This summer has been a time of change for us, since all of us either graduated from the university and moved on to new jobs or are at least done with classes and moved on to student teaching.  A lot of people have been asking us, “What are you guys doing now that you’re graduated?”  To be honest, we really didn’t have a clear answer ourselves.  We all know how much we love music and want to continue as a band, but new jobs and opportunities have presented themselves.  After much prayer, discernment, and discussion with the band, we have decided to not continue as Emmaus.  We will continue to make music, just not under the name of Emmaus.  Our acoustic guitarist, Dustin, has been hard at work with Kyle, our keyboardist, on his solo project.  You can check him out at dustinjakeabraham.com and facebook.com/dustinabraham.  He has an album coming out soon, so keep an eye out for that.  Also, I have a new facebook music page at facebook.com/davidmaresmusic.  I’ll post demos as I make them.  In addition, I have a website in the works, so check out my facebook page for that.

We’ll still be available to lead worship for retreats, conferences, adoration nights, etc.  A few of us are involved with a new ministry in Tucson called Nameless Ministries that includes a few other youth ministers from around the Diocese (Richard Rivera, Andrew Starbuck, and Adam Eichelberger).  The goal of the ministry is to teach and encourage other youth and young adult ministries in the area with retreats and youth or young adult nights.  Stay in touch with the Emmaus facebook page as we develop the ministry, but most of all we ask for your prayers as we move forward.  If you have any questions, feel free to email me at david@davidmaresmusic.com.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us throughout the years we’ve been together as a band.  Thanks to our parents and families, for getting us started in music in the first place and supporting us through lessons, band concerts, and praying for us.  Thanks to all of our friends back from our respective home towns and at the U of A.  Fr. Bart, thanks for giving us a place to lead worship every week at the Newman Center.  Thanks to everyone around the Diocese who have asked us to lead worship for retreats and conferences, especially Joe Perdreauville, Deacon Ed Sheffer, Michelle Benzenhoefer, Bill Buhs, Richard Rivera, Andrew Starbuck, Adam Eichelberger, and Beto Bojorquez.  We would also like to thank in particular Cristobal Almanza, for his work on the website, logo, and EP design, and Andrew Starbuck, for his work on our tshirts and tour posters.  Thanks to everyone who supported our music by picking up a Never Grow Weary EP, rocking an Emmaus tshirt, or donating to us.  You all were the reason we were able to keep going as a band, and the reason we are able to keep making music from here.

Most of all, we thank God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for giving us this opportunity to lead others to Him through music.  We pray that we will continue to only seek His will above our own and that He will continue to guide us.

God bless,

David

Being an engineering major (I know, I know, it’s ok you didn’t know), a lot of time I’m just thrown complicated equations and expected to apply real life to it.  It’s a struggle, with my one music class giving me a breath of fresh air a few times a week.  I’m not sure what to do with the equations and engineering principles sometimes, because most of the time they apply to only a certain set of conditions, assumptions, etc.  But sitting in my mechanical vibrations class, I learned about the concept that everything has a resonant frequency, which is the frequency at which an object/thing/whatever-is-being-talked about resonates at its maximum amplitude.  Stay with me here.  So once this “thing” is vibrating at a specific rate that everything about it says, “This is it!” and it goes crazy.  It shakes almost uncontrollably.  Bridges have collapsed because the wind simply caused it to vibrate at it’s resonant frequency.  It’s crazy stuff.

So I asked myself, “Everything has a resonant frequency?  Everything?!?”  What about “things” we can’t necessarily see?  …Like our souls?

God created everything so wonderfully.  And through it all, He designed all of it to point back to Himself, so that all that He created can be reminded of how much He loves us.  I know every time I see a breathtaking mountain view or feel the power of the ocean while at the beach, I can’t help but think about how powerful God is and how powerful His love is for each one of us.  And when we recognize the power of God’s love, we are encouraged to open ourselves up to Him to grow into a deeper relationship with Him.  And when we open up to Him, we experience and share in God’s love, the love that poured from the cross.  Yet something special happens in our hearts, our souls, our entire beings when we open up to His love.  Something that is difficult to explain…without the idea of the resonant frequency.

I think we are created with a resonant frequency, and that frequency is the love of God, which is God Himself since God is love.  When we are shaken by that frequency, by God’s love, our entire being resonates.  It resonates far more than when anything else tries to shake us.  That resonance is worship.  So often we make worship out to be something it’s not.  It’s not about the music, the person singing next to you off-key, the hand motions, the light show or lack-thereof, the awkward smell wafting around the room, etc.  It’s the position of the heart, and if that position is open to God.  It’s about resonating with His love, and that’s it.  If we’re wondering why sometimes we just feel like a time of worship was shallow and meaningless for us, maybe we’re simply not allowing ourselves to resonate with God regardless of any externalities.  Many times we bring a lot on our shoulders to worship moments that shouldn’t even be there in the first place, like preconceived notions about what the worship time should be (and if it lives up to that expectation), things that dampen our ability to resonate.  We need to be conscious of these things, and lay them down before God, because He alone can heal, nourish, and sustain.

Next time we worship, I pray that we can open our hearts fully to Him, so that we can fully resonate with His love the way He created us to.  Let’s pray, Lord, help us when we worship to grow in our love for You, so that we can love like You.

-David

So this actually happened BEFORE the other podcast placement, but I was too thick-headed (forgive me) to notice!  Either way, JD the Music Man from RadioCSS was kind enough to feature our song “At the Foot of the Cross” in Episode #105 of the Weekend Music Showcase as well as some NEVER BEFORE HEARD insights from David himself about the inspiration for the song.  It was really cool to hear our music surrounded by so much other talent, and we are so grateful for JD giving us this opportunity.

Check out the story behind “At the Foot of the Cross” and a bunch of other great independent Christian artists here:

Radio CSS Webstream

Subscribe in iTunes

Kyle

Sort of. We had our first exposure to the interweb airwaves this week via our song “Child of God” in The New Christian Tunes Podcast. They put together a great playlist of gospel-inspired music every week, and it’s stuff you don’t hear every day on KLOVE! So go check it out, subscribe in iTunes (it’s free, of course), and give them a good review! It’s an exciting day for us, and hopefully for you too! I know that God will work through this podcast to touch somebody’s life in a new way, and I’m so glad we had the opportunity to be a part of it. Check it out!

New Christian Tunes Podcast Webstream

Subscribe in iTunes

Kyle

Hey all,

You’re favorite website destructioneer here.  I just realized that we never shared with you the tracks from David’s acoustic performance on the UofA’s KAMP radio.  “What?!? Emmaus was on THE RADIO!?”.  Yup.  I guess you could say I got the hook up.  Included is a special never before heard track “Caught Up”, which we wrote for the Tucson Diocese Youth Ministers Conference.  Check it out and even download all the tracks for FREE!

http://kamp.arizona.edu/node/799

Kyle

If you tried to visit the website sometime between 10pm last night and 1am this morning, you probably got some random source code error.  Sorry ’bout that!  I got a little gutsy with the php (bad idea) and ended up taking the whole site down!  Anyways, it’s back up and running now and I’ve learned my lesson.  Just know that this whole fiasco was not totally in vain as exemplified by the little black and yellow “e” icon in your browser window.  Website: 19, Kyle: 1

Kyle

Learn about what our plans for the month of May.

We are super excited to be launching our new website. We’re glad you stopped by to check it out. Continue coming back to check it out as we continue to build out our content and the rest of the site.