The Little Post That Could

I realize it's been days since I said "more later tonight..." I'm real time conscious like that :) In reality though, I've just been plain busy. Busy with work and school and the in between. All of that to say...

The other night I was going to tell you that over one year ago I wrote a letter to Cindy Cruse Ratcliff. She is the director of music and worship at Lakewood Church in Houston, TX (Joel Osteen's church). I know everyone has their own personal opinions about Joel and Lakewood, but this has no relevance to that at all. I've been listening to the Lakewood Live CDs for years and was always blown away by the quality and professionalism of the songs. Also what is so striking are the words to the songs and how beautiful and intimate some of them are. My absolute favorite has always been "Show Me Your Glory." Such a sweet and prayerful song. I wanted to know who wrote it, and discovered that Mrs. Ratcliff along with Israel Houghton had written almost every song that has been recorded by the worship team. So, that's how I came to be interested in her music (personal and with Lakewood).

I got off on a rabbit trail... the letter... I wrote to her because I have always been drawn to the music business and producing and A&R and all of that, so I was interested to see if I would be able to intern with the music department at Lakewood for a summer or a few months. Basically I told her (or whomever read it) who I was, where I am, what I do, and what I wanted to do. After six weeks of waiting on a reply, I had pretty much given up and figured it had either never gotten there (I sent it to her personal ministry address, not the church) or they read it and weren't going to reply.

Almost a year to the day later (I sent my letter on Feb. 19, 2009 and their letter was postmarked Feb. 20, 2010) Emily called me after work and we were just talking about the day. She said she checked the mail and we had gotten the usual... and "oh, you got something from Cindy Cruse Ratcliff." Excuse me? Really? She read it to me and it was a very sweet (although vague) letter that was hand signed in ink by Cindy's husband Marcus. He said that he had forwarded my letter on to the church and that they did take on interns (so I assume it has to go through the church). I was a little more than excited that someone had actually even read it, much less had taken the time to send me something other than a stock letter with a stamp for a signature.






While I'm not even sure I'll ever volunteer/intern with Cindy and the Lakewood team, I thought I would share and shed a little light on what I feel to be the most effective and anointed tool (the music department) that Lakewood has to share the gospel. Y'all have a blessed week!