My Worship Revolution

I am not a morning person.  Once I’m up, I’m pretty good to go, but getting out of bed is probably the toughest chore I have to accomplish all day.  I hate mornings.

But twice a week, I get up when Caleb does now, giving my wife a few mornings to get a couple extra Z’s.  When I hear Caleb begin making some noise around 6:15am (or earlier at times), I slowly come to and lay there dreading the idea of stepping out into the cold world away from my covers.  I’ll usually, finally, get myself to move somewhere between 6:45 and 7.  For some of you that’s no big deal, in fact, it’s late.  Again though, for a night person, it’s torture.

But then I walk into Caleb’s room.  I pick him up and see the smile on his face and my day is all of a sudden a million times better.  Those mornings are some of the greatest times hangin out with my son.  We play together.  We laugh together.  Until I can tell he’s getting a little hungry and I get to feed him.  Here’s some pictures we took on the Macbook Pro this morning while we were hanging out:

I mean, just look at that face!  It makes waking up on Tuesdays and Fridays, two of the earliest mornings in my week, two of my favorite mornings in the week.

The Macvangelization has begun!

That’s right friends, my brief stint back in the underworld of PC is once again all over.  And it made me all the more appreciative of my friends at Apple.  After a couple weeks of CTRL-ALT-DEL and random freezing, CLC blessed a brother with a brand spankin new Macbook Pro! 

So yester day I drove "over the hill" (NorCal speak for "to San Jose") to Oakridge Mall.

I made my way to the Apple store.

And I returned to my office with my 15", 2.33 G processing, 2 GB RAM, wonder of technology.

So c’mon people!  Join me!  If you’re still using one of those inferior PC’s, what’s the deal?  Come on over.  I fought it for too long and I’m glad I finally crossed.  just wish I had done it sooner.  Don’t make the same mistake.  Today is the day!  If you got hit by a bus today, do you know…

When I was at Revolution Church, I kept everything on my laptop…everything!  Actually, it was the churches laptop.  So before leaving SoCal to come to CLC, Rachel and I bought a 500GB external hard drive so I could transfer all of my stuff onto there to put on my new computer eventually.  (Yeah…you can probably see where this one is going.)

And so I’ve had it plugged into my PC here at the office using things from it as I needed them, intending to soon either transfer it all onto this computer or a laptop if I was able to get one.  So on Monday, after putting a capture card in the Vaio and putting it back together, I have the hard drive turned on and on top of the tower.  I’m fixing something on the PC, bump it a little, and the hard drive falls about six inches and hits a small pipe going to an electrical outlet.  Hard drive failed.

Yup.  Thousands of songs…gone.  Hundreds of pictures…gone.  Lots of chord charts…gone.  Papers from all of my classes at Vanguard, dramas I had written and others I’ve picked up along the way, rosters with phone numbers and contact info, videos I created at Revolution, and more…all GONE!

The hard drive is being replaced under warranty.  But after a bit of research, I’ve discovered that recovering the data off the drive could easily cost $1500-$2000.  I guess I can use this as a reminder.

1. Back up the data.  Although it wouldn’t help much here as I was transferring it, it’s a good reminder of how quickly it can all disappear.
2. Maybe some things aren’t as important as I think they they are.  There’s nothing on there I really can’t live without.  Hey, I guess our "fresh start" up north will just be a little fresher.

So yeah…that’s the bad news alright.  But!  The good news should be coming in a soon to appear post…

It’s a few days late, but you didn’t think I was gonna let it go, now did ya?  Here’s a little talk through from Sunday night.  Lighting kinda sucks, but you get the point.

I was doing my daily RSS check this morning when I came across a post at Ragamuffin Soul.  Every so often I come across something as a result of someone’s blog that really hits me and effects my day, my outlook, makes me really think.  The post directed me to check out this message.

It’s a message from this past Sunday morning from a church that is in serious crisis.  It was one of the best messages I’ve heard from a church dealing with a moral failure that I’ve heard.  It was also one of the most heartbreaking, scary, and encouraging messages I’ve heard in a while.  Strange mix…I know.  If you haven’t yet, go listen/watch.  The reasons it raised those emotions in me:

• Heartbreaking.  I don’t know any of the pastors at this church.  I don’t know any attenders at this church.  I am only somewhat familiar with a blogger who attends the church.  Yet I still felt like I had to choke back a tear or two as I heard the news.  I guess I just imagine the amount of pain in the lives of those directly involved as well as the entire community in and outside of that churches walls.
• Scary.  Scary on 2 counts.  1)  I know that as time goes on there will come crisis that I cannot control.  It’s just a fact of life.  I’ve had a couple, but I’m reminded that I probably have my fair share ahead.  I know I have Jesus and can make it through, but I still don’t look forward to them.  But I loved the reminder that God is not nearly as concerned about my comfort as he is about my character, that I be shaped and formed into the image of Jesus Christ.  2)  I have within me the potential to mess up.  I know myself and that I am just as jacked up as the next guy, and the next pastor.  We all have the capacity in us to sin.  It may not be in the same way as this pastor, but we all screw up.  I will keep on clinging to Jesus and trusting that he can keep me from the big stuff.  I hope my fear of falling hard will be just one of many factors to help keep me from that.
• Encouraging.  The best part was the reminder that God still uses jacked up peeps like me.  I often wonder if I can truly be effective in ministry because while I know my strengths, I am probably doubly aware of all my weakness.  I fear that those weaknesses will keep me from being an effective leader and pastor, and I tend to focus on them.  But it’s great to know that it really isn’t about me!  That’s something I think I needed to be reminded of this morning.  God can and will use me and the way He has uniquely formed me to radically impact peoples lives for Christ.  That being said, I’m gonna go make a difference with the rest of my day now.  I invite you to go and do the same.

Sometimes this kid cracks me up.

No, not Caleb.  So you can stop worrying.  My other baby…my Martin.

Ed is in my office helping me move some furniture around when he looks over at my guitar and the words come out of his mouth.  "Bobby, did you get a crack on your guitar or something?"

I respond, "No, what are you talking about?"  And then I see it.  My heart sinks.  See for yourself:

Or how about a closer look…

No clue how it happened.  And it’s bigger than it look in the picture.  It was just sitting in my office.  No fall.  As far as I know, nothing bumped it hard.  Luckily, because there really is no sign of impact, it looks like it should be mostly covered by the warranty.

It still makes me sad, though.

And so I have given into the peer pressure of one blogging friend, Mr. Carlos Whittaker, to join in the list of those sharing our worship experiences each week.  I kinda half way gave in a few times with the Behind the Scenes videos, but today marks the beginning of my worship confessionals as I share this journey at CLC with you.

They should get more creative in the future, but no time today.  I need to get out of here to celebrate the resurrection by playing games and being a glutton.  Have a Happy Easter!  (And Jamie…you’re next.  I expect to see some of these poppin up on your blog soon!)

Watch and enjoy:

This is a video I edited together a few years ago for a Good Friday service.  It’s been on my You Tube for a while now, but I just felt like it was worth reposting on this Good Friday.  It’s probably still one of my favorite videos I ever put together.  It’s continually been a good reminder to me of what Christ endured as a result of my sins.
Reflect.

Today for lunch I head out with our pastor, youth pastor and children’s pastor for lunch at Acapulco’s. 

It’s a Mexican place downtown in Santa Cruz…thought I’d see how the Mexican grub is up here in NorCal.  Of course I didn’t get a real good feel for it being that, as Jane pointed out, my BBQ chicken quesadilla isn’t exactly the most Mexican dish there.

However, I must say it was pretty darn good!  We met up with Sam who is on the worship team and starting a pretty rockin "Deliverance" ministry up here and Ryan who’s in it with him.

So yeah, all that to say, it’s kinda weird to be back in that place of getting to know the people I work with and will be sharing my life with for the coming years.  It’s been an interesting transition already.  There have been the great parts and the difficult parts.  Not difficult as in bad though.  Just adjusting to going from a place where I totally knew what I was doing, what was going on, and overseeing moving ministries to jumping in and trying to learn the culture and systems.  Luckily there are lots of great peeps around to help in the process.

And in the midst of it all I’m getting things ready for my debut Sunday which just so happens to be Easter Sunday!  What a ride!!  And finally, I think some of them staff and CLC peeps need to start some blogs soon, cause there are like five people named in this post and I can’t link any of them.  I guess I’ll have to start a CLC bloggers list in the sidebar and let it stay blank as a glaring reminder to those who visit that we need some new bloggage, or you need to direct me to the one you have!  And to you CLC’ers…welcome!!  Stoked to be on the journey with ya!