Catching Up

Hi Everyone!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful spring. Ryan and I have been busy with life--- bookings, traveling, teaching, and coaching track. We love our life; but I won't lie, I am looking forward to summer break. :)

Last week, Ryan and Joel went back to Iowa for a concert at Prairie High School. I shared about the great experience they had at the school in a previous post. They were both excited to go back, and to add to this excitement, 25 people accepted Jesus for the first time! When they get back from a concert, I love reading the responses that they get from kids. I will share a few:

"Thank you for enlightening me. My faith flows in and out and varies, but the music tonight and the lyrics reminded me of the purpose of a relationship with Christ. The faith journey is always going on and we need little reminders like this."

"Good song choice. It was good for me to reevaluate my life and how I too started feeling a bit empty like Joel was talking about a few weeks back."

"Well, I'm an exchange student from Germany and usually our assemblies are pretty boring. But seriously you guys rock! You're entertaining and your stories make total sense. You actually helped me thinking more about my life and relationship with Jesus/God. Thank you!"

Prairie High School......you rock.

Nice picture taking, Joel.

Ryan, the rock star.

Helpers after the concert...

May is a busy travel time as the school year comes to a close. Looking at the calendar, it will take Joel and/or Ryan to Ohio, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Utah.

Please pray for safe travels and for all of the kids they come into contact with. God is moving!

Emily

Follow-up System

Hi everyone!

For those of you that did not know, after the evening outreach concerts, Joel and Ryan gather the students' contact information. They then send out a series of 5 follow-up videos over the next 5 weeks. You can watch them here: http://joelpenton.com/followupoverview.html

Joel and Ryan are in the process of expanding this process. Instead of just 5 e-mails with 'Joel and Ryan' videos, they are planning to do 20 or so. The purpose is to more effectively bridge the gap between the event and them getting plugged into a church somewhere. In a perfect world, the kids would immediately get plugged in to a church. However, we know that is not always the case. Joel gets 2-3 e-mails a day from kids responding to these e-mails that we send out. They ask questions and say how much it helps them grow in their relationship with Jesus. How could we possibly stop with 5?

Please pray that we finish booking the spring with assemblies, and more importantly, book the concerts that are tied to assemblies we already did. It's definitely not easy, and there are a lot of logistics involved.

Thanks for reading! We appreciate you and would love to hear from you..

Emily

Live from Florida

Greetings from Florida! Just wanted to share a few pics and a video from our events today in Fort Walton Beach, FL. Enjoy...

Thought this was funny....Joel controls the computer and lights during my portion of the concert and he usually has an auditorium curtain to hide behind. Obviously that was not the case tonight. We built a hillbilly (no offense to any hillbillies reading this) tent for him to hide behind with bed sheets and ladders.

Joel REALLY had fun in his little tent cave.

Some of the kids that came out tonight...

A clip from the assembly today at the high school. Joel's exact words to me when he saw this video: "It's too bad you walked in during my least favorite line of the whole talk. You should have come in at a classic time when kids are laughing and we're all having a good time. We should time that up better next time."

Florida!! sorta

I say sorta, because when I think of Florida, I think "Florida!" because I think warm. But it's not really warm at all there right now.

Joel and Ryan made the trek down to Fort Walton Beach, FL on Monday. They have 2 assemblies and a concert each day they are there (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday)--which is exciting! They are actually finishing up a concert right now as I type. Please pray that lots of kids come to these concerts and hear the Gospel. Please for receptive hearts and minds.



Assembly at Fort Walton Beach High School.... this morning.




On Friday, we get to go to the Wuerffel Trophy banquet. They were able to get all of these bookings this week because of it. If you didn't know, Joel won the Wuerffel Trophy his senior of college which is basically the Humanitarian Heisman of college football. http://www.wuerffeltrophy.org/ We get to participate in all of the festivities for that.... which I hear is quite an ordeal. I think I am going to feel a little out of place considering I am the wife of the guy that works with Joel, but it was nice of our friend John Watts to invite us.

Since Joel is flying back early for a speaking engagement on Saturday, Ryan was going to have to drive the Moose back himself. I am flying down tomorrow after school to be down there with them a couple of days and then make the drive back to Ohio with Ryan on Saturday/Sunday. We are going to be stopping halfway to see my brother, Adam, in Nashville. We are going to spend the night there......in a boys college dorm. Weird, but free. :)

I will give you updates on the week soon. Please pray for the kids!

Emily

Sick and Snow

Hey all,

Well, I think they have recuperated from all the traveling--- approximately 60 hours over 2 weeks. Ryan came home with a nasty cold and Joel came home and woke up in the night with food poisioning! But I think they are both 90%.

Everything went incredibly well over the 2 weeks. One school in particular was the best experience they have had yet. They really had a chance to develop some neat relationships with the kids throughout the day through some breakout sessions at school. Ryan got to run with some cross country boys after school and Joel got to lift with some other guys. (Joel LOVES lifting and hates running. Ryan LOVES running and hates lifting. ha.) They also went to dinner with a group of guys that evening. They don't have an evening concert set up but plan to get it scheduled to go back soon. They are already looking forward to it!

Joel at the North Dakota state line...


Ryan is busy catching up on bookings....... please pray for the Spring bookings. We are actually going to be heading over to the Pentons in a little bit to have a meeting to prioritize the million things that seem to go on. Hopefully it is productive!

This is my 2nd day home from school because of snow. Thank you Lord for beautiful snow that gives us a day off!

Happy winter wonderland...

Emily

Georgia Concert Video!

Travel, Travel, Travel

Hey Friends,

Like I said in the last post, Joel and Ryan have been doing some serious traveling. Last night, after finishing up an awesome concert in northern Ohio, they started on their journey to North Dakota. They are currently still on their way, but I just talked to Ryan and they are less than an hour away... woo hoo!

After the evening events where the gospel is shared, Ryan and Joel have the students fill out cards to respond to what they heard and also to get their contact information so that they can follow up with them.

I wanted to share some responses that students wrote from last night's concert:

Most Random: "I really liked the concert tonight. Joel and Ryan are cool like the other side of a pillow."

One that reminded them why they do what they do: "I really love the music that Ryan sang. Joel is an excellent speaker and he spoke to me so much. I realize now that God has been tugging at my heart. I don't know what about yet but I am going to find out."

Cutest: A girl said she rededicated her life to Jesus, then drew a smiley face next to it :)

One that needs prayer: (Pray for this 18-year old guy) "I am not convinced. If my "soul" is so important, I need to be persuaded that there is a God, and that I need to believe in it. If I refuse to bow my head, convince me that my life depends on it. Otherwise, I still have no reason to belive in a story such as God."

One that made me laugh: (Sorry, buddy.) "Good job. The blue lights hurt my eyes."

Stay tuned for a video from last week's Georgia concert.... for some reason, I am computer illiterate right now and need to go to bed!

Emily

Van Wert Comeback Concert

Hey Everyone,

Last Wednesday, we traveled to our hometown of Van Wert, OH for another outreach concert.  There were over 300 kids and adults in attendance and it was great to see our family and friends that we do not get to see enough.  It was also interesting to see the dynamics with so many adults in the room.... (Do I raise my cell phone and scream when my mom is sitting next to me?)

The one picture that turned out ok from the evening....Oops!

Today Joel and Ryan are in Edon, OH doing a middle school and high school assembly.  Tomorrow they head to Greenfield, OH for more assemblies.  Here is what their next 2 weeks look like: On Monday they drive to Iowa, then turn around and head to Georgia, and then back up to Ohio, and then to North Dakota (yes, North Dakota), then back to Iowa, and then to Michigan for a weekend retreat.

Praise God for opening up so many doors for them to share the gospel with unchurched kids.

Please pray.....
 1) that God would be glorified with everything that happens in this ministry.
 2) that Ryan would be able to balance travel, music, and bookings.
 3) for safe travels in winter weather in northern states!


Blessings!
Emily

New Year News!

Hi Everyone,

Happy New Year! We hope you had a wonderful time with friends and family over the holidays. By the way, this is Ryan's wife, Emily. I will be the one updating the blog the majority of the time now.

We live in an internet driven world that speaks to each other less and less. It is getting harder and harder to get kids to leave their computers or cell phones and come to an event. However, over the past few months, we have actually seen an increase in the number of students that are coming out to hear Ryan and Joel share the Gospel. I think there are 2 reasons why:

1. Use of Social Networking= Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter.

2. New evening event setup= Ryan Holliday concert.

1....... Kids love MySpace and Facebook. Ryan and Joel gained hundreds and hundreds of "friends" in a matter of a couple months. This keeps the students connected and greatly increases the chance that they will come back for the evening event. They also shoot videos at the school assembly and post them on YouTube to accomplish the same thing.

Here is an example of what they put up on the screen at the end of the assembly.

2....... Let me set the scene for you. A good looking 26 year old (that looks 18) plays a couple sweet piano songs during the school assembly. They are then promised that Ryan Holliday is going to come back in concert at a later time! The average attendance has been around 250 at each evening event! Ryan plays around 10 songs that all point to what Joel has to share (his testimony and the Good News about Jesus). I will explain the logistics more in detail in a later post. Here is Ryan at a concert:

Note: My favorite is when I am at the merchandise table selling t-shirts, cd's, etc. and middle school girls come up and tell me how awesome they think Ryan Holliday is and how her friends are in love with him and how she even got his autograph! The funny thing is that they rarely think that I could possibly be the wife. I just smile and agree that I'm in love with him too!

I didn't get to witness this, but here is Ryan working in a janitor's closet at a school trying to use his time wisely between assemblies. His computer had to be plugged in high up on the wall to feed into their sound system, so rather than stand, he sat on a ladder. Makes sense!



Prayer Requests:
1. Safety while traveling on winter roads. (of course I put that #1-- I'm the wife!!)

2. That God will continue to give Ryan and Joel wisdom to most effectively reach students for Christ.

How can we pray for you?

You will hear from me soon! I promise!

-Emily

A recent concert...

Van Wert HS/MS & Gahanna-Lincoln HS Assemblies

Kicking Off the New School Year
We are back into the swing of things, and geared up for another school year. The month of August and the early part of this month have been a whirlwind. The majority of August was spent marketing our assembly presentation to 12 states surrounding Ohio. Plus we began advertising on Google Ads, which has exposed our website to anyone in the world looking for a speaker. Our goal is to branch out, and we have made some good progress toward that end. We have assemblies booked in Michigan, Indiana, New York, and Kentucky, and we have many other tentative assemblies in the works.

Van Wert HS/MS Assemblies
We were excited to be back at our alma mater - Van Wert HS - in late August. It was great to help them kick off their year and see many people that we knew and grew up with. We also were at the MS for a separate assembly. The students there were great and incredibly responsive, in large part due to Mark Bagley (the principal and one of my HS basketball coaches) and the way he pumped up the kids for Joel. My younger brother is in 7th grade, so it made it that much more special to be in front of him and other students in his class. Hopefully these assemblies made an impact on students in our hometown.

Gahanna-Lincoln HS Assemblies
Joel and I also presented to about 2600 students last Friday (9/11) at Gahanna-Lincoln HS in Gahanna, OH on the NE side of Columbus. We had been there last year, so we were encouraged that the administration found the presentation valuable enough to have us back. This year we were not as shell-shocked by the sheer number of students either. The students were great, especially for such a large crowd. It was a good chance for us to get more experience with our second assembly presentation (for repeat schools).

"Man in the Mirror"
The Gahanna-Lincoln experience was unique for me in that the school theme is "Be the Change" and they use a quote from the Michael Jackson song "Man in the Mirror." So they asked me to play it, and it could have been disastrous (ha), but the response was incredible compared to my expectations. I did NOT do the Moonwalk. But I may actually use that song more in the future because the message of the song, believe it or not, is really solid (if you want the world to be better, take a look in the mirror and start with yourself - make those changes first). Kind of reminds me of Matthew 7:1-5.