Journey Moments: The Journey Begins // Adam Cox Teaches

Written By Allie Sampson

Photographed by JD Gravitt

On June 1^st, our community welcomed 32 new students onto the land of A Place for the Heart as we launched this year’s 18 Inch Journey. Students traveled from all over the world (including Canada, Germany, Belgium, Australia, Norway, Scotland, Switzerland and Singapore as well as 13 different states) to be transformed by the Love of God. On our opening night, students were invited to participate in an extravagant dinner where they were welcomed to the land with a beautiful meal, handwritten declarations and intentional gifts. Our staff, interns and Second Phase students spent countless hours preparing all of the details for this night. If nothing else, we wanted to communicate to the 32 new students that they were loved, celebrated and prayed for before they did a single thing. Simply, we love them because the Father loves them. They were showered with love and surprises—and that is only the beginning.

Each week during the Journey has a specific theme as well as a focus on one of the Fruits of the Spirit. Last week was Jesus week and Joy was the accompanying Fruit. We were honored to have our dear friend, Adam Cox, from Kansas City Boiler Room here with us. Adam has come to teach during Jesus week over the past several Journeys and every time, we as a community are changed and transformed. We were blown away as Adam shared the God Story with us again, unpacking the story of Jesus in a fresh and inspiring way. By putting the Gospel within the context of history, we understood the radical love of Jesus that is revealed through the Scripture. This year, the staff and students were undone by the love and humility of Jesus as Adam taught the God Story and the revelation that we are the Beloved. Adam shared that we are “found in the Father and formed in the family”, meaning that our identity is rooted in and discovered in God and that, by His intentional design, we are shaped and grown in the safety of community. We are overwhelmed with gratitude that Adam and his family gave another week of their time to come be with us and invest in the Journey students that we love so much! We highly encourage you to check out Adam’s teaching on The God Story that has impacted our community so deeply!

If you’re interested in learning more about Adam and the KC Boiler Room, check out www.kcboilerroom.com. To purchase The God Story, visit the KC Boiler Room Store.

Moments from the 18 Inch Journey

Hey there blog readers! As you may already know, we are currently hosting the 2014 18 Inch Journey here at A Place for the Heart. This year, we have 32 Journey students from 10 different countries, as well as our 12 Second Phase students from 5 different countries. The Journey is what we look forward to the most every year as a community, and everyday we are blown away by these amazing students. We are so delighted that the Father brought them here! These 60 days are packed with so many incredible moments and though we can’t write about them all, it is our desire to share some of them with you. For the duration of the Journey, we will be posting a weekly highlight; be it a revelation from a teaching, a fun-filled night of community playfulness or insight into one of our creative rhythms. We are so excited about what the Trinity is doing here and the way that the students are discovering the Love of God. It is our delight to invite you into some of these moments and keep you updated on this year’s 18 Inch Journey!

If you’d like additional information about the 18 Inch Journey, you can check us out at www.18inchjourney.com or follow us on Instagram @aplacefortheheart.

“Live at Home” Chord Charts

We are excited to announce that the lyrics and chord charts for the Cageless Birds “Live At Home” album are now available online! You can find lyrics and chord charts for each of the songs by going to www.jonathanhelser.com and clicking on the Media tab. From there, you can click “Live At Home” Chord Charts beside the Cageless Birds option. Clicking on that link will allow you to download a folder that has each of our songs with completed lyrics and chords.  The charts are also available on cagelessbirds.com.  Click on the Live at Home link on the menu bar and the chord charts are available at the bottom of the page.

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged and supported us in this project. We are so excited to be sharing these with you all!

-The Cageless Bird Community

Cottage Update

    As many of you know, over the past several months we have been dreaming with the Lord about building a new cottage for the 18 Inch Journey. We would like to say a huge thank you to all those who have given to our vision for the new cottage.  With your support, we have raised $19,000 of our $250,000 goal.  We are so blessed by your generosity! 
    
    Our goal is to build the cottage this fall. Due to delays with building permits, our initial projections for construction have been pushed back.  With the 18 Inch Journey quickly approaching and Phase 2 currently underway, we thought it much wiser to begin construction in the fall so as not to disrupt or postpone either of the schools. Plus, we desire to raise the majority of the $250,000 we need before we break ground on the cottage.

    We still plan to accept 32 students to the 18 Inch Journey this summer in addition to the 12 Phase 2 students we currently have.  This will put every inch of space to use and maximize the number of hearts that we can change.  While this will put a stretch on our current space, we are asking the Father for wisdom to steward the growth of this season.  We have tremendous favor with an increase in applications every year, and it is our desire to accept as many students as possible. 

    As a community, we treasure each heart that comes to A Place for the Heart and we work very hard to make sure that every student that comes to the 18 Inch Journey is seen, loved and discipled.  We feel the invitation from the Lord to grow and expand while still preserving the intentionality of family that the Trinity has taught us.  As the schools continue to grow, we are expanding our number of staff and interns to help lead the schools and tend to all of the inner workings of A Place for the Heart.  All of this growth simply means that we need more space.  A new cottage will allow us to accept more students, offer better housing and spread out into smaller groups.
 
   Please help support our vision for a more sustainable 18 Inch Journey by giving to the cottage.  We believe one more bed is one more heart that can encounter the love of the Father at A Place for the Heart.  Please consider partnering with us and helping us change the world one heart at a time.

To learn more or give please visit: 18inchjourney.com/18/support.html
You can make checks payable to “A Place for the Heart”

"Live at Home" CD Release

Written by: Allie Sampson, Writer for Cageless Birds

A crisp evening, an intimate theater and a family filled with eager anticipation. These were the things that set the stage for the release of our newest album, “Live at Home”, on the weekend of January 24^th. As our community gathered at the Sunset Theater in Asheboro, NC, we couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with the excitement of the Trinity. We were on the borders of yet another defining moment for our community. Long ago, we had released this project to the Father and now, we were about to open up our hands again and release it to the world. 

Reflecting on the last year, we realize just how many moments led us to this one. This album is a collection of intimate moments with the Holy Spirit, impossible victories won, hungry and weary seasons, subtle whispers and family celebrations. As a community, so many pieces of our story are deposited in this album. It is the sound of our family; the echo of our hearts responding to the One who first sang over us. 

We recorded this album at home, in Jonathan and Melissa’s living room, so it felt fitting to release the album just down the road in downtown Asheboro. The intimate atmosphere of the Sunset Theater served as an excellent way to host the close, family feel that we experienced in creating this record. While we were certainly looking forward to sharing our recorded songs and videos, we were most excited about the opportunity to worship together as a family with so many people from our extended community. We felt exceedingly honored by our dear friends and loved ones who ventured over county borders and state lines to join us as we celebrated God’s faithfulness in this completed project. 

Throughout both evenings, we encountered countless breathtaking moments as we watched our brothers and sisters share their songs, their art, their videos and their stories. As various members of our Cageless Birds community stepped behind the helm of the ship to lead us into worship, we could feel the Father’s smile as He watched His children make space for one another’s sound. It was and continues to be our distinguished honor to offer the Father the gift of children who love each other and champion one another. 

Looking back at it now, it seems to have happened so fast. Equipment was hauled in, rehearsals and sound-checks occurred, tickets were taken, t-shirts, journals and albums were sold, songs were sung and videos were shown. But at the end of it all, the only essential part was that our Papa was honored by the way His kids honored each other and by the sound of our love for Him.  

Meet a Cageless Bird: Joel Case

Melissa and I met Joel Case five years ago this autumn.  We first met him at a worship gathering in his hometown of Boston. I will never forget the first time we heard Joel lead worship. From the first note he sang, we could feel the destiny in our friendship with Joel.

Later that year, Joel applied for the 2009 "18 Inch Journey." It was our second year of running our school, so Joel was only one of eleven students. I can't put into words what an incredible summer we had with Joel.  We truly fell in love with Joel's heart and knew that he was going to run with us in the future.  As the school was coming to a close, we invited Joel to come and do an internship with us. He joyfully said yes and made the big move to Sophia, NC.

In the first week of Joel's internship, we found out that he was not only an amazing worshiper, but he was also an incredible drummer.  Melissa and I had been asking the Lord to send us an amazing drummer for years and suddenly the answer was right in front of us. One of the highlights of Joel's internship was the privilege of traveling the world playing drums with us and then getting to play drums on our two albums "On the Shores" and "Endless Ocean, Bottomless Sea." We couldn't have dreamed of a more incredible drummer and a faithful friend.

After his internship, Joel joined us on staff and has been here the last four years. Joel does much more than play drums with us. He is a dynamic leader at our schools, he is pioneering new sounds in our studio, he is a worship leader in our community and most of all he is a man knows that he is the Fathers Beloved.

We couldn't have pulled off this new album "Live at Home" without Joel's creativity, musicianship, technical skills and hard work.  Joel's song on the album is titled the "Lord is My Light." He wrote this song while he was a student in the "18 Inch Journey" and his song has become an anthem of our community. Joel's songs have the ability to take you into the presence of the Lord from the first note. Check out his video recorded live from our house and you will know what I am talking about. You can see it below or at www.cagelessbirds.com

Live at Home - Videos

Over the next nine weeks we will be releasing a new video from our project Cageless Birds “Live at Home.”  Each Tuesday we will release a new video leading up to the album release on Jan. 24-25th.

"Live at Home" is the first creative adventure of our collective Cageless Birds. The idea for this album was born one day when Melissa and I were dreaming out loud together. We fell into one of those moments where beautiful "what if" thoughts started cascading upon one another. Our conversation sounded something like this....

"What if we recorded an album in our house?....”

“What if invite everyone in our band to record one of their songs for the album?....”

“What if we recorded the whole album in one week?....”

“What if we videoed each song so that everyone could see what's happening in this community?....”

“What if we made this project a true story and didn't overdub or gloss over the mistakes?....”

“What if we let it be a real live album?....”

One of us said ‘this is crazy’ and both of us said ‘let's do it.’  And so we did.  We are very excited to share with you the nine videos and ten-song album that came from pursuing all of our ‘what if’ thoughts.  Please visit cagelessbirds.com for more.

Jonathan & Melissa