I am sick. Really really sick.

My left eyes feels like it's going to explode and there is an odd mucus coming out of my nose, and when I talk it sounds like what a crab with a speech impediment would sound like if it were given the gift of voice. I also spread this to anyone who comes within ten feet of me. I am not pleased.

Being sick sucks. 

I just got some good news, and though it doesn't make my strep go away at all, I guess it's still nice.
AS I LAY DYING, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA and as if that wasn't enough, FOR TODAY AND THE CHARIOT, coming to The Sound Academy in Toronto on the 23rd of March. This is HUGE. These are bands that headline their own tours, teaming up for some kind of monstrosity of a super-tour ... or something.
I want to go to this, but it's on a Saturday, and I don't get many days off. Maybe when Scott Jackson reads this he will take pity on my heart which will be so irreparably broken if I do not make it to this.

Tune in for 3SN this week! Don't forget prayer time at 9:45.

-Kyle Jenkins

3SN Drama

Last week Scott Jackson posted a charming letter from a LIFE listener who didn't like 3SN. At all. I'm not going to post that letter on here again for fear of sparking another fire. But long story short the letter was something like,
"3SN is the devil", "3SN music sounds like a possessed Gorilla", "I see nothing good about 3SN", "3SN is a big steaming pile of poo",  .... yeah you get it.
Nobody needed to hear that. Nobody wants to. I didn't. We all know 3SN is doing good.. right?
I was pretty sure of that, and this person caused me to doubt that for about 5 seconds.
When the letter was posted on the LIFE100.3 Facebook fan page it was like a thousand ton thermo-nuclear bomb had gone off at the center of the earth and everyone just went into a downward rage spiral at this person for sending this letter.

Okay maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration. But (most) people didn't like it. We must have gotten at least 200 responses. Awesome. Some of us could have applied a bit more grace and mercy in that moment, but still, awesome.
I hope the person who sent the letter wasn't offended and doesn't feel like I threw them under the bus, but finds the answers they were looking for. That was the whole idea.

On a lighter note, I can't remember a time that I felt so encouraged. These were people I didn't even know, writing that what my show is doing is changing lives and taking ground for the kingdom of God. I really do think that even though it may have been a rash decision to post the letter (the opinion of some that commented), or that maybe we could have used a bit more tact, people needed to see that response. I'm sorry if 3SN bothers you or you grandmother, I really am. I don't mind if you turn it off because the music is terrible. I'm going to keep bringing lost and broken hearts a message of love and reparation through Jesus Christ. If you don't like it or you don't agree.. Turn it off. Then turn it back on when the Sunday worship music starts after 3SN at 2am.

Hardflip

Sooo I hosted a Hardflip movie in Huntsville.
The place was packed! Okay maybe not packed but it was really busy compared to the rest of the Hardflip tour.
The movie was great, not cheesy like you might assume a christian movie would be. Without giving things away, I'll just say that they weren't afraid to be real about things or to avoid the typical happy ending kind of thing when making the movie. It hit me pretty close to home too, just with the topics and struggles they go through in the movie. I would love to see it again and would recommend it to anyone, young or old. Check out Hardflip!
It was pretty scary being up on stage hosting the event but it all wound up alright, it was good times. Hope to get the chance to do so again soon!
Stay classy.

"Life sucks but not really"

Man, why is stuff so hard.

But seriously. Life, living on your own, trying to find work, figuring out where you're going to live, getting your car on the road, seeking God, being honest, keeping your morals at a good place, managing time, finding a church, remembering things while all this is going on.. It's all just harder than they tell you.

I expected things to be difficult living on my own but I didn't expect things to be this annoying and frustrating. I didn't expect to come across so many ignorant and difficult people. Not because I don't think they exist, but because just that, I didn't think about it. I am capable of this. But will I lose myself in the process?

Those who know me well know what I am going through right now and know that it is not an easy situation. But I am moving forward with the only concrete information I have being that God will use me and mold me through my experiences. Everything and everyone else in my life is too unstable to rely on and God is the only thing that isn't changing or screwing me over somehow.

Maybe that's why God allows us to have troubles, so we will look to him and only him for however brief a time when we realize that he is the only solution to all of our issues. Amazing that he still helps us even when after he has given us a hand, we turn our back on him and believe, in our foolishness, that we can do anything on our own. We forget who was there for us when times were bad.

May God help me now and may I not forget it after he does!
3SN Tonight. Stoked.

-Kyle Jenkins

Air Raid 21!

While Air Raid 21 was not as heavy as I would have liked.. It was rad. The bands were tight, generally friendly, even though some of them stuck to themselves instead of socializing for a large part of the day. I got to hangout with guys from Unlikely Heroes, winners of the rock the show contest. They played a two song set to a good response. We went to the mall, and these guys are a blast. We tried on some obnoxious V-necks, almost died on the highway, tried on some weird hats. It was good times.

The boy band definitely knew what they were doing! An acoustic medley of One direction songs will get the girls to buy your merch, haha. Abandon stole the show with vocals that reminded me of "The killers" and great guitar hooks. I wasn't really into them before but after seeing them live I might be adding a few of their songs to my itunes.

I drove a life vehicle for the first time the day of Air Raid 21.. No, I didn't wreck the equinox, but I think the staff were a bit antsy about the idea of a crazy 3SN host driving the LIFE vehicles with their fancy logos and such..

If you didn't make it out to this air raid, there's always 22. Let's push for a LOUD band this time around, yeah? See you Saturday!

- P.S. Shout out to Larissa for sending me a shirt in the mail all the way from NEW JERSEY. 3SN listeners are awesome. Double awesome when they send me awesome shirts!

A good day.

Things that happened today that were awesome:

-Met an awesome person on public transit (How often does that happen?)
-This guy on the street asked me for money to make a phone call. Lent him my phone instead. He didn't steal it. Cool.
-Met a guy at the music store to play some music with. He likes Thrice and City & Color. Sweet.
-A 3SN listener is sending me an awesome shirt for my birthday, YEAH FREE STUFF
-Signed up to Volunteer for a local garbage pickup tomorrow with some longboarders from Barrie.
-Ran into an old friend.
-Ran into friends from work
-Met a woman who goes to emmanuel church in Barrie. Random.
-Met someone at a place who I forget the name of, but she was nice.-Smiled at some old people. They looked at me like I had two heads or something.

Rad. A good day.

There were a bunch of other things that I'm forgetting right now. But something I realized earlier shook me a bit. A good number of these things wouldn't have happened without a positive effort on my part. It's so easy to just throw our headphones on in public places but lately I've been going out of my way to talk to people. To help somebody out. Feels good. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results. Sure, you get the odd person who's going to flip you the burn when you try to do something nice for them, but that's cool. Such is life.

***I just realized I'm going to start blogging more. I like talking (typing) to myself.***

I like people lately. A lot more than I used to. There are a lot of decent people that I meet and a lot of people who some might call indecent, but who I would call "misunderstood". We could all use a little more understanding.

Do something nice for somebody within 24 hours of reading this. Bring a homeless dude a burger. Pay for someones bus ticket. Smile at someone. Ask someone who looks upset if they want to talk. Offer somebody a ride. Pick up some trash while you're standing around waiting somewhere.

Be Christ in the places where the world believes he doesn't exist.

Band break-ups.. Band break-ups everywhere

Thrice. A plea for purging. UNDEROATH? A bunch of others that I can't quite pull to mind at the moment, but they're there, slipping away...

It makes me sad. Especially about Underoath. I just hope that those guys all move on to other projects and keep bringing us good music, good Christian music. Yeah, that's the other thing. It seems like when Christian bands disband half the dudes fall off the boat in the proverbial sense and we never see them on the Christian music scene again. It sucks.

I miss Underoath in the Aaron gillespie days. It's just not the same. Though, props to him for answering Gods call to him to start doing worship music, start The almost, etc. Some things have to end for others to begin.

If Underoath doesn't come to Toronto for the last tour... I will stop buying Underoath's CD's and never go to a show of theirs again... Oh.. right. :(

Look for UO's final releases and those two new tracks when they come. I'll keep you posted. And I'll try not to be so sad about it in the meantime.

The guys from Plea and UO that still want to play music should just get together.

88.1

Hey everybody! So many of you have probably heard that our request for the 88.1 frequency was denied recently. It's lame. I have to say at the beginning, I was kind of frustrated with the decision the CRTC made and I didn't like it at all. OR the fact that yet another secular station is going to be filling that spot instead of us.

Here's what I do know. God moves and works through everything, and our opinion on what is "good" and what is "bad" for us is usually pretty far from what God is doing. I could say some big deep thing on the matter, but honestly, what gets me from day to day is putting my trust in God. I don't have a vision of what is to come, or some profound reason as to why we did't get 88.1. I just know that trusting that God will use me has always produced a good result. I've never been let down. So if this situation has got you in a funk, cut it out. We're only limited by just how much faith we choose to put in Christ. Clearly it wasn't meant to be, but something else is.

I'm stoked for whatever is going to happen next with Trust ministries. I don't even know what that might be, but I'm super excited for it.

I recently met a whole bunch of guys who are going through the same things I used to deal with when I was younger, like drugs, drinking, anger, etc. and it's awesome, because not only is it giving me perspective on who I was, and who I am now, but a whole bunch of them are going to be listening tomorrow to 3SN! I am STOKED yo.

Overwhelmed.. Or so I thought

Has anybody ever felt overwhelmed by their workload, coupled with tryig to maintain a social life, hobbies, volunteering church stuff cleaning relationships hsnrydehkddkajsidhdeetc?? I think most of us can say that at some point, there's just been too much on the plate. Lately I've been feeling that way. I realized something the recently though. It wasn't the number of things on my schedule, it was the way I was prioritizing them and lining them up. It didn't make any sense. That's been a major lesson to me over the last month: time management.

Gods love for us can be pretty overwhelming too. I've noticed lately all of the things he's been doing in my life that I don't even notice sometimes. Like how the new job I just got, the boss is a Christian. My guitar repair guy? Bassist at a church. Guy I met fishing the other day? His wife is an avid LIFE100.3 listener. I could go on for a while. It's been a good month.

Don't ever forget to look around to see what God is doing. For all you know, God's been showing you miracles and you havn't been keeping an eye open.

-Kyle Jenkins 3SN

What up 3SNers!
I was at warped tour last week to interview For Today, and it rained so bad that they delayed the whole show, and bands were no longer taking interviews. Bummer!
For today rocked the show, they were the last band to play the entire day of warped and they definitely stood out. They sound virtually the same live as they do on the CD, but with an added intensity. Was awesome praising God with a bunch of other random dudes who are so passionate about this music and Jesus. I yelled "Jesus!" at one point in response to something Mattie Montgomery said, and these guys behind me was like YEAH! and then I was like YEAH! HIGH FIVE!, and.. you get it

As some of you may be aware, a girl passed away at the show during "Tonight alive"'s set. My prayers go out to her family, and to the band, who I'm sure this can't be easy for either.

AUGUST BURNS RED IN SEPTEMBER! So stoked for this. I've never seen them and I've been obsessed with their album "Constellations" for months. I don't even care that it's like a three hour drive.. worth it.

Junky will be rocking 3SN this week as I am in Vermont!! Does anyone know of anything cool in Vermont? Because I don't. But we have a family reunion thing going on there. 15 hour drive or something... awesome.

Stay classy.

-Kyle Jenkins

Introducing; the 3SN noob

So I'm the new 3SN host, as some of you may be aware, some of you maybe just finding out now might be like WHAT? WHERE'S JAKE? Jake is touring with a super-talented group of guys in Behold! The City.

I'm Kyle Jenkins, and I guess I'll tell you a bit about myself, shall I? I play guitar, sing, I live and breathe music, while I probably listen to Post-hardcore the most, I listen to pretty well everything. Except country. ugh.
I longboard a lot, and I play ukulele. Sometimes at the same time.  If everybody longboarded and played uke, the world would be a much happier place.

I play Xbox. Lots of Xbox. Battlefield 3. Skyrim. Halo.
SKYRIM DLC AT THE END OF THE MONTH WHAAAAAAAAAT
I love For Today. Saw them live a few months ago and it was easily one of the best shows I've ever seen, those guys are killer on their intruments. I deffinitely take any opportunity I can get to see a good show. The only shows I've seen that even come close to comparing were Hillsong United and The almost.

Speaking of For Today;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_9EIdUKl5Y&feature=player_embedded
I have mixed feeling about David leaving For Today. I mean, it's crazy that he's leaving, and I hope that it doesn't take away from the band, but he's following God's call and that's pretty sweet. I can't imagine how difficult that could be for him to make that choice to commit to leaving.

Anybody else stoked for warped tour? Aside from all the wicked bands that are going to be there, me and my buddy were talking about how what with all the sweet bands going this year, we'll probably have enough band t's to last us the rest of our lives.

I want you all to know that I'm stoked to be the new host for 3SN. This is something I am going to put my heart into like I try to with everything I do. God's been really active in my life lately, calling me to different ministries, opening up opportunities. I'm excited for the future!

Anybody seen/ seeing any good concerts lately? I want to hear about it!

God is cool

many of you are aware that i play in Behold! The City, and that a little while back we went on a tour, one of the dates being Air Raid 20

when i first started in music, this band specifically, all i wanted was to be a light for Jesus, to whoever would watch or listen. i wanted GOD to come through over EVERYTHING else

but as you go along in the music biz, its very easy to lose sight of things like that, and get caught up in the business, like touring, promoting, money, merch, etc

we definitely came to a point around the end of last year where we just werent focussed on God anymore. Prayer came second to setting up our gear.

Right before this tour, we got our focus back, or some of it at least.

and it was CRAZY to see how God used that.

so many times we played a show, and a kid would come up with tears in their eyes, showing me their scars from cutting, telling me how theyre 17 and struggling with alcoholism, and one guy wanted to commit suicide that night, but came to the show and was encouraged instead.

needless to say, this was such an overwhelming response, we broke down into tears many times.

im sharing this with you because i want you to understand that if you focus your passions, talents, and energy on making GOD first, he will use YOU to change this world. and that is a very humbling and incredible thing to experience.

love you guys

Jake

faith

i need more.

alot more.

Romans 10:17
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

If you need faith like I do, God told us where to look ^^^

The responsibility is literally on us, to ATTAIN the mustard seed that God is looking for.

I think its time we go get it.

Jake

game review

I was asked to post a review of elderscrolls 5: Skyrim.

Its a bit difficult to cover the ENTIRE game because this game is EXPANSIVE

i dont just mean playable surface, but the depth of characters, quests, equipment, abilities, everything. is HUGE.

I reached lvl 50 my first play through, and completed all the main story quests etc, and had a GREAT experience

the controlls are fluid and intuitive

the graphics are practically artisitc and beautiful

the dragons are fearsome. and awesome. and scary.

My ONLY issue with the game, comes with a few glitches.

i think because of the sheer size of this game, a few important game play details fell through the cracks.

what i mean by this, is that some of the things you do/destroy/kill in quests directly affect your ability to complete OTHER quests (because you already killed a key character etc)

the other big issue i had, which really sucked cause i had accomplished SO MUCH in this go-through, was that an unfortunate glitch caused my character to literally disappear. so that i was running around and swinging my sword, but i couldnt actually see it, or myself.

a foolish decision caused me to delete that game and start ALL OVER (a very daunting and tedious task) so we'll see if i ever accomplish that much again...

i think i might make my guy look like gandalf from LOTR this time...


comment and tell me your thoughts!

Jake

losing it all, to gain it all...

A longggg time ago, a dude named Jesus Christ walked on this earth.

When he was here, there were many people who wanted to follow him, and his example.

He had one prerequisite: to drop EVERYTHING and follow him, right then, right there.

Some people were incapable of doing this, prefering to hold onto their worldly ways, possessions, and comforts. One man wanted to bury his dead father first, and Jesus basically said dont bother, just follow me.

There were others though, who did.

The first guys he asked actually, did just that.

They were fishermen, and at his word, dropped their nets. And followed him. That meant they dropped their livelyhood, their security, money, families, everything!!

That is so crazy.

And the best part is that God still took care of them, they were never in need.

I want that kinda faith.