Believer in what is Good, Beautiful and True- and they go by a name- which is Jesus. THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life. 

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Life is never easy. And that painful truth hit home for Mandisa with blunt force during the last three years. While fans and industry professionals wondered where the Grammy winning singer had disappeared to, Mandisa silently withdrew from the spotlight and was even hiding from family and friends.  She had watched a dear friend lose her battle with breast cancer, leaving behind a husband and two young sons.  Suddenly, the world didn’t seem to make sense anymore.  Reeling from the pain, she isolated herself from everyone, gained back the weight she had fought so hard to lose, and sank into a deep depression.

 “To be honest, that’s not how I thought things were going to happen,” she says of her friend Kisha’s passing. “I just shut down, isolated, and started turning to my old friend food for comfort.  My loved ones were reaching out and I would ignore their phone calls and text messages. It got to the point where I had friends who, out of love and concern, came to my house banging on the door and I just put in some ear plugs and pretended I wasn't there. I was angry at the world.”

 Yet inside Mandisa was still the same woman who had encouraged a multitude of people from all walks of life with the triumphant hit anthem “Overcomer.”  “I still don’t have all the answers, but I’m in a better place now,” says Mandisa, who is working on her sixth album, due in May 2017.

These days she has more to say than ever.  One of the turning points in her battle with depression came when a circle of friends sought her out at a movie theater. When Mandisa walked out of the theater, she was surprised to see her car papered with stick-it notes from friends proclaiming their love and concern for her. This shocking sight was followed by her awareness that these friends had been sitting in the parking lot waiting for her for over three hours. The resulting "intervention" convinced her to go to counseling to deal with her grief, and helped bring Mandisa back from the darkness that had enveloped her since Kisha’s death.

Mandisa is back with a renewed passion for her music and a willingness to be totally transparent and vulnerable about her journey.  She’s reconnecting with people, losing the weight she regained during her depression, and writing and recording such potent songs as “Prove Me Wrong” where she lays bare her soul and voices her questions, “I’m Still Here (The Best is Yet to Come),” a comeback song that proclaims that she's still here and not giving up and “Unfinished,” saying…

“Not scared to say it; I used to be the one; Preaching it to you; That you could overcome; I still believe it; But it ain’t easy; Cause that world I painted; Where things just all work out; It started changing; And I started having doubts; And it got me so down”

“My hope is that people will be on this journey with me,” she says. “When I began, I was in a really dark place, but where I am today is so much better and so much lighter!”

Joel Clarkson is a composer and theologian whose work explores musical dimensions of spirituality, nature, and human experience. His writing spans a multitude of genres, from his underscore for film and TV, to his settings of sacred music. He has a PhD in theology from University of St Andrews, and his compositions often engage with the way music opens up experiences of transcendence and acts as a luminous disclosure of divine beauty.

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For more than 15 years, well-respected worship leader Kari Jobe has been using her gifts to lead people into the presence of God. When she began leading worship at age 13, she never imagined she would be nominated for a GRAMMY®, win a Dove Award or be praised by the New York Times. She only knew she had a heart for broken people and a deep desire to lead them to the cross.

Jobe’s third album, Majestic (Capitol CMG), reveals her lifelong passion for the Church. “Worship, for me, has always been such a rescue place in my life,” she says. “When you get down to the very bare bones of worship, it is about us being thankful for the cross and magnifying the name of Jesus above all names. Anything past that is just feel-good music.”

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The mission of Lamplighter Ministries is “to make ready a people prepared for the Lord, by building Christ-like character one story at a time.” The mission of this ministry is deeply rooted in the truths found in Malachi 4:6 and Luke 1:17. The gospel writer Luke quotes from Malachi 4:6 in his first chapter. His handling of the text is peculiar because he leaves out part of the quote and adds a sentence that changes the entire meaning of Malachi’s text. In Malachi we read: “To turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” In Luke we read: “To turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” The first part of this verse is identical in both passages. The second part, “turning the hearts of the children to their fathers” is similar to “turning the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.” It appears that Luke is emphasizing that children’s hearts (the disobedient) will turn to their fathers, if their fathers’ hearts become righteous and worthy. The last part of the verse in Malachi, “lest I come and smite the earth with a curse,” has been deleted and new text has been added, thus changing the meaning. Generally, the New Testament writers will change an Old Testament text to help clarify the intended meaning, but here Luke changes the meaning of the text entirely. Whereas the Old Testament closes out with the word “curse” and a strict warning, the New Testament closes out with hope and an emphasis on grace—“the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, Amen.” By Divine design the Old Testament closes in “curse” and the New Testament closes with “grace.” When Luke the physician quotes Malachi 4:6 and removes the curse, I believe he was adding that which is at the heart of Christian discipleship—“making ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

As I studied Luke’s addition, I realized that the words “make ready” and “prepared” are the very essence of our mission. The word “ready,” in Greek, hetoimaz het-oy-mad’-zo, means to prepare, provide, construct, create, or make ready through internal fitness. The word “prepared,” in Greek, kataskeuaz, kat-ask-yoo-ad’-zo, means to build, make, ordain, or prepare thoroughly and properly by external equipment. Lamplighter Ministries has a two-fold focus: preparing people to serve the Lord through internal character development and external career preparation. The words “ready” and “prepared” form the foundation for our mission at Lamplighter. We are building Christ-like character internally through inspiring and godly role models, and motivating individuals to live a life of excellence through external opportunities that cultivate their God-given abilities into the highest level of skill and excellence.

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