Wow it’s been an incredibly long time since we last blogged! Well, prize for you!

So a student recently interviewed me for a school project, so I figured I pass it along to you readers out there!

1. How did you begin your career in music? How did your band start?
I started a band called M.Fillmore with a college friend. We played music in the parking garage on campus (the acoustics were great!), well, until naturally the security would shut us down. Then, quite randomly, a producer in Chicago, who we met through a mutual friend, offered to produce a full-length album at no cost to us. Without his generosity, it would have been hard for us to have ever established ourselves as a band. We recorded and released that album, “Miss Beautiful”, in 2007. It was after that that we began our full-time career as musicians, traveling the country in a 1996 Honda Civic, eating a lot of Top-Romen, playing shows in front of 30-3,000 people.

2. How would you describe your style of music?
Well, some people might say that we play Christian Music, but music can’t decide to follow Christ, people do. So we are Jesus Followers who play music. So, naturally our lyrics overflow from our journey through life while following Christ. We have imperfections and we have times of brokenness, but we also have times of joy and redemption. Our songs come from that place. Musically, we are mainly acoustic with a pitch of folk and pop.

3. What music genres do you listen to?
I go through phases. I usually pick up an album and listen to it until it wears out my ears. I tend to stick with chill rock (Switchfoot, Mat Kearney), indie (The Civil Wars, Mumford & Sons), worship music (Hillsong, Jesus Culture), southern-gospel-pop-rock (Needtobreathe), some pop (OneRepublic, Katy Perry!), and last but not least, Taylor Swift, who is her own genre.

4. Why do you perform?
Well, I’m a lot different from a lot of performers. I perform with the intention of pointing the attention to Jesus. When I’m on stage, I hope to be a catalyst to propel people one step closer to Jesus, whatever that might be for each person. But, I’m not saying that standing on a stage in front of a crowd of people doesn’t cause an amazing adrenaline rush, because it does, but that is not the reason I perform. If I wanted an adrenaline rush, I’d be a stuntman for a living.

5. Who is your general audience? Who listens to your music?
Generally our audience is people ages 12-22. Those are the people that generally come to our shows and purchase our music and merchandise. But my mom is also a pretty big fan

6. What is the experience like when you play a show?
Welp, I think I may have already answered this, but we’ve played shows in front of anywhere between a house-party with 30 people and a conference with 3,000 people, and anywhere in-between. In my experience, the less people at a particular show, the more nervous I get. You’d think I’d be super nervous in front of 3,000 people, but I only start shaking at the 50-person morning church service! But nevertheless, the experience of playing live always varies. Sometimes we walk off the stage wondering if anyone was actually listening, and sometimes we don’t ever want to walk off the stage ever! Basically, the crowd dynamics makes all the difference. If we feel like we are connecting with an audience and we are all collectively sharing in an experience, then that’s when it clicks for me. But if we feel like everyone has their arms crossed and condescendingly texting during a performance, then well, those make for not the best memories.

7. How do you think your music affects the audience in general?
Once again, and I realize that I’m different from most musicians, but my hope is that my music would affect the audience positively by leading them one step closer to Jesus. The jumping and singing can definitely help and makes a show that much more fun, but ultimately, we want to see lives changed by the redemption of Jesus.

8. How do you write your songs?
I started writing songs when I was 14. I still remember my first song. It’s absolutely horrible. But hey, you got to start somewhere! To this day, I try to write as much as possible, with the understanding that about only 1-out-of-10 will be any good! But for me, lyrics start to pour out through stories. I’m a story-teller, and when I hear a good story, or when one is forming around me, that’s when I usually write the most.

9. With all the work that’s put into it, the melody and lyrics, meaning and collaboration, what do you wish to achieve with your music?
That people who hear would be led to take one step closer to Jesus.

10. Do you see any change in yourself since you started performing?
I’ve learned a lot about myself while traveling and playing music. I’ve learned how to live a simple life, how to make friends with people who aren’t similar to me, how to sleep in any position and on any surface. Just by touring, I’ve learned a lot about who I am and who God created me to be. Plus, we’ve met people all over the country who I would now consider extended family; people who were once strangers in different states are now people who will be invited to my wedding. I’ve loved that part the most about traveling like we have.

11. What are some of the challenges that come along with singing (or performing)?
I think the most challenging part about a music career is not singing or performing, it’s the administration aspect. What I’ve learned is that my music career is 25% singing, and 75% business. It is basically like owning your own company, and with that comes all the administration-type work that goes into making a business successful. So as glamorous as a 2-month nationwide tour might sound, you have to realize that nearly 8 months of emails and cold-calls to strangers went into it to make it all happen. That can get tiring really quickly.

12. Would you say it’s somewhat of a risk?
Singing is always a risk. It’s taking a risk that you won’t sing off-key, that people will like your music, that you won’t be rejected in a new town. It takes someone who’s willing to risk not making enough money to pay bills. But all of life is about taking risks, and if I’m not taking risks, then I’m living a boring life.

13. What is it about music that inspires you to sing and perform for others?
Music is the common language that we all speak. Music brings us together. The word “chorus” literally means “to sing together”. I love that about music. It can bring people from all walks of life, at least for one moment, together as one. There is power in that.

We need YOUR help asap! We are trying to raise money to start a school in a village in Haiti called Guitton. I’ve personally been to this village, played with the kids, and am super stoked to get this school going.

And this is the crazy part: This will be the VERY FIRST SCHOOL EVER in this village! So, long story short, everything is in place in Guitton, they are ready to start the school, they have the teachers and principles selected, and about 75 kids are registered (grades K-3).

ALL THEY NEED IS THE MONEY TO START!

No kid on this earth should have to grow up without the opportunity to go to school, and we can do something right now to make that happen! Join me please, let’s do this together! Go here: http://www.mfillmore.com/haiti

-Tim

So i just read a book called “Forgotten God” by Francis Chan. The premise behind the book is about the Holy Spirit being the “forgotten” God. Since God the Son (Jesus) and God the Father are talked about most in Christian circles, why don’t we talk about the Holy Spirit, even though we say we believe that our God is a triune God in 3-equal Persons?

Well, anyways, it’s a great book. You should read it. ….wait, if you haven’t read Chan’s first book, “Crazy Love”, then go read that first, then read this one.

But one thing that stood out to me was that he said that Christians should stop “waiting for God to show us His Will for our lives”. Like, yeah, God definitely HAS a will (or plan) for each of our lives in our futures, but the truth is that we don’t need to KNOW our futures. And we definitely don’t need to waste time waiting to know our futures. It just made me realize how many opportunities in life I may have missed because I was “waiting” to know my future.

What he said was that, instead, we should live each day being submissive to where the Holy Spirit leads us TODAY. And I like that. That seems exciting to me. That sounds like an adventure. And the truth is that if I live each day seeking the Will of God for THAT day, then I have no choice but to put complete faith in Jesus that He will take care of me and lead me tomorrow.

I guess I’m just tired of trying to plan out my life. Being in a band, I’m tired to worrying about what I will be doing tomorrow, or next week, or in three months, or in three years. I’m tired of trying to plan where I will be, what state I’ll be in, what gig I will be playing, how many CD’s I will sell (or won’t sell ). I just want to focus on how God can use me today.

Just wanted to share that with you and hopefully it’s encouraging to you!
-Tim

HELLO FROM SANTA CRUZ, CA!

Just wanted to share with you how awesome last week’s camp was. Now don’t get me wrong, because every week has had some sort of awesomeness involved in it, and Jesus has been moving every single day, but this past week was just…special?

I wish i had time to go into details, but i don’t. So, let’s just say that the week started off not so great. It wasn’t horrible, but basically there were a lot of distractions. One example: a bat would fly into the room when the speaker was talking about Jesus, completely drawing everyone’s attention away from Jesus, and onto this disgusting furry creature with rabbies. Anyways, just things like that were happening for the first 3 days.

Then, by Wednesday, we decided it was time to kick Satan in the face and believe that God was still going to do some amazing things in the lives of students. And that’s exactly what happened. By Wednesday night, about 40 students had surrendered their lives to Jesus!

Then, on Friday night, the speaker asked if we would lead worship after her talk (rather than before it), so as to send them out on a sending-out note of Jesus-worship. So we had 4 songs prepared, about 20 minutes total. So we wrap up our time, and I dismiss the students to their small group. It was about 8:45pm by now. But no one moved. They all just stayed there and were chanting “we want more”! Now that’s what I’m talking about! 200 high school students chanting for more Jesus-worship.

So we sang another song.

But still, no one moved. And so we sang another song!

This went on for the next hour! I have never been a part of a worship service where there were like 15 “encores”! It was insane. I wish I could explain it better, but words don’t really do it justice. All i know is that there was freedom for the Holy Spirit to fall in that place, and It did, and it was a beautiful thing.

200 high school students begging to worship Jesus at the top of their lungs for almost 2 hours. That’s beautiful.

This week at camp was amazing. Looking back, it’s beautiful to see how Jesus moved in the lives of students during the week. On thursday night, we shared our song “Light Beyond the Sun”. I hadn’t played it in a while, and as I was on stage singing it, I realized how much I need that song. I need that constant reminder that our God is huge. Let’s face it, as long as we are living on this earth, there’s going to be things in our lives that are heart-breaking and seemingly unbearable. There are going to be times when everything seems to just be crashing in around us. There are going to be times when we have no idea why we are even on this earth. There will definitely be times when we wonder what our purpose in this world is. There are going to be times when we just can’t help but fall on our face and cry.

But I believe that it’s in those times that we need to realize that there is a huge God who holds us in the palm of His hand.

The idea for the song, “Light Beyond the Sun”, is the fact that our God shines brighter than the sun. Here on earth, the only way we are able to see things is by the light of the sun, or when it is dark, we use lights that mimic the light of the sun. But the truth is that God created that sun; His light shines beyond the sun. So it’s when I’m at my deepest darkest times in my life, when my problems seem even too big for God, that this song reminds me that “He’ll be my warmth when I’m lost in the cold”. No matter how big our situations are, God is bigger.

We all made it! Danny flew in from New York City, Eric and Blake drove 3-days-straight from Mississippi, and I, well, I kinda live kinda close…

This place is just amazing. So for those unfamiliar, Santa Cruz is about an hour south of San Francisco, right on the ocean. The weather is like perfect: 80 in the day, 60 at night, no humidity=perfection. And where the camp is at is about 10 mins from the beach, but we are basically in a mountain (and yes, there are mountain lions, so they say). And to top it all off, there are gigantic Redwood trees EVERYWHERE! You should be jealous.

So this week has been staff training for us as the band, and for all the normal counselors. We start the actual camps in a week. And then, we will be leading worship 2 times a day, 6 days a week. Do the math on that real quick, and you’ll see that we will be playing a TON of music this summer for 10 weeks straight! How amazing is that?

Basically, I’m just stoked to see where God is going to take us, and how He’s going to move in our lives and in the lives of the campers who come. I’m expecting big things. We will be posting updates weekly, so check back with us and let us know how you’re doing (contact@mfillmore.com)!

-Tim

Frank, Jeff, and I headed into Port Au Prince to pick up a group of four men from Memphis who had to come late. We spent the rest of that day driving around PAP, looking at the earthquake damage. We went straight for the Royal Palace, which you probably saw pictures of on the news. It’s their version of a capital building. It was completely destroyed; it used to be 3 stories tall, now it’s pancaked into one story. Hundreds died in this building.

Across from the palace, on three different sides, are tent-cities. Hundreds of thousands of people live in these tent-cities, on the door-step of the destroyed capital building. We decided to get a closer look at life in a tent-city, so we walked through one. This was not a great idea, as far as safety is concerned. My heart was pounding out of my chest: half because of looking into desperate eyes of people who are treated as dogs, and half because at any moment we could have been mugged/shot/killed/etc.

It made me think. Dogs, and other pets, in America live in circumstances a hundred-times better than these people. This isn’t right. After all, dogs are dogs, people are people. It’s disgusting to me. When will these people be given a chance to live as human beings? What about human rights? Don’t these people have a right to live better than an animal? Aren’t they entitled to anything? I don’t have any answers, just a lot of questions. I don’t even know to whom I should be asking these questions…

Sorry, no pictures, just a lot of writing…

In John 7, Jesus said, “I’m not teaching my own ideas, but those of God who sent me…those who present their own ideas are looking for praise for themselves, but those who seek to honor the one who sent them are good and genuine.”

I read this today and it got me thinking. I have to admit, I’m not really sure why anyone would want to come to a place like this. This isn’t exactly a vacation destination; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Leaving the comfort, security, and safety of the U.S., and willingly putting yourself in a country with virtually no law or government must seem pretty ridiculous, even crazy, to most people. Freely coming to a place where people are desperate for even basic necessities that I’ve always felt entitled to, like food, water, nice clothes, school, and a bed.

Reading Jesus’ words in John made me believe that God has called me to Haiti. Because in reality, why would I choose to come here if I was left to my own selfish choice? I probably wouldn’t.

But I want to be clear: I’m not writing these blogs from my trip to “present my own ideas” (as the verse says) and make you think that I’m cool because I went to Haiti after the earthquake. No. If I were writing for that reason, then it’s pretty clear what Jesus thinks about that from the verse above, that I’d be just “looking for praise for myself”. And that’s not cool.

But here’s the deal, and here’s why I write. To push myself, and to encourage others to push themselves, to learn what it means to live as an American Jesus Follower and the responsibility that it entails. Let’s face it, we have everything we need. Even in a “horrible” American economy, we’re still doing pretty well. There is still drinking water, usually for free, there is plenty of food for pretty cheap, and most of us live in homes and sleep on beds. Now, I’ve had problems feeling guilty for living the way I do. I don’t feel I live in extravagance, but seeing 3rd world countries like Haiti, I realize how much I have that I take for granted everyday.

I believe my responsibility as an American Jesus Follower is not only to advance His Kingdom by leading others into His Presence, but also to bring food, water, and clothing to those without.

I heard a quote once that metaphorically said, “If a man has two coats, while his neighbor has none, then he is considered a thief.” Basically, it’s saying that if someone has the basic necessities of life, and knows that there are some who don’t, then he is a thief for not helping that person. If I’m being honest with myself, I have plenty of “coats” to give; I have plenty of resources to help at least one person, either in Haiti, or right downtown.

Today was the second day of a women’s conference that some of our ladies on our team have been hosting. About 100 women from our tiny village came. Just think about this: these women all probably have somewhere between 4-8 kids, live in shanties made of thatch, and have no income. They only meal they can feed their children are beans and rice, and even so, only about three meals a week.

But these women are strong, physically and emotionally. You get a sense of their strength in the way they clap when they worship. Not only are their hands strong, but their hearts are strong to worship their Savior even when their lives are hard. Their lives are so hard.

I was asked by our team to come perform a “concert” during the women’s conference. And let me tell you, it was like no other concert before! Imagine an extremely tall, skinny, and sweaty white dude walking into a room filled with 100 Haitian women, guitar in hand, ready to perform a concert! Add to that a huge language barrier, and you’ve got yourself quite the concert!

So, I sang a few songs I’ve written, sang a few worship songs, and then sang Amazing Grace. And wouldn’t you know it, they clapped the entire time! And, they were exactly on beat, I might add. It was pretty crazy. If you think about it, these women never get anything for themselves. They never do things that normal American women do: go shopping, get manicures and pedicures, get their hair done, etc.

And I can almost guarantee they’ve never had a private concert from a tall, skinny, American dude! Now, I realize I’m nothing special when it comes to music, but, deep down inside me, I really loved getting the chance to do that for them. It meant a lot to me.

On a completely different note, most of the men in the village always have a machete in their hands. The men work in the banana groves, harvesting thousands of bananas each week to sell at market. But whenever we walk through the village, they seem to always be holding their machetes.

And even when I walk up to them, they will be holding their 2-foot-long sword-like tool at their sides. It usually sets my heart racing when I’m trying to talk to them, knowing what they could do to me with their machetes. So far so good…ha.

Exact excerpt from my journal this day:

“One of our Haitian friends and interpreter is named Sammy. He is my age, 23, and grew up in the orphanage with his brother, the only family he knows. He and his brother were living in Port-Au-Prince at the time of the earthquake. He lived in what we would call an apartment style building. Basically, he and his brother paid a little bit of money to sleep in a room in a 3-story building.

While living there, in January, he had gotten a call on his cell phone (which is another story in itself: the fact that most Haitians will die of starvation before they get rid of their cell phone, even though most don’t even have electricity to charge the battery…). Since he didn’t have cell-service inside his concrete apartment building, he always had to step outside the front door to talk on the phone.

He was outside for less than 2 minutes when the earthquake struck. The building that he had just stepped out of, collapsed to the ground in a fraction of a second. Sammy was a 2-minute phone call away from being thrown into a mass-grave as another statistic among the 250,000. Insane.

He said that there were 3 children from another family still inside the building when it collapsed, along with his God-mother. They all died. His brother was safe, but 4 of his close friends all died.

After the quake, Sammy didn’t have any food for 3 whole days; he said he had to eat salt and drink dirty water. But, he was able to make his way out of Port-Au-Prince to a pastor he knew. The pastor gave him some food and a little money to buy clothes, since he lost everything but the shirt on his back during the quake.