Visible Year 2: You Want More of This?

By the spring of 2001, Visible was completing our first year in business and ministry and had seen what running a school was like: crazy amount of work, low financial returns, and incredible spiritual community. Our team of 5-6 people had been through trial by fire of ministry operations, with the addition of people like (Dr.) Paul Criss, Neal Bowen, Wendy McMahon and Bernadette Winkler (Flynn) making the school even possible. The 2001 class saw the addition of students who became staff. So many others helped in significant ways each year and I will certainly miss some as I go through short blogs on the 25 years, so please speak up and bring some memories and reminders of the challenges.

What was most amazing was that the students wanted to stay beyond one year!

They wanted more.

We had pursued music, ministry, artistry, God the Holy Spirit, music theory, business, living together, evangelism, theology, spiritual disciplines, and growing up as people primarily in their teens, twenties, and thirties within a setting of Bonhoeffer-like Christian community. Anyone who earnestly pursues this will know how difficult it is to become a realized self AND a participant in a vibrant community without losing either one. Life is hard for everyone, but life as a creative community is extraordinarily challenging to build and maintain. This continues at Visible Music College, as we humans have a way of growing fast (and being rocked by God) within a creative Christian community.

Young creative Christian artists wanted to grow in community and we had tapped into something special. We realized the name was too long and started just being “Visible School” to most people as we welcomed dozens of new students from across the globe to Visible in that second year. With a school of 40+ students and the Sounds Eternal studio being completed, we added a Music Business component and followed up on the “Becoming Visible” CD of Year 1 (design and name by Krystal Mann) with the beginnings of the record label. We moved from rental homes to apartments over this year and tried to hold onto the family feel. Highlights include more great bands, Worship Together conference, and other trips to Nashville, which would become a regular occurrence.

Whenever you ask God for more, and position yourself and your family for response, God will show up and delight you (and challenge) you!

Yes, we want more of this.