Merry Christmas

10:38 AM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (1)

Hello Everyone, 


I hope all of you had a great Christmas! I spent mine with all my family, I couldn't have asked for a better week. 

I was driving around on christmas day for a bit, and it was so bizarre to see everything shut down. The materialistic machine that is the US stopped for a day, maybe not all for the right reasons, but in the historical meaning of the holiday, they all stopped to honor the new born king - Jesus Christ. Obviously over the years christmas has progressively meant less about Jesus(and love, and anything else that is good) and more about us. But it was kind of nice to see everyone knowingly or unknowingly honoring Christ on that day. 

Speaking of Materialism, I am not pretending I am invincible to this problem. I think it hits even harder around this time of year, sadly. I find myself stuck thinking about material gains which are good in of themselves, but then realize I haven't sat down to read my Bible that day or have a significant time of prayer. All that mental power wasted on things that are in the end temporary, without first getting my head and heart right before God. I feel ashamed, ask for forgiveness and remedy it immediately. So, I encourage you as I encourage myself to check yourself in this regard as often as needed. Is knowing God and making him known really my first priority today? 

Love Ya'll, 
David

Worries of this world.

8:27 AM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (1)

Mathew 13:22 "The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful."
During these crazy financial times and even before then, I've caught myself worrying about work, money, my career, future family, etc. (Who doesn't, right?) But reading this scripture re-centered me in acknowledging that these "worries of life" can be used as a crafty weapon against my faith and relationship with God. I realized I need to keep on guard and in prayer. I pray that I may not worry, but fully trust in Him. I have been praying that lately and there has been much peace in my mind as a result, thanks to God. 

For now, my foreseeable future involves being a full time engineer, and at the same time doing meaningful ministry in music. I've come to realize that the pit fall described in this scripture holds more true to me than say a person who is ministry full time. When my lively hood doesn't come directly from the ministry I'm involved in, the worries of this world have a greater potential to distract and worry me. Realistically, I think if I did worship full time my life would be easier. But I know for a fact God has not directed me to that for this time, and if I did do that now, it would be out of disobedience. If you do both work and ministry now, I think you can relate. 

I strongly believe that the "layman ministry" is something that the church needs to foster and encourage. The body of Christ has many parts, and each has special gifts. I think we are only using some body parts, and sadly for the most part our body is paralyzed. (Think of the millions of christians in the US, now think of the ministry that goes on. The proportion is not good.) If you look through church history, there are reasons for that. For too long has the church labeled people to be either "in the ministry" OR "supporting the ministry". Why not both? I've noticed an unhealthy mentality floating in the church now, that you're not a "fully obedient christian" unless you are in full time ministry. It sounds crazy when you read it, but think about your church experience and I think you'll see there is some truth to it. Now, please don't get me wrong: I think full time pastoral and missionary roles in the church are critical. But what about the other 98% of the church? 

Our church leaders need to empower the non-fulltime staff christians and give them the training and the tools to be successful in work, family and ministry. This is a critical goal for our generation, the American Church is slowly but surely becoming ours now. What are we going to do with it? 


-David 

Writing process part 2

8:02 AM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (1)

We spent all day Saturday working on one song. It was tough work. We have an idea down but I feel it's not everything it needs to be. Creativity is a hard thing to capture and tame. It's like a squirly animal that had too much caffeine. It comes spontaneously and then goes away without permission... The song we are working on is called "American Church". It's adapted from an old hymn that cries out to the church to wake up, get out there and do God's work. There are many people in need of Christ out there, believe it or not. I think this real need is often hidden/masked by our generation's loud cries of scientific atheism and self elevating existentialism.  I feel most of the time those cries are merely a distraction to hide their pain and confusion. Deep within that post-modern crowd are hurting souls longing for a loving God that can save them and forgive them. We need to be God's love to those who are hurting, to those who are searching for truth and significance in this crazy and often brutal world. 


I challenge you to tell your story of how you came to your faith in Christ to a non-christian co-worker,fellow student, friend, or stranger... today. You can work it into a conversation and it can be a couple of sentences long. Nothing too complicated, just your simple story. Nobody can argue with your story, it's your story. It's easier than you think. Pray for God to open up the door in a conversation, see what happens and let me know :)  

Love Ya'll,
-David

Writing process

4:09 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (1)

Hey everybody!

I just wanted to let you know that we've started the writing process for our up coming musical project. We have been leading worship at The Colony College group for a couple of years now, and we'd like to get a 4 track demo CD out by Christmas, God willing. Were working on all original content, all centered around Christ Jesus, exalting and worshiping Him for who He is.

 If you get a spare 20 seconds, please pray for us in this effort. We desperately desire to be led and inspired by the Holy Spirit in these songs. We believe He has so far, the music sounds pretty sweet. Please pray we keep our focus on God and his will concerning our musical efforts and that doors will open so we can encourage and help mobilize the American and Worldwide church with our music in the future. Please pray for our individual relationships with God, that they might flourish during this time and not wither from the worries and stresses of this world. 

On the same note, please let me know if there is anything I (or the band) can pray for you about. This prayer thing ain't a one way street :)! We're all in this together. 

I'll keep you posted on our efforts. Hopefully with some pics and video of our writing and recording process coming up soon! I hope all is going well in your life. I encourage you to keep you focus on Christ and his work for us on this earth. We only have one life to live for our God and King. 


PeAcE!!! 
-David

Quick note on Worship

8:19 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)

Worship was amazing last night. The best we've had in a couple of weeks. Every week run around like crazy trying to get everything set up on stage and everything practiced before we go on. We always pray before we play on stage. But this week was a little different, and I think that's why worship was so great last night. I felt we were rushing around too much (By "we" I really mean me) so I called everybody together to pray. We prayed instead of running through songs last night. We weren't 100% comfortable or confident with some of the songs and I knew we didn't have time to practice and pray for a long time, so I chose to pray for long time.  


Sometimes we just have to stop what we are doing (even if that is serving God), just for a minute, and submit ourselves in prayer to our God and Saviour. To refocus, clarify, Glorify our Saviour.

We had to get our hearts right before God, to come to him in praise and thanksgiving in prayer before we did with music. Otherwise doing worship is just simply music, not worship. In some ways worship is about the state of the heart, about our humility towards Him and our reverence towards his presence. We serve an amazing God and I can't stop being thankful to Him. 

Be Blessed, Love ya'll, 
-David

Update...

2:36 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)

I’m sorry it’s been a while since I’ve updated you. Life has been crazy, in a good way. Work has kept me as busy as ever during the day. My responsibilities are growing and things are going very well there. In my other life, we are working hard as a band to get new material out. The writing process has been grueling work; we are attempting difficult things and doing them well, as opposed to attempting simple things and doing them great. I’m pushing myself and the other members of the band to create with the best of our skills and talents. It’s quite challenge for us, but I think it will be very much worth it. 

 

I’m in Canada right now for work, Ottawa is a beautiful city. French is obnoxious but very nice to listen to, sort of, it’s a love/hate thing. At least I can understand some of it as it’s Latin based like Spanish and some English. Pronunciation in French is insanely delicate.  In short it felt like Canada is a mix of some European country the US. Just FYI if you’ve never been. (Here is a pic of the Parliament house in Ottawa, ON)

 

It’s been a while since I mentioned this on my posts, but God has made the answer/resolution clear regarding the prayer and fasting I talked about before. If you've kept up with this blog and happened to pray for me during that time, I greatly appreciate it, your prayers meant the world to me. I really can’t get into the details of the answer for time and privacy’s sake, but suffice to say that it was a humbling and enlightening experience, God is faithful and good.


I’d like to respond to some reader questions in the next post, the comment section on the other posts were getting really long (which is great!) so I’d like to spread them out. Keep em’ coming! 


Love ya'll 

David

Reply to Jason and Mike

3:03 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (9)


Hi Jason, 

That’s really great to hear. I’m happy to hear that your perspective on God and his willing involvement is developing, you’re right, it’s amazing where we can notice God in places and times we never really though about.

I’ll defiantly take a look at that book “ Who you are When No One’s looking”. That is the real question to character, a tough one for sure. I’m currently reading “The Cost of Discipleship” by Bonhoeffer. It talks about what it means to be a disciple of Christ according to the scriptures and not the modern church. He was a modern martyr during World War II, he was a preacher and theologian who took his views of Chris to the gallows for the sake of the few remaining Christians in Germany. That’s a brief, his story it self is an amazing and encouranging tale. By the way, if you’ve never read about Christian myrtyrs, contrary to popluar conception of them being negative and morbid, I’ve found their stories deeply encouraging and eternally impacting in my life. A good book to start with is “Jesus Freaks”. The fact that they died for their faith in Christ is not the point of their stories, it’s how they lived so outragesously for Christ that the only way the governing people could shut them up is to kill them. That’s what I call devotion to the gospel.

Keep on praying and seeking the will of God in your life, the concert is just a means to an end, the event, our talents, all focused on Christ and our heavenly Father. I’m glad your exited, you should be. It sounds like you are on the right road. Keep on being diligent with your walk with Christ, and as he has put this passion and plan in your heart, he will provide to make it happen as well. In the end, the concert wouldn’t be worth having if the hand of God was not in the making of it , right? So keep on keeping on. On my side of things, I’m about to start fasting and praying for a couple of weeks regarding some new music we are in the middle of writing. Prayer is key. Fasting humbles us and helps us focus on God and his ways of seeing things. So, be encouraged, we are all in this together!

Regarding your question, that’s a great question. I had that question myself some time ago. It’s my opinion that in this Christian faith, we must never stop asking questions or we will never truly learn from God or each other.  I’ll keep it as short and sweet as possible as many books and sermosn have been made off of this event, and I can’t do those writings and teachings justice. Basically, Jesus directly quoted Psalms 22:1. If you read the whole chapter, which we know Jesus was familiar with as he was trained as a jewish rabi, you can see the cries of a man for help. But it doesn’t stop there. Most theologians see Psalm 22 as a prophetical verse regarding the messiah( there are numerous scriptures in the old testament that prophesied details of the coming messiah, Jesus Christ). If you look at verse 18, this is a exact description of Jesus’s situation told of in the gospels. We can see that the other verses describe Christ’s feelings of pain and also Christ’s exalting of God as Lord over all, and finally being the winner in the end for all of man, present and future (Verse:31). So I believe that Jesus was being literal and He felt like his father was forsaking him, because in fact at that point in time Jesus was bearing all of the sin of the world. God cannot stand sin, and to see his son covered in it must have been the deepest pain a father could have. Yet God chose to carry out this painful and costly plan to save us from the power of sin and to be able to live like his son here on earth. This moment in Christ’s cruxifictino is a very deep, complicated, and revealing moment in Christ’s life and his part in God’s redeeming plan for man kind.

Please let me know if that made sense, or if you have any other questions I can help you with. I'll be more than happy to give it a shot! 

-David


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Hello Mike, 

Thank you for your comment and question, I hope everything is going well with you and your new bride! It’s always a great blessing to see two Godly people get married.


In regards to your comment; First of all, I want to make it clear that I have not created this blog as a stage for ideological arguments or theological debates. I do encourage open discussion, and I believe there is a distinct difference between the two. So, given this, I kindly leave you with my replies.



[Mike]"Where in scripture can you show me that our 'gut' feelings on things like Job Choices should be equated with God's will or the leading of the Holy Spirit? Should these things be unquestioned by us when scripture says to "test the spirits to see if they are true," are these things we should always follow?"



I never said that “gut” feelings should be equated with God’s will. Please don’t skew my words or take them out of context. What I was communicating was something entirely different. Here are some verses that talk about being led by the spirit more.


Acts 8:29

Acts 11

Acts 20:22

Acts 21:4

Acts 18:25

Acts 17:!6

Acts 6:10?

Romans 8:16

Romans 8:26, 27

Romans 12:11, 15:29

1 Cor 2:10

1 Cor 2:13

1 Cor 2:14

Glatians 5:!7

Galatians 5:25


[Mike]"I've always understood that quiet reflection and a sober attitude help make the best decisions, and I think that scripture's admonitions to a sober spirit back that idea."



Unfortunately, I can’t find a mention of "sober spirit” in scripture. (When I refer to the term "sober", I am not defining it as a simple peaceful state, but I see the term as the state of being generally un-emotional, rational and without zeal.) In my opinion, most biblical events involving God’s spirit leading people were anything but sober. Personally, I wouldn't list a "sober spirit" in the top 20 things to describe Jesus Christ.  This is not to say a calm and resolved outlook helps in decision making. However, we are not talking about decision making; we are talking about being led by the Holy Spirit. Knowing the difference between the two calls for discernment and wisdom given by God Almighty. When dealing with the will of God for our lives, like the miracle of salvation for example, I find little quiet or sober about it. It’s a work of God that is usually filled with the boldness and joy of the Holy Spirit.


Even though we may disagree on some things, I purposefully never loose perspective that you are my brother in Christ and we are running the same race to glorify Him who died for our sins. I believe we agree on salvation by grace, the virgin birth, and pretty much everything else that is foundational to the faith. Feel free to let me know what you think or if you have any questions or comments regarding my replies, see you next week at church 


-David






11:50 AM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)

So I was at a Starbucks working a little before a business meeting, and i had a pretty unexpected realization.


There were two children with their mother, they were speaking to each other in French. I couldn't understand a word they were saying. However, I gathered that they were asking their mom for some kind of pastries behind the glass. Funny how things work, but sitting there I finally understood this verse in a way I had not before:

Luke 18:15-17 (New International Version)

15People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. 16But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 17I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."


So ask yourself this, what makes a child innocent in our eyes? Have you ever though about this? Is it their perfect sense of morals? Is it their finely tuned benevolence towards their fellow man? If you have ever been around a bunch of 1-2 year olds, your answer would likely be: no and no. I've found they're rebellious little people , for the most part. They can also be quite selfish. That really doesn't sound too innocent, does it? Don't get me wrong , I love kids. They definitely do have a certain beautiful innocence about them. So what is it? Seeing those kids , I realized that this innocence was not based on their lack of "sin", rather, their innocence was based on their complete and total belief. Innocent Faith.

The kids fully believed their mom was going to get them the promised pastries. There was no question in their mind. Sadly, as those kids grow up, they will probably be lied to, betrayed, fooled, ridiculed, and rejected by other people. Most of us have experienced this. As life progresses, we are constantly prodded to never trust people the same way we did as a child, like those French kids trusted their mother for a blueberry muffin on that sunny summer day.

I won't pretend to understand everything Jesus meant in this passage, but I understood that he is asking us to approach him with a kind of un-corrupted faith. He is calling for our faith be as a child's, pure and innocent.

So, how do we do that? For a lot of Christians, including myself, our faith gets a beating from somewhere or another on the daily. It makes us stronger, or tears us down. I really only have a couple of suggestions regarding the building up of our child-like faith. They are far from being exhaustive, but they have worked in my life and are evident in scriptures.

Romans 10:14-17 (New International Version)

14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"[a] 16But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?"[b] 17Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.


(Although the meaning of this passage doesn't directly equalize the message with the Holy Bible, we can say that the message of Christ is fully laid out in the Holy Bible. I don't want to make the bible say something it doesn't. Regardless, I'll get to my point.) Reading the word daily. In my experience, this is one of the best things you can do to strengthen your faith. I have been doing this consistently for about the last 6 or so months. Before that it was twice a week at best for a while. I'll be very honest with you, I've always had a hard time with this discipline since I've been a christian. I had the tendency to be disciplined for a couple of weeks or months, and then quickly loose my consistency. However, thanks be to God, for now I have had a firm grip on this and it has literally reshaped my life in a way I didn't think possible. There truly is life and faith in the word of God.

Finally, something so simple yet so critical. As people who follow Christ, we must forgive all of the past hurts that have been unmercifully flung to us by our own family, friends, fellow Christians, churches, pastors, and even ourselves because of our own sin. Unforgiveness and the resulting bitterness is like battery acid on our hearts and a severe beating to our faith in God. Most of the time we just try to simply forget about our hurts, but we must forgive as God has called us to do.

Matthew 18:21-22 (New International Version)

21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" 22Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Well, that's all I have on my heart for now. Thank you so much for reading this. I hope it encouraged you as you seek Christ and His kingdom. Do you have any thoughts or comments on the above? Please feel free to post a comment and I'd love to discuss it with you in the comment section below.

Love ya'll,
David



Reply to a post

3:23 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (11)

I got a very interesting comment on the last post, which I would like to reply to here as another post. This one is a bit on the long side… so let’s see where this rabbit hole leads us.

Hello Believerwith1question, 

 

Thank you so much for posting a comment on my little ol’ blog, and thank for bringing up all of these interesting questions. I’m happy you did. I'm sorry it took me a bit to get back to you on this, but I've been crazy busy lately. We have been working with a new electric guitar player and I have been out of town on business…I also had to put some time and thought into this before posting back to you. 

 

I’m not a theologian or pastor, but I love to wrestle with these kinds of questions. Some have simple answers, some have complicated answers, and others have no clear answers. I’ll try my best to cover everything you mentioned.

 

“When you do get your answer will God actually speak to you? Will you hear His voice?” Maybe, it is possible. Some modern Christians have heard an audible voice from God, but I have not experienced this before. 


Deuteronomy 5:24: 'And you said, "The LORD our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him.’

 

So, we can see that God has and does speak to his people audibly. However, If you take the whole bible and look at it from 10,000 feet, you’ll notice that God didn’t really audibly communicate with mankind all that much. A lot more was communicated through prophets, and the Holy Spirit inside of his people. That being said, I’m not specifically expecting for him speak to me audibly, nor do I really need him to. Most importantly I’m not limiting my expectation of his response to my prayers; He is a very creative individual. If He wants to speak to me audibly, that would be cool. If He wants to use circumstance, other people, The Holy Bible, or His Holy Spirit inside me, that’s awesome too. For me, waiting on God’s answer also means keeping a very watchful eye on the particular way He will answer. I find that God doesn't always answer in ways that we expect. 

 

"Or will it be more like your conscience leading you towards a certain path? And if it is more like your conscience, then how do you know it is God and not just your conscience?" I’ll assume you are using the moral and logical definition of the term “conscience”. If so, conscience and being led by God can be different things sometimes. I don't think they are separate, but one does cover ground the other doesn't.  Conscience usually pertains to things that are right and wrong. The Word of God and our consciences pretty much keep us in line day to day, in making correct moral decisions that glorify God and ultimately benefit our fellow man. But what about choices between right and right? Choices between Job A and equally as good and moral Job B? This is when being led by God comes in and conscience is no longer that helpful. As far as how to know when God is speaking to you, God has made many examples in the Bible of how and when he does it. Even so, different people might have different experiences with it. I can only give you my point of view and opinion: When expecting to be led by God by his spirit inside of us, I have found it to be a peaceful, internal confidence, a “knowing” or a “faith” that is combined with a no-compromise/no-doubt mentality that this is God's will for some particular situation. This faith is provided by God and fueled by his word, and this is a practical example of when to live out by faith. This is a very complex subject that I am barely skimming over, and I’m sure dozens of books have been written about this subject alone.

 

2 Corinthians 5:7: ‘We live by faith, not by sight.’

 

 In my experience, the typical problem is usually not me understanding or hearing God, most of the time the problem me simply obeying. As you all know first hand, by nature we are quite disobedient to authority. Something else that needs to be mentioned here, although a well-known thought, is that sin separates us from God. However we forget sometimes the implication of this fact in our communication with God. The greater our rebellion towards God, the harder it is to hear his voice and be led by him. This has to do with the rebellious nature of our sin and the consequent state of our heart towards God. Please note that this is not talking about separation from God in regards to one’s salvation.

 

Psalm 66:18:"If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear"

 

Isaiah 59:2 "But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that he will not hear".

 

“How do I know when I'm hearing God's voice?” I've asked myself that many times in the past. Unfortunately, there is no clear-one line answer for this. However, there are some clues to this found in His word that can lead you in the right path. There are many ways to know if indeed it was God's voice. First and foremost it will never conflict with the Word for God in any way. Generally the more you hear from and confirm that is was really God communicating with you, the easier it is to hear him the next time. That’s easily said having known God for a long time, but for someone starting out in their relationship with God, this can be a very difficult thing to grasp at first. It’s like learning how to snowboard, you’ll end up on your face most of the first couple of days. After a while, it’s nothing but smooth boarding. We get more familiar with his voice as time goes on.

 

John 10:24-27: ‘The Jews gathered around him, saying, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ,[c] tell us plainly."25Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, 26but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.’

 

Here is a New Testament example of believers being led by the Holy Spirit.

Acts 13:1-4 : 1’In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." 3So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. 4The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus.’

God can confirm his voice through circumstances and situations, by making certain things happen at certain times. God can confirm his message by the Holy Spirit inside of us, and leading us with his peace that is beyond what we can understand through our conscience or human logic. God leads through peace, not confusion.

Philippians 4:7: And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

God can confirm his leading with faith inside of us. God also can confirm his leading with the wisdom from many fellow believers.

Proverbs 24:6 ’For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counselors there is safety.’

As a side note here, the Word of God shows us that while listening for God's voice, we must be in a humble state before God.

2 Chronicles 7:14: 'and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.’

That is why fasting is mentioned in the Bible in connection with prayer.

Esther 4:16:"Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.

On the flip side of the coin, fasting can be done for the wrong reasons as well.

Luke 18:9-13: ‘To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' 13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

Fasting is a multi faceted practice, but one of those facets is the humbling of the believer before God Almighty. 

So it turns out this rabbit hole has a lot of places to explore. I know these aren’t complete “oh, well, that fully answers my question” type answers, but they are a window into what the Bible has to say about these things. Hopefully this reaffirmed and encouraged you in where you are in your walk with God, and that the truth in the Word of God found a place in your heart to give you peace. Please let me know your thoughts and I’d love to keep this dialog going with you and anyone who wants to join in the discussion. May God’s peace and spirit lead you as you seek His face.


In Christ’s Love,

David 

"Hold my Heart" by Tenth avenue North

12:38 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (5)

This song is pretty much where I am right now. If you want to listen to it, here it is (Hold my Heart MP3), and press the fast froward button till you see this song title.
Love ya'll,
David

"How long must I pray, must I pray to You?
How long must I wait, must I wait for You?
How long 'til I see Your face, see You shining through?
I'm on my knees, begging You to notice me.
I'm on my knees, Father will you turn to me?

One tear in the dropping rain,
One voice in the sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breakin' heart?
One light, that's all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You're everything You say You are
Won't You come close and hold my heart

I've been so afraid, afraid to close my eyes
So much can slip away before I say goodbye.
But if there's no other way, I'm done asking why.
Cuz I'm on my knees, begging You to turn to me
I'm on my knees, Father will you run to me?

So many questions without answers, Your promises remain
I can't sleep but I'll take my chances to hear You call my name
To hear You call my name


Hold my heart, could you hold my heart?
Hold my heart."

Updates

7:11 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)

06/14/08- Indian experience part 1: Attended Nate's (our drummer) home church. It's a small assembly's of God church, but everybody was originally from the same part in India. The sermon was done in their native language and worship was half in their language and half in english. It was so cool to see their language on the power points slides and to hear hymn sung in other tongues. They took about 30 minutes out of the service to let people stand up and give God praise for something that happened that week or to ask for prayer. It was really, really cool experience. 


06/20/08- The band had a serious time of prayer on this day. I always lead us in prayer before practices and performances, but this is the first time we just took time to just pray. We all prayed one after the other. God is binding us closer together as a team, and showing us His vision for the ministry. We talked for a while about where God is leading us individually and as a band. After that time of prayer, we came up with a re-mix of a song we had just heard a couple of times within 20 minutes (very unusual, it usually takes us a couple of hours to do this). We were pumped and our creativity was full on. Praise God, He is at work among us. We are hoping and praying to be able to glorify His name all over the earth through the gifts and talents he has given us. 

06/21/08- Indian experience part 2: Ate at Nate's house. It was the best Indian food I have every had in my life. I have not been that full since....well maybe since never. Nate's parent had powerful testimonies as how they came to Christ, or more like how Christ found them. Praise God for his goodness and faithfulness to all of the people and cultures of the world. He could have simple stayed with the Jews, but in His grace let us gentiles come into a relationship with Christ as well.

06/23/08- I'm still fasting and praying for revelation and guidance; for me personally and for the band. God has been good and has shown me small yet meaningful things during this time, but I'm still waiting for a clear answer on the bigger things. 

I love you all as brothers and sisters in Christ. (If you aren't a christian, don't worry, I love you too.) Until next time. 

-David
 

The world is getting smaller, Christ needs to get bigger.

6:41 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)

I was at a work meeting yesterday and they showed a global map with some wireless communication statistics laid over the map. But I sat there and realized how small our world has really become. Now with jets, trains and automobiles you can be pretty much anywhere you want to be within a day or two. How exiting that thought is in regards to spreading the love and story of Christ all over the earth. God willing this band will have a world wide reach, regardless of socio-economic boundaries and location. I'm constantly praying for ways that we can do concerts for free(more on that whole idea later). I pray that we will be able to take the good news of Christ's death and resurrection to every country. I also have played with the idea of translating the songs we are creating to other languages, primarily spanish(since I speak it), japanese(they have found a place in my heart and am learning japanese now) and chinese (because about half of the world's population speaks some form of mandarin). If you have not been outside of the US, jump at the first chance you get. It will pretty much change your life. It's a totally different world out there in desperate need of a Saviour and a relationship with our graceful and almighty God.

Prayer update

3:43 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)

So i've been praying and fasting for the last six days with no clear answer yet. It took daniel 21 days to get an answer, so I'm not worried about how long it will take. I fully trust that God has his perfect timing concerning this issue. I'll continue fasting and praying until I get a clear answer. 


I know it's a little strange/awkward to hear and talk about fasting. I'm letting you know of my progress through this time mostly to keep myself accountable(I'm not that great or consistent at fasting). Also, I wanted to get fasting out in the open and get people to think about and consider it. I was torn whether to talk about it or not (while I was doing it) because of this scripture saying that it's not right to be arrogant in proclaiming that you are fasting (Matthew 6:16-17). But after praying about it, I decided that the benefit outweighed the risk of me sounding arrogant. In that if anybody is encouraged by this post to fast and pray, that would be awesome. 

As christians we are pretty much commanded by Jesus Christ himself to fast. He said "when you fast" in the scripture link above, not "if". It's more like an assumption than a command that we will fast. Fasting is a great experience if you haven't tried it out already, it can be done in many ways and for whatever length you choose. It's not "forcing God" to do something, it's a humbling experience and a time to focus everything on God. 

Most of the time God has already answered in His own way, but we are merely not listening closely enough. 

 There are different kinds of fasting; a water only fast, juice only fast, fruit and vegetable only fast, or just giving up single things like a meat fast, TV fast, Internet fast, soda fast, chocolate fast...etc etc... It's whatever is a meaningful sacrifice for you to give up for a prescribed amount of time. Non-protestant christians practice this regularly during lint. In the end, it's between you and God, so whatever he leads you to do ; go for it full tilt. 



Time to fast and pray...

2:10 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)


These have been a couple of hard weeks for me. There are a lot of things that I need God's clear direction and revelation on. Some things are very tangible, regarding relationships, work and the such. But I've also been having dreams, some that have the same reoccurring theme over the course of many years...I need to know what they mean, if they mean anything at all. 

If you know me personally, i would appreciate your prayers (even just one right now would be great) as I fast and pray for God's wisdom, guidance and revelation. I'll let you know how it goes.

Band Name

7:36 AM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)

Well, we finally came up with a name for the band. Oddly enough, it was directly inspired by this very blog's name (that was pretty spontaneously made). Our Band name is now "Dreams Awaken". We love it. It has such a positive feel to it, and has almost a commanding tone. It's simple, memorable and looks good on print. We feel that the dreams of our generation in the american church will become realities soon. We will see our generation fighting modern culture and secular "dogma" and see true freedom as a life in true obedience to Christ.  We will see the American "bride of Christ" waking up and taking it's part in the world wide effort by Christ followers to be his hands and his feet to the poor, the broken and the widows. Our generation is dreaming dreams and seeing visions(Acts2:17) for what the church can be and do in America, we want to see them fulfilled for the Glory of our Lord, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. 

8:24 AM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)


It's interesting that most people have thoughts of God when looking at the stars. We tend to naturally equate God with the infinite and mysterious depths of space. However, when it comes to having a ongoing daily relationship with God, we tend to loose sight of this simple yet subtle observation. We forget that God is indeed infinite and mysterious in His own way. We cannot fathom his wisdom, his intellect or his timing. I find myself frustrated at times wondering what God is up to and why it doesn't make sense to me. "But God, that doesn't make sense. " or "God, this is impossible given the current circumstance". I find myself there far too often. I always remind myself when looking up at the stars that God is way bigger than me, my plans and my "intellect". I trust in him and His plan far above my own, in trusting Him I can have peace and Joy that this world cannot touch. 

8:49 AM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)


I amaze myself at how materialistic I really am sometimes. It's very subtle, and compared to most christian americans , I realize that I have a relatively average "love of things". But when compared to the world wide church population, compared to our christian brothers and sisters in China's exterior(just to name one of many, many examples), it makes me think very hard about my attitude towards material things. 

In the music ministry, there are a lot of "toys" involved. From recording equipment, instruments to whatever (sadly, yes, I consider these are my favorite "toys").  Compared to other forms of ministry, like pastoring and counseling that are totally focused on the one being ministered to, the musical and artistic ministry is very dependent on physical and technical resources to convey it's message unto the audience. There is a drive to be the best, and usually that means using the best. Which intrinsicly is not a bad idea, it's even biblical. However, the typical consequence is that the musical/artistic ministry is more liable to cross over to the "secular" realm where more money, better music production, and of course more fame can be found. More money=more toys= better ministry, right? Mostly this is true, but this train of thought must be constrained within the perspective that God's goals are first priority above all, even above being "bigger and better". Some of the most effective ministries are the simplest. One of the biggest problems the church in America has is money, how we get it and what we do with it. I've had to realize this difficulty as sometimes the medium used to minister can be a stumbling block of pride and materialism, that in turn can destroy a ministry.

8:13 AM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)


Are you familiar with the 4th dimension? It's basically the thought of time progressing in a linear fashion. So, we are all traveling along the 4th dimension at exactly the same rate. Much like if we all started a race together and kept in a strait line shoulder to shoulder until the finish line. I was driving this morning and this aforementioned thought hit me. We all have been given time, and are all using the same amount of time every day. Some people do great things with it. Some people don't. What do the great people do to make the same amount of time work wonders? How do you use your time? We will all reach the finish line someday, and will have to answer to the great God of the universe on what we did during this great race. I have a lot of thinking to do, am I doing everything I can to get the most of the time given to me? 

6:12 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)





I met a retired couple on the airplane yesterday. They turned out to be christians so I had a good conversation with them the whole flight. We happened on the topic of contemporary christian music. I told them that I thought modern christian music was good and at the same time bad. We were surprised to agree; unfortunately, much of modern christian music is lacking in depth and doctrine. It was strange coming to a passionate agreement about current music with a 60 year old couple. All this to say I'm more encouraged now more than ever to keep on working on my music.

2:28 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (1)

I pray randomly though out the day just like the many christians do today. But sometimes, I wonder at the casual way that we approach God in prayer. I mean, would we speak to him like we typically pray if we were actually in the throne room of God? I feel like I sometimes don't show God enough respect when I pray. I see this lack of respect as me tending to forget the reality of the situation. The situation being that the infinite God of the universe is taking time out of his day to listen to me. At the very same time, we have every right to talk to him like a close friend. Jesus called us friends of God. It think it's critical for us to come to him in prayer unashamed and just as we are. I just have to remember not to loose sight of his holiness and majesty in light of me being able to "be me" in front of him. His grace and understanding towards us does not take away from his awe inducing splendor as He is Lord of all. 

9:34 AM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)

Worship went well on Wednesday, or at least it wasn't horrible. It's times like these that I wish we had more time available to practice. Everybody has a hectic schedule, so it's hard to carve out 3-4 hours out of everyone's week. Our drummer even plays in 3 separate bands, he's crazy ( crazy good drummer too).  I have to remind myself  that we're not able to put all our time and effort into the music, as the majority of professional bands can do. So I shouldn't expect for us to sound like a professional band , right? Unfortunately I'm pretty stubborn , so no, I do expect for us to sound better than any other band out there. We have to keep on pushing ourselves and our schedules. The quality of our sound is directly linked to the quality of our practice. I get really frustrated sometimes (most of the time.... okay, almost all of the time) that worship doesn't sound as good as it should. I hold myself and the band to a very high musical standard. I can hear how the music should sound in my head, but it's another story to make the band actually sound like that. It's just a matter of hard work and time well spent. Well, here comes another weekend to practice. We'll give it all we got. 

2:08 PM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)

Today's worship night. I lead worship at a small college group every wednesday night. I look forward to it every week, and it's stressful as junk every week too. Worship last for about 30 minutes every week. But it takes the band about 3-4 hours of practice, and me 2 or 3 more hours of prep time(getting music for the week, tweaking arrangements, creating power points that we use on laptops as sheet music, finding videos clips, etc). It's all worth it, I love doing it. I'm glad God has provided me a stable job that just takes up my days and I can devote my nights to music. It's hard as most of the time I come home tired and uninspired, so I just push myself. I believe that some day I will be able to create music for a living, but I'm far away from that day right now (and that's okay). I never plan to get paid to play for a church(nor have I ever), I know biblically a worship pastor has the right to get compensated financially for his work...but that's not how I roll. It's my personal conviction that , if at all possible, the leadership in the church should not burden the congregation financially. I think the modern church has made a horrible name for itself always asking people for money. I refuse to add to the enemy's ammunition against the church and God's people. 

10:55 AM / Posted by David Montenegro / comments (0)



So work is a bit stressful right now. I'm holding down the fort for another member of my group that quit, until they hire somebody new to replace him. So I'm responsible for everything east of texas now. When before it was just Texas and Arizona. It gets kinda nuts sometimes. I have to deal with people in Japan, Europe and Taiwan on a regular basis. It may sound cool, but the time difference can add complications to already complicated situations. It's definitely been a great learning and growing experience. 

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