Update...finally!

3/21/07
by William Eavenson

Dear Friends and Family of Chi Rho,

It gives us great pleasure to share with you all that we have completed recording, mixing, and mastering of our newest CD Here Is What I Know Now. We are currently finishing the album art and will be sending the CD to be duplicated after spring break. The CD will be officially released at this year’s BIG CONCERT, on SATURDAY APRIL 21 in WAIT CHAPEL on the campus of WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY at 8:00 PM (admission is free!). Copies of Here Is What I Know Now are available for preorder through our website http://www.chirho.com. We have put a lot of work in this project over the last few months and we are extremely excited with the results. A TREMENDOUS thank you to all of you for making it possible!

Chi Rho has been singing at more places to more audiences than ever before, and our message and our music are being carried to new frontiers. We now have a MySpace page, thanks to Taylor Forry. Look up Chi Rho on MySpace (or go to chirho.com and click on the link) and you’ll be able to read a little bit more about what’s going on with us as well as hear a few clips off of our new CD. So it is clear from all of these things that God has royally blessed us this semester. We came to Him desiring foremost to honor Him with that which he has entrusted us: incredibly charitable donations, a few none-too-shabby voices, and a passionate love for Jesus. We desire simply to unleash the gifts that God has given us on the world that we might see His hand move and inspire our fellow Christians as well as those who do not know Jesus to give their lives for the glory of God! And he has been immeasurably faithful to us in our need.

With all of this success, it’s been a point of thought for us about how to continue to recognize and be broken by our increasingly desperate need for God, even in times of great success and blessing. We never stop needing Him, we never stop depending on Him, and we never stop hoping in Him, because He alone is able to imbue our merely human offerings with divine power. He’s the one who uses a simple song to change hearts, the one who uses a few college students to take his word to thousands of people across several states. And we are so completely reliant on His power to strengthen His Kingdom on this Earth through our ministry.

We’re reminded of the story of Apostles in Acts 4 where Peter and John had been taken and questioned by Jewish authorities. Acts 4:23 says, “On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. ‘Sovereign Lord,’ they said, ‘you made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in it. You spoke through the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your son David…now Lord…enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’ After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” (Acts 4:23-31).

Brothers and sisters, friends and family, what a privilege we share in being able to call ourselves servants of a God who hears our prayers and who desires to answer us if we would only ask! As a group, we are constantly reminded of the sovereignty and power and faithfulness of God in the midst of all of our sufferings and failings. No matter what, we take confidence in knowing that HE LOVES US BECAUSE WE ARE HIS. And our songs, our CDs, our concerts, even our ministry itself could be colossal failures in the eyes of the world, but to know that He loves us still is the greatest blessing we could ever claim.

So we just wanted to encourage all of you with a little bit of news and little bit of what we’ve been learning from the word of God. Please keep praying for us, as we will be praying for you! Please keep asking us questions or giving us your opinions or feedback. We value your support and your input! Lastly we want to encourage all of you to join us April 21 st at 8:00 PM in Wait Chapel for our annual Big Concert. It’s the 15 th anniversary of the founding of our group this year so there will be some special events for alumni. We would love for you to join us in what promises to be an incredible night of worship as we join together to seek the face of God and make His name great!

May He come and shake the place!

We love you all. Thank you so much for your support and we look forward to seeing you at your churches, and back here at Wake in April.

Be blessed,

Chi Rho

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Greetings Everyone!

10/7/06
by William Eavenson

Thank you so much for your continued support and interest in Chi Rho. We apologize for not having written an update in awhile, but now we’re thick into another year and ready to let you know all of the exciting things that have been going on with our group over the past few months!

Tour 2005 to Atlanta, Georgia and Tampa, Florida was a great success. Some highlights included singing at several local churches for both morning and evening services, singing at the Capital building and Underground in Atlanta, and singing the National Anthem for a Tampa Bay Devil Rays game. The trip afforded a little bit of celebration for the incredible year that God had blessed us with as well as ample opportunity to reflect on where we have gone and look forward to and pray about where we are going. We continue to recognize that Jesus is the sole reason we even have an a cappella group and are continuing to refine our motives as a group to simply spread His truth and His fame. If we are doing anything more or less than that then we are wasting our time.

This fall has gotten off to a very quick start. We’ve welcomed two new members and are awaiting the return of all three of our juniors from their semesters abroad in Spain. We are beginning to test out some new arrangements and are cranking out several more in anticipation of recording our new CD this January in Nashville, Tennessee. With many dates and concerts planned over the next few months, God is taking our group in a bold new direction and we would appreciate your continued support in prayer as we attempt of discern and follow His will for us.

As a group we continue to wrestle with what it means to be marked by Jesus in a world that often times looks nothing like Him. How are we to live in a way that shines the light of Christ when everything around us is crowded out by darkness? This may make life sound hopeless, but the comforting reassurance that Christ has given us is that we are certainly not meant to do it on our own. Through a mystery so crazy that it can only be explained through God, Christ has come to dwell inside of each of us as believers through the Holy Spirit, essentially giving us a power source for life from which to draw our strength and our hope. Paul delves into this mystery of God in Colossians 1:27 where he says to the church in Colosse, “For it has pleased God to tell his people that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. For this is the secret: Christ lives in you and this is your assurance that you will share in his glory.”

Wow. Isn’t it comforting to know that our God is a God who desires for us to share in His glory which is beyond all reckoning. He desires to be the strength within us that we rely on to get us through the trials and trepidations of our lives when we don’t know what to do next. He does. And He is more than strong enough to be our Savior, our deliverer, our protector, our hope, and our great God!

He’s the one we sing about and He’s the one who’s written an identity on each of our hearts and each of your hearts as well. We are His and He wants us to live like we believe that.

So thank you so much again for your prayers and support and we look forward to seeing you throughout the semester at all of your churches and your events, and most importantly we look forward to celebrating our great God together!

In Christ,

Chi Rho

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