EARTHEN VESSELS -- THE JARS OF CLAY NEWSLETTER

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                                       E A R T H E N    V E S S E L S 
                                    The Official Jars of Clay Email News
                                                       Volume 5
                                                     \            /    /
                                                      |           |   |
                                                     / VVVV\    \
                                                    /              \    \
                                                   (__________)   }   
     
CONTENTS:
*Introduction
*On the Charts
*Matt writes again!
*Encouragement
*Petra tribute album
*Christmas EP
*Crossroads Article
*Prayer Requests
*WWW site update
*CD-Rom Update
*Jars' favorite scripture passages


****************************************************************************************************

*Introduction:
Hello again and welcome to the many new subscribers we've picked up. I hope
you all enjoy this issue!  I'm hoping that some more people will send some
comments, questions or concert reviews to be included in the next
newsletters. (hint-hint)  :)
Thanks to "Athena1972@aol.com" for the jar insignia above...if anyone can or
would like to try to improve on it, feel free to!  Thanks for all the
correspondence, it's kept me busy but I am learning a lot from all of you
sending in mail.  The issues are being sent about every 3 weeks or so, I hope
this is a convenient "pace" for everyone. Enjoy, and thank you all for the
prayers, once again!


*****************************************************************************************************

*On the Charts: CCM Update 8/28/95:     

FYI:  The GMA has added some new categories into the Dove Awards
voting...including Alternative/Modern Rock Album of the Year and Recorded
Song of the Year... hopefully this will keep Jars from competing against
Petra, WhiteHeart, etc...

Christian Retail SoundScan album chart:
1-My Utmost
2-Concert of A Lifetime- Ray Boltz
3- Jars
4- Gravity
5- Sing Out with Ron Kenoly

Adult Contemporary Chart-
Love Song moves from #34 to #29 in its sixth week- #23 in airplay...its also
the number 10 most added AC song

CCM Overall Chart- The CCM 25- combines AC, Insp, and CHR charts
Love Song debuts at #24...

Christian Hit Radio Chart-
Love Song slips up from #2 to the #1 spot in its sixth week...Michael W.
Smith is hot on their heels moving from #8 to #2 with Cry For Love.


*****************************************************************************************************

*Matt writes again! :

From: Odie74@aol.com
(Matthew T. Odmark)

Readers, friends, etc..

Thank you all so much for your response to my letter in the last issue. I
was both humbled and encouraged by the responses I received.  It is amazing
how when God teaches his children he is not content to simply teach them
one by one but he delights in the sharing of our burdens, struggles, and joys
so that others may be encouraged, uplifted and challenged as well. What a
tremendous God we serve! You all have inspired me to continue sharing what
God is teaching me, so this is kind of a "part two" to some of the things I
shared in the last issue.
If I take a step back at the "big picture" of where the Lord has been taking
me lately, it all kind of centers around living life with a spirit of
thankfulness. Realizing the tremendous gift of God's creation and being
challenged to engage it has really just been a part of this long process. The
Lord has constantly been convicting my self-pitying heart and challenging me
to continually ask myself, "what does it mean to live life so completely
consumed by the gift of God's grace as expressed in his gospel that it
permeates every corner of my heart and moves me to live a life of
thanksgiving?" After all, is this not what God ultimately desires from us?
"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ
Jesus" (Ephesians 5:18).
I have become convinced that it is God's desire for us to live courageously
and thankfully in the "gift of each moment". Do we (or I for that matter)
really see each moment as a completely free and precious one time gift
straight from the giver and arbitrator of all life? Or do we spend most of
our time looking longingly into the future, or sentimentally trying to
conjure the past? How much of God do we really miss? I addressed this briefly
in the last issue with regards to creation, but what about with regards to
relationships? If there is much to learn from God through how he has chosen
to reveal and express himself through creation, how much more is to be
learned about our heavenly Father through his crown of all creation, the only
member of creation formed in his own image, man. God has been working hard on
my stubborn yet weak heart on this particular issue. He is constantly asking
me over and over again: Do you really know that you and all the people of the
earth belong to me? Do you understand that each relationship in your life
whether exciting or frustrating is not given to you because you somehow
deserve it but purely out of my good pleasure and staggering grace? How often
do I look at the gifts of God and treat them with the contempt of a slob who
thinks he somehow deserves them, especially in the area of relationships.
I have found that part of the key of living in this light of true
thankfulness lies in our understanding of ourselves and our standing before
our Father. I so often have such a lukewarm and wimpy picture of God.  Do I
really look at God daily in light of his utter and unfathomable holiness, and
completeness? I so often flatter myself by thinking as though I deserve
something from God or that he needs me in some way. I feel as though I don't
deserve the pain I am experiencing right now in a specific relationship, or
that God is somehow depending on me to fulfill his will for that person, when
in fact God does not need me in any sense, he is a complete God who is
redeeming his people and whose will for this world is being effected, and
when I stand before him in the total mess of my own sin, I deserve nothing
but judgement and death. (Eph 1:11-12, Is. 43:1-2)
It is only after we understand our deserved standing before God as
contrasted to our actual standing that we can get even a miniscule pin-hole
view of the overwhelming enormity of our Father's love and grace. The grace
imparted in each breath, movement, day, raindrop, sunset, friendship, meal,
broken heart, and ultimately in the free redeeming gift of his son, begins to
become real.
This reality has been deeply engraved in my heart over the past year, and
has been something that it seems I relearn as the circumstances of my day to
day life ebb and flow. God is constantly challenging me by forcing me to
continually hold on to this worldview as the only stable anchor in the midst
of an ever changing and violent world. For instance, lately I have been in a
real dark place relationally, experiencing some real rejection and
loneliness, and almost immediately I knew that the Lord was looking at me
thinking "Let's see if he really believes all this stuff he has been
learning". So I have been challenged to determine what it means to live with
a thankful heart in the midst of pain and authentic struggle. 
I have discovered that when we struggle there are still things, places or
people in our lives that we can and must give thanks for and that there is
true comfort in knowing that the Lord is faithful to us in using these
struggles to bring us to a place where we must cry out in utter hopelessness
to the giver of hope.You see I am no longer content to put on the "Christian
happy face" and go around denying my pain and settling for superficial
healing. Even our feelings are a precious and beautiful gift from our father.
We do not have to spend so much time trying to repress, ignore, or control
them, as if we really could. But in this freedom we can actually thank God
for our feelings of love,  comfort and security as well as our feelings of
pain, brokenness, and loneliness, because only a broken and unguarded heart,
the heart of a child, can experience all of these.
It is my hope that as you read this you don't hear in it an easy answer for
pain, or a quick fix for adversity. It is my belief that only the Lord's
grace can cause us to feel pain or to be freed from it. Rather this is what I
have discovered on my humble quest to understand pain from a biblical
perspective. I have decided that hard logic or systematic analysis is rarely
the correct route for trying to deal with such issues, but if we can learn to
understand these things as they relate to the Lord's desire for us to render
ourselves completely to him, crying out for his warm and complete embrace,
then our approach to them can be helped. At least I feel that mine has.

May the Lord continue to extend grace and peace to all of you....
--with perseverance, your friend,
--Matthew Odmark(Odie74@aol.com)


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*Encouragement:

Subj: Re: Thanks!
Date: 95-09-02 02:32:13 EDT
From: jbow0@tiger.gtc.georgetown.ky.us (BOW)

Jars,

        Thanks so much for keeping me posted on your lives and mininstry and
prayer concerns.  I've been so discouraged by the lack of passion in some of
the new "modern Christian rockers" that your music is truly a blessing from
God.  I got the opportunity to serve as a missionary over the summer and it
was like God chewed me up and spit me out a new person.  God's placed me in a
lot of leadership positions on campus with leading Sunday worship and
Fellowship of Christian Athletes and I never understood fully what it meant
to be a Christian until God totally worked me over.  God kept saying...how
can
you call me your best friend if I only get maybe 5 minutes of your time each
day...you can have all the religion and knowledge and good morals and praise
from your peers but if you don't truly have a relationship with Christ you're
nowhere.  The greatest advice I got this summer was that love is meeting
needs...just as Christ stayed on the cross when he could have gotten down any
time he wanted to, he knew that if he did get down we were going to hell, so
because he loved us so much he stayed on the cross to be humiliated before
the world.  We so often get under the misconception that we deserve
love...but
none of us deserve love and Jesus Christ was the only one who did deserve it
and He still didn't get it.  Biblical truth supports this theory in 1 John
3:18 "Do not love in words or in tongue but with and in truth".  We can tell
people and God all day that we love them but if we don't show them and meet
their needs it never becomes real.  The way that we show God that we love Him
is by obeying Him!  Basically, I just want to thank Jars and their ministry
for meeting the needs of Christians by their music and lyrics.  It's
incredibly hard for me to see Christians in leadership positions on campus
and in the community who really just don't have any clue about what it really
means to be a Christian and aren't worried about being just a "Jesus
Cheezy Cheerleader" if you know what I mean.  God teaches me everyday to be
conscious of performing for people when I'm on stage playing my guitar or
speaking at churches or youth weekends because it's so easy once you get
comfortable there to showcase your talents as a worhip leader instead of
leading people into the presence of God.  I've learned that if don't daily
fill myself up with God in His Word and in prayer that I give people myself
and not God and I can't save anybody...only God can so I must make sure God
is what they are getting whether I'm speaking or playing or eating lunch at
the
cafeteria.....Christianity is full-time!  I just want to encourage you guys
and let you know a college sophmore back in Kentucky is praying for you and
hopes that God continues use you in an incredible way.  The newsletter is
great and please continue to let me know what God is doing in your life...I
encourage you and myself to really strive to KNOW God.  God is awesome!

                                Following the Leader,
                                    Jonathan Bow


*****************************************************************************************************

*Petra Tribute Album:

Jars have decided to record a song for the upcoming Petra tribute album
(which will mostly include old Petra songs).  They have been working on "Rose
Coloured Stained Glass Windows" off of the More Power to Ya album.
Apparently they're quite happy with the results, and they feel as though
their sound is becoming more "smooth and defined". And of course they're
realizing daily that all that is happening is through Christ our Lord, and
the music is directly inspired by Him.


*****************************************************************************************************

*Christmas EP:

The guys have also finished work on three songs to be released on their
Christmas cd in October....it will include "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen",
"Little Drummer Boy", and an much different new acoustic version of "He".  It
was mixed at the Elefante's "Sound Kitchen" by JB.  Watch for it soon!


*****************************************************************************************************

*Crossroads Magazine Article:

There is a great new Christian Magazine, entitled Crossroads, which comes
packaged with a cd (every issue).  As far as I know it is only a mail order
magazine, unavailable at newsstands, but they've done one of the nicest jobs
I've seen. (Much better than the secular released magazine "Shout")  They
also review some secular releases.  Jars of Clay has a large article on them
in it, right after Amy Grant's, including a fun interview they did.  It's too
long to type out here, so I hope you all find it! :) The cd enclosed with it
has as it's first track, "Liquid" and they also do a separate 10-song monthly
video, the first which has Jars' Flood video on it.


*****************************************************************************************************

*Prayer Requests:

Subj: earthen vessels prayer requests
Date: 95-08-23 16:26:48 EDT
From: Meaningles
To: Earthpots

Please pray for God to guide and direct us high school seniors as we face
decisions that affect the rest of our lives!


*****************************************************************************************************

*WWW Site Update:

The www home page site for Earthen Vessels/Jars of Clay is now at:
http://www.grfn.org/~qwerty/jarsofclay 
I have sent out a large amount of material to possibly be included at the
site. There are some graphics there presently. We hope to eventually include
some sound bytes, video and candid photos of the band. Any help would be
greatly appreciated if you have anything we could scan, etc. We are
collaborating with Steve Carlson, the owner of the page, and Phil Pankow, a
video/computer technician. Thanks Steve and Phil, for all the help!  All back
issues and the FAQ can be located there. The site is very easy to get to, so
please go check it out!


****************************************************************************************************

*CD-Rom Update:

The cd-rom appears to be coming along quite well, according to producer
Michael Wilson. There will be many unreleased video segments, interviews with
the guys, back issues of Earthen Vessels, the complete Frail demo cd
(compressed) and plenty of other great surprises!  Michael is doing an
incredible job and has included some things that no other cd-roms have ever
attempted. Look for this release in January of '96.


*****************************************************************************************************

*Jars' favorite scriptures:

I should note that this was asked of them a year ago and these were their
answers- they may have changed by now! :) Following the reference is the
comment they made when asked "why?":

Dan: Psalms 27: "Because it has pulled me through many, many difficult
times."
Charlie: Romans 8:38: "An incredible promise from God that *nothing* in this
world can ever separate us from His Love."
Steve: Hebrews 10:23: "It's God's promise - He will be faithful.  It
encourages me to serve Him with all my life."
Matt: Phillipians 2: "The entire Christian walk, summarized simply and
profoundly."


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END


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