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Top 10 Myths About joyful noise Xpress
Think you know what jnX is all about? Over the years many people have often asked us questions about jnX or
have offered remarks on their perception of jnX. Here are the top 10 misconceptions we have heard:
1. jnX is just another music group that "performs" evangelistic or praise concerts.
We do present praise concerts and are often invited to lead worship or provide music programs for local churches, but the heart of our ministry has always been to equip the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:12) by providing training in worship and music. Even when we are "playing music or worship" at a concert, we are not simply "performing music"; all that we do, onstage and off, is an offering to God with a goal to bless people and bring them into the presence of our dear Lord.
2. jnX has nothing to do with missions.
In fact, jnX was formed as a mission group, not just another music group. We are a group of worship missionaries. No matter what we do, our ultimate goal is for mission. When our lives are transformed as we worship God, the natural outcome is to extend and share what we have experienced to those that have not been touched by God’s love and power. Oftentimes we go to places that not many others are willing to go. We go there not to promote or sell our CDs but because there are needs and we are invited. We "partner" with local churches to help develop their worship/ music teams to bless their own congregation and to reach the unchurched. We want to impact lives through our lives – the lives we have offered to God – both locally and overseas.
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| jnX 2006 Budget |
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| Budget |
Amount ($USD) |
Ministry Trips Expenses
(US & Abroad) |
$33,000 |
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| CD Projects (different language versions) |
$45,000 |
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| Part Time Co-workers Payroll |
$60,000 |
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| Office Operation Expenses |
$9,000 |
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| Fundraising Event Expenses |
$3,000 |
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| Total $ 150,000 |
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3. jnX must have a lot of financial resources to be able to go to so many places within several
years and must have received many honorariums from their many overseas invitations.
Yes, we have been to many places in the past several years – actually every year we get more invitations than we can handle. Not including the places we have gone to in the US, our overseas service has brought us to: Hong Kong, Singapore, NE India, China, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia; and last year God opened the door to Ghana and the Philippines for the first time.
But, even with the amazing number of places we have traveled, we have never had a lot of financial resources to fund those trips. Most of the places we go do not have the resources to pay us any honorarium and we have never charged a fee for our services. In some cases, we have even donated our CDs to the local churches for them to sell to raise funds for their work. We are not a church with a regular donor base and in fact, we are supported by a very small number of donors. We operate 100% by faith without any financial backing from any denominations. Our board of directors and team members are mainly volunteers with regular jobs. Some of them don’t even have a full-time paid job. All the trips were made possible only by God’s provision through fundraising and supporters’ love offerings. Whenever we have raised funds for our ministry trips, we were only able to raise just enough funds to break even. Every time we need to travel somewhere, we have to start our fundraising efforts all over again.
4. jnX must have a well-connected network, to have been to so many countries within a short period of time. How does jnX get contacted?
Well-connected? Absolutely not. And quite honestly, we are just starting to learn how to promote ourselves and we don’t have any time or manpower to put into networking. A great portion of invitations have come simply through word of mouth or from people who learned about us from our website. These invitations have all been "open doors" God has used to send us where He wanted us to go.
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5. Judging from the professional quality of the website, jnX must be a large organization with many employees!
Regarding our website, we have to thank Tim Chan for volunteering his time and expertise to single-handedly build and develop our
website. Later, Jason Woo and Anthony Leung joined the web team. In addition to helping redesign the website, they have now taken up the task of maintaining the website. What you see on the site was primarily accomplished by volunteers. So far we cannot afford to hire any full-time staff nor rent an office space. We are only a very small organization but with a very big heart for Kingdom ministry work. Even though we are mainly volunteer-based, we always give our best because our Lord deserves the best.
6. jnX can only use musicians in their ministry.
That is not true! Our work goes beyond the worship team onstage. Actually we need even more non-musicians to help out in
different areas like prayer support, administration, writing, translation, marketing/promotion, networking, web maintenance, graphic design, photography and video, and sound engineering. If you have a heart to serve and share our vision, there will always be a place for you to use your skills in jnX. It is our prayer that those who serve through jnX, will experience transformation in their lives by drawing closer to God and will become a blessing to their own church communities.
7. All nonprofits have to raise funds every year; why hasn’t jnX asked for financial support from the mission
departments of churches?
We have been introduced to some churches’ mission boards by their church members. But we were not "qualified" to apply for any
financial support as we are not a "missionary agency" and we only do short term mission work. So the problem is not about what we do or whether we need any financial support. Rather, under their guidelines and definitions, they do not categorize or see us as a "mission group" even though the nature of our work is, in fact, missions.
8. If jnX is able to generate income through offering training and CD sales, why does jnX continue to raise funds?
We don’t have a set fee for our training for churches. We simply receive love offerings or an honorarium every time we serve.
Most of the time we have received offerings for our service but there were times we didn’t even get a thank you note, let alone
an honorarium! Regarding CD sales, frankly speaking, we haven’t yet made any profits in producing and selling CDs. It is very
challenging for an organization with very limited resources like us to produce a CD. We don’t have money to do promotion or
the manpower to work on marketing and distribution. Besides, we can’t stop people from making and distributing pirated
versions. Therefore, fundraising is the main source of revenue to support our work.
9. jnX has gone to China and Taiwan and other regions in Asia but jnX has also served in places like India and Africa. Are there Chinese in India and Africa?
When we first started, we thought we would only serve Chinese primarily. But His ways is higher than our ways. His love transcends all nations, cultures and races. He sent us to North East India, Ghana and the Philippines to serve the local people. Even though they normally speak in their own dialects, we could communicate with them in English. So far we have primarily served the church communities that speak Cantonese, Mandarin or English. However, we are committed to being a cross-cultural and non-denominational
ministry which is reflected both in the make-up of our team and the people and churches we serve.
10. The jnX worship team is really good. Do they rehearse regularly?
The answer is NO. First of all, since jnX is mainly volunteer-based, there is no such thing as an actual "fixed" jnX worship team. Each time we are offered a new ministry opportunity, we must form a new team, with God’s grace, from the musician resources that fill the need and are available. In addition, we don’t have a place that we can practice anytime we need or want. We are praying that God will provide a multi-purpose office space for us so we can have a place not only to rehearse regularly but also to offer on-going workshops to bless local churches.
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