THRIVE

I experienced something new and totally amazing last night: My First Christian Concert!

My Dad & I at the concert

Now, I can remember the exact moment I started listening to our local Christian radio station. It was September 2008, and I was channel surfing on my way to work - all of the sudden I heard Remember Me by Mark Schultz, it was a song I had memorized for high school graduation but that day in mid September the song took on an entire different meaning. It was because only a few weeks earlier my family experienced a devastating loss, my dad's brother committed suicide, five years later it is still crazy to type those words. Sitting in my car that day listening to Remember Me I felt like my uncle was sending a message - that he was with God and everything was okay even though we were all struggling with the ugly, unanswerable questions suicide brings. My radio dial has hardly left 97.9 since that day in 2008 and I am super grateful for artists spreading God's word through their beautiful songs!!

There you have it, the background on how I got my start listening to Christian music, but let's get back to my worship experience last night:

The THRIVE Tour was in Fargo, now for all of you non Christian music listening people this is a tour consisting of the Grammy winning group Casting Crowns; Momma to 1, pregnant with twins and still rocking a tour - Laura Story; and the Energetic Australian group For King & Country.

For King & Country started the show off and BLEW ME AWAY. I'm not kidding these guys had so many instruments they were playing, ran all over in the crowd and gave me chills {in a good way} totally blown away! Beyond their amazing musical talent they had an important message proclaiming that chivalry is not dead and women should never be treated like anything less than princesses!! Watching this group live was such a treat and I hope I can see them again sometime. 

Laura Story has been one of my favorites for a long time. Her song Blessings is one of my All Time favorite songs and I was SUPER excited to watch her perform live. She didn't disappoint and had such a touching message that God has a plan even if we don't see it clearly or have to go through hardships before we reach the happiness.

As I think I've mentioned before, the first Christian CD I ever bought was Casting Crowns. I can belt out almost all of their {popular} songs by heart and just love love love the messages in their songs, so I went into this concert knowing they would be amazing. What I didn't expect was just how amazing Mark {the lead singer} would be at speaking. Chills, tears to the eyes, take your breath away rawness as he spoke of The Word - you won't be disappointed in attending their concert instead you will be fulfilled. 

One thing all these artists had in common, besides their love for spreading God's Word was how down to earth they all were when they spoke. It wasn't about their fame or getting mentioned in the latest headline for a sell out show it was about Love and Faith - spreading God's Word and things that mattered!!

The Christian concert experience is unlike any other concert genre I have ever been to and I don't know how to explain it but I can easily say it won't be my last!!

Have you ever been to a Christian concert? 

Who are some of your favorite Christian artists?