Anthem in a Bar

Our first Anthem in Iowa City was...

The pictures will do better than words. It was a "tavern" transformed into a temple, and for those who were there, I think it will be one of those "I was there" moments.

It's hard to say how many people were there. I would guess between 300-500. Below you can see there is an upper level that was a few rows deep with people.

At the end, I pulled up Carson Gardner, who is a sophomore in high school from the Ames area, to lead "You deserve" and Justan Spaid to sing "We are not the same", which is a song he helped write. The atmosphere was electric.

This Anthem was a nice change of pace for the band because there was a lot less emphasis on the production side. Because there was a business above the bar, we did a "quiet" run through of the set sitting in a circle. As it turns out, we may do that more often because we weren't as worn out for the actual event.

The bar became "Beth El"... house of God.

Here's the set list. Notice all the question marks at the bottom. We weren't sure how long the set was going to be, but we knew we had to be done by 9:45. Iowa City used to allow anyone 19 and older into the bars, until this summer...

I wanted to thank all of you who came down from Ames. There were probably 100 of you that made the trek down to join us for worship. Thanks for your continued prayers and support. This is just the beginning.

Soli Deo Gloria!