Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all!! Hope everyone had a splendid Christmas and New Years. Julian Drive has some exciting things in store for the new year. We have a new record coming out soon. It has some incredible tunes on it. If you want a preview just go to juliandrive.com and check out our latest Monday video on the home page. You can also travel on over to itunes and download our EP entitled “Beyond Our Eyes”. Don’t forget to be our friends on facebook so you can keep up with all the latest happenings near you. Hope to see you guys out on the road in 2011. Peace!

Josh

When You Feel Like Giving Up…..

Hey gang! We are out on the road again this week. This morning we are in Mississippi (I still sing the M I crooked letter, crooked letter I song when I spell that state). We stayed over with some great friends that we have met in the past few years. Logan Collins and his family have been great supporters of us and just all around great people to hang with and they really just feel like extended family so anytime we are near we plan on staying with them. They came to see us play recently and help with the loading process, which we always appreciate. After the show we sat down to eat and Logan joined us as well as the youth pastor of the church. We began to chat a little and share about stories of times that events had been planned and how the turn out wasn’t what we had hoped for and how it often times has left us discouraged. One event had happened recently to the youth pastor of the church in which we had just performed. They shared about the event and how only 7 of the youth showed up from their church. They went on to say that the kids had wanted this event to happen and even begged to get it planned but when it came time to have it, they chose another, how do we say, less spiritually effective event to attend. The youth pastor was almost in tears sharing this story. They felt like they were let down. Maybe even a little disrespected.

As ministers we all have times like these. Logan has often times shared of times of discouragement in his own ministry with me. I’ve shared times like that in my ministry with him. It happens all the time. I wish there was some magic formula to make people get it, but there’s not. We are not perfect and will always let each other down. We’re human! In the 2 years I have been with Julian Drive, we have gone through times of feeling disrespect, anger, disappointment, discouragement, you name it we’ve had it. It seems like it’s a continuous cycle that repeats itself constantly. Sometimes you even question if it’s worth it to keep doing ministry. It’s a scary place to be. Believe me I know!

Not that we are there now but I believe Julian Drive is in a season. It’s been tough over the last year. There have been ups and downs but God always is there ready to encourage us to keep going. I was reading this morning, with all these thoughts of the past year on my mind. Listen to what I believe God was telling me in 1 Cor. 4: 1,17-18:

Since God in His mercy has given us this ministry, we never give up.… For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

For those of you in ministry I hope this has been some encouragement for you! Keep going and reaching people for Christ!

Sleep Numbers

What up all you crazy peeps out there! It’s Monday night we just got back from Colorado where it snowed like 2 feet in some places. We only saw a little bit of it of the snow before it started raining. We finally arrived home at 6 a.m. this morning and so I’ve been resting it up today. Pretty good day…..you know……sleep! Anywho, just finished watching a movie “Marley and Me” perhaps you’ve heard of it. And no I didn’t watch it alone. I watched it with my wife. It was pretty good and also very sad. I won’t spoil it for any of you that haven’t seen it but it’s a good rental, so go check it out.

I thought I would give you guys a little insight as to who I am. Being “the new guy” I thought I would take this blog to really open up…you know let you see the real me! Let’s start with the number 15 and no that’s not my age! It’s actually my sleep number. How do I know my sleep number you ask? Well the Radisson Hotel provided us with sleep number beds this past weekend. You know, you can tell a lot about a person by their sleep number. So what does 15 tell you about me? Well, it obviously states that I’m a drummer. It’s also the number of pull-ups I can do with one hand tied behind my back. It’s on average the number of drumsticks I break every show. It’s the number of days it took me to swim across the Atlantic Ocean while wrestling a giant squid. It’s how many times I’ve seen the “Ninja Turtle Movies” (both 1&2) in the last 24 hours. And finally, 15 is the number of choice if you were guessing a number between 14 and 16. So with that said you can tell I’m a pretty cool guy right. Well I hope so…I’m out! Look for more from me later. Peace!