My Worship Revolution

I've said for a while now that there are two things that I pretty much hate the existence of today.
Divorce and cancer.  I've seen friends and family seriously thrashed by both, and I believe they grieve God.

Some of you may have already heard the story about Randy Miller, the drummer for a band called The Myriad.
If not check out this short video:

Randy is close friend of my friend Rich.
It's one thing to hear about some guy in a band with cancer.  It's another to be separated by 2 degrees and to have a friend who is way close to this family sharing with me the things they are going through.  Rich flew up to Redding today to be with Randy's family for a while.

So you are now only separated by 3 degrees.  That's way better than your seven degrees to Kevin Bacon.  Hopefully it's enough to make you care just a little bit more.

This Christmas there are plenty of "causes" to give to, and to care about.  Some that I'll be posting here on this blog.  Consider this one in the mix.  If nothing else, let's be praying for Randy.  He is a father and a husband.  This is something that could happen to any of us.  Kinda sobering.

I'm not really the greatest at setting aside the time I should to pray for others and to pray for issues.  I'm going to commit to remembering to pray for Randy and his family at the start of every day this holiday season.  Even if you can't contribute financially, you can make a huge difference by praying for the guy.

Will you pray for him with me?

OK, blog catch up week.
My Worship Revolution needs some serious love and attention, and I’m gonna try and make it happen this week.  though it may be hard as we put together this years Caroling On The Wharf event.
But it will all begin with a recap of Sunday.  Have slacked off on the confessionals, so I’ll ease back in with text to start.

Also, when you’re done here, swing by “Sunday Setlists” to see what some other worship leaders are playing.

This weekend we kicked off Advent Conspiracy.
We really wanted to mix things up and get back in the swing of some creativity with this series, so as you can see, we totally switched up our seating.  The pic is from when we were setting up.  I didn’t manage to get any shots during the gathering.  Maybe next week.  We set up all the chairs in more of a semi-circle with the cross standing right in the front in the center.  I love sitting in a more intimate arrangement where we can actually see each other, and I also love that with the band behind the cross it seems to take a little focus off of us being center stage and puts it where it belongs.

We also hung and 8’x8′ panel with the AC logo on it up on the stage.  Came out great!  We set up some dividers at the back of the room to close it in some, draped them in red fabric, put the communion stations back there, and threw up some panels with another version of the logo oversprayed on them.  The last thing we added was a little visual to remind us as we enter this series what we have done to Christmas.  At the foot of the cross was a manger and in it were boxes for a Wii and an X-box 360.

Family was up for T.G. so my brother-in-law Tim joined me on electric guitar.  love having him!  We opened up with Fee’s new version of Joy To The World called All Creation Sing.  I hate Christmas music, so I love when we can get a new spin on it.  This is a good one.  Check it out.  We went into a special kids time where Ed read them some of The Grinch before they went to Sunday School.  That was kinda the theme for the morning.  As greeting came to a close we did a quick rendition of Sixpence’s “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”  Lori did a great job singing it.  Check out the rest of the setlist below:

All Creation Sing – Steve Fee [free download here]

You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch – Sixpence None The Richer

How He Loves Us
Come Let Us Adore Him (just the chorus with a kinda drone underneath)
The Wonderful Cross
Our God Saves
My Savior Lives

Reflections: It was a fun service to open up the series.  The storytime with the kids didn’t go quite as well as we expected I think, but that will happen on occasion when you take a risk and do something different.  I have to say, for me, the worship time was pretty freaking awesome.  Seeing people really respond, stepping up to the cross, and really engaging moved me to tears.  It was a place I haven’t personally been in worship in a while, and that felt pretty good.  Also, How He Loves Us is just a powerful freaking song and I love it!

Be sure to come back tomorrow for the Movie Confessional.  Sunday night we screened What Would Jesus Buy.  I questioned whether or not to share about that one, but I will.
You don’t wanna miss that story.

How was your Sunday?

Family just arrived a few hours ago for the weekend.

For those of you that missed the Twitter updates, I was unable to participate in the San Francisco Triathlon at Treasure Island a few weeks ago cause my back was too jacked up.
We had already paid for a hotel room in Frisco, so we took the night away and stopped by the triathlon to see Dan and to pick up my bag including t-shirt.
Thus, here is the t-shirt that cost me about $145:

I went to the Dr. afterward and was prescribed physical therapy.
So I basically get my own personal trainer for the next month at COAST rehab.
Kinda nice.
The goal is to strengthen my core to prevent further injury.

We did get an x-ray done which I went over with the Dr. the other day.
There’s a lot of “bony growth” in my lower back.
In his words, more than he would expect for a 29 year old.
Consistent with a facet issue which doc thinks it is, rather than a disc.
So I guess my back has some extra years on me!

That’s it.  Random post to share my t-shirt, my back, and the weakness of my core.
And now I’m itchin to do my first triathlon of the next season!

A little behind on blogs this week.  Saw this video this morning at Los' blog and MMI and I had to repost it.
So true!  And I was laughing so loud!
Everyone need to take 4 minutes and 12 seconds and check this out:

What is the most ridiculous thing you've heard someone complain about recently?

I’ve been spending a lot of time this week wrestling with John 14.
I’m teaching on that passage this week to close out our John series.
Justin Fox will be our guest worship leader.
There are lots of great concepts there.  I was thinking this week that I wish Jesus had listened to Andy Stanley when he said, “Teach less for more.”  That might make my job a little easier.  But I digress.

I’ve been wrestling with exactly what the big idea should be.  I’ve been trying to figure out where to go with the message.
Then I had a good chat with Dan Albrecht last night.  He is a Bethany professor at our church who has been teaching our John bible study on Wednesday nights.
He threw out the concept of mind mapping and using the right brain to get all the ideas out and help it take form.
This morning I woke up at 6:30 and started doing it in my head and it just came together.  So I raced to the office to get it on my whiteboard before my 7am coffee with Lipert.
So here is a peek inside my mind as the message comes together:

Probably looks pretty messy to most of you.  But it all has more form in my head now!
Looking forward to Sunday!

I'm really looking forward to introducing this song on Sunday:

Her voice totally reminds me of Rita Springer.

My friend Rich often posts his staff meeting doodles on his blog.  Always impressive because he’s quite the doodle artist.  Here’s an example.

Well, today I had a long phone conversation and was doin a little doodlin of my own.  So I thought I’d take a page out of his book and share with ya:

Apparently I’m getting into the Christmas spirit.
Break out the Egg Nog!!

One of the things I absolutely love about my wife is her ability to constantly encourage me and feed into my insecure self.  She reminds me regularly of who God made me to be.

Sunday was a pretty busy and good day.  Leading worship in the morning.  Connections lunch with Ed and Brandon after church.  Leading a meeting for our Mexico missions team from 3-5.  Rachel took off right after that meeting to drive to SoCal without me to visit friends and family.

When I got home, I found this on the fireplace:

Just wanted to make you all jealous because my wife is the bomb.

Thanks for the constant encouragement babe.
You’re the best!

Well, if you're in Santa Cruz on November 30th, that is.

As I mentioned before, this Christmas we are running hard with Advent Conspiracy.  Let's spend less money this year, cut down the stress to focus on Jesus, give relational gifts of our time and effort this year, and give away the money we would have spent for the poor around the world.

As a creative way to get our church and our community thinking about and talking about this concept, we rented out the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz and will be screening the movie What Would Jesus Buy from producer Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me).  It is free, and instead of asking people to pay we will be accepting small donations to go to the Africa Oasis Project as part of our Advent Conspiracy initiative.  Check out the trailer:

In case you were wondering, no, this is not a "Christian" movie (whatever that means…I guess it isn't going to heaven when it dies).  In fact many people who go may not agree with all of the points made in the movie.  But it brings up some real issues, will get people thinking/talking (which I feel is a mark of great art, btw), and it is a message that fits in quite well in Santa Cruz.

The Rio has 680 seats.  I think it would be pretty incredible if we filled em all.  A long shot, but let's do it.
Invite all your friends:

What Would Jesus Buy
Nov. 30th – 5:00 PM
The Rio Theater
FREE

Here is the Facebook invite.

So, what do ya think?
And who's coming?