Our week in South Carolina was just incredible! All 12 songs for our upcoming CD, Created to Worship, came together really well and we are excited about every single one of them! The graphic work is underway, as is the mixing and mastering process. I’m holding to my release date of early March but seriously believe we are going to beat that date. If you are our “friend” on Facebook, you were able to keep up with our day to day happenings while we were in the recording studio. We posted some pictures and even a few videos! If you are not a “Facebooker”, you should still be able to click the link below and access our page. It is set to be a public page and should be accessible to anyone. I hope I’m right about that!! Try it and let me know if you can’t open it.

Click Here to visit our Facebook page! 

Check out our January dates below and come join us when you can! It’s always a joy to look out and see familiar faces!

We expect God to do great things in and through us this year. Thank you for being a part of that with us!

Love to all,

Sue

UPCOMING EVENTS:

 This Sunday, January 8 @ 10:00 a.m. -
Master’s Plan World Outreach – Houston, TX
The Harris Family will be singing as part of the morning Worship Service. We’d love to have you join us!

Saturday night, January 21 @ 7:00 p.m. -
First Baptist Church – Chappell Hill, TX
The Harris Family, along with our good friends, Gospel Express will be in concert. See the poster below for details. Print it out and share it! It’s going to be a great night! You don’t want to miss this one!

Sunday, January 29 @ 6:00 p.m. -
First Baptist Church North Zulch – North Zulch, TX -
The Harris Family will be in concert. We’ve been at this church several times and always have a great time!

Please  click here to see details about these events
and to see our full schedule.

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
Isaiah 7:14

Pumpkin pies are in the oven, the sweet potatoes are cooking, and soon I’ll be in there getting the dressing mixed up and ready to stuff the turkey early in the morning. As I was in the kitchen preparing for the grand feast we’ll be having for our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow afternoon, I was reminded of how incredibly blessed I am. God truly has dealt bountifully with us. No, our lives are not perfect, the difficult situations we face do not always turn out just the way we’d like them to, we have to deal with sorrow, disappointment, and even death…but God is good and He is faithful!

As we reflect on our blessings, we are truly thankful for each one of you. We are grateful for the opportunity God has given us to connect with you through this ministry. May you have a very blessed Thanksgiving and may you spend the day surrounded by those who are dearest to you.

With much love,
Sue and family

We are steadily gaining on getting the twelve songs learned for our upcoming CD. And guess what? We have a title for the CD!! Our latest recording, ”Created to Worship” should be available to you sometime in March 2012! It could be a bit sooner but I seriously doubt it will be any later, so I’m just going to stick with March so I can be happy when it gets finished ahead of schedule. We have our photo shoot on the books for the Sunday following Thanksgiving….what was I thinking?? Roger said we ought to be nice and plump by then.  I suppose that second helping of turkey and dressing is not happening for me this year (and dessert! We won’t even talk about dessert!). Then on Monday December 26, we will be heading to South Carolina where we will spend the rest of that week in the studio recording our vocals. Exciting times! This is our fifth CD and we are really loving the new songs God has given us.

If there is one thing we need as we progress through the next couple of months of learning the songs and getting them recorded, it’s your prayers. We can write, we can practice, we can sing, we can dot all our i’s and cross all our t’s, but if we don’t have God’s anointing and His divine power working in us every step of the way, we will never see and experience all that He wants to accomplish through us and through these new songs. This is so much more than just making music. These songs have to change each of us before we can expect them to change anyone else. And the only way God can change us is on our knees. As we pray over the next few months, we ask that you pray with us. These things we ask that you specifically pray for:

• Perfect health and strong voices. We have several Christmas events in December and will be doing a lot of practicing on our new songs as well, so we need to stay healthy and our voices to be strong enough to get us through all of that AND still have plenty of gas in the tank for the four day recording session at the end of the month. I especially ask that you pray for Kristen in this area. The cooler temps historically trigger a nasty cold with a lingering cough and laryngitis for her. We need God to keep her well!
• Practice times. Pray that the next six weeks of practice will be productive and that the songs will come together quickly.
• That our hearts will be close to and sensitive to God. That we will have sweet times of fellowship with Him as we allow Him to seal these songs to our hearts.
• That the enemy will be bound and have no influence over our minds or our circumstances.

We truly do appreciate every prayer that is prayed for us. Matthew 21:22 reminds us that whatever we ask in prayer, believing, we will receive,and we are indeed believing and trusting God for a great outcome!

Have a wonderful November. I pray that God allows you the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving making incredible memories with those you love.

With a thankful heart,
Sue

As I write this, I’m listening to our new tracks playing quietly in the background. My trip to South Carolina a few weeks ago was a huge success and a great experience for me. I got to witness some extremely talented guys bring our new songs to life. I walked in there that day with twelve songs on paper and walked out 14 hours later with some amazing tracks that I can’t wait for you to hear! It was a really long day but those guys gave it all they had all day long. They literally sat there and played music for 14 straight hours. It was just an incredible day and I am thankful that God allowed me the opportunity to be a part of it. Now our real work has begun…learning all these new songs. We are making progress and the more we learn them, the more we are loving them! I recorded several videos in the studio that day of the guys at work. Click on the video/picture to hear the first song they cut. I took this on my phone from the control room. The song is called, “Jesus Changed My Life.” It is quickly becoming one of my favorite songs on the upcoming CD. I can’t wait for you to hear it with words one day, but here’s a preview of the track (that knocking is a little annoying and will not be there in the end. It was just to keep the players on beat…this was “work in progress” happening here!).

I want to say a public thank you to a friend of The Harris Family’s….his name does not need to be mentioned, he knows who he is. This man called us last week. He’s a former inmate at one of the prisons we minister in. Upon his release, about 3 years ago, he moved out of state to be near family. Shortly after his release, he sent us the sweetest email encouraging us in our ministry work in the prisons. He wanted us to know that God really used our music, our witness, and our testimony to make a difference and a lasting impact on the men there. He keeps up with our ministry online and contacts us every once in a while to let us know how he’s doing and to encourage us. In a ministry like ours, so many times we wonder if what we do really makes a difference. You see, as much as we love to sing and love the ministry work God allows us to do, we know that it’s Jesus who changes lives…not our words and not our music, but only Jesus has the power to change a life. If the power of Christ is not working through us to do something bigger than ourselves, we need to reexamine what we are doing. So it encourages us more than you could possibly imagine when someone takes the time to let us know that God is at work through this ministry.

Let’s make it a great day! As the holidays are quickly approaching, I am reminded that this is not a happy season for everyone. I am praying that God will open my eyes to the needs of others that I can help or encourage with even something as simple as a kind word or a listening ear. I know that I am surrounded by hurting people every day and I don’t want to miss an opportunity to make a difference.

A new CD is in the works! God has given us some great new songs and we have prayerfully nailed down the twelve that will make up our next recording. Kristen and I have written some of them and we’ve gotten others from several very anointed writers. I absolutely love to watch a recording project come together, so I am right in my happy place! Later this month, I will be heading to South Carolina where I’ll get to witness a room full of incredible musicians lay down our tracks. On all of our previous recordings, I’ve only been a part of that from a distance. I’ve worked with our producer and he then has worked with the musicians. Only after it was all finished, did we get to hear the finished tracks. This time, I get to be there and take part in the entire process! I’m pretty pumped about that and know that these guys are going to blow me away with their talents. We will then take several months to learn all the songs, followed by the three of us heading to South Carolina to record our vocals, followed by mixing and mastering, pictures and graphic work, and finally manufacturing….we will be early next year getting this all wrapped up. That’s a lot of work ahead, but worth every mile, every penny, and every effort when we see hearts and lives impacted by our music. To God be the glory!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Sunday, September 11 @ 5:30 p.m. -
South Main Baptist Church – Pasadena, TX
The Harris Family, along with the South Main Baptist Church Choir, will be presenting an evening of Southern Gospel Music. Following the concert, there will be an ice cream social. It’s all FREE! We’d love to have you join us!

Saturday, September 17 @ 4:00 p.m. -
Private event for a Sunday School Department at First Baptist Church, Pasadena, TX

Sunday, October 2 @ 10:45 a.m. -
Memorial Baptist Church – Channelview, TX
We will be singing and ministering for the entire Morning Worship Service. No admission – A love offering will be received.

Please click here for more details about
these events and to see our full schedule.

We continue in prayer for the thousands who are being affected by the wildfires in our area. We have sung in churches in many of these communities and the images I keep seeing on the news and on the internet are just heart-wrenching. I ask that you all pray that God would stop these fires. He spoke the earth into existence. The winds and the waves obey Him. He is able to stop these fires. Let us stand in awe of Him as we pray, we believe, we trust…and He works a miracle in our midst!

“By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”

Psalm 33:6-9

I hope to see you soon!

Love always,

Sue

Over the past year, we have been working closely with In The Gap Prison Ministries, taking part in several two night prison revivals at various TDCJ facilities. This past weekend we were privileged to lead worship for another two night event at one of the TDCJ medical facilities for women. In addition to the need we all have to know God and have a closer walk with Him, these women are dealing with various health issues. Their needs are great and our prayer is always that as we share God’s love, His compassion, and His story of redemption with others, that He will reveal Himself in a powerful and unmistakable way, drawing others to Himself, as we do our very best to point people toward the cross. We did indeed witness an incredible moving of the Spirit of God last weekend. Just as we were winding down the hour-long song service and preparing to turn it over to Steve Vaughn , who was bringing the message, the ministry director came forward to say a few words. This was on Saturday night, May 21, one hour past the time that Harold Camping had (incorrectly and with zero biblical evidence) predicted that the rapture of the church would take place on May 21 at 6pm. The director, Claude Sumrall, asked the ladies if any of them would have been in real trouble if Jesus had indeed returned for His church one hour ago? A lady on the second row quietly lifted her hand. Claude told her that if she wanted to get that problem settled once and for all, to come forward and he’d get a counselor to help her. She got up and walked forward. Then another one got up and came forward. At that moment, and I can’t explain it, I just instinctively reached over and hit the play button and we began to sing “Amazing Grace/My Chains are Gone”. As we sang, more ladies got up and came….all the counselors left their seats and came to meet them. They did not all jump into the aisle and come at once. It was as if you could feel the struggle in the room….and then victory as one would step out, make that walk down the aisle, and give her life to Christ. We sang through that first song, then another, then another, then another, then another. After about 25 minutes, they were all back in their seats. I asked for a show of hands from the ones that had just come forward to be saved. We did not take the time to get a count, but it was about 15. All this happened before Steve came to preach. How would you like to try and preach after that?! But he did an outstanding job of telling us all what the Bible does have to say about the rapture of the church. It was a sweet night and I cannot tell you how thankful and humbled we are that God allows us to be a part of what He is doing!

God has opened some incredible doors for us to minister in the prisons. It’s hard to believe, but it has been over four years since we took part in our first prison service back in 2007. At that time, we weren’t completely comfortable with the idea of extending our ministry into prisons, and we did not have a clear understanding of exactly why God was calling us there. However, we dove in with open hearts and open minds, and with a willingness to be used by God in an environment that was completely foreign and a little scary to us. Now 4 plus years later, it is becoming increasingly clear to us that the work we do inside the prisons has a greater impact on the lives of men and women than anything else we do in this ministry. While we love to sing in churches and concert venues, and we know that God uses us to minister to people in those settings, and we love to record and be able to share our music with others through CDs and radio songs, God has also given us a love and a burden for those who are in the prisons. He continues to weave all the different facets of our ministry together so that we can be effective in all areas. Trying to find a good balance in all of that has been a bit of a challenge for us however. Prison dates, although very effective venues for ministering, do not bring in a single dime to help fund the ministry. On the other hand, church dates and concert venues, also effective places in which to minister, are able to provide us with an honorarium or a love offering to help cover the costs involved in having a ministry. Those costs include not only travel expenses, but also equipment upkeep, recording, office supplies, printing, legal fees, website, etc. When things are working like they are supposed to, we have a good balance of church/concert dates and prison dates. I’m not sure what prompted me to share all that except that it is an on-going concern and at times, a challenge for us to find and maintain that balance. We’d appreciate your specific prayers for us in that area. Our goal is to honor God and to use every opportunity He gives us to lead others to Christ. It’s unfortunate that we have to concern ourselves with things like money, but the hard truth is that without adequate funds, we cannot have an effective ministry. So please pray with us about that and plug our name in wherever you can so that we can keep our calendar full. It’s not about a full calendar, but every date we have booked on that calendar represents people who need to hear about Jesus.

Summer is upon us and I hope you and your family have some exciting things planned! Let’s all keep the people from Alabama and Missouri in our prayers as they continue to recover from the devastating storms. If you are looking for a good way to donate to the relief efforts, there is a link below where you can make a donation to the Salvation Army. After Hurricane Ike hit the Houston area in 2008, we saw first hand what a phenomenal job the Salvation Army did to help folks who needed it most. They will put your donation to good use!

I love each of you and hope to see you in person soon!

Hello everyone! With the holidays behind us, we are finally getting settled back into the routine around here. That makes me happy! How about you? I am rather fond of a routine and this week is the return of some sort of “normal” here in the Harris household.

Happy birthday to both Roger and Kristen! On January 2, Roger turned the BIG 5-0, and Kristen will turn 25 on the 14th…that’s this Friday!

Please note that the KJIC Share-A-Thon Kick-Off Concert that we were planning for the 21st of this month has been cancelled. Although we were planning a great night to benefit KJIC Radio, Frank Arnold Ministries graciously pledged a $10,000 donation to the station in exchange for us relinquishing the venue and the date. Frank Arnold now has a concert, with a great line-up of artists, scheduled at Sagemont Church for that night. He will promote KJIC’s Share-A-Thon as part of the evening as well as present KJIC with his generous gift. The benefit to KJIC didn’t happen exactly how we planned it, but isn’t it awesome to see how God took our efforts and turned them into something even better?

Although the Share-A-Thon Kick-Off Concert for KJIC is not happening, Share-A-Thon is, and the station needs our help! The tough economic times our country has faced during the past several years have affected us all. A significant decrease in monthly support for KJIC, who depends solely on the gifts and donations of their listeners, have made these times especially challenging for KJIC. Their annual Share-A-Thon is when they make a big push for folks like you and me to consider supporting them throughout the year. Some of us may be able to send a large gift to the station each month, and some of us may only be able to give a small amount. Please don’t think that just because you only have $5 or $10 to give each month, that it’s not enough to make a difference. If everyone who listens to KJIC were to send just a small donation each month, the station would have more than enough to meet their expenses. Our faithfulness to them, as they are faithful to God, will enable KJIC to continue serving us, our community, and the world with the life-changing message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Please pray about what God would have you to do, then just obey what He’s told you. He will do the rest. Share-A-Thon 2011 will take place January 27-29, however, you don’t have to wait until then to get on board! Click the link at the bottom of this page for more information on how you can help.

January is typically a slow month in our ministry, and 2011 is no exception. Things will kick back into gear in a few weeks. We are working out some details for some exciting things God has planned for us in the year ahead. Pray that our vision will be made clear and our path made straight as we continue to serve Him in this ministry.

Stay warm! And we hope to see you soon!

As Christmas Day is quickly approaching, we wanted to take just a moment to send you our warmest thoughts and best wishes for Christmas. It’s not what’s under the tree that makes Christmas the most wonderful time of the year…It’s the love and peace that’s in our hearts, which comes from knowing Jesus – not as a baby in a manger, but as our Savior, our Redeemer, and our Lord. We pray that your home will be full of joy and laughter, and that your hearts are full of peace as you celebrate the birth of Jesus.