travelers approached the bridge (a sizable piece of plywood balanced on 4 cinder blocks set across a giant blue tarp fore a river) attempting to get across. However with each try the audience realized that the reason they cannot cross the bridge was the packs on their backs label with things like fear, lust, anger etc. Once the travelers chose to lay down their burdens, they are able to cross the bridge with ease. It is a powerful song that speaks to the bondage of sin and the freedom of life in Christ. The songs are a blast for the kids to perform as they use their imaginations and creativity to come up with something beautiful (another one of the performed songs). Each of the songs were done incredibly and were powerful reminders of our life in Christ.
The week was full to the brim and close to every minute was scheduled for us so we nearly always had somewhere to be. However, our team really enjoyed the week and the intentionality the camp put into each moment of the day. We went to the beach of lake Huron, witnessed the baptism of several campers, went to a pool, taught skills classes (ie car care, worship team, creative writing, self defense, soccer etc), enjoyed the snack shack, participated in morning teaching classes as well a did a ton of other things.

Camp fire Praise and Worship

One of the most special things we did all week was taking communion with the group. We listened that night as 15-20 different kids stood up and gave a testimony to what God was doing in their lives that week. We saw real change begin to occur in the kids lives from past sins, struggles, and doubts as they turned their gaze to the Glorious One who saves and redeems. Taking communion with one another was a great reminder of what Christ did for us as individuals as well as for us as the Body. The love and forgiveness of God is a sweet sweet thing to people with broken and hurting lives. The grace of God is great and we saw its evidences this week!
God has been blessing us and watching over us this entire summer and we are excited to have one more week to minister to kids with the team. Please continue to pray and lift up our team, that we have strength and motivation to pursue holiness and faith so that as Christ fills us up, we can then pour out into the kids lives. Pray for the kids that their hearts are open and that God does a great transforming work in every one of our lives!

Sincerely,
Revolution

Beulah Beach

Matt here,
This blog was written last weekend, but without the Internet at Bay Shore or here in Pennsylvania it is not being posted until today. It will always be amystery how we are posting from PA. Thank you all for your patience and prayers!

We just finished our week at Beulah Beach family camps and are on our way to Sebawaing Michigan for some time with Kent Fishel at Bay Shore camp. This is actually one of the camps we went to last year, and as you can probably tell from the blog post from last year, we are exited to return!
This past week was a mid summer chance for our team to take a breath as our responsibilities at family camp were not impossible by any means. Waking up in the morning to one of the great lakes spreading out before you was a feeling we could have all gotten used to. The fact that we could see Cedar point from our place on the coast was another key to the view. We will save our trip there for next weekend however. Let us know if you’d like to meet upJ
We had the opportunity to participate in two different family camps this week, one that started the day before we arrived, and the second, which will end tomorrow. We were able to play with the two different worship leaders the camp had in morning and evening sessions, as well as play a song that was just led by our team. Several of us also had the opportunity to help out with some of the kid’s classes during the services. We were also able to work occasionally alongside the camp staff, working the waterslides, jet-skis, and craft area. Some of the guys worked on a building a deck as well as Denny had the chance to work more one on one with a little kid named Justin this week. Justin was a winner!
In our free time, some of us were able to get personal work done like applications and phone calls, as well as work on important life skills like napping and jet-skiing. Our team also discovered the joys of Spicy Uno this week – an interesting variation of the game of Uno, which involves slapping the table, trading hands, asking for cards from other players, and the victor signing the winning card! Thank you Bethany for your generosity!
We also had time to connect with another ministry team from IWU this week, Veritas, who is a permanent team at Beulah Beach this summer. The guys were great and Wes was gracious enough to take us on a late night boat ride on the fourth as well as get us jet-ski access for an afternoon.

Car we saw in Crackertown:

This week was an excellent time for our team to regroup, regain our health and reorient our heads and hearts. We had the opportunity to minster to families and are continuing to realize more and more each week just how the institution of the family is critical to the health of young people and our society. God has been doing amazing things in lives this summer however as we have seen the seeds of forgiveness and hope in kids hearts.
We hope you are all doing well and enjoying the beautiful summer days wherever you are.
2 tidbits of truth for you today:
First, all truth is God’s truth. Second, God’s cell number is Jeremiah 33:3. Thank you second and third grade class!
Thank you for all of your prayers and love!

Love always,
Revolution

PS - Check out the band Seeds family worship for some excellent songs straight from scripture!

Live Music!

http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/3382867

Both the songs Christ is Risen and Hosanna can be accessed through the address! Enjoy!

Summit Base Camp

Hello All! This is Denny. I write to you from the grounds of Shiloh Park Campground. This week we played music and counseled for the district United Methodist camp. God moved this week in so many ways—when I say that I am not simply trying to fill space. God moved at this camp in a way that I haven’t seen in my two and a half summers of camp ministry.
This camp was covered in prayer. The counselors and directors came ready to listen to the spirit’s leading. By Tuesday, around fifteen kids had accepted Christ and many more had made commitments. The speakers (there was a morning and an evening speaker—both worked very hard and gave a lot to these kids) then had the great opportunity to speak into the lives of these kids for four more days, explaining to them how to move forward from this camp and live in Christ regardless of their circumstances. The morning speaker spoke from Revelation 2-3, the exhortations to the churches, helping the kids to apply the history of the New Testament and Christ’s call to those churches to their own lives. This produced some remarkably informative and practical lessons for kids to take home. The evening speaker focused mainly on IICor. 2, talking about saying yes to God’s leading. He continued then to explain spiritual gifts and to help kids discover where God was calling them. The campers responded remarkably.


This was one of the best groups of kids I have seen. They challenged my spiritual life, rising early to read and pray, and preparing their hearts for God to speak to them. They were focused on God’s ministry, and it showed.
The focus of this camp was completely on God. Every day it seemed we simply waited for the doors to the chapel to open so that we could praise and worship God through prayer, music, and through learning about His ways. Worship was the focus.
Around all this there was a great air of fun. The camp had a rock wall, a zip line, and a waterslide, as well as kayaks. The band got in trouble for leading a game of kayak-pirate-capture-the-flag (sorry Gale). We had a wonderful time and felt that we were able to pour into the lives of the kids on and off the stage.
This camp gave us the chance to work. My head cabin counselor allowed me to lead devotions one evening, and each of us had the opportunity to co-lead a morning Bible teaching-time. We had many opportunities to speak God’s truth into the lives of kids.


We grew as a band this week. Early on we sat down and did some work defining our purpose as a musical group. We came to the consensus that we need to first and foremost lift up the name of the Lord and help the kids to do likewise. If anything we do comes in the way of that goal, we don’t want to do it. Kids get excited about our music; we seek to get out of the way so that their worship will not be focused on us, but on God. This is a process in which we are proceeding not perfectly, but progressively. Pray for us as we continue on this journey!

Sky Ranch

'Ello everyone, this is Aaron. I decided to write this blog a little late because I thought “hey, being fashionably late is classy.” Right? No, actually I just forgot about it until now. Sorry everyone, my bad.
So Sky Ranch was a great camp. When we arrived it was pretty stinkin' hot, and it basically stayed that way throughout the time we were there. There's just something about the Oklahoma sun that's a little more harsh than the mid-west where the majority of us are from.
After arrival and set up we had a little bit of time to find our accommodations for the week. We ended up staying in a very nice house on the camp ground...but we were in a basement with no beds and about 18 other kids. On top of that there were only 2 showers to share between all of us including another group of kids and youth leaders on the other side of the house. It was interesting, but actually pretty great. It made for a good time of getting to know some of the kids and be able to interact with them even though we weren't counselors of the purest sense, and we didn't stay in the cabin/dorm areas with them.
Our role at this camp was primarily as the band during the worship services. Personally, being able to play worship music and hearing the congregation sing along in praise to Christ is quite rewarding, but we had extra opportunities this week. Not only were we able to lead the praise music for the worship times with another camp (Elementary school camp) parallel to this one, but we were also placed in teams with the campers from the senior high camp to participate in many of the camp activities with them. Of course we have the obligatory goofy names of these teams. After much deliberation, and a distinct affinity for the color green my team decided to go by the name “Green Goblins.” If you ask the rest of the Revolution, our team cheer was something legends are made of. That's all there is to say about that.
The teams Revolution were a part of included: “The Winners” with Matt, “The Outlaws” with Andrew at the helm, “The Spicy People” with Chris as one of the leaders, and “The Crazin' (Crazy?) Blazin' Caucasians” with Mike in their midst. Denny was a part of “The Thundercats” for all of you products of the 90's out there. Some of the other team names included “The Mighty Moo Cows” and “The Zebra-corns”. All you parents out there can be quite sure that your children's creative minds are definitely being stretched at these camps.
In these groups, I personally had the opportunity to bond with and encourage a lot of the campers. It was great by the end to be able to call each one of them by name, knowing that the attention and worth us as leaders put into getting to know the kids showed at least one facet of the love of Christ. I'm sure the other band members feel similarly, as we recognize the importance of relationships in this ministry.
Speaking of relationships, during the services our worship was lead by a man named Jeremy from California. He brought the preaching for the week and spurned the campers, counselors, and staff toward living out our relationship with Christ in the way we practice our relationships with people. As he explained the way the different aspects of this can play out, many campers decided to make commitments toward Christ whether for the first time to trust in him, or to re-commit to living out their faith in Christ in the way they treat others. Please pray that these commitments made both at this camp and other camps are lasting beyond this summer!
I'd like to thank you for reading this entry despite it's late arrival. Please keep following us for the remaining weeks of this summer! Peace y'all!
-Aaron Tuscherer