Charismatic

My first full-length Mandarin hymnal album is out! It was released on Sept 1, and it is officially in all Christian bookstores in Taiwan. It is also in some mainstream CD stores and bookstores like Eslite Bookstore 誠品. Last week, it was also shipped to Christian bookstores in Hong Kong and Singapore. Hopefully, it will be on the racks soon in Malaysia too!  "Give me Jesus 只要耶穌" Kinda surreal. I have been working for 2 years on my personal album but suddenly birthed this hymnal album in 2.5 months: 2 months of music production, half a month of shoots, designing and manufacturing. That is pretty fast, considering that T and I produced all the tracks with the help of vocal producer, Hao Ku on 6 tracks. I also arranged the strings for 8 tracks. T gave one track a full Enya-meets-Braveheart electronic treatment. We also did one short acapella breather.  Well, since then I've been doing a couple of promo stints here and there. Not terribly busy, but...

Of course, I'm not referring to THAT soap. I'm talking about a loosely constructed organization called the Fire-makers,  a bunch of Christian artists/musos/hair and makeup stylists etc who are...well, young and restless.  After reflecting on 2012, I realised that the Fire-makers have become community for me in the areas of work and ministry. * I am still involved with my 'normal people/normal life' cell-group. They are 'family' in ways that divert me from the music world, which is very necessary sometimes. And they keep me in touch with the 'normal' world of people who work 9am to 5pm [or 8am - 8pm more likely], who don't play instruments, who are experts in other fields etc.  From October to December, I saw most of the Fire-makers every 1-2 days, mainly due to our involvement in the extravagant evangelistic concerts held in night-clubs every Friday. Then, of course, the organization is fairly well-funded by well-to-do socialites and business people...

Tomorrow, I will land in Hong Kong for the first time. I'm touring with the kids ministry, OmniPro productions again. This time, the tour is much longer. It's Omni's first step outside Taiwan. And the Malaysian tour was mainly organised by my Dad. So more prancing around with a note on my head, and a fake keyboard on my arm. Benefits from this ministry experience? I get to practice stage performing and acting in Chinese. Haven't done too much of acting or memorizing lines in Chinese in my life, so this is good training. Observing, and performing with other people who are way more natural at hosting and acting than I am is also very good practice for my future stage skills.  To be honest, I love the stage, but conditionally. I love it when everything is in it's right place [like audience that is not bored or hostile or un-relatable], or I love it when I know what I'm doing up there. One of the more traumatic stage experiences I had was when I was 13, I was semi...

Well, not exactly jazz. Jazz -tinged gospel?? I feature on the first track and on the last track ( last track is a rerun). I was pretty pleased with my little piano licks. They were tasteful and not out of place. But we so needed a truly 'swing' rhythm section, not attempted swing [which is what I hear most of them time here in Taiwan]. All the tracks feature friends of mine from different churches. Have a listen and enjoy!! 寧靜時分2011-06-23 www.youtube.com ‎1. Without Him: 史茵茵 2. 美麗的夜裡:李匯晴 3. It Is Well with My Soul: 曾増譯+葉賀璞 4. 更新我心意: 古晧 加入粉絲頁： http://www.facebook.com/2010qu iettime 17 hours ago  ·  Unlike  ·   ·  Share You and  70 others  like this. Charles Liu   then I see one that is out of spec. 17 hours ago  ·  Like 邱竟瑋   Oh! Jesus in Jazz! 16 hours ago  ·  Unlike  ·    2 people 許願   值的去聆聽的音樂 8 hours ago  ·  Like Ching-hsiu Wang   Without Him how lost I would ...

It's like God has been creating all kinds of divine appointments for me lately in the area of ministry. I've been super cautious about volunteering my time because I've been in Hope for 7 years. I KNOW what ministry means. So, I didn't set out to to evangelism. But if your life-group volunteers for seekers counselling after service, you are right in that atmosphere. So, yes, the opportunity came up to draw that gospel illustration and lead someone to Christ. Praise God. I didn't really plan to follow up though I got their contacts.  I was late for service the week after. Who miraculously turns up to sit beside me? You got it, the new believer and her previously-back-slidden-just-returned-to-God companion. So, it falls to me to explain the service, the communion sacrament, and most of the sermon to the new ones. After service, they invite themselves to my life-group[though they were supposed to go to another one].THEY ask me for FB details. THEY add me. Haha.  Of ...