Yearly Christian Music Festival held in our Back Yard

Jon Foreman of Switchfoot at Big Ticket Festival

The Big Ticket Music Festival is this week and my family and I plan to attend. We've attended every year except one of this Christian music event in nearby Gaylord, Michigan. It's an amazing 4 days of non-stop Christian music from artists all over the world. In the past 11 years some of the bands we've seen are: Newsboys, Tobymac, Third Day, Chris Tomlin, Casting Crowns, David Crowder, Jeremy Camp, Switchfoot, NeedtoBreathe, and countless others.

The Big Ticket Festival is a part of Northern Michigan. The first year it started I remember Drew Spanding coming to visit at the Kalkaska Church of Christ. He just chatted with a couple of us staff members and left off some posters. He wasn't sure if a full-blown Christian music festival would fly in Northern Michigan or not, but he wanted to give it a shot. I recall asking him about how he would choose which bands to invite and how much they cost. He said it was more about their touring schedules than the cost. If they were in the area (Michigan), they would love to come up for the festival. If they were out West, you probably couldn't book them no matter how much you offered.

Listing to positive, encouraging Christian music for 3 or 4 days is very uplifting. It's quite the contrast from what the world feeds us on a daily basis. The verse that comes to my mind is: Philippians 4:8 "Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things."

It is so important we as Christians fill out minds with pure, lovely, and true things. We do a good job protecting our children from the filth in the world, but what about our own selves? We need to continually dwell on good things, excellent things.

By the time you read this I'll be kicking back listening to some Mac Powell of Third Day under a beautiful Northern Michigan sky. I plan on filling my spirit with some noble, true, and praiseworthy lyrics for the next four days.