I have seen and read dozens of Kirk Franklin interviews. This is probably the best one I’ve ever seen. Kirk Franklin talks to Kristi Watts of CBN about his new book The Blueprint.

In the interview, Kirk talks in depth about some of the critical moments in his life. He also shares about the fear he had while recording Are You Listening: A Song 4 Haiti.

This is a must watch interview!

You can get your copy of Kirk Franklin’s book The Blueprint here.

What did you think about the interview? Did anything he said speak to you personally?

The latest installment of the music industry’s response to the earthquake in Haiti is soon to come. This time, is stead of just one song, a group of artists have come together to release an entire album entitled Healing 4 Haiti.

The album features a couple of songs you have probably heard before like, The Power of One by Israel Houghton, I Worship You by Mary Mary, and Mighty to Save by Tommy Coomes Band. Healing for Haiti also features other artists like Michael W. Smith, Carlos Whittaker, Lecrae, Canton Jones, Flyleaf, The Afters, Kari Jobe, Hawk Nelson and Lincoln Brewster.

When you listen to this album, you will find a couple of new/exclusive songs. Come Together Now is a We Are the World/Are You Listening type song. It features a number of different artists. Another exclusive song is Carry Me by Jared Anderson.

After listening to the entire album, I found it to be extremely encouraging and uplifting. In all seriousness, I was in a fine mood when I started listening to it. However, by the end of the album my spirit felt different. Encouraged and uplifted are understatements. Basically, you’re going to feel really good after listening to these songs.

The people in Haiti still need our help. You can continue to support the efforts by grabbing some or all of the songs from Healing for Haiti.

The entire album will be available on March 2, 2010.

After the earthquake in Haiti we saw many benefit concerts and songs sprout up all over the place. People also started texting donations to multiple organizations. If your life is anything like mine, I’m sure many local organizations also held collections to benefit Haiti.

These are all good and helpful things. I am confident that all of our contributions are needed and valued. However, we should not neglect our main priorities to support the people of Haiti or anyone else in need. I know this may sound harsh on the surface, but I believe that this is God’s will for our lives.

When I speak of priorities, I am referring to tithes and offerings. I know you may feel compelled to give, but I urge you to not take money out of your tithes and offerings to do so. That is God’s money. Yes, realistically, you are giving this money to the church. Please understand that God wants His money to go there. When we don’t give according to Gods’ purpose, we end up robbing God. (Malachi 3:8)

You may belong to a church with a million dollar budget. It is easy to tell yourself that the people in Haiti need the money more than your church does. I encourage you to ignore what your eyes see and stay faithful to God’s word.

If a church is functioning properly, it is using portions of the money you give to support outreach initiatives. You must have faith and believe that your church’s leaders are listening to the will of God and acting accordingly. If they are not, then God will deal with them.

If you are looking for money to donate, check your budgets for things like groceries and entertainment. Go to the concerts. Download the songs. Text until your heart is content. Give out of your heart and give generously. Leave God’s money alone!

Please share you thoughts on this. Is it OK to give less to your church in order to support those in need?

Pastor Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA recently made a trip to Haiti to experience the aftermath of the earthquake. In this video, he recounts his entire experience.

I found this video to be extremely heart wrenching. I must warn you that you will see some graphic images.

What do you think about the video? What thought and emotions are you feeling right now?

I told you in an earlier post that Kirk Franklin gathered a bunch of Gospel artists to record a song for Haiti. The official title of the song is Are You Listening: A Love Song for Haiti. It is currently being played on radio stations online and around the country.

You can purchase the Are You Listening on the Verity Records website starting today (1/22/10) at 5 PM. It will be available on iTunes and on Wal-Mart.com next week.

GospelMusicChannel.com is reporting that the the Gospel Music Channel will be premiering a special one-hour presentation at 7 PM EST today (1/22/10). The presentation will also feature the music video for the song. You can watch a brief video about the entire experience on GospelMusicChannel.com.

Are you looking forward to watching it?

It is no secret that the earthquake in Haiti and the floods in Los Angeles have left many people questioning God. Many people simply want to know why God allows disasters to happen. Is God angry? Is he trying to punish humanity?

I know that God is the creator and ruler of the universe. Absolutely nothing happens without him knowing about it. As for the topic of natural disasters, I don’t know why he causes or allows them to happen. He could have easily created a volcano, earthquake, hurricane and flood free world, but he didn’t.

As a believer, I have come to the realization that God does things that I will never understand. This is just something that I need to live with. If He did sit me down and try to explain his actions, it would probably be way too much for my simple mind to handle.

Every Christian needs to accept the fact that God does not need us to defend Him or his actions. He commanded us to love Him. He commanded us to love each other. We were never commanded to be His defender or lawyer. You can choose to enter into all kinds of debates as to why natural disasters happen, but I’m not going to do it.

Our faith is extremely important. It is one of the main things that separate the believer from the unbeliever. Even though disaster strikes, we must maintain our faith in knowing that God is sovereign, loving and merciful. We have to continue to believe that all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord.

You can continue to believe theories of anger and wrath. They may or may not be true. I am not going to concern myself with such thoughts. God does what he wants, when he wants. I can choose to deal with this fact and accept his love or I can choose to be angry and turn my back on him.

I choose to accept his love. I know that God is a rescuer, a deliverer, a healer, a protector and much more. The things that I do know about God, His love and His actions, far outweigh the things that I don’t know.

I don’t know why God allows natural disasters to occur. We can’t blame them on man’s free will, because the only will that is involved here is God’s. That being said, I can’t even begin to explain why Pat Robertson chose to label the horrendous earthquakes in Haiti as God’s revenge for a pact that the people of Haiti made with the Devil. You can read his exact words in this article on CNN.com.

Was Pat Robertson accurate? I don’t know. As believers should our first reaction to tragedy be condemnation? Should the first thing out of our mouths be “this happened because you didn’t…”

When people were in need, Jesus’ initial reaction wasn’t telling them about the things that they did wrong. When there was a need, he helped. When people were sick, he healed them. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong about this one.

As Christians, our first response should be to help those in need, not tell them why they were hit with disaster or illness. That won’t accomplish anything. The bible reminds us about how powerful love is (1 Corinthians 13). Love should be our first course of action.

I have a lot of respect for Pat Robertson. I believe that he has done some really good things in this world. However, there are times where he reminds me of a certain type of that uncle many of us have. I’m referring to the uncle that you can bear with as long as family members are the only people around. You don’t want to be around this uncle outside of your family circle, because he is bound to say or do something that will completely embarrass you. (like wear a checkered suit or walk around in his underwear) Although a little embarrassment may come, you still love him at the end of the day.

Where do we go from here? The worst thing we can do is to join in on all of the name-calling. I suggest that we continue to love Pat Robertson and keep him in our prayers. I also suggest that we continue to pray for the people of Haiti and help them in any way we can.

What do you think about Pat Robertson’s comments? Was God using this earthquake to inflict revenge on a nation?