My Worship Revolution

Just got home this evening from our staff advance.  We spent a night camping
together in Big Sur.  I’m wiped!

In between all the fun stuff of campfires, smores, and visits from our neighbor campers we spent time strategizing and working through ministry philosophies and plans in anticipation of what God is going to do here through CLC.  As a staff we have been reading through Simple Church together.  It has been an amazing book that has really got us heading in a good direction.  I am pumped to see our ministry process of creating disciples take more form and begin to make an even greater impact through changed lives within our community.

Today Rachel and Caleb joined the team for lunch and some fun, bonding hiking time.  Actually, it was more of an excursion than a hike.  more climbing over rocks through streams to find the perfect water hole to relax and play in.  Not easy with a baby on your back, but it was a blast!

Yup, you saw it here.  Caleb’s first official skinny dip.  Doesn’t the picture look so Santa Cruz?

It was a great getaway with the team.  I have to say, our lead pastor, Ed, is an amazing team leader.  He has led in pulling together an awesome team of ministers who are all so passionate about Jesus and about reaching Santa Cruz, and it’s been amazing wrestling through our process together.  In fact, I honestly love that we don’t even always agree with each other, but we share openly and honestly, challenge each other, and work through it together.  I’m stoked to see what God is going to do through this team He has assembled!

I know it’s weird but I hate it when a female puts on eyeliner in a moving car.  One accident, and BOOM, there goes that eye!  I actually had a friend who was an EMT and said he had actually seen that in the ER a number of times, chicks with pencils right in the eyeball.

Anyway, yesterday I was driving home from the office and couldn’t believe what I saw:

Ok, it’s one thing to put it on when you’re riding, but yeah!  Ahe’s in the driver seat!  And we weren’t exactly stopped either.  Close, but we were moving a good 20 mph.  And not even a hand on the wheel…barely an eye on the road for that matter!!  And they outlaws cellphone handset use in the car?  Arrgghhh!!

Anyway, that’s all.  Rant over.

Quite a while back, our congregation voted to renovate, update, and clean up our church building.  We’re finally getting going on some projects and are way stoked to be seeing progress!

Over the past many years much of this building has not really been kept up and is in need for some serious repair.  The first big project will be completely redoing the kitchen and the bathrooms.  Right now, if you sit on the men’s toilet you barely fit and your knees knock against the french doors in front of you.  Due to crummy pipes and stuff the bathrooms back up and flood regularly.

Another horrible sight at our church has been the carpet when you enter the building.  To be honest, it’s been pretty embarrassing!  Well, those of you who attend will see it completely gone this weekend.  We ripped it all out in anticipation of moving on this whole deal.  Here’s a couple of pics of what it looked like:

And out it goes!!

An improvement already if you ask me!!

And yeah, all that dirt was sitting underneath that nasty carpet.

Better late than never, eh?

As I went to leave for the office I kissed my my wife, and said goodbye.
As if on cue, my (almost) 10 month old son waved and said "buh, buh."
We both laughed (Rachel and I).
I stopped, put my stuff down, picked him up, gave him a huge hug and a kiss, and said "see ya bud!"
Grabbed my stuff, smiled at Rachel, and walked out the door.
As the door closed, I heard Caleb start crying.
I’m sure he got over it pretty quick, but…

It’s nice to feel loved!

Alright…9 weeks in.  That means only about 4 more left!  Where has the time gone!  So, here’s where I’m at:

current pledges = $25.01 per pound

weigh in:      173.2 lbs
week1:        168.2 lbs    total loss:  5lbs         =    $125.05
week2:        166.6 lbs    total loss:  6.6 lbs     =    $165.07
week3:        163.6 lbs    total loss:  9.6 lbs     =    $240.10
week4:        165.8 lbs    total loss:  7.4 lbs     =    $185.07
week5:        164.4 lbs    total loss:  8.8 lbs     =    $220.09
week6:         ummm…
week7:        163.2 lbs    total loss:  10 lbs      =    $250.10
week8:        161.2 lbs.   total loss:  12 lbs      =    $300.12

And this week…

Make a Pledge – Make a Difference

For more info and what not, check out the new page I tossed together to explain the Tri To Lose deal, just for those of you who maybe haven’t been around too long.

A while back I joined a group of bloggers in an event called the "Blogger Big Butt Weight Loss Challenge."  You see while as many have pointed out, I am not morbidly obese or anything, I have managed to gain one heck of a gut over the past couple of years and was ready to shed off the pounds.  Eventually, that competition fizzled and disappeared quietly.

With the lack of competitive motivation, my weight loss also fizzled and some pounds reappeared.  In search for a new motivation, besides by disgusting gut and the prospect of dying prematurely, an idea occurred to me.  After consulting with my bloggin friend Transition Pete, we joined forces and Tri To Lose was born.

West Coast and East Coast teamed up to create this video which explained the concept.

The Plan

I had some friends who had once used weight loss to raise support for a missions trip via weight loss.  I wasn’t going on any missions trip, so this wouldn’t work.  but what if we could actually make a difference in the world while losing weight by asking people to sponsor us for a worthy cause?

The Cause

The longest running war on the globe right now is taking place in Uganda, Africa.  It is a civil war being led by the rebel cause of The Lord’s Resistance Army.  As part of the war, children are being abducted, forced to murder their own parents and fight in this war against their own will.

Several years ago, three film makers visited Uganda, filmed a documentary about these children, and Invisible Children was born.  Since the creation of the movie, thousands have seen the movie and awareness has sky rocketed across the country.  People are discovering that they can make a difference, and hopefully aid in bringing an end to an unjust war.

It looks, possibly, like peace is finally becoming a reality in Uganda, in part due to the efforts of so many here in the States.  But there are still lives that need repairing, children who need a hope for the future, and relief work to be done.

Tri To Lose

We tagged onto Invisible Children’s Tri campaign, where they challenged people to give up one cup of Starbucks a week to give $3/week to help the cause of saving these children.  Pete, My Wife, and I, all hoping to lose weight, each led the way in pledging $3/pound for whatever weight we lost between May 16th and August 15th.  In addition, we ask that you too would consider supporting us, and together we can raise some extra money to make a difference on across the world.  It’s never too late to join us.  Will you help too?

             Make a Pledge – Make a Difference

Click here to see my weight loss updates.

So this is a resource I’ve been using for a couple of months now, and I would say it is a must have for you worship leaders out there.  Another friend told me he doesn’t know what he ever did without it.

I tried using worshipplanning.com for a bit when I was at Revolution.  While it was useful as well, I’ve found Planning Center to be a whole lot more user friendly and customizable.  My favorite features:

• Scheduling abilities, including ability to view in a matrix format that is really good at looking forward and back at elements/songs used in services as well as people scheduled.
• Ability to post mp3’s and chord charts for the team to look at in advance.
• Easy to read print out of service flow or production volunteers to follow.
• Ability for people to black out dates on their calendars for the sake of scheduling (will be even nicer if I can get them to use it).
• Song database with charting abilityies that make it easy to change keys or make capoed versions.

Anyway, those are just a few.  Being that it’s been a great tool for me, I thought it would be fair to pimp it to you.  So if you need some help with your organizing and communication check it out.

The one thing that I am discovering would make it an even more useful tool is if I could get my sets planned a little further out, instead of the week of which is typical for me now.  I’m hoping to get at least 2-3 weeks out.  How about you other leaders out there?  How far in advance do you plan your sets?  Just wondering.

And who else is using Planning Center?  Leaders?  Volunteers?  How do you like it?  You have somethin better?  (Like an intern?)

…brought to you from Coffee Cat.

Escaped to Coffee Cat in Scotts Valley to get away from the office for a bit.  I feel stifled when I’m there too long.  As I sat down, I had a few random thoughts….

1. Glass Mugs.  When I first went to coffee shops in high school you got real dishes everywhere.  Now it seems like every place uses paper junk.  I like the glass.
2. Man, this is a good white chocolate mocha!  Way better than Starbucks.
3. Man, this white chocolate mocha is definitely not on my diet.
4. I’m glad I didn’t ride my bike today.  If I had, I wouldn’t be drinking this white chocolate mocha…at least not here anyway.
5. I wonder what the lady next to me thought as I took a picture of myself drinking.  Actually, she probably didn’t notice.
6. Scotts Valley is cool and all, but are there any minorities in the city?  If so, they aren’t at Coffee Cat.
7. I like this place cause there’s free Wifi.
8. Do they really not have website for me to link to???  Nope, just asked the barista…they don’t.  I guess they’ve been supposedly working on one for like 2 years or somethin.  For that long, it had better be one darned good website!!
9. I like the vibe here.  Much more creative.  I needed the stimulation this afternoon to get through my work.
10. Hey, I’d better get to work and stop randomly thinking so I can have dinner with my family before Life Group Training tonight.  Lates.

I like change.  And I was about due for one around here!  So I did a little cleaning up on the web page last night.  So if you’re reading this via RSS, come stop by and let me know what you think.

Overall, I tried to make it a little bit cleaner.  Here’s a few of the highlights:

Banner
Thanks to my brother-in-law, Joel Beukelman for the killer new banner.  I’ve been wanting to change it for a while, but won’t be getting Photoshop for another week or two.  Besides, I couldn’t have done it nearly as well as he did.  If I had his skills, I’d probably make a new banner every month!  I mentioned him in my last post as an amazing artist/photographer/graphic designer.  He also just got engaged.  (Woohoo!)  Swing by his new blog and hear the story of how he asked.  It’s pretty sweet.

Fave Five
Just recently got the fave five plan with T-mobile.  Along with it, I thought I’d let you know my fave five blogs, the ones you gotta stop by and see sometime.  This list may change from time to time, so just don’t be offended.  Remember?  I like change.  Here’s a bit more about who’s on there now:

Babulife – Ben Abu Saada.  He’s there cause he’s one of the first guys I connected with as a "friend" when I started doing this whole blogging thing.  He’s a worship leader as well, a family guy, and an all around really cool dude.
Ragamuffin Soul – Carlos Whittaker.  Another worship leader I’ve come to see as a "friend".  He leads at Sandals Church in Riverside where they are up to some great stuff.  He’s also a Blog Freak, lots of post, and most of them really high quality.  Great posts on worship, faith, and family.
Jonathon Herron.  Church planter in Ohio.  I still hate Ohio, but I found his blog a while back, before they started, and the success and vision of the church has been awesome to follow.
Monday Morning Insight.  Great blog with multiple posts daily.  A great place to keep informed and discuss the real world happenings of innovative churches, as well as blogosphere happenings.
*UPDATE: Todd Rhoades runs this site.  Thanks for the shout out bro!  He does a lot of work for Leadership Network, started churchstaffing.com, and also has a lot of very insightful thoughts to share.  He is a stud, too.  (Sorry Todd, but the "freaking" is still reserved for Steven.) 
Steven Furtick.  This guy is a freaking stud.  Pastor in North Carolina of a church plant about a year and half old.  The dude is 27.  He got several families to leave everything and move to start this church.  Now it’s running well over 1500 people with 2 campuses.  Insane.  And he consistently has insightful, challenging, and inspiring leadership posts.

My Family
Somehow I’ve managed to suck most of my family into this blogging thing…and I love it!  Go check em out.  You’re next Rog!

Worship Leaders
Since some of the people comin around are other worship leaders, I thought I’d direct you to some others who are in the game with us.  If you want to see who else is doing Worship Confessionals, well, I didn’t feel like putting that list up.  Go to Ragamuffin Soul or The Wonderful Noise as they both have pretty good lists of those, and each one seems to cover whoever the other forgot.

I also got rid of a few things that were just cluttering it up.  I still hope to add a few new pages now that you can do that with Typepad, but no time right now.  Maybe later in the week!  And by the way, if you’re linking here and I somehow missed you on any of my link lists, please let me know.  I’m happy to share the love!

Happy Surfing!