My Worship Revolution

If you know me well enough, or even a little but, you know that organization is far from being a gift I possess.  All I have to say is, if you’ve ever seen my office, why not have my computer match my desk?  Check out this video.  The idea kinda makes sense to me!
[via Pete]

Have I ever mentioned that we have the raddest life group in America?  So yesterday we came home from the hospital, and it was also life group night at our home.  We had a couple other people leading for the night so that we wouldn’t have to think about it.

Well, I started to get really suspicious at right around 7:26pm when nobody but Steph and Kevin had arrived for life group yet.  We start at 7, but everyone knows we hang and eat for 30 minutes and don’t really start till 7:30.  All of a sudden, like 15 people jump out from the back room and yell surprise, then go on to sing happy birthday to Caleb.  They had all met elsewhere, snuck in the back door and set up for Caleb’s birthday party.  We had a fun night of introducing Caleb to the life group, letting everyone hold him, eating lots of food, and then them praying for our family.

Thank you guys so much for being such a great "family" to be a part of.  I love doing life with all of you!  Here are a couple of pictures from the night.

OK, so yeah, you can probably expect a number of posts about Caleb in the next few weeks.  I guess we’re excited.  Here’s a few pics I grabbed from Will, so make sure you check them out and a few more at his post.  They’re some shots of a few friends meeting him for the first time. 

Any one else out here that has some extra pics we don’t have, please be sure to e-mail me!  Soon enough I’ll start an album of Caleb pics.

 

            

P.S.  I’m tired.  Rachel’s way more tired!!

That’s right, he’s finally here!!  Rachel started having consistent contractions at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday night.  We left for the hospital at close to midnight, and at 6:27am on Sunday morning he was born.  8 lb, 5 oz.  Take a look:

Rachel did an amazing job!!  I am so proud of her.  And she even managed to get through the whole thing without an epidural or any pain medication!  She’s doing a great job recovering, but didn’t get much sleep last night as you can imagine.  We go home from Long Beach Memorial Hospital on Tuesday.

It was great to have lots of friends and family come by and meet Caleb yesterday.  It’s already been a crazy experience, and I’m not sure how much it’s really sunk in that I’m actually a daddy now.  Talk about the most ridiculous rush of emotions over the past 48 hours.  WOW.

The name isn’t on the birth certificate quite yet, but we finally made the final decision this afternoon:

Caleb: Hebrew – faithful, bold.  Numers 14:24.  In the Old Testament, Caleb was one of the 12 spies that scouted out the Promised Land.  Only he and Joshua saw what the Lord truly had for them and were courageous enough to move into God’s plan for His people.  We are told that Caleb had a different spirit and followed God whole-heartedly.  I want to see our Caleb grow up to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. I pray that he will be a bold man of faith who will follow God whole-heartedly, who will be unafraid to speak loudly of God’s plan, regardless of what seems impossible to human understanding.

Genesis: Hebrew – origin, beginning.  We like this name because of the significance of Caleb being our first child.  He is the beginning of our own family.  It’s also kinda fun cause it is his "Uncle Will"s middle name, too.

Marchessault: Just got stuck with that one.   Sorry kiddo!

Even as I type those words my eyes fill with tears as I imagine what can and will become of our family and our son.  Rachel and I are so thankful to our family and friends who have been so supportive and I know will continue to provide a great community to be parents in.  It’s definitely a new season of life now!  I finally got to sleep last night, and when I woke up, I wasn’t quite sure if it had all really happened. 

There will be lots of pictures still to come, but here’s one more of the new fam (even if you can’t see Caleb’s face, it’s what we have for now).

This past week at church, we started our new series, "a.k.a. God: Discovering God Through His Names."  For the new decor we decided we wanted to do a graffiti art sort of look.  So I called up an old friend Jerry who I used to attend church with.  He brought his friend Robin from his crew, and they did an amazing job. 

Here’s some shots of them and the art for those of you that haven’t had the opportunity to see it yet.

A huge thanks goes out to those guys for helping us create another awesome atmosphere to worship in.  The decor will change again in a few weeks, and we always welcome people helping to make it happen, so if you’re interested, you know who to talk to!

Made a character of myself, see what you think:

I showed it to Rachel and the first thing she said was, "You aren’t that skinny."  Thanks babe!  I guess someone’s gotta keep me humble.

Go make one of yourself!
[via Los]

Here’s a slideshow of pics from the first 3 years at our church.  We showed this at our 1096 worship night and album recording.  Lots of great memories from a lot of important events over the past 3 years.

Sunday morning at 6am I got the call from my brother in law that my sister was in labor.  They had gone into the hospital at midnight and ended up having Ryan Michael Farmer at 11:06 a.m. by c-section.

Last night, Rachel and I cruised down to San Diego after our first Sunday night service so we could visit and see the baby.  Unfortunately, Megan was still recovering from a very rough labor and operation, but she was feeling a lot better by the time we left in the afternoon.  Please keep her in your prayers as she continues to recover over the next couple days.  (P.S. – she got a bit bored at home during pregnancy and started her own blog – check it out here.  I love it – now my family is converting to blogging!)

The baby is absolutely beautiful!!  I’m such a proud uncle!  And it was so fun to see Tim so excited about being a dad.  Here’s some pics from our visit.

Their pastor – also mine and Megan’s old youth pastor – John Rose, put it well in a card he gave them:

September 17th, 2006 was a great day in San Diego sports history.  The Padres won 4-1 over the Dodgers to take first place, the Chargers won 40-7 over the Titans, and Ryan Michael Farmer entered the world.

Congratulations Megan and Tim!!!

Hopefully we won’t be far behind!  Rachel is due on Sunday (September 24), but we are definitely on baby watch this week, hoping for an early arrival.  To weigh in on when you think he’ll come, visit Rachel’s blog.  My vote is for tomorrow.

That’s how long Revolution Church has existed.  I guess today would be 1097 days of ministry.  We celebrated last night with our first live recording for an album titled 1096.

Dave has an amazing post on his blog outlining a number of his learnings through 3 years of church planting.  Make sure you go by and read it here.

On Sunday morning David and the lead team shared our vision at the church through our 10 year birthday.  By the year 2013, Revolution Church will be one church with 8 locations in the communities surrounding Long Beach.  We’re joining the multi-site revolution!  This brings on lots of challenges accompanied by lots more exciting opportunities to reach people with Good News of Jesus Christ. 

The target sites: Lakewood (already there), Bellflower (launching ’07), North Long Beach, Downtown Long Beach, Belmont Shore, Compton, Carson, San Pedro.  I’m excited to see the great things that God is going to do through us in the next 7 years.  Check out this video we showed on Sunday morning of those areas and the people we hope to reach.

Saw this today…

…get it?