Back in April my entire life changed. Most significantly my heart was supernaturally transformed from a person who was consumed with self, greed and stuff into a person who is totally consumed with Jesus Christ. I had nothing to do with this transformation, let me be clear. I had been praying over the last couple years the same prayer, over and over, “God, please change my heart”. There were many areas of my life that, despite my faith in Jesus, weren’t surrendered to him. Allow me to give painful detail:

1. I wanted what I wanted far more than I wanted what God wanted. I grew up poor and above all else wanted to become rich so I could have stuff and things. I wanted security, subconsciously, so I wouldn’t have to depend on God. I could get by on my own thank you very much.
2. Subconsciously I was always trying to “do enough” so that God would be pleased with me. Somehow along the way I totally forgot that my deeds are like filthy rags before the Lord, and my only hope of ever making God “happy” was by being atoned for by Jesus.
3. I had selfish reasons for wanting to be seen as a “man of the Word” and an authority and mentor on things of the Bible. I used to get angry because people didn’t come to me wanting Biblical advice. After all, I knew it all, so why WOULDN’T you want to get my input? I’m ashamed…
4. I couldn’t use the talents God has given me for service because I was too busy being proud of them. In my mind all of my gifts and talents were a result of my hard work, not a gift from God that was given so I could glorify Him.

All of these things changed within a 1 month period of time, so much so that it was overwhelmingly obvious that the Hand of God had truly reached down and took the time to clean up this wicked sinner. Praise His Name!

Not long after this I had a heart for worship that I had never known. I had also been praying over the last year for God to show me what true worship was. I didn’t believe in “emotion-filled” worship, and I also didn’t feel like I was experiencing anything I would have considered worship most of the time. For the first time in nearly a year I picked up my guitar and prayed that God would allow me to praise Him through music. Music began pouring out of me, I couldn’t contain it. I would stay up until 2 or 3:00 in the morning and I just couldn’t put it down, it was amazingly beautiful. I started to see that when my hearts desire was to truly glorify God He would do amazing things through me. For the first time ever I surrendered my talents totally to Him, I knew they weren’t meant for my glory.

Once I had found a love for worship music I started digging through iTunes to see what worship music was on there.  In the past I listened to a few Christian artists, but they had to pass a strict list of technical requirements and talent-level tests before I thought they were worthy. I was missing the point. I had always liked “Revelation Song” by Kari Jobe so the first thing I did was buy her album, which had just been released I believe. That night I laid in my bed listening to that album, eyes closed and weeping. I realized at that moment that God, despite my circumstances and the pain I was feeling, was worthy of praise. He was more than enough for me. His love was far more than I would ever need. My heart was filled and overflowing with Praise for my Amazing God.

Eventually, through Kari’s music, I discovered Gateway Worship and started listening to them. One night I was watching a Gateway Worship DVD and I heard God tell me “I will take you there”. At first I didn’t think too much about it, but a few moments later, as I realized those words didn’t come from my own thoughts, I got on the floor and began praying. “God, if this word is from you, I want it. Take me there. I will go anywhere you want me to go, use me.” I didn’t even know where Gateway Church was located at the time I don’t think. All I knew is that I now had a sense of purpose, a clear direction that I was going to follow.

My cousin Anton is my best friend and a brother in Christ that is wise beyond his years, the Spirit of God speaks loudly through him. I told him about what had happened and that’s when I received my first confirmation. As it turns out he had a friend who had been worship leader at a church in Florida he attended. This person had accepted a position at Gateway Church, so they were now one of the leaders of Gateway Worship. So, literally the day after I receive this calling I found out that my cousin here in Indiana knows someone who’s not only on staff at Gateway Church, they’re one of the leaders of Gateway Worship. And this wasn’t the only confirmation I got, I had another friend who also “happened” to have connections with people in Gateway’s audio/video departments. I began to give praise to God each time He would give me these sorts of confirmations. It made it very easy to take steps of faith.

I started connecting with people from Gateway, and specifically people in Gateway Worship on Facebook. Instantly I had a couple of people who took an active interest in my journey and were awesome encouragers. Eventually I decided that it was time to go and visit Texas and see what the church was all about. As I started thinking about it I was growing a little anxious. I could easily have driven to Texas, attended a church service and never spoken to a single person, the trip could prove to be fairly uneventful and that would have been extremely confusing. I prayed one night for God to show me what I should do in preparation for the trip. I had always been a big self-promoter, trying to do things the right way to get the desired outcome, etc. I didn’t want to do this that way. I wanted God to show me what to do and provide a way if this was what He was calling me to.

The next morning I received a message on Facebook from someone who sings with Gateway Worship. Heidi had been incredibly supportive from the beginning and her message was an unmistakable answer to my prayers the night before. She had suggested someone to get in contact with to make my visit to Gateway more fruitful and get my questions answered. She also invited me to sit in on pre-service run throughs with Gateway Worship. Yep, I cried. Never before had I seen God’s answers to my prayers so quickly and obviously.

These sorts of prayer answers came frequently and eventually I had enough faith in the calling that I put my house up for rent… and found a Christian family, who were wanting to move to the area to start a church, to rent it the same day. I was invited by my dad to come and stay with them until I had the money saved to move to Texas, so I took him up on it. After all, I still hadn’t been to Texas and I, at the very least, needed to go down there to look for a place to live before making the move. As it turns out, God had a plan for taking me to my dad’s house too. A couple of weeks after I moved in I went to see Kari Jobe lead worship in Ohio and my 17-year-old brother Austin came with me. He decided, on the 4 hour car ride home, that he wanted Jesus in his life too. Again I was humbled, and brought to tears, by this overwhelming display of God’s sovereignty.

A couple of weeks later I drove, with Austin, to Dallas Texas.

The weeks leading up to the trip were extremely challenging. I recognize them now as spiritual attacks that were attempting to lead me away from the path God had convinced me to walk on. In hindsight it’s scary how close I came to explaining away the calling to Texas. Through the distraction I knew that once I got to Texas and visited the church I would know, for sure, wether or not God was calling me there. It’s hard to explain how conflicted I felt about things at that time. (In writing this now I’m sorry that I questioned the calling in the first place)

I had the entire weekend filled with meetings that had been arranged with Heidi as well as Jason, one of the associate pastors of worship at the church. Saturday I was invited to sit in on a pre-service run through of all of the music for that evenings service. I drove up to the church (an impressive building) and parked in the otherwise empty parking lot. It was quite odd walking into this huge building that’s obviously design to accommodate thousands of people and yet seeing no one else. As I opened the doors I was instantly met with the beautiful sounds of a cappella vocal harmony. They were singing “Here in Your Presence” by New Life Worship. I got chills, I’m not gonna lie. I followed the voices around the hallway until I saw a door that lead into the auditorium. There I sat for an hour or so and experienced worship in-person with this group that only weeks ago I had been worshipping with through a DVD. I was overwhelmed, many times, by how far, and to where, God had brought me. And I knew this was home.

Afterwords I got to meet Heidi and had a few questions answered. It’s a bit of a blur now, but I do remember expressing to her what an answer to prayer she had been on that night when I prayed for God to show me what to do on my visit. She said God had told her to encourage and help me. Praise God.

The next day I had arranged to meet with Jason, one of the associate pastors of worship at the church. He answered even more questions and was an unbelievably loving brother in Christ. He took me back to meet everyone who was leading worship that weekend, which was great. I also Got to finally meet Kari Jobe, but I didn’t say much. Hopefully in the coming years I’ll be able to explain to her the amazing ways God used her to communicate His love and more-than-enough-ness to me.

After all of that I ran into someone else that I had been communicating with on Facebook. April and her husband Marco. We sat for a while and I was instantly amazed at the similarities between us. They’re both graphic designers and musicians with amazing love for the Lord. I instantly felt a connection with them that has grown by leaps and bounds since I got back to Indiana, I’m most excited to see what God has in store for that relationship.

So, my visit to Texas was the most amazing confirmation I could have ever wanted. I found an apartment and I got a peek at what God has in store for me at Gateway as well as the friends He has connected me with already. I’ll be moving the first week of October and I couldn’t be more excited. I already have plans for pursuing my calling to leading worship and writing music the moment I arrive there. God is good and faithful. The anticipation and excitement I have about the coming years pours out of me. I’ve seen mere glimpses of what He has in store for me and I’m humbled and overwhelmed.

I write all of this not to tell you how awesome my calling is, or how excited I am about going to a church where Kari Jobe is one of the worship leaders. I write all of this to give praise to our Amazing God for His faithfulness. For His ability to truly rise us out of the ashes of life. For His unfathomable sovereignty. For His Amazing Love. Even if you can’t write, play or sing music, your life-song can sing out God’s praises. Praise Him!

So now I sit in a set of circumstances that are both blissfully ripe with potential, and at the same time almost maddeningly slow and mundane. I’m living in Brazil, IN with my dad, step-mom and brother and really enjoying the great quality time we’re able to have. I’m also spending lots of time focusing on trying to get work done and slowly work on getting rid of all of my debts. All the while, in the back of my mind is this call to move to Texas and get involved in the praise and worship team at Gateway Church. The calling I feel to Texas is a long story so I won’t go into those details just yet.

Perhaps what is bothering me most is not feeling very certain one way or the other. Should I stay, or should I go? If so, when? I know that when God’s answers aren’t clear the answer is usually “not yet”, so I’m trying to wait. However, I’m also incredibly excited to get moved and get involved in this amazing church. I’m just not sure it’s time for that yet… I continue to read, pray and seek God daily, trusting He’ll give me clarity when it’s time. But I’m also well aware, and willing to accept, that He may have something totally different in mind for me. I have an image on my desktop wallpaper that’s a constant reminder of where I want my heart to be “Your will be done, no matter what it is.” And that’s what I want. Truly.

I have a weekend trip planned to Texas this weekend to help get some clarity on the situation. My brother Austin and I are driving down and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be visiting the church several times, will be checking out a couple of apartments and will also get to worship with Kari Jobe and Gateway Worship twice! I’m so pumped and hoping to have much more clarity when I return.

So, in the meantime I want to be ready and available for the day-to-day ways that I can glorify Him. I’m praying His spirit will open my eyes to the countless opportunities He’s putting in front of me every day, and that I will pursue them. So, if you would be willing I’d appreciate your prayers, I would appreciate it so much.

In the Love of Christ,
Evan

I took a few minutes to get my desk all cleaned up and organized today. After all, if I’m going to be spending so much time behind it why not make it beautiful?

It’s been far too long since I’ve written anything. Part of the reason is that I just haven’t had a lot I felt like taking about; but the main reason is that I’ve been experiencing the busiest period of my life. No joke.

Things have been incredibly exciting and stressful for going on 4 months now. It’s all good, but it can’t go on like this forever. It has been my routine for the last month or so to work until 1 or 2am at least 3 nights a week. Don’t get me wrong, I do my best work at night, but man cannot live on Starbucks Double Shots alone. Thankfully my amazing wife hasn’t complained at all, being well aware of the circumstances and my addiction to highly-satisfying work.

Agee Design has been very busy and on top of that my primary client, with whom I have a full-time contract, has been keeping me very busy as well. Lots of exciting stuff going on! On top of that I’ve been working on bringing in enough work to keep my first employee/brother Mitchell busy creating amazingly beautiful motion graphics. Again, it’s all good, but it’s busy. If you haven’t been lately I would encourage you to check out Agee Design and see what we’ve been up to lately. We’re producing some amazing work these days and I couldn’t be more excited about the road ahead.

On top of everything with work I also became a BSF discussion leader this year, which I’m loving SO much. The amazing truth that has been coming out of this year’s study of Isaiah has been life-changing and is truly ministering to my heart on a daily basis. This week I have spring break so I get to sleep in on Saturday and may have a free night next Monday. Just a few more weeks left and we have a summer break, something I’m simultaneously excited about and dreading…

More to come later.

Been quite some time since I’ve written much of anything on this blog, though I’ve been quite active on my Facebook account. There’s been so much going on, in fact I’m experiencing what has become the most busy and sometimes stressful part of my life. Ever. The company I work for full time in Silicon Valley has been growing very quickly as of late and that has meant more hours and more work, the upside is I’m working on some truly innovative and amazing projects.

My brother Mitch has been working with me as my first employee at Agee Design since the first part of December and that is going very well. He’s picking things up quickly and doing work I couldn’t have imagined a year ago. We’re working on making our office as fun and comfortable as possible and recently added an espresso machine, a toaster, a panini machine and 3 giant 1 liter beer mugs that we’ve been freezing and using to drink our Diet Mountain Dew and Root Beer. Fun stuff!

Our Route 66 road trip has been coming to mind a lot lately, and with a work-related road trip to San Jose in the near future I’m hoping to re-experience some of that trip, and if all goes as planned Mitch will be going with me as well. 2010 was an amazing year; The blessings have been showered over me over the last year and I’m extremely thankful, giving God the praise with each one.

I’ve also had a steady stream of other projects at Agee Design aside from my full time contract. It’s been a challenge to keep up with the workload, but also wonderfully exciting. I’ve recently redesigned our Church’s website, which I’d been wanting to do for some time. I’m also working on a new website for Agee Design that I hope to launch in the coming months.

I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions because of the emphasis on self, but I resolve to post more often and try keep you posted on what’s going on in my life. If you care to know.

I love my office, as if it wasn’t obvious by the copious amount of photos…

This week I’ve hired my first employee at Agee Design, my brother Mitchell. He’s been working very hard to learn video production as well as some graphic design basics and the door has finally opened to give us an opportunity to take him to the next level. While the change is extremely exciting, it’s amazing to me the complexity of truly hiring an employee vs a contractor, I’m amazed that there are so many small businesses out there that actually are able to take this step.

I’m looking forward to the coming days and months as we spend more time working on projects together, and I look forward to the possibility of company growth that he creates. But more than anything else I look forward to being able to spend lots of time, doing what I love, with someone else that I love. It’s a true blessing.

Our plan was to drive to St. Louis MO and get onto the Route from there and then drive as far as possible on Route 66 until we ran out of time and had to turn around and came back. We ended up making it to Williams Arizona before deciding that the thought of continuing west was just a little more than we could handle. There was roughly 500 miles of Route 66 that we didn’t get to see, the stretch that leads to Santa Monica, but we decided we had enough driving and were ready to begin the long journey back. Our initial plans were to take the route as far as we could go west and then take the interestates all the way back, but as we quickly learned there’s nothing more mind-numbing than driving on the interstate for hours on end. By heading home early we had plenty of time to take the route on the way back as well hitting some of the places we missed on the way through.

On the first day of our trip we got into a pretty serious accident and totalled our car. It was a scary experience but we were determined to keep going if at all possible. We spent the night in St. Louis at a hotel that happened to be on Route 66. The tow truck driver dropped us off and then took our beloved Element to the tow yard. We would have to wait until tomorrow to find out what the insurance company wanted us to do. We made the arrangements to have the car taken to a local garage for an estimate and in the meantime had arranged for a rental car with unlimited miles for 8 days at nearly half the cost we’d expected. The plan was to continue on with the trip and a week later we’d drop the car off back in St. Louis and either our car would be repaired and ready to drive home or we’d rent another car one-way and drive the rest of the way home. We got into our rented Nissan Altima and headed west!

Day 2, Monday

Our goal for Monday was to get all the way through Missouri and as far through Oklahoma as possible. We got to see some of the oldest stretches of Route 66 throughout the day, but since we were a little behind schedule we also drove some on the interstate to make up some time. The section of Route 66 we were most excited to see began in Texas, so we didn’t feel like we were missing much. We got to see the Blue Whale and ate at the famous Rock Cafe in Oklahoma that day. We ended up staying in Yokon OK, home town of Garth Brooks.

Day 3, Tuesday

On Tuesday we started off the day driving on the oldest section of Route 66 and had one of the most enjoyable driving days of the entire trip. We started very early in the morning and really enjoyed driving around on the rust-colored, rolled edge Route 66 highway. Early in the day we made it to the border of Oklahoma and Texas to a tiny modern ghost town called Texola which we really enjoyed. Our first big stop of the day in Texas was at the Big Taxan Steakhouse, known to most people as the home of the 72oz steak challenge. We didn’t take the challenge, but we did have a great meal before continuing on through Texas and into Tucumcari, NM where we stayed at the Blue Swallow Motel, one of Route 66′s best known Motels.

Day 4, Wednesday

The goal for Wednesday was to see a couple of famous places along the Route including the “Here it Is” sign, which we had some trouble locating. We also were looking forward to passing through Albuquerque, which sits right on Route 66. We ate lots of great food, most of it covered in green chilis, it was amazing. It was this stretch of the trip where we saw some of the most spectacular scenery, New Mexico is the most beautiful of all the states I’ve seen. We were going to be staying in Holbrook Arizona that night so we drove through New Mexico making our way to The Painted Dessert and Petrified Forrest National Park, where we had a great time (despite a terrible headache and a bad case of dehydration). To us the petrified forrest was clearly the remnants of treas being carried from other areas of Arizona and deposited in the hills and vallies of this region when the great flood happened in the time of Noah. When we were finished with the huge 28 mile National Forrest we headed to Holbrook Arizona where we stayed the night in the Wigwams, something Kristen was very excited about

Day 5, Thursday

Day 5 would be our last day of driving west and we would be seeing the Grand Canyon and Williams Arizona, one of my favorite town on Route 66. Our Grand Canyon experience wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the experience I had a couple of years ago when I visited in November. It was cold, but it was very quiet and serene. On this day the place was crawling with people and we ended up leaving due to furstration. We had booked a hotel for the night on the rim, but decided to cancel our reservation and ended up driving to Williams for a relaxing evening in a great room at The Lodge. We walked around town, went to the soda fountain “Twisters”.

Day 6, Friday

Day 6 we began our drive back with much more excitement than we had expected. We had driven somewhere around 3,000 miles and were excited that we weren’t going to have to retrace our steps on the interstate. Our first stop of note was at Meteor Crater in Arizona. We had a great time and many laughs as well. On our way back through New Mexico we decided to take a older section of Route 66 which goes through Sante Fe and northern New Mexico. We spend the evening in Sante Fe walking around the Square and had some great food. Sante Fe ended up being our favorite city on the trip, what a beautiful place. We stayed that night in the El Ray Inn on Route 66.

Day 7, Saturday

Saturday we went back through Tucumcari to stop at Del’s Restaurant, a famous 66 diner. We continued on through Texas and Oklahoma and took a different route through a portion of Kansas. We stopped at a really cool gas station in Arcadia MO that sold thousands of different kinds of sodas in glass bottles. The coolest thing about it was that it was a newer business, something we didn’t see much of on this trip. We also saw the famous Round Barn. There were a couple of other places we wanted to find on our trip including John’s Modern Cabins, a collection of almost totally destroyed cabins from the 40s that have since been let go, we were lucky to see them before there’s nothing left. That evening we stayed in the Wagon Will Inn in Cuba MO, another classic Route 66 motel.

Day 8, Sunday

Our final day of the trip we were only about an hour away from St. Louis and we had since found out that our Element was totalled. The plan was to get into town, get a hotel and wait for my brother to come and pick us up and take us home. Turns out that we were more excited to get home than expected, so we extended the rental on our car for another day and continued our journey on through Illinois and finally arrived back home around 10PM Sunday night.

We’ve talked many times since we first met about taking a Route 66 road trip, it’s been a dream for both of us for a long time. The experience of doing it exceeded our expectations and has truly left a mark on me. The people we met, the places we saw. The most amazing thing about the trip is the sense of history you get from travelling on Route 66 and literally seeing a glimpse at what early Americans would have experienced when driving across this amazing, diverse country. They were brave, strong people. I should also mention that Route 66 is almost impossible to follow without a Route 66 map, as most of it is no longer marked or has been renamed or turned into a service road. We never used a GPS and it made the trip so much more amazing and adventurous.

If you’re ever blessed with the opportunity to take a week or so and drive across the country on Route 66 I can’t recommend it highly enough. We saw hundreds of amazing things, many I’ve left out of this post because I’ve probably forgotten about many of them. I encourage you to avoid the chain hotels and stay at the classic places, sure they may have small bathrooms and 50′s decorations, but the point of this trip is to experience the road as those in the 40s and 50s would have, an experience that I feel I can truly appreciate now.

As part of trying to grow the company I’m trying to establish more of a local presence and make sure people are aware that Agee Design exists. Getting the building was step 1 and that has been great, but as you might expect most people didn’t realize that a business had moved into the building, which had been vacant for years. The day I moved in I put in the order for a sign from a local sign maker, Andy VanDevord. He’s created many of the hand-painted signs around the area and once I found out he was the person behind a few of my local favorites I knew he was the man for the job. It’s been a while and I’m excited to finally have the sign on display at the Agee Design headquarters at 212 W Main St. in Centerville Indiana. I believe it does a great job of capturing the modern, technical nature of the company while also reflecting the historic nature of the buildings in signage in Centerville. I couldn’t be happier with the results.

So what’s next? More of the same I imagine. I’m keeping very busy with my contract work for a client in California and I’m trying to pickup video production work as I can find projects and I’m not taking on very many website projects at the moment so I can focus on video work. Some exciting projects are going on right now, can’t wait to share more about those later.

I’ve been waiting for quite some time, and the wait is nearly over! The hand-painted Agee Design sign that will adorn the front of my office space is nearly completed and I couldn’t be happier with the results. Local sign artist Andy VanDevord has created some of the most amazing signs in Wayne County and I’m proud to have him create mine.

The last remaining element is the scroll work. Hopefully within the next week the sign will be finished and hung!

View larger version of this video (recommended)

This last weekend I got to partake in a ritual that has been a part of my friend’s life for a while now, the annual day of nothingness. Essentially it’s just a day for a small group of guys to hang out, eat junk food, play games and generally have a great time. Most of the time was spent playing Modern Warfare 2, which is one of my favorite games, so I was happy. But, the event wasn’t problem-free. Our #2 TV, a 50″ Sony LCD wasn’t powering on, so we had to man-handle it and show it who was boss. And by show it who’s boss I mean we removed the back of the television and stared at the mysterious inner-workings of the beast for a few moments.

As you might expect we poked and prodded at the mysterious electrical components, hoping to jar one of the surely misplaced elements into its proper place. After we were sure our work was done we plugged the power cable in (before putting the back on) and amazingly, with God’s wonderful grace, it worked, we had succeeded, though none of us knew what we had done.

We begin furiously screwing the back of the TV on, visions of the head-2-head gaming carnage that would soon take place dancing in our little heads. Finally, what seemed to be the millionth screw was secured in place and we plugged the TV in again to verify that we weren’t imagining things with our earlier test.

Nothingness.

Somehow the Sony LCD had developed a profound and mysterious rejection of its own components, like a body rejecting the gift of a donated, life-giving organ. The only logical solution was to remove the back panel again and use the naked, mechanical monstrosity in its most natural state; throwing off all of the dead weight of components added for the sole purpose of setting the minds of its owners at ease. Sure enough, cover was removed, the TV was plugged in and with the push of a button it was alive again.

In the end the games we were playing didn’t have much system link support, at least not in a way that allowed all 4 of us to play at once, but it was all about the journey. The men we were by the end of day 2 would not have recognized the men of the day before, and it’s not just because they would be so confused by the time machine.

For the last year I’ve been driving to the gym, a 30 minute round trip, 5 days a week. Monday and Wednesday are cardio-only days usually spent on the treadmill, while Tusday, Thursday and Friday are my lifting/cardio days. I’ve been wanting to find a way to do a cardio session in the morning when I first wake up in order to maximize fat burning, and rather than making another trip to the gym each day we decided to get a treadmill. Now I’ll be driving across town less and I’ll be able to use the treadmill much more conveniently, which will hopefully translate into more frequently.

The treadmill we ended up going with is the NordicTrack A2550 Pro. It’s fairly simple and has all of the standard features, including iFit PRO, which I’m very excited about and I’m sure I’ll be posting more about once my wireless module arrives in the mail. Basically it allows you to track your progress, as well as use Google Maps to simulate the terrain of places all around the globe. So, I could go on a virtual walk through the local park, or run the Boston Marathon Route. Should be fun!