Month: January 2017

Treasure Hunting with the Holy Spirit

                        

Hope you had a good Monday! Mine has been a recoup day from something which I absolutely love doing. Which is why your blog post which is supposed to arrive Sunday or Monday morning has not arrived until now. I’m going to take a break from the teaching on being a minstrel and just share a little from my weekend at Breakforth. What pray tell might this singing, songwriting, worship leader love doing even more than those things you may ask. It is the priestly ministry of connecting precious human beings with our God and Father and Jesus our Saviour through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. I have now volunteered 4 times to be on the prayer team at a most amazing conference called BreakForth Canada in Edmonton, Alberta. It just gets better every year. Not only do I get to see people experience the love of God and healing and freedom for their souls, I get to go on adventures with God. And let me tell you there is nothing more satisfying nor rewarding as going on a Treasure Hunt with the Spirit of God being your guide!

What, you may ask, is going on a Treasure Hunt with God? Well, I’m not sure who coined the term, but this is how it went for me and my teammates at Breakforth. The first step is to pray and ask God the Father to show us a clue regarding someone He would like us to minister to. The second step is to wait for the Father to give us a clue through His Spirit who we are to minister to. In my team, two of the three of us received some information from the Father about how to recognize the person He wants to minister to. My sister in the Lord, Kimberly received a picture of a man wearing a cowboy hat. Her first reaction was, now that is going to be unlikely that a man wearing a cowboy hat will be at Edmonton at Breakforth but she had the faith to share with us what she saw. I received a brief picture in my mind of someone wearing a brilliant yellow shirt, and I couldn’t see whether the person was male or female. Both Kimberly and I haven’t had great experiences doing this before, this definitely is out of our comfort zone but we decide we are going to trust God and go for it. So here we go, three treasure hunters, Kimberly, mother of 13, Edna a Phillipino pastor and myself. As we began to look for the yellow shirt and the cowboy hat I also heard our Father say don’t fixate on trying to find these people just go forth and ask people as you come across whether you can pray for them. So we did. We prayed for volunteers we came across, shaw center staff who were serving as security or food services, registrants for the conference etc. It was rich and rewarding engaging with people and seeing God bless people through our intercessory prayers and short messages of encouragement the Holy Spirit would give us for people. Soon, much to Kimberley’s surprise, the man with the cowboy hat came on the scene. But it didn’t seem the right time because we were engaged in praying for another person and she felt some pressure so rather than try to make it happen right away she prayed and waited. We carried on and later in the day I heard a report back that she had come across this man and she determined she would just do what Father asked and the man was blessed by her prayers. She was excited that she had completed the assignment and found the treasure Father was wanting her to find and encouraged him. For me, the first day of the conference went by, and then the second and finally the third day the final session was all done and I had my last prayer appointment to finish in the prayer room and still no yellow shirt. Leaders expressed thanks to the team and we expressed our thanks back to our leaders by asking whether we could pray for them, which we did. It had been a great experience of seeing the Holy Spirit minister to so many people and we were tired but just enjoying each other and God, thanking Him for the privilege of co-laboring with Him in people’s lives. Then something happened I was not expecting, the directors of Breakforth Canada walked into the prayer room! Much to my shock and delight, guess what I saw…the yellow shirt. Sharol was wearing a brilliant yellow shirt and I ran over to Kimberly and said there is my yellow shirt! My emotional response was literally tears of joy, I couldn’t believe it! Kimberly makes sure I don’t chicken out and nudges me forward near this precious woman’s feet as she and her husband were being surrounded by our team to receive prayer and encouragement from our Father in heaven. But now the question was what was it the Father wanted to do or say in this woman’s life. So I prayed and I received my answer and it was quite simple. First I began by thanking my Father in heaven,”Thank you God that the treasure hunt is finally over, I have finally found the person with the yellow shirt.” Everyone had a good laugh at that point as we rejoiced in the faithfulness of our heavenly Father. The message I had was simple and I said something like “Sharol, I believe your Father in heaven wants you to know that You are His treasure, He cherishes you and takes great delight in you!  I looked up and saw tears in both her husband’s eyes and hers as the Fathers loving words sunk into their hearts. God is so good! His love for us is so amazing!  And now you know one of the many reasons why I love volunteering for prayer team at Breakforth Canada!

Have a great week and don’t forget to subscribe!  This week’s song is There is None Like You!  Hope you enjoy it!

https://soundcloud.com/kelly-wiens-1/there-is-none-like-you-final-master

The Minstrel as a Singer/Songwriter

I spent many hours, probably too many, watching a show called Nashville this last year in the evenings after a
long day working on the farm.  You may wonder why I would do such a thing and I did too some days but I learned some things as a watched this show.   If you want to be a great singer/songwriter that makes it in the music business that attracts many people to your sound, you need to have something to say.  You need an authentic message which comes straight from your heart that connects with people where they are and takes them somewhere.   This was the story of Layla Grant who had been runner-up in a singing competition and began to try to make it in the singing world amongst some bigger stars like Juliette who was also on the same record label.  Her initial problem was that she had nothing to say but then later after suffering incredible heartbreak out of her broken marriage with Will Lexington she began to write out of her pain and struggle of her brokenness.  Jeff Fordham hears her singing her new stuff and is enamored with the sound and Layla and so the story goes and the rebirth of her singing career begins.     To be a great singer/songwriter the songs need to come from a place of your own experience,  your own story.  These will be the songs that find resonance with others.

We were made in God’s image and therefore we were made in the image of love for God is love.  As human beings we are created to be loved by God and to love Him back.    God also created this incredibly beautiful counterpart to Adam his first creation,  Eve because Adam was longing to connect with someone like himself and there was nothing in all of creation that could do that.    Eve was flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone created from him, like him but different in so many ways.  The enemy of our souls soon came to Eve and Adam seducing first Eve and then Adam to not trust God nor believe God but to believe him instead and pursue a different path of becoming our own gods, mapping our own destiny convincing us that death would not really happen, God wasn’t really telling the truth.   Then as Adam and Eve tasted the fruit of the knowledge of both good and evil they discovered for the first time fear and shame of their nakedness and the desire to hide from God.   Then God out of love dished out the consequences to all that were involved in the first rebellion to Adam, Eve and the serpent Satan.   God would promise Eve that one day,  someone would come from her that would destroy all that the serpent had deceived her into and redeem all that was lost, restoring the relationship with the Creator once again.   No more guilt, no more shame, a return to intimacy and trust, a return to a fearless relationship with Father God once again because a Lamb would die once and for all.  He would bear our rebellion and shame before a holy Father and make a way for us to come back to the garden and walk with Him once again.   Jesus is the name of that Lamb who died once and for all so that we could become like Him in every way.   Jesus is the love song of the Father sent from above to tell us how he feels about us, to show us who He really is.   As music minstrels in the Kingdom of God, our job is to keep the focus the heart of humanity on the loving Bridegroom Jesus Christ.   We can do this by singing songs that flow out of the experience of the songwriter with the lover of their souls Jesus Christ.  We do this by singing songs that flow out of the restored relationship with Father that Jesus has brought us into.

When I began as a worship leader and singer in choirs and small groups, I was singing songs written by other songwriters.   There is nothing wrong with this.   Not everyone writes songs, but for me soon there was a desire to express my heart to God via the medium of music for myself.  I loved God and I wanted to express how I felt through song.   I remember writing a song with my piano teacher Glen Barkman and he was helping me to create the harmonies for it.   I then tried to get my a cappella quartet to try to sing it.  It wasn’t quite finished to perfection.  There was some questions about which harmonies exactly were to be sung and some problems to figure it out.  I was anxious and pretty sensitive to any criticism at this point and when the practice didn’t go so well I gave up and never went back to that song.  It was called Come back to Me and it was about my experiencing the love of God my Father drawing me back to himself after I did something wrong and I was running away from Him.   Kinda sad, I don’t actually know where that song is and whether I could recreate it.  Oh, the joys of becoming a songwriter in the oh so perfectionistic world of music.  All this to say is I believe that as lovers of God and others we were made to express love in many ways.  One of those ways is through singing our love songs to God and one another.   I believe God loves to hear our voice and I know that those we love whether it be our girlfriend, boyfriend, our friends, our parents, our spouse or our children love to hear us sing over them or sing to them.  It is one of the simple and great pleasures of being created in the image of a God who is love.

The longing we have to be loved is cause we were made for it.  I’m gonna share a song with you that is about this cry and longing to be loved that I have found can only be met through the heavenly bridegroom Jesus.   First, He loves us and then He reveals our Father in heaven to us.   He also brings us others to love and be loved by which enriches our lives so much.   I hope you can identify with some of the longings expressed in the song.https://soundcloud.com/kelly-wiens-1/known-by-you-final-master/s-MLrHv

So here is my question of the week.  If you’ve written a song, what was your first one and what was it about?  How did the first attempt at sharing it go?   I’d like to hear your story!

 

 

The Heart and the Hand of the Lord

Now bring me a minstrel. And it came about,

when the minstrel played, that the hand of the

LORD came upon him.  2 Kings 3:15

King James Version

Welcome back!  I want to say thanks for reading my very professor like blog last week if you did and if you didn’t, and this is your first read, I encourage you to go back and read Heart of a Minstrel.     There is probably a lot more that could be mined from the research on that word I touched on and I invite your thoughts and insights on it.   a.k.a.  please comment, it helps me know how I’m doing as a writer and gives me food for thought.    As I keep doing what feels very new to me, the words of a pastor mentor in my life come back to me.  I’m not here to be a superstar minstrel or pastor who can minister better than everyone else, I’m here to learn and grow as I exercise the ministry responsibility the Lord has given me.   Thanks in advance for helping me learn and grow as a writer, teacher, and music minstrel.

I have always said the hand and the heart of a person are connected.   Some would say heart and spirit are interchangeable words and so if we did that, we would say the spirit of a person and their hand are intimately connected.   Jesus said in Luke 11:20 “But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”   This sounds very familiar to the theme verse where Elisha says bring me a minstrel and it came about that the hand of the Lord came upon him as the minstrel played.   The hand has fingers and fingers point where the heart of the person wants someone to go.  In the case of deliverance from demonic possession or oppression, Jesus tells the demons where to go by the finger of God, namely the Holy Spirit.    So here with Elisha we see the phrase, “hand of the Lord” and given that fingers are on a hand we can interpret this as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one sent to express the Heart of the Father on earth as He wills in heaven through His sons and daughters.  Jesus said to His disciples for them to wait in Jerusalem for the gift our Father promised, namely the Holy Spirit.   When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost in Acts 2, Peter said this was in fulfillment of Joel 2.  Joel prophesied the coming of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh both male and female.  He said we would prophesy which would include having visions and dreams, which means we would hear God speak to us by His Spirit and that we would then proclaim what He has spoken to us.  This is prophesying.  We can also read in 1 Chronicles that the priesthood that was set apart by the Lord through King David to minister to the Lord day and night uses the word prophesying to describe the ministry of praising and thanking God for what He has done.

[ The Musicians ] David, together with the commanders of the army, set apart some of the sons of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun for the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres, and cymbals.  1Chronicles 25:1
So you can see there is a variety of things that can happen when a minstrel begins to play his or her stringed instrument and begins to praise the Lord with just the music or music and singing.   The Holy Spirit fills the minstrel and the Holy Spirit also comes upon and fills those who are around.  For Elisha, this meant that as the minstrel played the Holy Spirit came upon him enabling him to hear what God was saying and then he proclaimed it to the audience God had directed him to speak to.   In the context of the David Tabernacle, we know from David’s experience and other psalm writers that not only does praise and thanksgiving and worship flow to God from a Holy Spirit filled minstrel or singer but also predictive Jesus-centered prophecies came out of their songs that they sang.  Psalm 22 is a great example of that where David describes how Jesus would die for our sins many years before it happens.
The apostle Paul encourages everyone to prophesy and gives the command to pursue spiritual gifts especially the gift of prophecy because it encourages, comforts and strengthens those who hear the words spoken or sung via the filling of the Spirit.   It would seem that as believers in Jesus indwelled by His Spirit, we all can prophesy.   Apostle Paul also says that only the Spirit knows God’s thoughts and this is true with us too.   Through the indwelling of His Spirit God allows us to know Him and what He is thinking about us and others.   When we speak it out or sing it out,  it has an edifying effect on everyone who hears.   The mystery in all this is how God has made music as a medium through which our hearts can connect with Him and each other.   I don’t fully understand,  but I have experienced it many times.  How about you?   How have you experienced the Holy Spirit filling you when you play an instrument or sing?  Perhaps you are like Elisha and have been filled with the Spirit when a minstrel played and you began to prophesy encouraging things to those around you as the minstrel played.  I’d be interested to hear about this in the comments.
       My wife wrote the lyrics and melody to a song I added the chords to many years ago called “You Delight in Me”.   More recently I added a bridge that is a prophetic song from the Father’s heart to you and me as His children.   I hope you enjoy it and remember He delights in you!   Look forward to hearing your comments and stories.  Until next time, Shalom!
https://soundcloud.com/kelly-wiens-1/you-delight-in-me-final-master

The Heart of a Minstrel

Now bring me a minstrel.   And it came about, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the LORD came upon him.  2 Kings 3:15

King James Version

As promised in the last post, I said I would share more about what is a minstrel and what are the prime motivations God has placed in the heart of His minstrels.   So I thought to be a  good student,  I would use a dictionary first to see why the translators of the King James Version chose the word minstrel to describe who and what Elisha was looking for.      Dictionary.com says this:

Word Origin and History for minstrel

n.early 13c., from Old French menestrel “entertainer, poet, musician;servant, workman; good-for-nothing, rogue,” from Medieval Latinministralis “servant, jester, singer,” from Late Latin ministerialem(nominative ministerialis) “imperial household officer, one having an official duty,” from ministerialis (adj.) “ministerial,” from Latin ministerium (seeministry ). The connecting notion is via the jester, etc., as a court position.

Specific sense of “musician” developed in Old French, but in English until16c. the word was used of anyone (singers, storytellers, jugglers,buffoons) whose profession was to entertain patrons. Only in 18c. was theword limited, in a historical sense, to “medieval singer of heroic or lyricpoetry who accompanied himself on a stringed instrument.”

I find it interesting that from the 13th century from the word menestrel,  it meant entertainer, poet, musician.  These words all connect with me as a musician as we are often called upon to entertain, and songs are often poetry to words.   I also find it interesting that minstrel came from the word to be a servant, a jester and a singer, as well from a word that meant to be an imperial household officer or one having an official duty flowing from the King and serving in His court.   Later it says in 16th century it moved from being a general term for entertainer including storytellers, singers, and jugglers, and buffoons to that of being a medieval singer of heroic or lyric poetry who accompanied himself on a stringed instrument.

After reading the dictionary, I think it is quite obvious why the translator chose to use minstrel for someone who played the harp or kinnor.   Now, I play a stringed instrument that has a harp and hammers, the piano or at least a digital instrument which replays a recording of a real piano.   I love to play the piano especially grand pianos, they are my favorite.   So when the Lord spoke to me in 1997 about me being a minstrel in His Kingdom, I definitely fit the criteria of being a minstrel from that simple definition and there is no question I love to sing songs from heroic poetry (the Psalms:)) which is the latter part of the definition.   As I think about being part of Gods kingdom it makes sense that the minstrel word comes from the French word for servant, as well the word that describes being an imperial officer, and one with a duty that has been delegated to them from the King.   Jesus said if we want to be great in His kingdom, we must become great at serving others.   As I reflect on the fact that minstrels often served before Kings in their courts or before nobles, as worship leaders I think that is the place we often find ourselves in.   We first enter into our Kings courts with praise and thanksgiving in song ourselves, and then we invite others in to join us in the Kings Presence.   This is our place of delegated authority and responsibility.   We are responsible to the King and our job is to serve everyone within earshot to come into the Kings presence and worship him with thankful and praise filled songs.  I like where this word comes from!

For many years the word entertainer was a real stumbling block for me as a musician.  I didn’t want to be seen as an entertainer as I heard a Youth For Christ speaker once say entertainment is the opposite of worship.  It tends to focus on trying to tickle the ears of its listeners to appeal to the desires of the eyes, the flesh, and its listener’s pride.   I agree that much of entertainment is this.  However, as I was preparing to share this with you today I realized there is a way to turn this upside down so that it is very right for us as minstrels to be entertainers.  As minstrels, we are to be servants of our King with a heart to see God glorified in the midst of His people.   What if we saw our job as first and foremost to bring pleasure to the King by what we say and play for Him.  What if our job as minstrels of the Kingdom of Heaven was not driven by trying to please men and women but the central drive of the heart of the minstrel in the Kingdom of heaven was to bring pleasure to the King of Kings, to put a smile on His face, to make Him laugh, and to bring Him joy.   I think I can get into that kind of entertainment.  So if I had to put it into one sentence.    The heart of a minstrel is a to be a servant who invites people into the Kings Courts to praise and worship Him whose primary joy is to bring delight and pleasure to the Kings heart!   How about you!

Next week I will share the second half of this post as I realized it was too long, which will focus on the second portion of this verse.  Elisha asked a minstrel to come and play so the hand of the Lord would come upon him and he could then prophesy.   Next week I want to explore the connection between the minstrel and the hand of the Lord coming upon us and others around us.   I think you will find it a good subject to reflect and meditate on, the relationship between you and your ministry as a minstrel and the Lords’ hand coming upon others.

As promised, a link to a song.  This is a simple song of worship I wrote down and played for the first time in the mid-nineties.  I hope you enjoy being in the presence of  King Jesus with me and experience His peace!https://soundcloud.com/kelly-wiens-1/i-worship-you-final-master  Chords and lyrics in Resources!

Please do not forget to subscribe so your next one comes on Monday morning to your inbox!

 

The Power of Promise Fulfilled

Good morning! It’s a beautiful sunny morning on a Saturday in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. Wow, that’s a lot of SSS’s! And as promised, I said I would have a website that was active on January 7. Thanks, Camille Schroeder for helping me get this site up. I had intended to have my first blog post being something a little meatier but technology has let me down so I think I will simply introduce who I am a little and what I want to talk about over the next months and years.

My name is Kelly Wiens. I am married to Lani now for almost 25 years, and we have 6 children together 4 sons and 2 daughters and one child in heaven they range in age from 10 to 20. I am 46 years old and I have been singing and playing musical instruments since I was preschool. I play very little guitar, a lot of piano/keyboard, sing, write songs and sing them to Lord and others. My experience in contemporary worship leading began when I was 20 in Bible School in Bethany Bible Institute leading a praise and prayer chapel on Fridays. Although I began by leading vocally only with great band leader, I have led since that time after acquiring some play by chord skills mostly with piano and keyboard. Since 1991 I have led worship in my two home churches mostly Hope Fellowship Church (1993-2007), Hillside Christian Fellowship Church in Beechy (2007-2014) and 2014 till the present Hope Fellowship church and other places I get invited, like the Bridge on 20th, Living Hope Church and Watchmen for the Nations Gatherings.    I think I like hope or something! I love to worship our God our Father and our Saviour Jesus and I love singing songs that come from His heart to encourage, strengthen and comfort us. So that’s enough about me for now, but I will share more as I go.

Minstrel Musings is a blog for minstrels. What is a minstrel? In a nutshell, a minstrel is a ministering musician of some kind made possible by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.   So whether you are a worship leader, singer, songwriter or an instrument player of any kind and you love the Lord Jesus Christ and love to minister to Him and others I want to talk to you. The Musings part means to simply reflect and meditate. I believe our Father has in history and is raising up many music minstrels to be His ministers and His messengers. This blog is a place is a place where I hope we can meditate and reflect upon the things our Father in heaven is teaching us as we minister. I hope this blog becomes a place of encouragement for you, and a place where you can reference when you are having struggles, have questions, looking for a little inspiration and lift in your spirit when you are downhearted.  Lastly, a lot of the things our Father has taught us as minstrels is contained in the songs He gives us so each month I plan to link you to a song to share with you. So my first musing will be on the topic The Heart of a Minstrel. Things I will be reflecting on will be what is a minstrel in more detail and what are the prime motivations in his or her heart. The follow up to that will be an intro to the connection between the minstrel and the Holy Spirit in us and others.
So if you are interested please subscribe, Heart of a Minstrel will come out Monday morning in your inbox God-willing!