It has been a while since we’ve posted anything here. You must be surprised to see this blog popping up on your RSS reader! After celebrating an amazing 2009 we spent some extended time evaluating how to better achieve the mission and vision of Broken Voices heading into 2010.

One of the issues that rose to the top of the surface during our evaluation was our blog. While it is something we enjoyed and were proud to produce we feel it has moved off center in effectively using our resources to awaken students and young adults to the life God has created for them to live. 

Starting today we are replacing the blog with a monthly audio podcast. You can click here to download February’s episode. On it you will hear about the latest news and stories from the Broken Voices world. Starting next month we will also include a featured interview of someone living out their God given dreams.

As we move forward you can stay in touch with us by subscribing to the podcast, becoming a fan on our Facebook page, subscribing to our Twitter feed, or checking the announcement scroll on the right hand column of brokenvoices.org.

Thank you for journeying with us and adapting as we grow. We look forward to all that God has in store this year – we believe some of the most exciting parts of the Broken Voices story are right around the corner!

We have wrapped up the fall campus tour, a bittersweet moment for our team. We are back in Atlanta, resting with our families and sleeping in our own beds! Our hearts are full, and we are still trying to process and take in all that we saw God do this fall. We will be sharing more thoughts on the tour soon as well as some exciting things rolling out in 2010. They say every end is a new beginning and we have never felt that more then right now, we have watched God do unthinkable things and yet we believe He has so much more in store!

Have you ever found it hard to enjoy yourself? No, not like having a good time at a party or having a blast at a concert. I mean really enjoying doing something you are really good at, and being confident about it?

Well, it may not be all that hard for you but somehow along my journey I picked up the notion that being great at something, exhibiting confidence, and experiencing sheer joy while doing it, is being prideful. Deeply etched somewhere inside of my soul was the belief that if I exhibited greatness in any capacity, I would be stealing God's glory. When someone gave me a compliment, I would hide behind the phrases, "It's all about Jesus", "praise God"! As if God were standing over my shoulder watching me with squinted eyes, like security, making sure I didn't steal His glory. However these days I am wading deeper into the river of freedom, and allowing it to carry me. I am really starting to believe that God wants me to let my light to shine and to do so unashamedly. Never have the words of Marianne Williamson rang truer,

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

As I sit pondering this on my porch, I can hear Jesus ecstatically saying to me, "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." (Matt. 5:16 NRSV)

As our team is driving up Indiana 331 to be with Bethel College in Mishawaka, we wanted to share some more pics from the road. Enjoy!

It's hard to believe we have been on the road and away from home for an entire month! We will be posting more "thoughts from the road" in the next few days. For now, here's a few snap shots for you to enjoy as the journey continues!

By: Andrew Morgan

When we started Broken Voices, all there was in the beginning was a faint whisper, an idea that could barely be voiced, a dream that softly called. We still laugh now about an event we hosted for friends and family a couple of years ago - we were excited, we just didn’t know what we were excited about!

As we began to take simple steps, the whisper slowly turned into bold and clear leading. We merely brought the things we were good at and combined them with a growing need we saw in the world. “God we are all in on Your plan and Your story! How do You want to use our lives?” He answered that prayer and has not stopped stretching and growing us.

On tour this fall, I have talked with countless people who are asking how to hear God’s voice - How do I find His clear calling and understandable path for my life? These are understandable question I used to ask. What I’ve found though is that these questions can lead us to a very lonely and frustrated place.

God’s constant invitation on our lives is to trust.

In his book: “Ruthless Trust”, author Brennan Manning defines trust as, “A movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and promise.”

God is inviting us to trust Him - the kind of trust that is a choice before we know the plan. Direction might not come for you in the form of a clear long-term diagram; it could be little more than a faint whisper. Listen, take steps forward, and the whisper will become a beautiful voice leading you to the life you were made to live.