Spirit Midwest Ministries Blog

National Guard Climbing Wall at SMW 2009!

Post by Julie Barnes on Sun Apr 26th, 2009

We are thrilled to have the National Guard joining us at Spirit Midwest 2009 with their awesome climbing wall again. This is a huge hit - quite literally! - with young and old alike. Come on out and try your hand at climbing this massive wall. Who knows . . . maybe we'll even have a competition!

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God Provides Praise 940!

Post by Julie Barnes on Mon Apr 13th, 2009

It never ceases to amaze me how God works. You know, you hear things like this all the time . . . "The Lord will lead you," or "God is in control," or "Let God show you the way"... But it's hard to put that into practice. Yet, with Spirit Midwest, it has truly been an amazing experience.

This has been an endeavor where we (the ministry committee) have specifically taken our hands off of things and waited for God to work, thinking it would be a long time before something happened . . . only to have God move far quicker than we were prepared for (such as in our change of venue last year). Other times, we have waited, thinking God would move quickly in an area . . . and we're still waiting. But, no matter what we leave in His hands, we know that He will take care of it. And once again He has come through in a way we would never have imagined.

One of the people on our committee was talking about Spirit Midwest with someone at work. That co-worker was interested in becoming a vendor with us this summer. He had a partner who called me to discuss this opportunity.

In the meantime, we have been searching for a sponsoring radio station. Because our budget doesn't allow us to bring in the Casting Crowns of the world, we're not able to be promoted on the listener supported radio station. Because our sponsorship money is very targeted, we don't have the funds to pay for advertising on any other stations right now.

So, as I'm talking to this possible vendor, I'm writing a letter to a local radio station on my laptop asking them to partner with us for Spirit Midwest 2009. Somehow our conversation gets to the question of what radio stations we're working with and I explain our dilemma and that I'm writing to Praise 940 asking for them to join us this summer . . . Well, who was I talking to? Tami Bixby, Program Director for Praise 940! She was quite excited about the opportunity and immediately agreed to be our partnering radio station!

I was overwhelmed, once again, by the awesome power of our God. Does this not specifically highlight the truth that "Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord." (Psalm 139:4. Wow! I love it! I didn't need to finish my letter. I didn't need to mail it out. I just needed to be obedient and watch God work!

As I flesh out the history of Spirit Midwest in the coming months, I'll be going back through our journals and sharing all these God-sightings. I'm excited about that as I pray that they will encourage you to be faithful in waiting on God. He is never slow, He is never late, He is never distracted. His timing is perfect. May He meet you in a special way today and everyday!

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Speakers, Puppets, Magician & More!

Post by Julie Barnes on Wed Apr 8th, 2009

We are so excited about the festival this summer! God has moved so much in just the past week that I can't even remember all of the milestones. Things began on Friday when Everyday Sunday agreed to headline the event. Then that afternoon Praise 940 volunteered to be our sponsoring station. We found another awesome speaker to join our line-up: Ashley Ayersman, Director of the Love Revolution. Saturday we found an awesome Christian illusionist and a puppeteer to join our line-up. By Saturday night we had booked all the bands we could fit in one day . . . and then some! It's so exciting to see God's hand at work, especially when we know we haven't done anything to make it happen. We do hope you're making plans to join us at Spirit Midwest 2009. I'm confident it will bless you in ways you can't even imagine!

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