35 responses to “Testimonies from You”

1. 

   Chris

   May 16, 2025

   One year at Hutchmoot, Kevan co-hosted a session with Doug McKelvey, on the ways that needs create communities. The two of them volleyed back and forth stories of Christlike unity being formed around individuals who allowed others into their needs. One that stood out was a story Doug shared about an entire communal infrastructure that developed in someone’s home around supporting them with a homemade iron lung. Before then, I’d never really considered that reality too deeply, and after that session I started thinking about how beautifully that concept has the potential to play out in almost every kind of community: church, work, education, neighborhoods. In the very next session I attended, Ben Shive, a music producer, used remarkably similar terminology in describing the bonds forged with artists who come to his studio with so much that they want to communicate in their songs and so few of the tools to accomplish it. As he employs his own expertise and assembles a team of musicians with diverse gifts, they help the artist carry the vision forward and they are all blessed in the process. This particularly hit home because I had been that artist in Ben’s studio a few years earlier for my first Son of Laughter project, but until that moment I hadn’t thought about just how much that experience had required me to invite others into my own neediness, ask for help, and trust in a way that enabled a whole group of people to create something they were proud of.
   The next year, at the same conference, Kevan began asking me to help him and Katie in a variety of situations: entering an elevated doorway, helping with the food line, going to the restroom, and even walking alongside his chair on a railless porch to make sure he didn’t tip over the side. The part of me that cared about making a name for myself as a performer at the conference was shoved aside in favor of the caretaking Dad in me that had unflinchingly helped my own children for years with the same kinds of things. Helping in this way even changed the depth of our discussions because of the realness of the relationship. Because of that experience I began to wonder how often my own desire to muscle up and do things for myself was actually closing the doors for others to step in to exercise their gifts and be their most selfless selves. How much more opportunity for rich relationships could there be in the recording studio, in the classes where I teach, in our neighborhood, in our church community, if I was willing to ask for help or if I was more eager to see the needs of those around me.

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