Reflections on the "Everything Must Change" Tour

When I started the tour, I had big plans to stay balanced, journal regularly, do my little yoga routine every day in the hotels, not over eat, and email on the planes. It wasn’t a complete loss…I did manage to go on walks regularly, and I kept up with a few friends, and I made a lot of new friends. But things never quite work out the way you plan.

It’s not just that the schedule gets twisted into the unexpected…like when you have to stay overnight at the Dallas airport because of a snow storm…in March. Or, when communication goes haywire with the local musicians and they show up ten minutes before the whole things starts. No, it wasn’t just the schedule that twisted into the unexpected, it was also the marvelous finding of friendship, and the deepening of mysterious things; Jesus.

The single biggest thing I notice…my heart seems to have grown in its capacity to love people. This is not to be confused with the capacity to do more things and visit more people in the course of a year…but my heart has expanded in its capacity to love. That is, I believe I love people more deeply. I care about people more than I did before. I’m interested in an individual’s story more than I was before. And it wasn’t any one thing…it was a transformation that transpired over a journey, with people that included joy and hard work, hearing really hard stories, and being inspired by really hopeful things, and Jesus. I’m especially grateful for Pam and Roger and Thai food in Florida…and Jay and Rick and Salmon in San Diego, Greg, the Aussie who walked around Green Lake with me in Seattle while it rained, and Vince, the dirty gospel piano player who added kindness and soul to the gathering in the Bronx.

When you’re heart expands for other people, frustration in your own life seems to dwindle. I have a great life, a wonderful life. But I have more dreams that have yet to begin. Different parts of my heart, that have laid dormant for a season, were re-ignited. The wonderful thing is that the flame added a different kind of passion to the work I have felt called to all along…I see there is more, it goes deeper, I am called to greater sacrifice, and the hope is more powerful than I believed.

And songs…there are new songs flowing out of my life, and songs that have yet to form. And I feel more encouraged than ever to be a songwriter…I am a songwriter. And I am interested in the music of peace movements and the music that flows out of and catalyzes transformation. I am interested in the songs other people write. I am excited to be a songwriter.


Each gathering was broken into five sessions. The over arching question was, “what does the message of Jesus have to do with global crises?” The Saturday morning session started us off by considering “which Jesus” we believe in. Brian gave a wonderful teaching about Jesus taking the disciples to Cesarea Philipi and then asking them “Who do you say I am?” He dug into the reality of the disciples to help us understand more fully what they might have meant when they used the words they did. He exegeted different passages and compared them to commonly known Roman inscriptions of the day. It was wonderful. We started on one list…and nearly everyone could identify with one or several of the following:

The Cute Baby Jesus
The Warrior Jesus
The Private, Personal Jesus
The Prosperity Jesus
The Fire Escape Jesus
The Second-Coming Killer Jesus
The Institutionalized Jesus

And as he spoke and shared, we moved towards one single answer for who Jesus is:

The liberating king who healed the sick, released people from the oppression of evil spirits, gave sight to the blind, gave hearing to the deaf, fed people for free, brought peace and calm to a turbulent storm, gave life to the dead, healed a paralyzed hand, empowered the lame to walk, included the excluded, confronted the hypocrites, turned the tables, died on Caesar’s cross, rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit.

It was the kind of message and Truth that continues to grow…so that even on the tenth time I heard the story…I was brought to tears. And I knew things were changing in me, or deepening.

So, for those of you, my friends, who try to keep up with me, I just say thank you. It was a great many different things that led me to this last season and I am so grateful. And, thanks to the team…Brian, Linnea and Eric, and so many other volunteers that I met along the way. Thank you to you, my friends. Shalom. -Tracy

Here is a link to Brian's Reflections

Here are some links to people who blogged during the events in different cities:

Eli Renner blogged in Charlotte

Jeremy Del Rio in The Bronx

Compassion Plug

Hi all. Tour is still moving full force. I've been under the weather for several days. I thought I would take the opportunity to update the blog. I've been wanting to plug Compassion International for awhile online. I've been sponsoring children for eight years and it's amazing. I've had the opportunity to visit one, Allison in Bolivia as well. I used to advocate regularly for compassion during concerts, and now am happy there are more online resources. This is a beautiful video Compassion put together, and if you want to meet some children right now who you can be in relationship with and help, click HERE. Blessings, Tracy

"Come Out" live in Charlotte

My friend Bill from Faith at Work videoed this from a concert following the EMC event in Charlotte. The song is "Come Out" from the new EP "Fill the Fields." I wrote this song about reconciliation and was specifically inspired by Amahoro, an African greeting in which people embrace and move from side to side as if to kiss each other on the cheek. They do it to let the peace between them flow. One of Brian's friends said, while he was in Rwanda, "When you've seen what we've seen and been through what we've been through, it just takes as long as it takes." So the ballad moves slowly too, to let the peace flow, for as long as it takes.

I'm only traveling with my MacBook and Motu interface. I play whatever keyboard is available with a midi port along the way, and so far no problems.

Collaboration

My friend Todd Berger is in the midst of recording and collaborating on a new Village Thrift CD. I wrote a few songs and he developed this one. I'm super excited to hear the finished version, but this is a really fun clip of some of the recording and some beautiful people in Cleveland! Check out villagethrift.com.

House Concert in Tampa

Oh yes, I am doing the electronica live in living rooms across the United States! We'll, it's exciting to me anyway. After the EMC conference in St Petersburg, I stuck around and shared a wonderful evening have dinner and playing music at my new friends Roger and Pam Sullin's house in Tampa. Roger is a wonderful musician and shared a few songs as well. They are doing amazing things with and through the production company they just started, Deer Pants Productions. Remember, the electronica EP is a digital release only...so any help spreading the word is greatly appreciated! Blessings, Tracy

Yes, in the middle of a very packed tour, I traveled to Peru for a week of meeting leaders and encouraging people through relationship, songwriting workshops and some worship gatherings. It was really wonderful and actually pretty relaxing as the pace of life is simply slower in Southern Peru. One of the most amazing parts of the trip was interacting with a couple of Quechua families from the mountains. I have been to Peru before and though I have been privileged to worship in Quechua villages before, I also know how separated indigenous life and community is from city life and culture in Peru. So I considered it a great privilege to know these beautiful people.

I have a dream. I dream about cross-culture encounters going something like this: "Tell me about what God is doing among you. Tell me of the ways you know His love. Teach me your songs so I can see His faithfulness through your eyes." How beautiful that would be. Ahh, yes, it is a dream. I felt just a taste of it when my new Quechua friend approached me and said, "Dear sister, the songs you are singing are so beautiful. Do you have the words written on paper so that I can take them with me and read them?" We had prepared CD's of live worship recordings enhanced with original recordings and chord charts in Spanish and English, but I knew my brother probably didn't have a CD player. It is likely he did not have electricity. But the way he approached me was so refreshing and inspiring. Internet and mass sharing are wonderful, but I do not wish to loose the weight and power of a single testimony, or perspective, or song.

My friends who were with me, Ben and Robin Pasley, and Tim Thornton, have prepared much more detailed blogs including video-podcasts and lots of pictures on their sites, www.entertheworshipcircle.com and www.theblackthornproject.com. And Brian didn't mind me taking the trip on a free weekend in the middle of the Everything Must Change tour. He said, as long as I had a pisco sour...and I did!

One Down, 10 to Go!

Hey all. I just got back from Charlotte and the first of 11 "Everything Must Change" gatherings with Brian McLaren across the country. We were using a crazy cross section of spaces...here, you see the speaking and music happened inside a traditional church building whereas the bookstore and many workshop conversations happened in "Area 15," a warehouse space leased to artists as well as the Charlotte 24-7 prayer community. And, many other groups use the space, including the Charlotte Emergent Village cohort, which was really the group who pulled the event off locally. It was a cool and interesting neighborhood in the city, historically "poor" and I heard some local Charlotte residents even use the word "ghetto." But the art space was amazing, and of course, there were brand new urban loft condos, complete with corrugated metal and bright color architecture being built right across the street.

Eli Renner, a worship leader and musician living in Charlotte who sang and played bass with me, blogged through the whole weekend and took pictures of the gathering, so you can see more here (elirenner.com).