My Worship Revolution

That’s the question we asked kids at VBS a few weeks ago. This video was our intro for the message on Ephesians 5. It’s a pretty tough topic with lots of different viewpoints, so it was a fun way to kinda break the ice as we talked about our need to be in charge. Check out some of the funny answers we got!

One of the things I love to do in order to get ideas for creativity, see what else is going on that I can learn from, and just do some worshipping is visit other churches whenever I can. There is a short list of places I’ve been wanting to check out for a while, but haven’t had the chance to, and of course it’s next to impossible to visit on Sunday mornings when we have services.

So I’ve decided I’m going to be real intentional about scheduling some visits with the Sunday nights I have available fo the rest of this summer. A lot of them are filled up already, so here’s the plan for what’s left:

Sunday July 23 – Sandals Church
Rachel and I have some friends, Rob and Leah, who attend this church. We’ve been talking about wanting to hang with them sometime forever now, so we decided we should cruise out there to their Sunday night service and hang out with them afterward. Some of you may be familiar with this church also from their worship pastor Los’ blog. Been wanting to visit also after following his blog and hearing about all the great stuff God is up to there.

Sunday August 6 – ROCKharbor: Shark Club
This is a multisite venue for ROCKharbor that meets at the Shark Club in Costa Mesa. I always enjoy visiting ROCKharbor, and with my interest in checking out multisite venues and seeing how they work, I’ve been wanting to visit here for quite a while now. I’ve also heard all sorts of great stuff about the worship pastor there, Drew Bray.

Sunday August 27 – Mosaic Church
Another church I’ve wanted to visit for a long time but never gotten around to. Mosaic is very well known for a lot of their arts stuff (and for Erwin McManus, of course) so I’d love to see what they’re up to. I met a few weeks ago with their arts director, David Arcos, who gave me some great thoughts. Some other leaders in the arts and I should be going with David and mosaic up to their Artisan Retreat in the mountains the following weekend, so that should be a fun weekend to visit.

So that’s the plan for now. May change if anything comes up, but i’m hoping not. May even throw in an extra on a Saturday night or somethin. Would loave to go visit North Coast Church again with Rachel sometime. (Wow…i just noticed there’s lots of links in this post, huh? Have fun surfin! And I never did add part 2 of the North Coast visit. I guess I should get on that.)

If anyone wants to come along to any of those, let me know. The more the merrier!

Ok, so this post actually has nothing to do with off roading or my Jeep that was totaled which is in the picture.  It just made me think about my old Jeep and I wanted to tell you all how much I still miss her.

Anyway, so what is 4X4?  It was started earlier this year by Alvin and Lori as a way to get to know some other couples at church better.
4 couples.
4 months.
4 dates.
Each couple takes a turn planning the date.
At the end of 4 months, each couple picks 3 other couples to join them and it continues to multiply.

So this past Sunday night was our first 4X4 experience going out with the Alvin and Lori Velarde, Bart and Lindsey Boulton, and Richie and Selena Garcia.  We had dinner at P.F. Chang’s and had a great time sharing stories and getting to know each other better.

Afterward we walked across the street to the ferris wheel at The Pike.  Little did we know that Rachel and Lori couldn’t ride because they were pregnant.  Are you serious?  I mean I can understand a roller coaster, but a ferris wheel?  It’s like an elevator that makes you a little dizzy?  Regardless, we had a great time together.  Sorry, didn’t get any pictures so you’ll just have to enjoy the memorial to my Jeep up above.

So next month we do it again and it’s mine and Rachel’s turn to plan the date.  We want to do something really fun and creative or different.  Any idea’s?

As all of you regular readers have probably figured out, I am quickly on the road to becoming a Mac evangelist, and beyond hope at this point.  I do, however, want this to be an equal opportunity space on the web, and I understand that some of you are still stuck in your stubborn PC ways as I once was.

So for you, I thought I’d share this website: iDont.com.  Check it out.. it’s actually pretty funny!  (Thanks Maureen for the link.)

I do have to admit however, it is kinda funny how Mac began, and is often branded still, as the product for the person wanting to be different and unique, even though now it seems to have become the trendy thing to have.  I just switched over finally cause they just have a better product.  That’s all.

So I’m taking a page out of Carlos Whittaker’s book over at Ragamuffin Soul. He asked for some suggestions on a good point and shoot camera and got what he needed without the hours of research. “What a great idea” I thought to myself.

You see with a kid on the way, Rachel wants to get a good video camera to capture the moments. And since I love shooting and editing video, I’m lovin the idea. But I have no idea what the good consumer models out there are. Any suggestions to save me some researching time? Thanks again for the idea Los!

Everyday as I learn more about who God is and my understanding of worship changes and grows, that word "community" becomes more and more important.  I am recognizing more and more that we are created and built to live in community with each other.  We are created and built to worship God in the context of community, not as lone rangers.  Here’s a few thoughts that have really blown my mind lately:

• God said "Let us make mankind in our image."  I used to think that was proof for the trinity, but not anymore.  There’s already evidence for that in the first few verses of Genesis.  Because God is the trinity, a fellowship, he created us to be the same way.
• Because God created us to be a fellowship, and that is His image, I cannot be the image of God without the people around me.  I really need other people and relationships to fully be the image of God.
• Acts 2:42-47.  Acts 2:42 is like a part of our mantra here at Revolution.  It’s in our site name.  We have 242ministries as a non-profit and 242resources for podcasts and vodcasts.  These verses convey a radical sense of community.  I learned recently of a writer whose thesis was that this sense of community – way beyond evangelism as we know it today – is what was the cause for the rapid growth of the first century church.  (Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity)

That’s where the church becomes so important.  As long as there are people in the church, there will be sin, so we will never get it fully right.  But we need to be there together, cheering each other on in the journey.  We need to be caring for each other and about one another.  It may sound odd in this conversation, but that’s one of the things I love about this blog world we live in, believe it or not.  Should it replace relationship and personal touch…no way.  But it’s an amazing tool to help in creating community and staying connected.  I know more of what’s happening in my immediate community and have been able to form community with people I never would have connected with otherwise.

Anyway, that’s what’s in my head right now.  That’s one of the things God is teaching me right now.  I need to work more and more at building relationships and living in community and walking daily with the people around me.  That’s how he’s changing my life.  How about you?  How is he changing yours?

So I just used my iChat feature for the first time with Trotter, just to try it out (even though he was 2 doors down and I could hear his voice through the hallway).  The video chatting option is freakin rad!  Now I just have to figure out what friends of mine have Macs and iChat so I can use it every so often.  I guess you can use AIM without a Mac, eh?  It just doesn’t seem nearly as cool.

Drop me a hello sometime so I can fill up my buddy list!  AIM screen name: bmarch242.  Now I just need to learn how to block anything when I’m busy so I don’t get easily distracted!

Many of you may have recently heard me refer to soccer as a communist sport.  I think it is one of the lamest sports ever.  I don’t mind if my son plays it in his early childhood years, but I think my greatest fear is that he will like the sport and play it through high school or something.  It would be like God’s way of punishing me for something I guess.

Anyway, needless to say, I could care less about the World Cup.  Due to my feelings about soccer, I kinda enjoyed the segment Rachel and I saw on Dateline last night.  I couldn’t find the video, but here’s an excerp of the transcript from Dateline Correspondent Josh Mankiewicz’s blog:

Everyone tells me soccer is gaining in popularity. But honestly, have you been watching the World Cup? If you’re like me, NO. Let’s face it, most Americans don’t really care about soccer.

They might as well call it, “the REST of the World Cup.”

Check the blogs on the subject of the World Cup, and you’ll find a lot of people who think soccer is simply too dull:

“Is it just me, or is soccer incredibly boring?”

“In honor of the World Cup….yawn!’

“We already got sports. They take up the whole year. Why should we import another one?”

[Read More] 

Every once in a while, I have one of those Sunday mornings where it seems like the entire morning consists of puting out one small fire after another.  This morning was one of those mornings.  First we get into the building 15 minutes late cause there’s no custodian there, and that adds some stress to the morning automatically.  That may not sound too late, but setting up on the schedule we do, 15 minutes can make a big difference.

Then the projectors get setup, but there’s no signal getting to them from the computer.  Then one of the pieces on one of the house lights is broken off and it won’t hold the lens in.  Then another light on the communion station burns out.  The light in the entry way is burning the gel and now the area is filling up with smoke.  There’s no power going to the DVD player.  Second service: the guitar needs a battery.  The floor mic all of a sudden doesn’t work.  Elijah’s guitar stops working all together.

All the production teams stepped up to help get things fixed and pick up slack in other areas, and that was awesome.  In the end, in spite of a few little fires (figuratively…the light in the entry way got unplugged quickly) we had an awesome service.  The message was challenging.  Phil and Sarah produced 2 amazing art pieces during the service.  If you didn’t get to see them, I think they should be up at the Hub for open house on July 23rd.  Worship was powerful.  God was glorified.

Hey…what do ya say we do it again next week?

A few big events from this past week that are well worth a big congratulations to a few good friends:

Andrew San Nicolas and Amanda Neal  - Engaged 07.02.2006.
They both go to our church.  If you don’t know them, they come from Cal State Long Beach; Andrew is involved with setup Sunday mornings and Amanda with greeters.  Andrew asked Amanda to marry him Sunday night, and thankfully she said yes!  Congrats guys!

Paul and Kelly Taylor – Baby girl arrived 07.04.2006.
These are amazing friends of mine from Kol Church and before that all the way back to Knott Avenue.  Paul is now the college pastor at First Baptist Church in Downey.  On Independence Day they added their second little girl to the family, Rachel Reanne Taylor (no clue if I spelled that right!)  Congrats guys!  (And if you read this, maybe you can send a picture so I can put it up!)

I love being able to celebrate big milestones in peoples lives with them!