Grand Rapids FFM 09 with Aaron Stumpel

Aaron Strumpel, Todd & Angie Fadel, Todd Berger

I just got back from a trip to Grand Rapids, MI where I played with Aaron Strumpel (Woodland Park, CO) and Todd and Angie Fadel (Portland, OR) at Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Music. My friend, Aaron Strumpel, won the bandspotting competition that my other friend, Ryan Lott, won last time around. I caught a landmark Lupe Fiasco interview by Cornel West. Not only were the sessions thought provoking, inspiring, and challenging, but we also got to hear some fresh new music from thinking artists allowing life’s challenges to influence their faith and art. Saturday night we opened for Julie Lee and the Berger’s long time fav, Over the Rhine. The following morning we joined the worship team for Palm Sunday at a local Vineyard in Grand Rapids to worship with a beautiful group of believers. If you’d at all be interested, you can subscribe to the free podcasts here.

Todd Berger 2/7/09 Record Release Concert

Todd Berger RECORD RELEASE CONCERT
playing with Dee Jay Doc, Lee Harrill, Grayson Latimore, David Gaddis, Emcee Malek, and Mike Jones

Event Info
Host: Fairmount Presbyterian Church
Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009
Time: 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Location:
Fairmount Presbyterian Church
2757 Fairmount Blvd
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118 [Map]

Contact: 216-321-5800
Email: toddberg@gmail.com
Details: Todd Berger and friends will perform songs from his new recording “And Have Not Love”. Tickets are $10/advance* and $12/door (price includes one copy of the new CD). Don’t miss this special night where you can hear everything LIVE for the first time!

*ADVANCE TICKETS HERE: http://tinyurl.com/a464cs (Paypal)

salvation without love?

Todd’s thoughts on 1 John 4

Dear Friends,
Let us love one another, for love is from God, everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Is everyone who is capable of loving also born of God and do they bear witness to God in some firsthand basic way? Maybe this is not basic but pretty much everything– to receive God, is to receive the author of love. Can you administer love, child of God, but reject the one from whom your instinct to love comes from?

If you don’t love, it is obvious that you do not know God. If you DO love, than it is obvious that you are a witness to God and his instincts are embedded in you, his creation.

And God took everything lofty and philosophical about this conversation and brought into a practical and tangible, first hand experience for humanity, when he incarnated Himself among us in his son, Jesus, so that we might live through love.

This is love, not that we responded by loving God, but just that He loved us by atoning for every one of sin’s shortcomings— thus welcoming us and fully accepting us by God’s love in action, Jesus the Christ.

Sin is real. From God’s perspective, our shortcomings were obviously coming between us, so God did what only he could do to make things better on both sides of the relationship between God and humanity.

OK, so now that we are restored to God, we had better be unified through our love for one another. We can see God in eachother manifest through our love for each other. Nobody has seen God, but when we love each other, we manifest his measurable properties that he is present.

God lives in us for this purpose– to complete us by or willingness to participate in him and with him by loving him and each other. His love in us makes himself known to the world and makes him measurable like wind given form when harnessed in a sail. We are the sail for God, and by love our sail is filled for action, momentum, wholeness, healing, salvation, truth, life, and all of the qualities of love (see 1 Cor. 13). Because of love, people will like us and not be turned off by Jesus and will choose to be restored to God.

How can anyone come to salvation if they do not love God? Can any of us be saved if we have not love? This is why Jesus will say on the day of judgement, yes, you did a lot of stuff in my name, but I do not know you– he has no relationship with us outside of his love. We cannot discover and know him without loving each other. (see 1 John 4:19-21)

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement, because in THIS world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not mde perfect in love.” 1 John :16-18

Writing and Recording “And Have Not Love”

After releasing Enter the Worship Circle’s electro-pop hybrid Village Thrift on Worship Circle Records, I began writing songs again (about April 2006). In reading scripture, I found my surroundings gave me a new lens of experience through which I started revisiting familiar scriptures. A recurring theme that I found in these new songs were themes of God’s love and the love we should all have for those in the world around us. When Ben and Robin Pasley encouraged me to step out and record these songs on my first solo recording, they asked me to encapsulate what the over all theme of this project would be. After combing though the songs, I was able to pinpoint a passage in scripture that had profound influence on me during the song writing process. 1 Corinthians 13 speaks clearly to the motive in our hearts as believers. I’ve done a lot of things in my lifetime in the name of God, I’ve said a lot of things because I thought they were right or in the moment, needed to be heard, but the most challenging thing to me now is, if I do not do, say, act… or live out of love toward God and others, it is near worthless to God. People in our present day American culture often look for successful formulas for everything in order to see a profit for their endeavors. We can build a thousand Godly organizations, buildings, or whatever formulas we buy into, and even see fruit in it, but Paul raises a challenge to us in 1 Corinthians 13 with, but if love is not our motive and process, it does not count… or to put it more bluntly, we have failed.

A few years ago I had this ongoing prayer/meditation/discussion with the Lord that was all about, why is there such a chasm between the people of God and those who do not know God? After praying about this for about 3 months and not coming away with an answer that brought peace to my heart, I got my answer that was SO obvious and in the foreground, that I’d missed it all together… LOVE. Love breaks down walls, love spans any chasm, love disengages conflict, love welcomes people through doors that were locked by our judgement, love gives us the equation that every one of us is a lost cause in our own damnable sin had God not so loved us. He sent His own Son– Christ Jesus who loved us so, that He would lay down both holiness and glory to carry the profaneness of all humanity on His own body of the cross. And never gave up. And loved each person the entire way to His own death. And is well informed of and fully owns up to every one of my shortcomings because of the unfaltering resoluteness of His adopting love for me.

So I’m pretty much humbled by God’s love and I want to know how to love others the same way. I Corinthians 13 gives us a mode of operation, though not an express formula nor map for walking in God’s love. We each know in our own hearts how much of our self that will need to die in order to walk out in and through love as redeemed children of God. The songs I’ve written for you are all inspired by my journey to understand how to walk forward in love, and in spite of being hurt by others, to find hope again by making the choice to move forward in God’s love. I pray these songs invigorate your spirit with the word of God, from which these songs were all written. I pray that God’s word, that cannot fail, will bear much fruit in your life and through these songs, His word would get locked into your heart to give you an anthem to sing for years to come. Oh yah, and love never fails.

Quote from D.L. Moody

Here’s a powerful quote from D.L. Moody delivered in a message that I’d love to share that really articulates my heart for those who do not yet know God. Enjoy…

“God loved the world when it was full of sinners and those who broke His law. If He did so, can’t we do it, and love our fellowmen? If the Savior could die for the world, can’t we work for it? . . . The churches would soon be filled if outsiders could find that people in them loved them when they came, and if the elders and deacons were glad to see them and were ready to take them by the hand and welcome them. Such things would draw sinners. Actions like these speak louder than words.”

Recording Update

I head back out to Colorado tomorrow for the next leg of this recording trip that includes 18hr. work days, juggling freelance projects from different times zones, driving through the mountains w/ limited cell phone coverage, meeting with and playing with some of the most wonderful people I’ve met on earth, and… missing and loving my family from afar. I was afforded the opportunity to come back home for a few days to spend some time with my Amazingly supportive wife, Laurel, and our two beautiful children. School starts this week as does the DNC hosted this election season in Denver, where I’ll be flying in tomorrow. 15-16 “strong” songs are now in full production. Ben Pasley is coaching me through this process and several friends have thrown their hat in the rink like David Wilton, Tony Vilgiate, and Aaron Strumpel to name a few. I’ll likely post some progress MP3’s here to give a shout out to all back home who’ve helped me shape these songs thus far. A shout out to the Harrill’s, Jones’, Dodd, Karas, and Douglas for their encouragement and blood spilled in yelling on “Stand Strong” featured two posts ago (retroactively). I covet your prayers.

Conversation between Ben Pasley & Todd Berger on the power of Forgiveness

Friends, I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with longtime friend, Ben Pasley, to discuss an article he has just written on Forgiveness. We’ve made this conversation available as a Podcast available at the I-tunes store. subscribe to the Churchthink podcast.

ChurchThink is a place to engage ideas about the people of God–their purpose and position in the universe. Church is a dangerous word these days and so is this website if you just need someone to prop up your institution. We are about the building of the people, not the people of the building.

For more info or to read the full article, visit
churchthink.com

Todd and Laurel Berger: Missions Update

Dear Friends,

Many people have been asking what Laurel and I are up to now and I wanted to give you a heads up on where we’re at on our journey. Through several favorable circumstances of both availability and timing, Ben Pasley of Enter the Worship Circle has volunteered to help me produce & record my first solo worship recording! Through this recording, I hope to express the nature of God’s love and His ability to initiate change and healing in a fallen world. On August 10th I will fly to Colorado as a real faith step to record this album. I will be there for 10 days, come back home Aug. 20-23, and then fly out to complete the recording from Aug. 24-Sept. 10th.

Over the last few months, I’ve been feeling a tug in my heart that God is shifting me into the next phase of my life and ministry calling. I genuinely feel like this recording is a fresh start and shift in direction for my life. With much prayer and careful consideration, would you consider financially partnering with me to offset the expenses of this recording and invest in our next phase of ministry? As always, your donations are tax-deductible though our missions organization, Wake Arts Collective (501c3).

Every month we journal our ministry adventures online at: Toddberger.com. Feel free to check it out and see what we’ve been up to over the last few years. If you would like to become a monthly partner, visit our website online at wakearts.com where you can subscribe using a Paypal account. If you would like to write us a check or make a one time donation, please mail your support made payable to:

Wake Arts Collective, c/o Todd & Laurel Berger, PO Box 560112, Macedonia OH 44056

As always, we hope you’ll uphold us in your prayers and we are excited to enter this next phase of life knowing that God is faithful and He is able to do more than we can ever ask or think. God’s best to you!

He died for me

Isaiah 59:1-2
Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.

Your conscience is the atmosphere between you and your destination. If your conscience is clear, than like a clear day, you can see for miles ahead and possibly your destination. When your conscience is clouded, it is like navigating in a thick fog in which your spirit becomes disoriented, doubting the destination, the direction you are headed and self-doubt in your previous decisions.

Isaiah 59:3
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity.

The reality of our sin, the blood sacrifice of atonement for our sin—Christ, is hardly a reality in my own life. When I sin, I immediately plead the blood of Christ. Without Christ, with every sin, our hands are defiled with blood— in the Old Testament and costly animal would need to lose it’s life to pay for our sin. I think that we’ve underestimated sin now that we’re under the Law of Grace. I think we need to live with the reality and math of: sin=death and death must come to bring life. This was the OT understanding and one that Christ fulfilled. In our easy going American culture, we glaze over the notion of an animal being killed so that we can eat lunch. In the third world, this reality is still present, not hidden In the slaughterhouses and nicely presented without blood, wrapped in cellophane, and lit beautifully.

Will we recognize Jesus when we get to heaven? The resurrected Christ still bears the scars in His hands and feet—quite possibly for eternity. We will love the One- mutilated and scarred for all eternity. I think the Father desires for us to remember the reality of Christ’s sacrifice for us, while we were still sinners– blinded in the fog of our sin, He came and died for us.

Village Thrift: Your Time To Shine

The time is now to get involved ReMixing an Enter The Worship Circle venture with us that we call the Village Thrift! All remixers, dj’s, hobbyists, rearrangers, mashup artists welcome!

The original Village Thrift: Circa 2005 was released as a collaborative effort between Todd Berger, Ryan Lott, Ben Pasley and others and, we think, is an incredible work. Our latest project simply titled “Village Thrift” is not a traditional album at all…it is a creative space between all of us. It is free to join, free to participate, and all the products from the Village Thrift are free as well! You just go to our store and download an 8-Pack+Vox and get started! There are currently 9 Songs to remix and more will be added over the next few weeks.

Want to remix? Want to know more? Want to download an 8-Pack+Vox and try your hand at remixing and publishing your work through the Village Thrift?

-Worship Circle: Village Thrift
http://www.reverbnation.com/villagethrift