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   Get ready to meet my team for the next year! God blessed me so much with an incredible team; I cannot wait to go the nations with such great people. Anyway, before I introduce you to all of my teammates, walk with me through our team-name making process…

What do you want for a team name?  What kind of team do we want to be? During some personal time I wrote this about my hope for our name:

“God we want a name that truly defines us, a prophetic name for what we will accomplish, A name that we can look to when we are tired, broken, and feel like we have nothing left and it will restore our spirits and our strength to glorify the Lord one more day.”

 
 
 
So we went back to the Lord and asked Him what does He want our team to embody. We threw out ideas like love, humility, boldly declaring the glory of the Lord, etc…and as we talked I was captured by this idea of declaring the glory of God to the world. And as I prayed over what it means and what it looks like, I was led to 2 Corinthians 2:14:
 
 

14 “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.”


 

I began to get this incredible picture of this triumphal procession as the King of Kings leads the way. I saw the streets lined with people celebrating, I saw colorful banners waving in the wind, and I saw the trumpet players leading the way in this victory celebration. 

In Christ, we are already victorious. In Christ, we are more than conquerors. In Christ, we celebrate His victory no matter what the external circumstances look like. Our job is not to win the battle, it has already been won, but to enjoy and share the blessings of victory – LOVE…JOY…PEACE…FREEDOM…HOPE.


Then someone remembered the battle of Jericho.  How Joshua’s army walked around the city wall 7 times and on that seventh time with a loud shout and the sound of the trumpets the city wall collapsed to the ground. Once again God triumphing for His children. 
 

The trumpet is also the first call to battle. It is the first sound that leads us in courage and boldness to the field. It is the sound that reminds us to put on the full armor of God with full confidence that our King has gone before us and paved the way with victory. 

The trumpet is the sound that declares the return of the Lord.  

1 Thes 4:16 – 16For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

Our team will be that declaration. We will be the trumpets who proclaim the glory of God in all of His goodness, all of His love, all of his hope. 

But let’s be honest, “Trumpets” by itself just doesn’t quite have the ring to it as one would hope. And it doesn’t quite incorporate our commitment to loving each other in humility.  As we explored a remedy, we reasoned that the best demonstration of deferential love is unity. That is, the expression of loving each other as though each were greater than ourselves is a fulfillment of ONEness.     


My team! From left to right (bottom row)- Michelle Euperio, Hope Manly, Ricki Smith
(top row) – Jonathan Snyder, Kendall Hawley, Me

Not only that, but it denotes our allegiances are not to ourselves but to God first and foremost. We do not exalt anything, we do not proclaim anything except the only ONE worthy of glory and honor – Our God and Savior Christ Jesus.

And finally, the underlying truth that God’s gives us what we need for today, not for tomorrow. When we are tired and broken and ready to give up, we can remember that God will give us the strength for ONE more day. God gives us everything that we need for that day. All strength, all knowledge, all wisdom, all faith…ONE day at a time. 
 
So you put that all together, and what you get is…

                  

I guess when people tell us to be God’s instruments we can reply, “Will do, in fact we will be His trumpets!”