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Please consider - March 5th, 2014
A message from Stephanie Pauline, MtM founder and president
More than Music, Inc. has been working so hard over the last few months. We have accomplished some beautiful things and have some TRULY wonderful things in the works. Still, we have been stretched thin and we need to rebuild our reserves right now. I was thinking about how to meet this need and the thought came to me (God gave me a "burst in the brain," as my son would say), MtM ONLY needs 10 people to give $1,000, or 20 people to give $500, or even 40 people to give $250 and we'll be where we need to be. We can do this.
So let me tell you about what we've done up till now and what we're working towards. I don't expect anyone to give to something that isn't worthy. I believe this work is worthy. In fact, I think More than Music is a GREAT place to invest your donation money.
When you hear the numbers in our summary:
- Music played on nearing one thousand radio stations in 30 countries
- Hundreds of concerts performed across the country since 2003
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75 concerts in juvenile detention centers in the last five years
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Thousands impacted and even transformed through this work
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$60,000 net raised for partner nonprofits since 2010
And when you consider the numbers of people--how millions now have heard the message in the music made through MtM, or how my personal story of redemption has been shared around the world through broadcasts on The 700 Club and other media outlets--it is almost too much to feel.
So let me share it this way:
I was singing at a concert in a rural church in a neighboring state. A boy--very young, about four--was sitting with his mom near the back of the auditorium. He stood out to me because, from the point I opened my mouth, he was leaned forward in his seat, riveted, like one would expect an honors-level doctorate student to be in class. As I wove my story--God's story--through the songs and spoken words, I could tell his mom was listening as well. She wiped away many tears, her face wearing a grieved, but increasingly hopeful expression. I gave her a big hug after the concert, and she shared some about the abuse they had endured. Two years later, she sent me a note: "My son and I were at a concert yesterday. When it was over, as we walked to the car, I could tell he was deep in thought. With a faraway look in his eyes, he said, 'Remember when that beautiful woman came and sang about our lives? When is she coming back?'"
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SEE BELOW for more pics of THE ONE we do this work for.
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Sometimes people just need to be given permission to be honest, whether they're four or forty. Honest about our need . . . about God's grace . . . about what it really looks like to take that grace into ourselves, and let God, Himself, lay healing hands to our deepest wounds, making something miraculous out of our mess. Be the first to give them permission by being audaciously honest about your own vast need for Christ. Can God save us--or not?
We, at More than Music, believe that HE CAN.
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We Serve the world in three ways, presently:-
Juvenile Detention Center Ministry:
Initiating and invigorating juvenile detention center ministries and mentor-ship programs across the US through concerts and revolutionizing materials. Now through our Toy Soldier 1280 program we are set to change the world as we work to plant Christ-based mentoring programs in ALL of the 1280 juvenile detention centers across the country; starting with 36 in the first five years--reaching 26,469 young people.
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Benefit Concert Ministry:
Walking partner nonprofits through the process of funding, planning, promoting and producing successful benefit concerts; raising needed money and awareness for their cause.
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Independent Sending Agency:
More than Music fucntions as a sponsorship mechanism and an independent sending agency for national and international missions, offering a covering for Christ followers, artists and musicians that have a heart for, and/or a project in mind, to aid the lost and hurting.
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See, millions hearing is not millions. Thousands transformed is not thousands. It is ONE.
THE ONE tough, angry young man I spoke to after the juvenile detention center concert in North Dakota who, after a ten-minute debate, finally heard something in what I was saying that changed his world. I SAW THE LIGHT dawn in his eyes and I felt the grip of bondage slip away--he did too. It fell off with a spiritually audible thud behind him. He was free! He took on a whole new countenance and we spontaneously laughed and jumped together, praising God right then and there!
It is THE ONE junior high girl in the UK who stopped cutting, and stopped believing what the bullies said about her because of the album she listened to over and over after The Sonflowerz concert she attended.
It is THE ONE private who heard that song on the radio in their car just after returning home from a brutal deployment, and had to pull over to take it in.
THE ONE girl in the orphanage in India listening intently as I shared about Jesus' love; who chose, by faith, to let Him into her heart. The moment later then, when both of us were sitting cross-legged on the cool, cement floor, as she tried, again, to teach me to play "the rock game," (something like jacks) her eyes dancing with laughter. (I never quite got that game.) :)
THE ONE woman whose baby girl was dying of cancer and she needed that song on the radio about resting in God's arms--right then. Who sat down in the kitchen, dishrag still in hand, and finally let herself cry. When she got up, she found she had the strength to fight and to love another day.
THE ONE 11-year-old blind girl in Trinidad who bravely asked to receive her sight--and as I prayed for her, began to dance and exclaim, "I can see! I can see!" I opened my eyes to take in her face and quickly realized that she hadn't received her physical sight, but that her Creator God was giving her some wonderful vision--one more beautiful than I could imagine. I was the one then jealous of HER sight.
THE ONE boy, in Uganda, with spina biffida, whose mom was checked out and in an abusive relationship. Jenny took him to get some needed medical tests. When his finger was pricked for the blood test he began to wail loudly. Not knowing what else to do, Jenny scooped him up in her arms and held him fast. As his sobs subsided, he finally laid back into her embrace. Then, with silent tears spilling out from under his closed eyelids, he just let her cradle him for 10 or 15 minutes. He had so needed to be held.
THE ONE young girl who grabbed me after the concert and was crying so hard she couldn't talk. I could hear that her tears were about hope. It hurt so bad to let it in--the wound was so deep. To feel beauty, to hope, cost her so much. But there she was, her tears brushing against my cheek, spilling there onto my shoulder, as we embraced--HOPING. BELIEVING.
THE ONE young woman in Kenya, who Melanie saw walking on the beach, her baby on her back picking up drift wood. Drift wood seemed an odd choice for firewood so Melanie invited a conversation. Her baby had been the product of rape (she had been attacked when she was collecting wood in the forest - an epidemic in Kenya). Melanie was teaching fire-less cooker workshops (both to help the systemic problem of deforestation, and to protect woman and children, in Kenya), and so she invited Beatrice. There Beatrice learned that people in the world care deeply about her safety, more importantly, that God does, and she learned how she can better protect herself and her son. Melanie was struck by the reality that conservation is more than saving the planet, but is about saving THE ONE; and giving them the means to choose a sustainable way of life.
It is THE ONE 50-year-old ex-con, a tough, HUGE, bald-headed, black man waiting 'til everyone else had talked to me . . . to slowly . . . quietly begin. Then it began to pour from him--telling me things, oh, such hard things--things he said he never told anyone. He was shot. He shot someone. He was molested. And that "earlier this very night," he said, he had been walking on a bridge. "Walking on a bridge," he repeated it again. "Walking on a bridge." Did I know what he meant? Yes, I did. He said he didn't know how he came to be at my concert that night. But here he was, and he saw something. He saw something real. Something he needed. And now he's crying and he's believing for the first time that GOD LOVES HIM. AS HE IS. "Can He REALLY love ME as I am?" he is asking me again. Yes, I answer. And now he is crying again, and I am too, as I pray over him.
It is THE ONE woman at the shelter, that we provided for through a benefit concert we did, tucking her children in bed for the night SAFE and sound.
I could go on and on.
THIS is what it's ALL about. Why do I just keep on and keep on and keep on? Because l have seen it. I have seen THE ONE this work is meant to save. They are real, and they need us. So keep on with me. Please. This is not about me. This is not about More than Music. HEAR ME--it's about SO MUCH MORE tHAN MUSIC. (If you notice, I leave that t in More than Music lowercase--always. To me, to us, it is an image of the cross and we keep that in the center of all that we do. When you see it, just know --it is not typo. It is an intentional choice. It is the heart of this work.)
So, will you, please, be one of my ten, twenty or forty? Will you help MtM rebuild our needed reserves? We have only just begun. There is so much to do. Please help me.
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True religion is this - to look after orphans and widows in their distress.
James 1:27a (paraphrase)
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Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
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There is rejoicing in the presence of the angelsof God over one lost soul who repents.
Luke 15:10
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Then said the Lord to him, "Put off the shoes from your feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground. I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt {in their bondage}, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now, come, I will send you."
Acts 7:33-34
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Provide for those who grieve in Zion--bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.
Isaiah 61:3-4
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For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.1 Corithians 1:18
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"Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit," says the Lord Almighty.
Zechariah 4:6
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 PO Box 31 Farmington, MN 55024 719.258.8977
www.MorethanMusicInc.com
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