Hola la la

I am here in Rochester MN getting ready for the 1st show of this 2 week tour.  12 events in 14 days and then I go home to prep for 2 more local events and a lot of recording.  God is good!

I will have much more to share on this in the coming months, but God has recently opened some extremely large doors for my ministry in the past 2 months.  Doors that will hopefully allow my music and message to reach mass audiences, something I have been praying for for years!  And it has become very clear to me just how much prayer I am going to need surrounding me and lifting me up.  I can forget so easily the importance to ask for prayer and to assemble prayer warriors to intercede throughout this journey.

So please as you feel lead be praying for me on this tour and continually for me and my ministry.  I would appreciate it beyond words and it is so crucial for what I am doing.

I love you guys so much and appreciate your support like crazy!!  Thank you!!  And please check my schedule for show as I just may be coming to your city in the next 2 weeks and weeks to come

love

danen

Hope your days are going beautifully!  Just wanted to let you guys know that I released a few more new dates on the tour schedule.  I will be going on a 3 week tour coming up here in April making stops in Winona, Rochester, St. Paul, Faribault (all in MN) and also La Crosse, and Eau Claire in WI before ending the tour with a show in my old home town of Green Bay.  Would LOVE to see you out at a show if you are in the area!

This will be one of just a hand full of tours for me in 2010 as I am splitting time with being on the road and also finishing up the second half of the full length record that is coming out this next winter.  Recording is going INCREDIBLE and I can not wait to release this thing!  It has been a long time coming, but God has been opening amazing doors for this project and too see how amazing it is coming together is………… beyond words.  Thank you all so much for your continued support, emails, and encouragement!!

I would really love your prayers as there is so much work to be done yet, not just on the record, but in it’s release, and all of the ministry and work that will follow.  I need Him so much and for His hand to be upon every decision and partnership I make.  I would appreciate it more than you know!

I love you guys so much and I am excited to take this journey with you!

I am writing once again from my home in beautiful WI.  This week has been insanely gorgeous and only solidifies more and more in my heart that I really don’t like winter at all.  Going for walks is one of my favorite things to do.  To process, pray and be surrounded by God’s creation does something to me that nothing else can.  Love it.

I was thinking the other day how much one thing in your life can consume your thoughts, attitude, and even our complete emotions.  It’s so odd how everything in your life can be going incredible, but if there is one thing that is not well it can spoil everything else.  It can be like that for me anyway.  I think one of our deepest desires in life as human beings is just to be understood.  It’s one of the worst feelings in the world to feel like people are thinking things about you with a false understanding of where you are coming from or the motive behind your actions.

My life is just so crazy.  I think I am coming to grips with the fact that as long as God has this calling (traveling music ministry) on my life I will never have a home life like I truly desire.  Which is sad, but at the same time, more than ever I feel a peace that God’s purpose upon my life is supposed to be unordinary.  At least in this season anyway.  The hardest thing for me is to deal with reality that  because my life is unordinary, not everyone is going to understand all the decisions I make, and most importantly the heart behind them.  I don’t like disappointing anyone any more than anyone else does.   And in this season I feel tugged by people in so many different directions.  It hurts sometimes when people make judgments on our decisions when they have no understanding of the situation or the place God has called us too.  It takes a toll on the heart.

Ever year that goes by life gets more and more complicated by itself.  Add that to sincere pursuit of Jesus Christ and it doesn’t get any easier  It’s funny how we always think our current challenges are so huge.  But then we look back 10 years and we laugh at how small they were in perspective.

I guess I am just learning through this season that you can not please everyone.  And you will never be completely understood.  And you can’t spend your life jumping through hoops just to make everyone feel ok.  If you do you are not listening to the only voice that really matters.  We need to stand firm in the calling that God is directing us to and that He is the only one our actions should truly please.  And His heart is the only one who will completely understand us.  Not avoiding accountability or discounting Godly wisdom from friends and loved ones, but receiving it all and with an honest and humble heart and taking it to the Lord in prayer and His word.

This world is falling apart.  And more than ever God is calling His people to seek Him and Him alone.  He is asking us to go outside of social norms because He is asking us to do extraordinary things.  To not mindlessly follow the theology of men, but to earnestly seek the Spirit and Word of God on all issues.  If we truly want to walk in Love we must be willing to disappoint people.  Sounds crazy doesn’t it?  But at the center of a people pleasing spirit is selfishness.  It’s not about doing what is right, it is about doing things so people will be pleased with you.  Not doing what is in the best interest of the person or your life.  Love is selfless.  And sometimes it hurts.   But love is always the best choice.

God let us be a generation and a people that is most concerned with Your voice, Your desires, Your laws, Your heart, and Your purposes.  Give us ears to hear your voice and minds to understand your word as we seek you in it.  And give us the strength to resist the temptation of living our lives to appease this world.  We love you and we need you!  Draw near to us and call us out from the crowds to truly make a change in this place.

Hey Guys!

I am blogging from one of my favorite cities in the US.  St. Louis, MO.  Not only am I a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan, but it is just a sweet city in general.  It brings back memories from my childhood when my family took a vacation here.  I was just a little tike, but I remember it well.  Going to a cardinal game and visiting the attractions.   Going up the shaky elevator thingy, all the way to the top of the Arch, thinking I was going to die because of my strong and ever present fear of heights.  Good times

Well I have been on the road for about 2 weeks so far, making stops in Eastern PA, Southern IN, and Southern IL, before coming to MO.  It has truly been an incredible trip.  Not only reconnecting with some old friends, but God’s hand has been very evident on it all.  I feel his movement and hand upon my ministry more and more every day.  I have gotten to see a lot of, specifically, young people encounter the presence of God in the past couple weeks.  It’s beautiful to see how He reveals Himself  and in His specific timing to everyone differently.  I can speak the same words in a room of a hundred people and because of different life experiences, those words could be received so many different ways.  But some how God works it all to draw us uniquely to His heart.  It is incredibly powerful and emotional for me to see people hearts and faces soften and be awakened to the Spirit of God.  To see someone who maybe walks in the door with a tough exterior and putting on a hard defense, melt in the presence of the Gospel and to the knowledge of His love……………… it will never get old for me.  It is beautiful.

I had one event today so far and now I am getting ready to head to do a small intimate concert at Webster College in St. Louis tonight.  I have 4 more shows on this trip and then I get to go home and rest a bit.  As well as continue to work on the completion of the new album.  Can’t wait!!  It is truly an encouraging and exciting time in my ministry.  Thank you so much for all of your continued support, emails, words of encouragement, and your love.  I could not do it without you and it humbles me every day to feel so many people behind me in this journey.  It is amazing

Please enjoy this day today, no matter what this day has brought so far.  I had the flu 3 weeks ago and as I was in the midst of the worst night of sickness I found myself even being grateful in the pain and terrible feeling.  Just thinking, “This too shall pass.  I praise you God for you are good even in this junk.”  And there was wining and pouting as well hehe, but God is just instilling in me more and more to enjoy everything in life.  Even the bad.  To praise Him no matter what and to keep my hope and focus on my true home, and that I am loved by the greatest Love to ever exist.

Truly enjoy this day.  God bless you guys!

danen

Hey guys!

I am sitting here  working away at booking and scheduling upcoming tours and recording dates for the upcoming album and looking out the window at a beautiful sunny day.  It is so incredibly refreshing to see the sun on a winter day in Wisconsin.  Sometimes we can go what seems like months without seeing it’s rays and it can have quite the depressing effect on the human spirit.   So it’s awesome to see it in it’s glory……. fully knowing if I stepped outside it’s probably 0 degrees, which is not cool.

Well just finished a batch of concerts and events in Wisconsin which included a larger show in Appleton which was a blast.  It is crazy to see things continue to grow and God bring more and more people out to the shows.  God is truly faithful and truly insanely good.  I shared some of my exciting news with that crowd, but I will share it here as well.  Long story short, a major mix engineer really likes my stuff and has offered to mix my new album!  He has multiple grammies and actually mixed this years album of the year by Taylor Swift.  Insane.  To talk to a guy like that on the phone and hear that not only does he love my stuff, but wants to give me a crazy break so he can be a part of the project is……….. amazing and truly a gift from the Lord.   The doors He is opening and the events He is bring about are just simply humbling and crazy exciting.  I am speechless.

Yet through it all, I am finding more and more everyday that the most amazing of events, successes, open doors, etc etc etc pale in comparison to the peace of just knowing Jesus.  As amazing as successes and provision is on this earth, even the biggest ones still leave you empty.  And I realize that more and more, the most success I have in music.  Knowing His love, knowing His grace, and knowing my standing with Him satisfies like nothing else.  And that is not just a PC things to say, it is the truth.  I long so much for the whole world to know that feeling, that truth, and that God.  And that is why I do what I do.  That is why I persevere.  That is why I continue to push, promote, book, drive etc etc.  I honestly have a burning passion that will not give me relief until I reach the masses.  Whether it be one at a time, or thousands at a time.  We are the light of the world and the salt of the earth.  And He is with us!

Today is your day to share Him with your world.  Take advantage of it.  There will never be another day like today.