My Worship Revolution

For many months now I have been visiting www.inbubblewrap.com and entering to win a book to know avail. It is a website that daily gives away business related books. I have entered faithfully everyday without winning as I’ve watched one friend win 3 books and another win 5! But I continued to persist and finally I won today!!
I opened my email this afternoon and literally yelled for joy when I saw a winner confirmation from inbubblewrap. I’m not sure I’m really all that excited about the book I won, but it’s just nice to win!
When you sign up for the offer each day, you answer 2 questions. many months ago, the question was, what would cause you to tell others about inbubblewrap.com? My answer: win a stinkin book! So now I’m making good on my answer. Go check it out!

So, this past Monday, Rachel and I had our first doctors appointment. Most of the people who come by here already know this, but Rachel and I recently found out that we are going to be parents! We found out our due date is set to be September 24, 2006. We even got to see a sonogram already! Check it out -


At this point, it really just looks like a blob…kinda Jaba the Hut-esque.  The sonogram showed us to be at 7 weeks 3 days, and even that early we could see a heartbeat…wow!
It seems even more real now.  It’s definitely a big shift in lifestyle for us as it is for everyone when they have their first kid.  I am totally excited to see where this journey takes us.  I know that the two things that God has called me to be above all else is a good husband and a good father.  Please continue to pray that Rachel and the baby would stay healthy as we go through this pregnancy.  Thanks all!

So once again it’s been a long while since I’ve taken the time to blog, so I’ll just have to bang a couple out today.  A big part of the reason for my absence has been the time that went into getting ready for our grand reopening at Revolution Church. 
For any friends reading here who aren’t a part of Revolution, this past Sunday was our first Sunday in a new facility.  We are now setting up and tearing down every week at Artesia High School in the city of Lakewood.  A lot of work went into making things happen by everyone around Revolution and it was a HUGE success!  It was so fun at 9:00 when the doors opened to see people just flooding through the doors.  We ended up having 565 adults and 135 kids for our first day!!
I am really looking forward to this next Sunday and the one’s that follow.  For a little more info about the specifics of the grand reopening, check out Dave’s blog.

Hey everyone!  Just wanted to let everyone know that Adam Rose and his band are playing this Thursday night at Aura Night Club in Studio City at 8:30 P.M.  You do have to be 18 or older to get in (sorry kids).  Click here to get in for $8, otherwise I think it’s $10 at the door.  So if you can, have a night out and support one of our worship artists from Revolution.  Have good show Adam!

I’m just home briefly before I go back to meet Rachel, Kari, and Will at Disneyland for Rachel’s birthday.  Today is the big day.  I just had to jump on the CPU real quick and tell everyone how much I appreciate my wife on her birthday (I mean that’s when I’m saying it…I appreciate her everyday.)  Rachel really does sacrifice a lot for me to do the things we feel God’s called me to do, and she sure does put up with a lot during the times (which are often) that I’m not being who He’s really called me to be.  I feel so blessed to have her in my life.  Thanks for everything Rachel, and Happy Birthday.  Now I better get back to the park!

As I mentioned was the plan last week, I went to visit Life Church in Temecula this past Saturday. They are a 3 year old church plant in Temecula that sets up in a middle school every week. Rachel and I went down late in the morning in order to meet up with the worship pastor, Eric Beeman, at his home.
First he took us by the recording studio/ELI house. The use of this house is being donated to the church, and it is a house where they allow their interns to live rent free as they serve. Then we grabbed lunch before heading to the church. It was great to sit and hang with a friend who has similar passions and involvement in ministry.
Then we arrived at the church at around 3 pm. This was really the main reason I came – to watch and learn some more from their setup. This week it was fun watching a room go from this:

to this…

In this case it actually took a few hours, but to their credit, they were trying some new setup ideas this week. From talking to some of them, it also seems like Saturday afternoon has been a tough time to get volunteers. Since I wasn’t running sound like last week, I had a little more time to run around and take some pictures. Here’s a couple that I took that were helpful:


cool idea for the hanging of a techno beam on the stage on some trussing. may come in handy as we try using a few intellabeams.



the 2 outside screens were stinkin gi-normous – pretty cool.



pretty cool rig – on wheels – for their video camera/easy worship screens.

Anyway, that was just a couple of the 60 or so pictures I took.  Here’s a few other thoughts:

• It’s nice to have storage on site.  This is a luxury we won’t have, but I think we’ve planned really well to make it simple regardless
• The more the merrier.  I just know that the more people we can get involved in setting up – especially in the sound and lighting area for me – the faster it will go and the more fun we can have doing it
• Lighting is key.  They did a great job with their lighting scheme.  We have ordered a lot of new and high tech lights for our move, and I’m excited to see how we can creatively use these to add to our atmosphere even more than we have so far.  This also means more light team volunteers to learn how to use it, so if you might be interested, e-mail me: bobby@revolution242.com
• It’s just really fun to see a room go from an empty and bland space to a creative space that will help people enter into God’s presence in an atmosphere somewhat familiar to them.

It was a blast to hang out for the service and get to worship and enjoy.  Afterward I had dinner with their lead pastor John Rulman where we were able to get to know each other and I got some great insight and thoughts on the first several years of ministry in their church.

All around it was a good day and well worth the drive.  I really am looking forward to the opportunities that lie in front of us at Revolution Church in a similar situation as we head into our grand re-opening month.  Thanks a ton to all the guys at life church who let me hang out and learn from them.  They are all great people and I know that being around for the experience gave me some great ideas for us.

This past Sunday I had the week off at Revolution, so instead I ran sound for my sisters church in San Diego. My brother-in-law was leading worship that morning, filling in for their worship leader. By the way, he did an awesome job! It’s been so fun to see him be used by God in such an awesome way.
Anyway, it was fun to volunteer at church with them. The church is pastored by John Rose who was my youth pastor and a large factor in me first coming to Christ. One of the best parts about going was that they are a portable church, setting up and tearing down at an elementary school. It’s so fun seeing a room go from this…

to this…

…in less than an hour.  It was a great experience for me as we get ready to start setting up and tearing down weekly.  It gave some great ideas on how I want to do things as we get started.  This Saturday I plan to visit Life Church in Temecula to experience their set up process as well.  I look forward to getting some learning from them as well.  I’ll be sure to take some pictures in the process to put up.

I had what I thought was an interesting e mail when I returned home from vacation.  Actually, I guess it was 2 e mails from one person.  This person e mailed me as a Christian wanting some info about our church, finding out when we had some events that they could visit.  If you e-mailed me while I was gone, you know that you received an auto response to inform you that I was out of town and would be unable to check e mail.  Well, this person then responded to that e mail…here’s what it said:

That’s okay. 2 Mormon missionaires are at the door and they seem sort of nice. I’ll talk to them and get back to you .
Enjoy your time off as the flock wanders.

I guess I had better not take any more vacations, eh?  I’m actually still not sure whether this was a joke, or someone who really thinks that anyone in ministry shouldn’t get a vacation.  I always hope though that my ministry is not dependant on me.  I want to trust more that God is ultimately in charge…and at times that’s easier to remember than it sounds.  I still have a lot of room to do better, but I also hope that a majority of my ministry can be focused on empowering others to serve God effectively…working myself out of a job I guess you could say.  That should give me some good goals to aim for in 2006.  Hopefully this person will still visit our community or find another one where they feel comfortable.

Awhile back, Rachel and I went to the Aquarium where we saw a SCUBA diver feeding the fish. Rachel commented that it would be cool to do, so at that point I decided that we had to hit up Catalina and try it sometime. So this morning was spent underwater.
Now I have a bad habit of wanting to pick up every hobby I try, but it really was amazing. We did an introductory dive on the coast of Catalina at a dive park. At first it was a bit odd. It’s hard to breathe and my body was telling me that it’s not supposed to be submerged completely for prolonged amounts of time. But as time went on, I got used to it. Then we were able to let go of the buoy rope and the instructor led us through forests of kelp with tons of fish and sea life swimming all around us. This site is the dive shop we went with and gives you a small idea what it’s like.

WOW! It was such an amazing experience. Rachel commented that it really is like being in a whole different world. God’s creation is so amazing. For me it was so peaceful and everything around seemed so majectic. We saw an octopus hiding in a hole, I touched a cool looking bottom fish (kinda like a halibut), and the color and size of some of the other fish was amazing.

I came away with two thoughts:
1) God is an amazing creator. The diversity and amount of life in that small area at the depth of 40 feet was unbelievable. I can’t even imagine the expanse of the rest of the ocean that covers a majority of the Earth.
2) I gotta get certified and do this more often! Somehow, I don’t think Rachel will be a big fan of that one. Maybe someday. I guess I’ll just put it on the list along with rock climbing and skydiving. Hey, if I ever win the lottery (if I ever start playing the lottery) I’ll have plenty of hobbies and certifications to use the money on!