Christmas Tradition

I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but I want to share our favorite Christmas tradition with you so you can enjoy it too.

Dearest readers, this has been one of the most creatively stimulating, beautifully crafted, impactful, worshipful, and enjoyable experiences for Hub and me. {gush, gush, gush} It's like I'm sharing part of my heart with you :)

And the time is near! The tour is coming!
"Named one of the 10 best albums of the decade, Behold the Lamb of God is a collection of songs about Jesus. Since 2000, Andrew Peterson and his friends have performed Behold the Lamb around the country, telling again and again this "true myth", as C.S. Lewis called it, this tale that's bigger than life, but is—astonishingly—true. The tour has become a yearly tradition not just for Andrew and the other artists on the tour, but for families and churches who attend the concert each season. The live concert, like the album, is a community effort, featuring singer/songwriters Jill Phillips, Andy Gullahorn, Ben Shive, Andrew Osenga and more, and over the years has featured artists such as Alison Krauss, Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken, Buddy Miller, Phil Keaggy, Sixpence None the Richer, David Wilcox, Pierce Pettis, Mindy Smith, Ron Block, Brandon Heath, Bebo Norman, Stuart Duncan, Eric Peters, and Randall Goodgame—all in the name of proclaiming the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ."

We enjoy this concert from the cozy wooden pews of the Ryman in Nashville {thankyouverymuch}, but these artists travel to
NC, VA, OH, AL, KS, NE, TX, and other TN cities. Friends, we're talking as close as Houston! and Corsicana! Here's the official list if you would like more details. I think you need the details :)

And alas, here's the player so you can hear the true tall tales {songs} for yourself. Behold the Lamb of God

Real Love.

Meet JJ Heller and her husband, adorable Nashville couple recently made famous when a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance chose their song for a solo.

Listen closely.
"The song both points to the source of love and offers a reminder that we [believers in Jesus], you and me, are the hands and feet of Christ in the world, that the way Love is made tangible is in the way we care for the hurting." -Stephen Lamb, www.rabbitroom.com



This Love is real and you can experience it; experience Him. God Himself stepped out of heaven in the form of a Man to give himself for us as an act of love and redemption.

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." 1 John 4:10-12

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

This Love transforms, renews, and wont let you stay in bondage.

It's not just a story.

Dogs & Dudes

How fun (and yeah, maybe a little weird...) is this video?! Hope it makes you smile.

And laugh. Or at least roll your eyes.

*discovered it on fantastic design inspiration blog Desire to Inspire yesterday and just had to share

+ CD Jacket

To tag along with the previous music post...

Check out this cool jacket for this cool CD. One of my new favorites.Andy Gullahorn//The Law of Gravity: some songs clever & light, some serious & revealing--all richly written. And unique.

This guy really has a sense of humor.

*Visit www.rabbitroom.com Store if you want a copy*

Do you ever judge music by its cover?

Andrew Peterson in real life

So. We drove 4 hours to Smalltown, Oklahoma. It was a fun adventure with my sweetie.


And we got to meet our favorite singer/songwriter. And his best friend and fellow singer/songwriter. And their road manager. And they bought us Starbucks {foofoo} drinks and were gracious enough to sit with us and let us take a peek into their world. Nervously :)

You see, we believe in what these guys do. We know the stories they so thoughtfully put together into song are reflections of the True Story. And more than ever, we have been changed by the truth in them. We are fed by their words and encouraged by their expressions of honest faith. So we decided to be patrons. We scored this deal in return for our support.

Our night ended with a front row spot at AP's Counting Stars album release concert. Ben Shive and Andy Gullahorn (another gifted singer/songwriter and yes, part three of the three amigos) played with AP and featured a couple songs from their solo work. I cant describe how much we enjoyed the almost-three hours of music, complete with descriptions, stories, and jokes between them, that just made the songs even richer. Such a blessing.

We'll also be seeing these guys in Nashville around Christmastime at Behold the Lamb of God, the True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ. It's tradition.

Follow Andrew and his community of musicians, artists, bookworms, geniuses and the like on The Rabbit Room. This website has tons of their music in the Store in addition to all the word candy. When you find "authors and artists who are doing Kingdom work by telling the Story" they are worth supporting and following and gushing about, right? I certainly think so :)

This song makes my heart so Full

In December of 2009 my wife and I celebrated fifteen years of marriage. A few days later, we got in a silly argument and I wrote this song after she went to bed. Marriage, see, was God’s idea. It’s one of the most potent metaphors in all of Scripture for the way God loves us and the way we’re to let ourselves be loved by him. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. To the contrary, it’s fraught with peril. Any good marriage involves a thousand deaths to self—the good news is, in Christ that marriage involves at least as many resurrections. We lay our lives down and enter this perilous dance with another human being who has done the same. Why should we expect to emerge unscathed?

visit Rabbitroom.com for more Andy P