Brandon Shanks {dot} com

Day 5/6

I am writing this post from my house! It feels so good to be home. We had an amazing trip. It was the best mission trip that we have ever had! Not to take away from any other trip that we have been on. God always exceeded our expectations each year. This year was no exception. God keeps doing greater and greater things.

Friday's Service was so awesome! What a way to end a great week of ministry. At the service revolution praise band did part of the worship and then their Youth Pastor Johnny Alfaro and I tag-team-preached. He did a great job talking about the Y generation. He said that if we are the Y generation than WHY NOT change our world for Jesus! At the service I saw so many of our students touched that normally sit back. I know that they will never be the same!

It was such an honor working with the Crystal Lake UPC and the Beardsley family. It is such a thriving revival church and we were energized to work with them! I know greater things are yet to come in the city of Crystal Lake and the Chicago area!

Bro. Beardsley also surprised us with a video that he mixed of the trip. It was a great surprise. I am going to post it soon.

Then today we slept in and drove all the way home! Another mission trip is done...

Thank you to all the parents/chaperones that made the trip possible. You guys are awesome. Thank you to our great church and Pastor for supporting our youth so that we can do things like this! And lastly thank you to REVOLUTION YOUTH for being the awesome students that you are! Your passion always inspires Kara and I. You guys never cease to amaze us as you grow in your walk with God and take new steps of faith. Keep it up. LET'S CHANGE MADISONVILLE FOR THE CAUSE OF JESUS CHRIST!!!

Day 4

We had a great day today. I can't believe day 4 is already done. Today we went to Gurnee Mills Mall across from Six Flags and went shopping! A lot of students found some good deals!

After we finished shopping we went to a city called Zion. The city has a very rich Christian history. The city was actually founded as a "New Jerusalem." Last night it lived up to it's name! We went in and had a street concert and puppet show. We were working with Bro. & Sis. Brash. They are doing a great job in the city of Zion. We just set up and began to find people on the street and invite them to come to the concert. When they got to the concert we had an opportunity to talk to them about Jesus and invite them to the church.

It was so amazing all the people who came to watch the noise in the street! One lady came (pictured below) asking for a water. After talking with her a group began to pray for her. She was really touched right there in the open air. Our God has no limits on what he can do! Pac Baby also rapped. He did a great job. People were drawn by his music and worship! The puppets were awesome also! We had many other people from the city that came just to see what was going on. We had an awesome time just worshiping and talking to people about Jesus. We pray for Bro. & Sis. Brash that they would have REVIVAL in the city of Zion.

Tomorrow is our last full day before we go home. We are going back to Crystal Lake to do some evangelism and to have a youth crusade. it is going to be great!

A special thank you to everyone who has called, emailed, sent a text, commented, or twittered an encouraging word to us while on this trip. Thanks for you support and prayers! GREATER IS YET TO COME!

Real-time trip updates here

Day 3

Proud would not even begin to describe how I feel about these students that came on youth on mission 08. Today was an amazing day. After we woke up we traveled to Crystal Lake to begin some evangelism in the city. The county that Crystal Lake is in is one of the richest counties in America. The people that we were able to speak to were very receptive and kind. We just simply invited them to an event that we were having for the children of Crystal Lake. And believe it or not, I knocked on the door of a man who was born and raised in MADISONVILLE! He graduated from Madisonville High School in 63. Isn't that amazing?

After we were done knocking doors we had some authentic Chicago style pizza. WOW. It was amazing pizza. By far the best that I have ever had. It was THICK! Everyone loved it!

Lastly, yesterday we had the Children's Crusade. Revolution did so awesome! Sis. Bethany Crouch led a team of students that did the entire crusade. They did everything from the singing to the transitions and even the sermon! It was so tremendous. I was so proud watching them just be used by God in a great way. At the altar call we had a little boy receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was so moving watching how hungry he was for God. His story was that his mother had been bringing him to the church since the church began and he had never received the Holy Spirit. HE DID TONIGHT! There may have been others also, it was a powerful altar time. Then we gave away all the gifts that we had bought for the crusade. It was so Awesome!

I was thinking, God loves that little boy so much, that he had a group all the way from KY come just so that we could have the service where he would receive the Holy Spirit! If that is the only reason we came. God loves ONE SOUL that much.

I know God has more in store for us on this trip. Tomorrow we are traveling to a place in the city called Zion where we are setting up on the street to sing, do puppets on the street! We are just going to help draw people so that people can be invited to church.

We are having a great trip. Thanks again to everyone who is supporting us through prayer. Thank you Sis. Crouch for your teaching about the children's crusade and your prayers. And thank you Sis. Hindricks for leading our great Sunday School. I know many of the students were able to work with kids tonight because you have allowed them to work with kids each week in Sunday School classes!

Check out these pictures from Day 3:

Day 2

We had a great day today. We could not have asked for a better day. The weather was amazing. Not too hot and not too cold. This morning we woke up and went downtown to tour the city.

We started off the day by going to the top of the Sears Tower. The view is awesome. Then next we went to Ed Debevic's Restaurant. This was definitely a unique experience. It is a 50's - 60's diner "WITH ATTITUDE." They were right about the attitude part. When you walk in everyone is rude to you. Throughout the entire dining experience the waiters and waitresses continue to yell at you. It was a cool experience and the food was great! Next we went shopping on Michigan Ave. It was so packed with people and culture. People were playing music and dancing on the sidewalk. It is such a cool place. Amazing places to shop and enjoy the city. Then lastly we went to Navy Pier. Everyone really enjoyed Navy Pier. A bunch of us went in a big indoor maze, and just as it was getting dark we took a boat ride tour of the city. WOW. Chicago is beautiful at night!

It is hard to imagine that over 9 Million people live in the Chicago area!

Everyone had a great day of sightseeing. Thank you Bro. Beardsley, Bro. Brian, and all the others from the Crystal Lake Church for joining us today! We had a great time.

We are really looking forward to beginning our evangelism in Crystal Lake tomorrow morning. Then tomorrow night we are having a KIDS CRUSADE! It will be great!

By the way, I did not put it in yesterday's blog but we had a girl that came with us on the trip recieve the Holy Spirit Monday night at our prayer service!

Thank you to everyone who is checking in with us and taking time hold us up in prayer. If you want real-time updated from the trip you can see them here. Also you can see them here.

Enjoy these pictures from today!

This view is amazing

From the Sears Tower!

Chicago Day 1

Day 1 is at a close and what a day it has been. We drove all through the night and arrived at our hotel about Seven am. We were able to get some much needed rest until about Two when we went to the Woodfield mall and did some shopping. It was very different only having to travel about Eight hours to get to our destination. For past mission trips we had to drive 12-21 hours to get to the city where we were going.

After we left the mall we went to meet to meet for prayer and orientation at the church in Crystal Lake. The church is very nice and the people were amazing. They were extremely happy that we were there to help. When we got there Bro. Beardsley (The Pastor) asked us to go ahead and begin to sing some songs and worship. We just began to sing as people from the church began to come in. We had a great time singing but we would have never imagined what would happen before the night is over. Bro. & Sis. Beardsley are awesome. They are doing a great work in Crystal Lake. In the 5 years that they have been a church they have already had 4 congergations that were established in the surrounding areas!

I expected the night to just be a simple orientation and prayer meeting, but it was so much more. We sang, and worshiped, and the Holy Spirit came in a mighty way. The people there worship with such amazing passion and they are doing amazing things in their community. We are just so honored to be able to be around people like this. We were able to meet Bro. & Sis. Brash tonight. On Thursday we will be going to do an outdoor service in the area where their church is. In the service I was just so overwhelmed by the presence of God. It felt like the last night's service because it was so powerful. Then I realized that this was not the end of the trip, but it was merely the beginning! I know greater things are yet to come!

Tomorrow we are going to be going in the city to visit places like the Sears Tower, Michigan Ave, and Navy Pier! Pray that we have safe travel downtown.

Thanks to everyone at home that stands in support and prayer so that we can help advance God's kingdom in America! Over 9 MILLION people are in this city...It's time for a >>revolution!

here are some pictures from the day:

Revolution Travel Gear

Well, tonight at 11pm we are leaving for our 2008 mission trip to Chicago. I am so excited and a big part of the trip every year is making sure we catch it on camera and communicate it to those at home and for future videos & promotions! This year I am going all out to make sure we don't miss a thing.

Here are the tools that I will be using to capture the moments from YOM 2008:

1. 12" powerbook G4 - a.k.a. old faithful. This is the computer that got me sold out about macs. It is an awesome little machine. I will be using it to write daily blogs , posting pictures, and mixing videos. It is a small and wonderful computer. It's been through a lot. The latch does not even work anymore, but the computer works great. Someday I'll trade it in on a new one, but it's been a great computer. Couldn't have a mission trip without it!

2. 30 gig iPod - I can't leave home without the iPod. It is freshly loaded with new music and a BUNCH of preaching audio and video pod-casts. It will be a good companion for the journey.

3. 250 Gig External hard drive - this is the "VAULT" for YOM 2008. Each night I will be transferring the day's video and pictures and storing them for future editing. It is FIREWIRE and very dependable.

4. Card Reader - This card reader is great for trips because it is so small and easy to use. Bought it a long time ago from Wal-Mart and it works great!

5. 2 - 2 gig SD cards. These will hold each day's video's & photos. Every day I will load them onto my external hard drive for safe keeping!

6. 8 Gig iphone - WOW. what can i say. I love my iPhone. Probably too much. But I will use this baby for many things. Mostly I will use this to twitter our daily happenings as they happen. If you are not subscribed to TWITTER it is a great way to follow what is going on for YOM 2008 live as it happens. I will be using a service called TWITPIC to post pictures of the journey. Join us for the trip

7. Kodak M1033 HD Camera -man I love this camera. I just bought it for my birthday in May and I am looking forward to taking it on this trip. It takes HD video and it is extremely clear and the sound is great. I am actually taking this INSTEAD of a DV video camera. It is a lot easier to carry around and you don't have to worry about the annoying tapes. I am going to use it for photos & video. HD style!

If you are interested in following the trip. There are 2 great ways to follow.
1. This Blog. Every day I will be updating revolutionblog.info with what happened that day. You can see pictures and a general update everyday.
2. Twitter. If you want to know what is going on as it happens you can subscribe to my TWITTER account. It will be updated throughout the day with PICTURES and short snippets of what is going on as it happens. It is a cool way to stay up with what is going on. Click here to go to the twitter page. You can even have twitter send txt message updates to your phone.

The greatest thing that I ask is that you would pray for us while we are on the trip. We can do NOTHING if the Holy Spirit does not lead and guide on this trip. We are believing God for great things this week. It will be the GREATEST mission trip that >>revolution has ever had.

Thank you Pastor Hendricks and the wonderful people of Greater Lighthouse for the opportunity to take a mission trip like this. We want to make you proud!

Places I Can't Wait to See in Chicago

Found some Chicago pictures....I can't wait to go next week.

and Last but not least....

Jerrod Preaching in South Africa

Check out this clip of Jerrod Preaching this past Sunday in South Africa. It is awesome! We all miss him but we are so proud of all that God is doing through him in South Africa!

check out Jerrod's Blog here
check out Turning Point Community Church here

Bittersweet Day

Today I had the privilege of watching a student from Revolution walk down the corridor of an airport beginning a missionary journey to the country of South Africa! I am so proud of Jerrod. I was so excited for him to begin this awesome journey of ministry, but at the same time I know that I am going to miss him here.

I will never forget, once I was watching a documentary of the Youth Ministry of Hillsong United in Australia and one of the students that is involved in global missions and song writing said this. He said that his Youth Pastor constantly told him that he could change the world, and he just believed him. It is so awesome to see students like Jerrod who are believing that they can be used by God to do amazing things. I am so proud of Jerrod and I KNOW that he is only the first of many Revolutionaries that will embrace God's radical call and plan for their life and not be afraid to give it a shot! Jerrod is being able to do this great thing because of our great church that is supporting him with this opportunity. I know I would not be able to do what I do if it was not for an awesome church! It is bittersweet, but amazing to be a part of what God is doing in this world! Check out Jerrod's blog HERE. During the next Three months remember to lift up Jerrod in prayer!