GLENN'S PODCASTS!

Glenn Kaiser's Cornerstone 2009 Schedule

TUES. JUNE 31
Glenn Kaiser Band Gallery Stage Tuesday 8:35 PM to 9:30 PM

THU. JULY 2
Glenn Kaiser & Friends (Acoustic to Electric) P12/Grrr Stage Thursday 10:35 PM to 11:30 PM

FRI. JULY 3
-Leadership Forum: Friday, noon – 1PM, X4
-Short History of the Blues: Friday, 2-3 PM, tent X4
-Afterglow Leadership Gathering- Friday, 5PM, X4 (bring yer dinner, informal hangout time)
-Asylum (Goth) Tent: Glenn speaks Friday 8PM

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES
Glenn Kaiser (1 session)
Why sing the blues? Doesn't Jesus deliver us from suffering and sadness? Yes and no: in that darkness grows the blues, a way of seeing that keeps us humble, open, ready, willing, and watching by putting us in touch with the pain of others, ourselves, and the crucified Christ. This session surveys the songs and singers of a tradition with roots in the Psalms and at the Cross.

Leadership Forum (Moderator: Glenn Kaiser)
A time of open sharing and networking for church and ministry leaders and their spouses — a chance to get down to the nitty-gritty of leadership, sharing struggles and pooling wisdom and experience to offer direction and support. Moderated by Glenn Kaiser who has served over thirty years on the pastoral team of Cornerstone-sponsor Jesus People Evangelical Covenant Church.

WENDI & I, SHOWS, Etc..

We had an EXCELLENT time of celebrating our 37th anniversary together at Cornerstone Farm (it's getting green, beautiful out there, grass mown, birds and fish moving and flowers blooming for the 26th annual Cornerstone Festival coming very soon now) this past week.

GKB did a Pekin, IL Assembly of God show right before Wendi and I continued on to C. Farm that night. The time of ministry was just a blast and a lot of kind folks came out.

Last night (I'm writing this Sunday, June 14) I did a solo blues set at Watershed Cafe in Frankfort, IL (about an hour south of Chicago) on the way back to Chicago. They have an excellent staff, truly good coffee and snacks and a packed house that were just wonderful. Wendi joined me and led a couple REZ unplugged songs. Very fun indeed.

Church at JPUSA this a.m. was edifying, convicting and so cool (been touring a lot as usual this time of year, just great to be home, see my grand kids, family and be with Jesus and some of His people here at home). Tom preached on the compliant son (who said he'd go but didn't) and the defiant son (who said "Forget it" but afterwards repented and went).

I'm trying to be honest AND compliant... but his point was simple as well as profound and excellent: honesty breeds humility which breeds obedience. This is the "struggle forward" stance of a maturing Christ-follower. I agree and appreciate the truth of it all!

Project 12 is about to hit Cstone Farm to help put on the Fest, then graduation and summer break comes. They've grown a lot, it's been a rocking year.

GKB heads to Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and I think Holland, touring in these places for most of July.

Hope to see some of you- and please just check the Shows section for updates, I get far too much email to answer it all- sorry to say. Thanks for your understanding, prayers and for stopping by.

May you honor God with your summer plans!

For Jesus, Forever, -Glenn

GKB SPRING TOUR BLOG

As I've said many times before, meeting solid followers of Jesus in every rural area, small town, large city and in every sort of local church is just so cool!

This GKB tour took us from Michigan to Pennsylvania, into New York state and back to Illinois. In each and every stop we had sweet local people putting on the shows/services, kind and receptive audiences and great chats at the end of the night.

Such things always encourage me because it's also clear that there is a great divide between Christians who are at peace and those who are not, between this and that "side" of current political parties and various issues, and of course the methodologies that form various comfort zones differ greatly.

When we continue to meet people who are more in love with the Lord and recognize the need to be examples of loving, faithful living in accord with His Word, actually forgiving those who wrong (or who they at least believe have wronged) them, not forsaking the assembling together with others who love and seek to serve Jesus, all of this is fresh air in what sometimes is indeed a bit of a stale landscape.

To be sure, there are divorces, church splits (often over extremely petty matters) and new/old false teachings as well as people who simply don't want to grow spiritually or even in human terms, grow up and take personal responsibility for the sadness and sometimes self-inflicted pains of everyday life. There are still the economic woes, the losses of jobs and various legitimate burdens of supporting families and so on. But it's so good to meet people along the road who are truly focused on the Lord and others rather than simply on themselves... and in each place we've been blessed to meet (or meet again) a number of such saints.

Myself and of course Roy and Ed have traveled many miles for many years with Rez Band, now GKB and with other musicians and ministry teams. We've not been everywhere but certainly over most of North America, part of the Caribbean and South America, the U.K., Scandinavia, most of Europe and through Australia and New Zealand just to name a few places.

There are of course nuances, sometimes large differences of view amongst Christians in different countries but even in their own land, varied positions that people take as their own and disagree with others about. Yet the love of God and the need to love one's neighbor in genuine, sacrificial and personally edifying ways are common to all.

The family of God is vast, wide and growing. May we continue to mature and take the necessary steps to ensure such growth by our individual love and commitment to seek, obey and follow Jesus Christ where ever He places us in His Church.

Calgary & GKB Tour

Enjoyed a truly -great- weekend in Calgary, Alberta Canada! Pastor Don and his sweet wife, well, all the pastors and staff at Victory Outreach Center and Victory East Side were just gems and a pleasure to serve with for the weekend.

Guitar Church brought me up (see http://www.guitarchurch.com) and Tom and crew were wonderful... saw a lot of folks at all stages of guitar-playing ability who were eager to learn and I think get a bit deeper in the nuts and bolts of both guitar and Jesus-based music making, living, worship and performance. Good stuff. Did a couple seminars and a concert for them.

The two churches I did concerts for/with were in rougher areas of Calgary and they specifically reach out (and doing a sterling job of it imho!) to the poor, addicts and prostitutes. What a great weekend and what an encouragement to me!

So after speaking a lot, several shows and also a short set at the wonderful Mustard Seed shelter during dinner, the chats with folks and response in terms of prayer and seeing Jesus draw people to Himself was very cool indeed. Thanks SO much for those who prayed. Safe flights and a great deal of grace came my way.

GKB is about to hit the road (see Shows for details) and we look forward to seeing many of you on this mini-tour. Immediately after Wendi and I celebrate our 37th anniversary, taking several days off for one another time! Yahoo! Then I do an acoustic blues set at a Chicago coffee house and then we begin rehearsals for Cornerstone Festival.

A couple posts from now I'll post my full Cstone Fest schedule (speaking and shows of which there are several), but hang in there for now... and thanks for your prayers and for stopping by.

With Love and Gratitude, -Glenn

PROJECT 12 OUTREACH/TOUR, GKB TOUR, NEW GUITAR

So we're about to head for Baton Rouge, New Orleans and then up to Doniphan, MO to do Project 12 band concerts, working on house repairs and such from the hurricanes and then visit our friends at the old lodge JPUSA built in MO. many years ago. Thanks for prayers for safety and God's Spirit to move in each place. You can keep up (pics and blogging will be added as we can while on the road) at http://www.project12.us

GKB is nearly set with dates on a tour at the end of the month, have a look at all the additions in the shows section here at glennkaiser.com

Kevin Stamper (a dear friend from Ohio) finished and presented me with a -beautiful- guitar that he and I designed. What a luthier! It was created to be easy to travel with (as in, fly and place in overhead rather than checked baggage!) which plays and sounds as good as it looks. See the pic here which Kevin took at the recent Motorcycle Sunday bike blessing weekend put on by Aurora's Warehouse Church. Very cool and let me tell you, Kevin knows his stuff!

You can find me in Facebook, on Twitter and of course here and the Project 12 site adding stuff as I'm able. Thanks for stopping by, Love and Hugs, -Glenn

THE U.S. A CHRISTIAN NATION?

With all due respect to Dutch Sheets' recent comments re. President Obama (both of whom I appreciate and am commanded to love and pray for by the way) my response to worries about the slippery slope of government moving us away from being a "Christian nation" is simple: no political leader or group of them somehow causes a nation to be or cease being a truly Jesus-loving, Bible-living nation. The historical facts illustrate that neither Constantine, Hitler or the communist regimes in China have ever pulled that off!

I hear Dutch's heart to pray for the nation, the government and so forth, to live by the Word of God, absolutely I agree, have prayed and will continue to do so!

Regarding America being "a Christian nation"? Christian, truly biblical -principles- are one thing... they permeated early U.S. thought and still do to an extent. But to call this nation truly Christian is a reach if we only consider genuine biblical Christian commitment itself.

I would say the job of influencing a nation is about each individual Christian living out daily loving faith in Jesus and treating their neighbor according to His Truth and His love. Can somebody argue that's what we see the majority of people doing in the U.S. today? What about the majority of Christ-followers? We indeed have work to do.

I would further say it's not the job of any government to "create" biblical disciples. That's what our Lord called we Christ-followers to be busy doing! Again and again in His Word, God calls The Church (the called-out one's who actually follow Jesus) to be and make disciples.

Pin the tail on the right donkey: if this country or any other is or is not truly Christian, responsibility lies solely at the door of the church... beginning with me.

-Glenn Kaiser

GOOD FRIDAY

What a day. What a sad, tragic but wonderful day. For Jesus to know me as I am and still love me, sacrifice Himself for me is just plain amazing.

And thank God it didn't remain Friday but finally Sunday came around!

We know a number of things from the scriptural account of Jesus' death and resurrection- two of them are that the sky was pitch-black dark and in full storm mode at high noon as He hung on the cross and died... and that He rose "on the first day of the week at the rising
of the sun".

Darkness swallowed by light. YES! Hallelulia! Hosanna! Deo Gloria forever!!

Happy Easter to all!
-Glenn