Friend - Happy Monday to you!
This email is a bit longer than I usually write since I haven't
done one for a while. I do, however, intend to write more
regularly as I should have more time to commit.

You see on the 31st April I finished my 'day job' and embarked
on the life of a musician/songwriter/worship leader (partly
supported by Deep End Ministries Trust and partly supported by
some freelance consultancy work on my part).

Towards the end of last year I had a strong sense that a season
change was coming in 2007 and within the first 10 days of
January a number of invitations to lead worship and minister
both in Ireland and beyond (USA, Thailand etc) came in. Now,
that in it's self was significant because for the past 2 years I
had done very little outside of my commitment to local church and
Engage24 (intercessory worship event in Coleraine).

On top of that I got a phone call from someone who said that
they believed God was telling them to help fund ministry for me!
(I had helped set up a charitable trust a number of years ago
that would support worship ministry development).

All this happened in the first few days of 2007, completely 'out
of the blue' as they say!

Sometimes I can be a bit dull when it comes to hearing God, but
this seemed to be the season change that I had a hunch about. In
the midst of seeking wisdom about how to process this season
change I read about Ezra.

Ezra worked for the King of Babylon and one day King Artaxerxes
authorized and resourced him to return to Jerusalem to
re-establish the Temple and it's worship. It says that he left
on the 1st day of the 1st month and arrived on the 1st day of
the 5th month (Ezra 7:8).

I realise that the Hebrew calender is different to ours but this
seemed to be the signal that 1st May would be the time to be in
place.

So here I am 3 weeks later and bedding into the new routine. And
it's here that I'd like your feedback.

One of the three things (I'll explain the other 2 in a minute)
that I'll be focusing my attention on is songwriting and
songwriting development and as part of that I've kicked off a
forced creativity initiative called The 20/20 Project.

I'm going to write and publish a song a week for 20 weeks and
Friend I'd like you to hold me accountable to it!

Now, I don't expect to write an 'Amazing Grace' each week, in
fact some weeks it might just be a rough, incomplete idea and
every week's effort will be subject to change and editing in
future regardless of how finished it may seem at the time. But
the idea is to prime the creative pump so to speak.

Each mp3 is going to be a humble affair, just me and my guitar,
but I'd love your feedback on the ideas that bubble up.

I've uploaded the first week's submission for your comments on
my blog at http://blog.andyrogersmusic.com/ - any questions just
drop me a line.

Anyways, here I am raring to go with lots of ideas to implement
and here are the 3 specific things I'm working towards:

1. Getting 'out there' and doing more live events, worship,
intercessory worship stuff and some mainstream events with my
band 'A Perfect Stone' - (If you know of anyone who might
consider booking me for events, church services or even tour
dates send them to http://www.andyrogersmusic.com/bookings.htm
for details)

2. Doing more song writing and collaborating - hence the 20/20
Project above.

3. Mentoring, passing on the baton to the next generation - It's
not a case that I have all the answers but I already have the
privilege of working with a bunch of musicians and creative
folks who are half my age!

So there you go - that's a broad outline of the 'rest of my
life' as it looks at this point!

Speak soon.

Cheers - Andy