A Night of Hope… and Healing

The “Night of Hope” that was live-streamed last evening from Franciscan University exceeded our wildest expectations. There were 30,000 individual viewers, over a million page hits, and many who didn’t watch it last evening are now watching the video and sharing it with friends.

It was a powerful event. If you haven’t seen it I’d encourage you to check it out. Sr. Miriam Hiedland was wonderful, Scott Hahn was insightful, and Fr. Dave was inspiring. My worship team sounded pretty good, too 🙂 It was humbling to be a part of such a great team.

On a personal level, it was a healing moment for me. These past few months have been tough. I feel dumb to complain about it. On one hand, I still have a job and my family is healthy. On the other, losing numerous speaking and music events have been a blow on a number of different levels: financially, emotionally, and even spiritually.

Every summer, my year “crescendos” with great worship music, travel around the country, and re-connecting with other friends in ministry. As I go from weekend to weekend, I see God working in the lives of thousands of people. I’ve spend the past 25 years—over half of my life—spending the summer at youth and adult conferences. When I got the call that the summer conferences were cancelled, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I have mourned the loss.

So I was thrilled to be invited to lead worship for the Night of Hope. Like everything this year, it was a bit surreal. From my perspective, I was playing to a chapel of about 80-90 people wearing masks and sitting apart from each other. Yet I also knew on the other side of the camera were tens of thousands of people from around the world.

Unlike leading worship at a live conference, I couldn’t see what God was doing. But I knew He was doing something. I just had to keep praising Him with confidence knowing that other people were being blessed by it, even though I couldn’t see their faces (and even the few I could see were wearing masks). And then it hit me… that’s what these past few months have been about, haven’t they? Hoping in what we do not see.

St. Paul wrote, “Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees?” (Romans 8:24). Though some of the team later (lovingly) made fun of me for my “hindsight is 2020” comment, I still stand by my cliché: I think we will see God working more clearly when we look back on this time than perhaps we can see right now.

Last night gave me a glimpse of God’s glory. It gave me hope. I still don’t know what is going on, how long it will last, or why things are happening as they are. Like everyone, I’m worried about a second wave, riots in cities, losing more job opportunities, and potentially having to homeschool my children again. But I have confidence in the One who made heaven and earth and calls me by name.