Hey everyone, by now, If you've been on our website in the last few days, you've probably noticed that some things have changed on our website. We have at long last gotten it changed so that we can at last update it ourselves. Our brother and ally in the ministry Mark Forester spent around ten hours designing a new one that would allow us to keep our old web name and at the same time be able to update it ourselves. I think it turned out great, and we'd like to salute and thank our brother for the amazing work that he did!
I'm going to try to keep this blog as fresh as i can by updating it at college, so hopefully when you check our blog for news there will be more fresh stuff to read about in the future.
Next week we will be doing an unusual type of concert compared to what we are used to doing. We will be doing a special concert at a local restaurant for a church business meeting using only my guitar. Usually we bring in our own sound system with microphones, keyboard, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, ocarina, soundtracks and some props for Josh's comedy. But this time we will be entertaining a small group of people with nothing but my guitar and Josh's personality! The pastor wants to use us again at a later date as well, but this should be a unique experience for us. Oh well, I always look forward to any chance that I get to sing and share the good news of the gospel.
Stephen
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Happy New Year! + news
Well, it's 2010 (or at least that's the current rumor going around!) and I must say that I couldn't be more excited about what 2010 will hold for our ministry. I fell a bit behind in my booking work because college (with class time, homework, assignments, and special events) chewed up much of my time in the latter part of the year. As a result, the cupboards seemed a little bare for our schedule at first. But things are quickly turning around. This week the Lord blessed us by allowing me to book five new concert dates, with more people who said that they wanted to have us in, but had to arrange their church schedules first. I just posted our new schedule, and as of this writing we have 17 dates booked.
2009 was a year of many happenings for our ministry and our family. In April, we made Dixie Baptist Church our new home church after almost 7 months of searching and asking God for guidance on a new home for our spiritual food when we are not on the road. It was just a little while after this that our Dad's heart problems were at last healed by God's grace. Not long after this we finished our spring semester at Midwestern Baptist College and hit the road running with lots of new dates. Shortly into May was when our Dad was sick again, this time with a mysterious illness that left the doctors confused. They thought first that it was Vertigo, then Miniers disease (which is incurable), but at last a doctor relative of ours seemed to find the problem and treat him properly. Dad had suffered for several months before he was at last relieved, and had three great months of health before suffering a bit of a relapse a few days ago.
As if the Devil hadn't hounded us enough, Mom soon developed Shingles after Dad's health had gotten better! This seems to have attacked a disk in her back and caused it to herniate, which she has had to be treated for.
But 2009 was not all bad. We had some great times with our family, settled in a great new church, and our ministry continued to grow. I recorded my second solo project that I feel turned out even better than the first, and Josh and I got to sing on local cable television in Hudsonville, Mi. The film turned out so good that the television station gave us a copy of the film with permission to edit it for sale as a DVD! We also recorded our first instrumental project together called "Instrumental Classics", which we will be releasing in the spring. I feel that we also grew closer to the Lord this year, and He allowed that to enhance our abilities to communicate with, and minister to, our audiences. I even began preaching, which is something that I swore I would never do before the spring of '09, when I finally surrendered to God's call for it.
In many ways, 2009 was an eventful year. It was both wonderful and rough, but like the song says ".....and though I've had my share of hard times, I wouldn't change them if I could. 'Cause through it all, God's been good!"
We look forward to a blessed 2010, and we hope that you readers will share it with us by coming to see us in concert. Visit our website at http://www.foresterministries.com/ to see our schedule and buy our product. our newest CDs/DVDs are still not up for sale right now, but you can order all of our product from us at any time by calling (810) 653-0089 and asking for Stephen, or e-mail us at foresterministries@yahoo.com.
Hope everyone has a great year,
Stephen
2009 was a year of many happenings for our ministry and our family. In April, we made Dixie Baptist Church our new home church after almost 7 months of searching and asking God for guidance on a new home for our spiritual food when we are not on the road. It was just a little while after this that our Dad's heart problems were at last healed by God's grace. Not long after this we finished our spring semester at Midwestern Baptist College and hit the road running with lots of new dates. Shortly into May was when our Dad was sick again, this time with a mysterious illness that left the doctors confused. They thought first that it was Vertigo, then Miniers disease (which is incurable), but at last a doctor relative of ours seemed to find the problem and treat him properly. Dad had suffered for several months before he was at last relieved, and had three great months of health before suffering a bit of a relapse a few days ago.
As if the Devil hadn't hounded us enough, Mom soon developed Shingles after Dad's health had gotten better! This seems to have attacked a disk in her back and caused it to herniate, which she has had to be treated for.
But 2009 was not all bad. We had some great times with our family, settled in a great new church, and our ministry continued to grow. I recorded my second solo project that I feel turned out even better than the first, and Josh and I got to sing on local cable television in Hudsonville, Mi. The film turned out so good that the television station gave us a copy of the film with permission to edit it for sale as a DVD! We also recorded our first instrumental project together called "Instrumental Classics", which we will be releasing in the spring. I feel that we also grew closer to the Lord this year, and He allowed that to enhance our abilities to communicate with, and minister to, our audiences. I even began preaching, which is something that I swore I would never do before the spring of '09, when I finally surrendered to God's call for it.
In many ways, 2009 was an eventful year. It was both wonderful and rough, but like the song says ".....and though I've had my share of hard times, I wouldn't change them if I could. 'Cause through it all, God's been good!"
We look forward to a blessed 2010, and we hope that you readers will share it with us by coming to see us in concert. Visit our website at http://www.foresterministries.com/ to see our schedule and buy our product. our newest CDs/DVDs are still not up for sale right now, but you can order all of our product from us at any time by calling (810) 653-0089 and asking for Stephen, or e-mail us at foresterministries@yahoo.com.
Hope everyone has a great year,
Stephen
Thursday, December 31, 2009
HappyNewYearAndWhateverElseInTheWorldYouFeelLikeSayingInOneBreath!
Hey, everybody! Just thought I'd wish you all a Happy New Year and ask that one question that everybody has on their mind: what do penguins dream about? Come on, you know you want to know! No? Oh well, Ask a silly question... man, I wish I knew how the rest of that went... Anyway, this afternoon we're headed to Grand Rapids to arrive early at our New Year's Eve concert so we can set up before everybody else gets there. It's us and three other groups tonight, so we want to get our stuff set up before the others get there and we all get in a crowded rush.
Well, the instrumental CD that I and my brother recently finished is being mastered and having the fine-tuning done to it, and we're looking to release it sometime next spring. And if you think that's good news, wait'll you hear this: I have officially lost the last of my baby teeth! Hurray! (Does that mean I have to grow up now?)
Check out our website, http://www.foresterministries.com/ to see our latest whatever!
-Joshua
Well, the instrumental CD that I and my brother recently finished is being mastered and having the fine-tuning done to it, and we're looking to release it sometime next spring. And if you think that's good news, wait'll you hear this: I have officially lost the last of my baby teeth! Hurray! (Does that mean I have to grow up now?)
Check out our website, http://www.foresterministries.com/ to see our latest whatever!
-Joshua
Monday, December 28, 2009
Apologies......and new CD info
I feel like I aught to apologize (again!) for going over a month with no blog updates and news, but I've run out of lies that I can use as excuses! Josh and I had a terrible time recently finding the moments needed to keep our readers updated while we were in college this last semester. And it seemed that when we did have some free time, we would either forget or would remember something more pressing at that moment that needed doing. The holidays haven't been much better because our mother has been very sick with Shingles and a herniated disk in her back that came about from complications with the disease. Since she was in a lot of pain and had almost no energy, Josh and I had to step up to the plate and clean the house and do all of those homey chores that most of us only do around Thanksgiving and Christmas so she could focus what little strength she had on cooking.
But I'm hoping that I have found a way to fix this problem when we start school again next semester. I will be taking day classes, and also night classes on one night during the week as I have during my previous semesters. During these days with day and night college, I usually have a lot of free space in the afternoon, so I'm going to start doing my updates from the college library computer (which is what I should have been doing all along!). This should hopefully help to keep our news fresh and interesting.
Anyway, we've had a great year. We sang at a few more meetings sing our last update, and they all went very well. We will be singing over near Kalamazoo, Mi. for New Year's Eve this year, and we are anticipating a great night. Check our schedule page at www.foresterministries.com for more info.
Speaking of our schedule, I will be putting up our 2010 schedule in the next day or two so everyone can see where we will be singing in the coming year. We still have quite a few openings right now since I've had a hard time actively pursuing new bookings with our time constraints lately. I will be working to correct this very soon during my time off from college and whenever I can get a free minute, but this also means that the lines are open if anyone wants to give us a call!
Lastly, Josh and I are pleased to announce a new addition to the family.......NO, we are NOT expecting a baby, but our new instrumental CD has just been finished! We just wrapped up recording it in the studio today, and it really sounds AWESOME! It features a collection of great old hymns and gospel songs that are easily recognized to most people done in Forester Bros. styles! Some of the songs are simply piano solos while others are recorded with a full band sound backing them up. It will now be going in for mixing, mastering, artwork, and finally be released sometime in either February or March. We'll keep you updated.
Have a happy New Year!
Stephen Forester
But I'm hoping that I have found a way to fix this problem when we start school again next semester. I will be taking day classes, and also night classes on one night during the week as I have during my previous semesters. During these days with day and night college, I usually have a lot of free space in the afternoon, so I'm going to start doing my updates from the college library computer (which is what I should have been doing all along!). This should hopefully help to keep our news fresh and interesting.
Anyway, we've had a great year. We sang at a few more meetings sing our last update, and they all went very well. We will be singing over near Kalamazoo, Mi. for New Year's Eve this year, and we are anticipating a great night. Check our schedule page at www.foresterministries.com for more info.
Speaking of our schedule, I will be putting up our 2010 schedule in the next day or two so everyone can see where we will be singing in the coming year. We still have quite a few openings right now since I've had a hard time actively pursuing new bookings with our time constraints lately. I will be working to correct this very soon during my time off from college and whenever I can get a free minute, but this also means that the lines are open if anyone wants to give us a call!
Lastly, Josh and I are pleased to announce a new addition to the family.......NO, we are NOT expecting a baby, but our new instrumental CD has just been finished! We just wrapped up recording it in the studio today, and it really sounds AWESOME! It features a collection of great old hymns and gospel songs that are easily recognized to most people done in Forester Bros. styles! Some of the songs are simply piano solos while others are recorded with a full band sound backing them up. It will now be going in for mixing, mastering, artwork, and finally be released sometime in either February or March. We'll keep you updated.
Have a happy New Year!
Stephen Forester
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving/ministry news
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! By the time most of you read this, the holiday will already be over (I'm writing this at 9:01 pm), but Josh and I have had a wonderful day. We hope that you who read this will remember to pray for our oldest brother Jeff & his wife and three kids. They were not able to join us this year due to the kids being sick with combinations of swine flue, strep throat, and Pneumonia, but I heard that they were able to still have a pretty good day considering. We were able to have our next oldest brother Mark and his family with us, and we had a blast just like we always do around holiday times.
We are excited to announce that our DVD is done and ready for sale! We received our first copies of it today a little earlier than we had expected, and it looks and sounds just great. I don't know when we will be able to get it up for display sale on our website (things have not improved with our website update problems) but you can order it or my new CD at any time by calling (810) 653-0089 or e-mailing us at foresterministries@yahoo.com . It is $15.00 by itself, or you can take advantage of special combo packs that we will be offering shortly. All of our product can be ordered at any time by contacting us through the contact info listed above, even if it is not shown on our website store page.
We are also pleased to announce that we will record our first instrumental CD in December. Josh and I are combining our talents at the piano and other instruments to record a CD of hymns and gospel favorites. We will each play several songs by ourselves at the keyboard (as well as play some of the back-up instruments) and then play a piano duet. We also plan to record a couple of songs that will feature Josh at the piano with me switching playing three instruments in mid-song. We both want to record solo instrumental projects eventually, but for now this is looking to be a great step for our ministry. The thing that I feel will really make it interesting to listen to is that, although we have both been playing for ten years under the same five instructors, our personal playing styles sound nothing alike! Putting both of our playing on the same CD is sure to guarantee that you will hear a variety of styles and that no two songs will sound exactly alike. We hope to release it early this spring.
We are also actively booking tour dates for 2010, and are looking for new places to sing.
We hope all of our readers (OK, BOTH of you!) had a great Thanksgiving, and that the Lord will bless you and your churches this Christmas.
God bless all of you as we remember Who the next coming holiday is about,
-Stephen
We are excited to announce that our DVD is done and ready for sale! We received our first copies of it today a little earlier than we had expected, and it looks and sounds just great. I don't know when we will be able to get it up for display sale on our website (things have not improved with our website update problems) but you can order it or my new CD at any time by calling (810) 653-0089 or e-mailing us at foresterministries@yahoo.com . It is $15.00 by itself, or you can take advantage of special combo packs that we will be offering shortly. All of our product can be ordered at any time by contacting us through the contact info listed above, even if it is not shown on our website store page.
We are also pleased to announce that we will record our first instrumental CD in December. Josh and I are combining our talents at the piano and other instruments to record a CD of hymns and gospel favorites. We will each play several songs by ourselves at the keyboard (as well as play some of the back-up instruments) and then play a piano duet. We also plan to record a couple of songs that will feature Josh at the piano with me switching playing three instruments in mid-song. We both want to record solo instrumental projects eventually, but for now this is looking to be a great step for our ministry. The thing that I feel will really make it interesting to listen to is that, although we have both been playing for ten years under the same five instructors, our personal playing styles sound nothing alike! Putting both of our playing on the same CD is sure to guarantee that you will hear a variety of styles and that no two songs will sound exactly alike. We hope to release it early this spring.
We are also actively booking tour dates for 2010, and are looking for new places to sing.
We hope all of our readers (OK, BOTH of you!) had a great Thanksgiving, and that the Lord will bless you and your churches this Christmas.
God bless all of you as we remember Who the next coming holiday is about,
-Stephen
Friday, November 20, 2009
DVDs And Fish Guts
Have you ever wondered what life would be like without sea urchins? Neither have I! Anyway, as my brother stated in the last blog, our live DVD is VERY close to being released, so we hope you'll all enjoy it. If you don't, well... you'll just have to... I don't know, not buy it or something.
Just a quick poll, does anybody out there enjoy Chinese food? Anyone? Anyone at all? I had it for the second time/ first time in a loooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnngggg time today, and I had my first egg roll.... at least, that's what they told me it was. I bit into that thing and what I saw inside was DEFINITELY not egg! It looked liked six-week-old fish guts! That's why I'm writing this blog, because whatever it was, it'll probably kill me in my sleep. Maybe I should make this a last will and testament...
Stop by www.foresterministries.com to see our pics, bios, and schedule!
-Joshua
Just a quick poll, does anybody out there enjoy Chinese food? Anyone? Anyone at all? I had it for the second time/ first time in a loooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnngggg time today, and I had my first egg roll.... at least, that's what they told me it was. I bit into that thing and what I saw inside was DEFINITELY not egg! It looked liked six-week-old fish guts! That's why I'm writing this blog, because whatever it was, it'll probably kill me in my sleep. Maybe I should make this a last will and testament...
Stop by www.foresterministries.com to see our pics, bios, and schedule!
-Joshua
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Ministry update
Hey loyal readers (Both of you!....kidding) I apologize for taking soooooooo long to get you updated about our ministry happenings lately, but it seems to be increasingly hard to keep our blog posts current with college tying up much of our time either in attendance or homework. I am going to make a dilligent effort to update this spot at least once a week, even if it's done at 2:00 in the morning!
Speaking of college, Josh and I have just come through the cleansing fire of mid-terms. We both did very well in all of our classes, and in a couple of cases we actually did much better than we thought that we might do! We are glad that we have a breath of relief for right now........but finals are in December!
Our last couple of ministry dates went very well. Our services at Yale United Methodist and Dryden united Methodist went quite well. The people seemed to appreciate what we did and we a had a great time.
Next week we will be at Owendale United Methodist for an evening service, which we anticipate God will bless and make a great night for us and the church.
Our DVD is finished and the artwork has been sent to Nashville. We should be getting it back in the mail in about three weeks. It will be out in Dec. It may be some time before it and my new CD will be posted for sale on our product page of www.foresterministries.com , but you can by all of our product at any time by calling (810) 653-0089 or e-mailing us at foresterministries@yahoo.com .
Don't forget that today marks the opening day of firearm season in Mi. My schedule with college has curtaled my ability to get away to hunt for the last two years, but this year I have seen several deer on my land repeatedly, so I'll be trying to take advantge of that this week. If the folks at Owendale wonder why we don't show up on Sunday night..............well, you get the idea!
-Stephen
Speaking of college, Josh and I have just come through the cleansing fire of mid-terms. We both did very well in all of our classes, and in a couple of cases we actually did much better than we thought that we might do! We are glad that we have a breath of relief for right now........but finals are in December!
Our last couple of ministry dates went very well. Our services at Yale United Methodist and Dryden united Methodist went quite well. The people seemed to appreciate what we did and we a had a great time.
Next week we will be at Owendale United Methodist for an evening service, which we anticipate God will bless and make a great night for us and the church.
Our DVD is finished and the artwork has been sent to Nashville. We should be getting it back in the mail in about three weeks. It will be out in Dec. It may be some time before it and my new CD will be posted for sale on our product page of www.foresterministries.com , but you can by all of our product at any time by calling (810) 653-0089 or e-mailing us at foresterministries@yahoo.com .
Don't forget that today marks the opening day of firearm season in Mi. My schedule with college has curtaled my ability to get away to hunt for the last two years, but this year I have seen several deer on my land repeatedly, so I'll be trying to take advantge of that this week. If the folks at Owendale wonder why we don't show up on Sunday night..............well, you get the idea!
-Stephen
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