I moved  from North to South London, something I said I would never do and much to the delight of the south MAssive, I had to humble my self.. ha haha. Had my first Hip-hop outreach since completing my sabbatical from hip-hop ministry on New Years eve in the streets of Piccadilly circus at the strike of midnight to a crown of over 200 people.  It was totally unplanned but an exiting experience, especially seeing someone rededicate their lives to the lord which to me was a little reminder that the lord still wants to use me within the Hiphop context.

Our church Freedomhouse Camden came to an end this year after 7 years of ministry to the Camden community.  I am thankful to have known Brandon & Pamela  as they have really been a big influence in me turning to God. Also every single member of the church who were/are such a blessing to my life. I am sorry to those who are finding out this information quite late, But  I do want to thank all the people that have supported us over the years, even if it was turning up to an outreach/service or a little prayer and If you are around we will be having a final leaving party for Brandon & Pamela who are moving back to America. The private event is on Saturday 4th of September at 12noon and will consist of a BBQ and live music. Please contact me for details, it would be good to have you there.

This is our 5th year anniversary video

The first 6 months of 2010 have been spent resting, spending time with family and friends apart from the odd outreach and project here and there. I have really benefited from my new local church home (Christ Church London) and time spent with other believer’s, in particular I want to shout out my salt family who have been keeping me in prayer through-out this time.

Blogs: Around the time Pause & think closed, I was invited to write for iDoNotConform.com and that has gone really well.  iDoNotConform.com is an online resource for Young Christians. The aim is to help them to be strong in their walk with God, encouraging them to be confident about who they are in God. Im glad to be a part of what they are doing, check em out.

Radio: The Jesus Muzik Show has recently been picked up by the radio network of US based premier Christian Hiphop site Dasouth.com which was quite exciting for me. My latest episode is with Pastor Efrem and is a MUST LISTEN if you are an aspiring Gospel artist.  The show will soon be on UK based Gospel Link 360.

Music: The summer has been great, a personal highlight was Headlining at the Bright Lights festival in St Albans, I  hosted a song writing workshop for the first time which was really fun, I got a few of them to come on stage during my set to recite their lyrics.  I appreciated the time I spent with everyone there.  I will be performing with a Live band for the first time at a fund-raiser for street kids in Brazil, the night will also have some live Latin dance classes and performances by the Boca Nova Band. Check the flyer.

Exciting News: I have recently been accepted onto The Frontier Project, which  starts in September 2010, it lasts for 10 months and is designed to help support the Frontline work of the church.  In return the church will pay for me to go on  some theological, leadership and discipleship training. It will be a really exciting and faith stretching time for me, It’s a chance for me to receive some much needed mentoring, as well as gain high quality leadership and workplace experience as I volunteer in their media and church planting department.

This will mean that I will be leaving my job at CARE. CARE is a Christian Charity dedicated to bringing insight into matters of Public policy in the UK Parliaments) I worked for CARE for two and a half years in the IT & Media department and you can watch a short video I did that gives you a glimpse of the work CARE are involved in.   Working at CARE has been more than a job and I am thankful to all the management for always looking to develop me further. I will surely miss the staff at CARE and working in Westminster.

If you would like to support me through finance or prayer during the Frontier Project year, please check out the support page on my website for details. Your prayers are always appreciated, Looking forward to hearing from you.

Grace and Peace

Baliva

Upcoming shows

If you would like to book me for your event click here

Meanwhile I had been suffering from mad head aches, toothache’s and lack of sleep and on top of that I did not feel like my relationship with God was strong enough for me to go out and try to win people to God. I felt so inadequate to go with him, After service I had some of the brothers pray for me then I decided to go and join him for half an hour and give out some tracts and hopefully speak with some people.

As I got there Dan was already in full swing preaching the gospel. So I began giving out tracts then met a young man who said to me that he believed in God but he felt he had to do good things to please God. For the better part of 3 hours I sat with him in Piccadilly circus going through the scriptures and explaining to him how our best efforts still fall short of God’s standard and so we can do nothing to be made right before God but its God who loved us so much that he placed the judgement that we would of received for our sins on to Jesus. That Jesus died for the sins of man Kind, that when we place our faith in Jesus he will do the work of saving us and changing us and I explained how to identify if we are in the faith or not.

Afterwards he spoke of how he wanted to take his relationship more seriously with God. I asked him to tell me what he understood baptism to be, after sometime of discussing what baptism meant we were both convinced he could get baptised straight away, so we went through some more scriptures and he was asking a ton of questions, he said, “I am scared of getting baptised coz it feels like I am committing my whole life to God and I don’t know if I can trust God but for some reason I feel compelled to get baptised today.”

So we decided to find a shop and buy some shorts so he could get baptised, unfortunately by this time it was like 8pm on a Sunday night and everywhere was closed. We walked for an hour talking about scriptures answering questions and finally found a shop that sold us the shorts real cheap.

We went to Hyde Park and baptised him in the Lake, Ironically it was the same spot where there were police riots a few days before. The whole experience blew me away because I did not in anyway feel that my walk with God was strong enough to evangelise. I also realised that many people had sowed seed into this man’s life and God had given me the privilege to partake in the good work of leading him further in his walk with the Lord. Earlier that day I put on a pair of jeans then changed my mind and put on a pair of shorts even tho there was talk of rain that day, I took one tract with me (for what reason I don’t know). So without even thinking about it the lord was leading me into this. (wow)

I realised that this whole experience was not the norm in London (For me at least) I wrestled with whether it was right or not to do so and my brother reminded me about the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch who was baptised after believing the message of Jesus Christ in Acts 8:26-40

I was reminded that our standing with God is not about how well we do Christian things (even Baptising someone in the Hyde Park Lake) but its about trusting in the work of Christ on the Cross that because of him we are righteous and qualified to be ambassadors for his kingdom. It was by the lords Grace that I was able to partake in this and all I had to be was available, I remembered a verse that Jahaziel once said “its not about your ability but your availability”

Please continue to pray for the guy who got Baptised his name is Richard! There is a short video of him being baptised which you can watch here

Did you enjoy the show? please help us spread the word and hit the recommend button below.

I wanted to take this time out to give a short recap of how God has been gracious to us in our labors to spread the Gospel. The year began with the launch of the Pause&think website and the feedback has been very encouraging, we received hits from all over the world and the year saw a steady increase of faithful hits to the site. A lot of you loved the design of the site and all credit must go to the Rocket Theme guys who designed the site which we then customized. The website was not made in vain and I believe God used it mightily in its short existence.

The summer presented us with opportunity to collaborate with Ragtime music and our church (Freedomhouse) where we put on a Hiphop and Jazz outreach. The lead up to the outreach was absolutely amazing as we went into the streets with our boombox spreading the gospel (in the rain!!), the rapping featured guys like Joe See, Open mc, Cadet, and the concert featured DJ K, Joe See, Karl Nova, Jason Harms Quintet and the lampmode team. Check out the video highlights below.

If you can not see the video below please click here

Another event where involved in was the Mary O Gallery exhibition, they where gracious enough to place one of my blogs in their publication so shout out to Mary and Tariro. The Moved exhibition featured a mix of urban, street, graphic and artistic photography, with thought provoking and inspirational quotes inspired by the bible. It focused on interpreting current social, political spiritual issues. You can see some of her work below.

If you can not see the video below please click here

I was also blessed to meet some of my musical influences, one in particular was Hiphop Mc “Mark J” , I met him back stage at the GL Live concert in london.

You can see him performing @ GL Live london here.

After a few requests from family and some of you out there I finally yielded and started my very own radio show. Basically I was spending the day with my family and was playing Mark J’s new album to my Dad in an attempt to get him to play the song on his radio show. He then responded by saying why don’t you do your own show and I will host it on my website and I said No!…lol.. about 3 months later I got an email from a friend suggesting I do a podcast too, so I chose the name “Jesus Muzik Mixshow” inspired from a song that we would play in the streets when we did evangelism. The radio show is growing and so are the listeners. I love music and sharing it and I hope you are blessed by the show!!

Towards the end of the year I attended a mens conference that was nothing less than inspirational. Praise God. I was blessed by the preaching of Paul Washer. The fellowship with guys I would not normally speak to was great, some of the old men members of the church really inspired me to want to know God more… The journey to and and from Ashford was good, met some friends that I was able to get to know more as we shared testimonies. I think I made some lifelong friends there!

Paul Washer giving me some good book recommendations.

During this past year Pause&think had two site crashes, unfortunately we did not recover from the second. I had other issues in terms of managing the site. I began to spend more time working on maintaining the functionality of the site and very little time was given to actually generating content. So I have decided to run everything from www.balivamusic.com, the site will be developed by the lovely people @ Amadi Design this will free up my time so I can serve you with more solid content. If you want to know more about how I came to this decision please click here.

As I am in the mood of giving thanks for all God has done in 2009. I would like to tell you all about Robert Lewis, he has been my right hand man aka the brains behind a lot of all thats been happening, his servant’s heart and faithfulness has been an encouragement to me and I wanna give thanks for him and I ask you all to keep him in your prayers too as we venture into 2010.

It is easy to look at this blog and think all was well, but behind the scenes there have been many trials and joys and while its easy to dwell and look down on the trials I have been reminded about how important it is to give thanks for all that God does through us. We may look and think its in vain but God sees things differently. He is using all our experiences to sanctify us.

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.” James 1:1-8

Make sure you take the time out to look through your year gone with a thankful heart for the good and bad. Serving God is the most rewarding thing on this planet and the full reward can never be seen on this planet, there is more to come when we meet God.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.” Colossians 3:16

Thank you to those of you who took time out to pray for us, to donate money and time given to making Christ known!!! God will surely reward you!!

As 2010 approaches I will be finishing my sabbatical from music and beginning to focus more of my time on the music as we head out into the city to do some Hiphop evangelism. My first night out will be new years eve and most Friday nights after. Musically I am not working on any new albums yet, the main focus will be hitting streets, concert venue’s etc. I do have a concept for my next album but thats for another time. I will however blog what I learnt during my sabbatical so stay tuned to www.BALIVAMUSIC.com

The Battle is not over yet, there are many people who have not heard the Gospel, the truth is that they are drowning without the true gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no other reason we exist except to live for Jesus Christ and only him, he is fully God and fully man and unless we live for him we are drowning. Lets not waste 2010 going to endless parties and building endless business empire’s with no regard for the lost. Keep things in Balance and stretch your hand out for the lost. Sacrifice your time for the GREAT COMMISSION

Signing out !!!!

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news! Romans 10:14-15

Before I continue I must add that the mission will not stop, its simply a case of changing the strategy to be more effective in ministry.

Back Story
As a growing believer I would always listen itently to what the gospel mc would say and try to implement what I learnt Into my life. As with any song it never paints the full picture and so I would read blogs from the few gospel mcs that took the time out to expound on the scriptures.

In my pursuit to be influenced by other artists I was often met with album reviews, concert information, purchase links and so on but never a word to build up the believer or non believer. There were a few who would write the odd post but they where not consistant enough [Including me]. I don’t think there is anything wrong with these things but I felt it would be helpful to add something more for those who want to grow spiritually.

Six notable examples of people who where consistant and of great benefit to my walk were the websites of shai linne, flame and Phanatic. From a non music point of view I liked sites like John Piper,  Mark Driscol and Paul washer.  So I wanted to incorporate blogs/podcasts/music etc into my blog but at the time I  could not find a way that I could do this from a tecnical and aesthetic point of view,  so a separate site was the next move.

Pause & think.org
I wrote my first proper blog which was called “Selah” and then I got the blogging bug and decided to work on a separate site. The site was launched in Dec 08 and got off to a good start, the aim was to have articles from other ministers, a weekly blog from my self and a basics series that would help the new believer. We would also provide resources at concerts GL Live and so forth.  The problem I  began to have was in maintaining the website alongside the actual work of generating content and being “out there” spreading the gospel.

Although the website looked stunning (thanx Rocket theme), the technical behind the scenes work often took hours and days to sort out which resulted in a few site crashes.  Kind of like a house that looked amazing from the outside but every time it rained there would be buckets inside the house as a makeshift  solution.

So over the course of the sites first year about 90% of the production time was spent on technically maintaining the site and very little time actually generating content and spreading the gospel.

Some of the final straws that broke the camels back was losing a few team members which made the already hard task harder. It did become very difficult to get others to contribute articles as the aim for pause and think was for it to be a hub or a platform for writers to write content but after 12 months I had very little in the way of guest content.

Faced with all these issues made it very difficult to focus on the core vision and so after much research and advice from some of you….I was able to find a solution to my dilemma

Moving Forward!!!
From a technical point of view I was told about a blogging platform called Word Press that was much simpler to use(thankx Esso) (it took 24 hours to build). I investigated and tested it out for a few weeks and found it so much more simpler to use and it has allowed me to concentrate on content building rather than “drowning in my keyboard” (Struggling to maintain a site). Although there are still some technical improvements to be made I still find this easier. I am now getting help from  Amadi Design a web Strategist firm and I feel very confident with this software package.

From a Ministry/ Vision point of view nothing much has changed. Apart form the fact that I am now going to be the sole contributor with exception to the odd guest blog that I may add to the site and the name change from pause and think to Baliva Music Ministry.

Baliva Music Ministry
Although there has been a name change and method change and in some ways for those of you who’ve followed the work I do it may seem like I have gone full circle but to quote the words of Jon Bloom “Battlefronts and tactics change, but our mission does not.”

I am not writing this just to justify my actions but I believe that it is important to keep you informed of whats going on as I value you as a reader and supporter of the work I do. I realize there will always be critics and some may think there could of been other ways I could of approached this change and they are probably right but with the knowledge I have at this present time this seems the right way to go. I hope those of you who have given your time, money and effort will continue to support the movement.

As 2010 approaches I will be finishing my sabbatical from music and beginning to focus more of my time on the music as we head out into the city to do some Hiphop evangelism. In the background I will be studying and developing two projects that are close to my heart and have been delayed for a while.

Blogs: The first is a series called Back2Basics a new believers resource that will help new believers understand the fundamentals of the faith and the second is a resource for Christians who want to enter into ministry, the blog series will come out of an ongoing training I am conducting with some of the younger believers in my church as well as counsel from others who have gone before me. The blog series is called Bricks and Stones.

Radio Show: The aim of the show is to provide a platform for Hiphop, Rhythm & Praise and contemporary Christian music. The show will also have information where people can buy or get free access to these songs. There will be a section on the show where a short sermonette is shared with the aim to challenge the listener to think of their walk with God. Other things will include a free platform for Christian ministries to advertise. The show is scheduled once a month and is currently being published on itunes, and various web portals.

Music: My second CD “Sunrise”, is a call to belivers to prepare for the coming of the King by recognising the times and acting on our convictions. The album features production from Unixplore Productions, Secret Place records and Anno Domini. Guest vocals include craig larson, Niki Carless and Erina Khanakwa. The album can be downloaded for free on www.balivamusic.com or bought via the itunes store as a way to support the ministry. I will also be making myself more available to support outreach’s, youth groups and concerts.

The priority this year is to develop “Timeless Content” and “Spread the Gospel” so keep us in your prayers as we labour for the kingdom.  If you have questions, suggestions or comments about this post please place them at the bottom of this post and I will reply. Also please look out for my next blog titled “2009 What a Year!” or get it by email here.

Your Brother in Christ

The official website address will be BALIVAMUSIC.com and my new and only email address will be mark[at]balivamusic.com. If you are on the Pause & think facebook group, I would encourage you to join the Baliva Music group which is located @ Facebook.com/balivamusic. Lastly If you want to keep up to date with all that is happening you can subscribe by email here.

Baliva Music Ministry – “Our goal is to make Christ known with creative arts and provide free or affordable  resources in the form of blogs, podcasts and music that will help people understand and believe”

I am at a place in my life where I feel completely broken, I’ve got things going on inside me that have left me with no choice but to place my trust in God. I’ve had to say bye to some very close friends, endured criticism for some of the things i do etc and it has really left me feeling broken. Im not broken because of one problem but its like a bee sting, one is bad but a whole swarm really hurts.

Could it be that God allowed these trials to happen to me so he could get my attention? Could it be that is the cost of being a Christian? Sometimes as christians we can become lukewarm but when we decide to get on fire for God, Satan finds a way to quench that fire. Other times we think we can live life on our own strength and so God allows trials to come upon our lives.

Either way…Its easy to remain broken once we have been hit with trials, its easy to start saying things like, “I’ve tried but its so hard”… “I’m just not good enough”… “why is my life so hard” but its another thing when we see these trials as an opportunity to depend 100% on God and be used mightily for him. Not that we have to do anything to get Gods love.

we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. Romans 5:1

It starts with believing God’s promises [You gotta believe] and calling out to God for grace to make it though life. I was tempted to ask God to take away my trials but I decided to pray “Lord..break me down, strip me down until all I can do is depend on you and give me the grace to serve you”On my way home I bumped into a friend and told him how broken I was and he smiled and told me, “thats a great place to be” I smiled and remembered the words of Eric Mason “Brokenness is the mark of a person that is qualified to be used by God”.

We are getting ready for a heavy season of spreading the gospel between June -August and its so timely how I go through these kind of trials. I could see these trials as a time to loose hope and be luke warm and take care of my own needs or I can see it as an attempt to get my eye’s off God and the good things he has for my life. God is calling us to wage war against the work of satan. Satan is working in our lives as we see trials as an excuse to sin, he is at work in sinners who don’t know they are under Satan’s control and headed to hell. He is at work convincing people to loose hope.

I am hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. I am making war against the enemy this summer by rejoicing in my trials. I am rejoicing because I know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Will you rejoice in your brokenness and be used mightily for God?

What inspired me to take a sabbatical? The story started in August 08, I had the opportunity to serve on the London leg of the Unashamed tour, during the concert there was a call for all people involved in a church leadership capacity to join Ben Washer from Reach Records backstage. So about 50 of us gathered in the back of the room and had a very challenging discussion about how we are to reach the people of our generation.

The context of the discussion was a resource tool that Reach Life had developed called “13 Letters” . The session really challenged my thinking, especially because Reach Records are quite a prominent label at the moment but they still invest time to develop a relevant biblical based curriculum that expounds the deeper meaning of the scriptures.

The next day we where in Birmingham where Lecrae and Trip Lee held an afternoon workshop with about fifteen “Aspiring Artists” including myself. In the session he gave his testimony of how he got into music and it was so amazing to hear how the lord directed him because I felt like I went through similar experiences apart from the bit when he said that he was a Christian for almost 4 years before he started putting out albums. It was really interesting to hear because that wasn’t the case for me.

I kinda hit the ground running and made a lot of mistakes but the lord has brought me through regardless. Through my mistakes I have learned that rap ministry is front line work and like a soldier needs time to mature in his skill before going to war, its the same for gospel front line servants, we have to be grounded in the lord before going out to win souls [1 Timothy 3].

So after a few more months of shows, I began to think about how I could enhance my music and provide a wholesome resource for all those we reached out to over the summer and so Pause and Think . was birthed. As I was developing the site I was getting more and more invitations to perform but felt the lord directing me to stop. I was hesitant at first then began to think about how music could be an idol If I placed more importance on the music as apposed to seeking God.

I read a blog that Sho Baraka wrote and one of the questions at the end was “If GOD stripped your form of service would your life still look like Romans 12:1?” Sacrifice!…Sacrifice!…