My Worship Revolution

Tonight my wife and I went out with Keith and Liana Dickson to a program called Humankind at ROCKharbor church in Costa Mesa. I believe in the past it has actually been titled “Shimmer.” It was put on by the creative arts folk there and a theater company they have called three trees. It is basically a night of all sorts of arts – music, visual, dance, drama, poetry – all centered around one common theme. This time, the night was designed to cause us to think about community and to “remind you of the person across the street, across the world or sitting right next to you.” Here were some of the highlights from my experience.

• The night opened with some awesome music by Tifah Al-Attas from Revolution church. Of course part of the reason we went was to support her and she was amazing as usual.
• Probably the strongest component of the night were the dramas I thought. Specifically, there was a hilarious yet pretty convicting monologue performed by Shannon Cobb titled Looking For Friends In All The Wrong Places. It pretty much showed how ridiculous our personal relationships with our television can be, and the substitute that many people use it for instead of true personal connection.
• The other great drama was a recurring role by Chad Halliburton titled Mirror. It was done in three parts all pulled from the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. Wow! Definately the most thought provoking material for me and really well delivered by Chad. I was recently given this book by Dave and I am even more interested to read that book after tonight.
• The other aspect of the evening that I found impactful was video. There were three videos during the evening, all of them very well done. My favorite was probably when two girls sang For Good from the musical Wicked by Stephen Schwartz while a video played with footage from ROCKharbors most recent trip to India. It was pretty fun to see some folks from our church who went with them up there on the screen. But beyond that, the music and the video together were really powerful and emotional.

Overall, the night was just really well done and really caused myself and others I was with to think. One thing that kinda surprised me a bit was the number of people who were there. I’m not really good with numbers, but I’m thinking there probably weren’t more than 150 people there. Not a bad turnout, but they are a large church and having visited their service last Saturday night I know they advertised it quite a bit. I don’t know how many were there the night before but I wish more people would have been there to experience it. It also caused me to think about our church and my desire to do something similar. I wonder what the turnout would be like for a smaller community such as ours.

Above all, when I look at this evening from a ministry perspective, I am just reminded once again what an incredible vehicle the arts can be to provoke thought and share a message of hope with our culture. It is such a strong passion of mine and I believe a somewhat untapped medium in so many ways. I truly desire to use all of the arts more and more as we continue to comunicate the Gospel to our culture in a language that they understand. For me, music and theater have always made a deep impact on my life and I love using those things to impact others in such a positive way.

Congratulations to everyone involved with Humankind for presnting a great overall package. Keep up the good work!

I was in need of some quality time with my wife right now and she loves to hike, so I surprised her and took her out all morning on a hike. We had a great time hiking the Temescal Canyon Loop
up near Santa Monica. We had a grat view with lunch as we sat on a big rock at the top of the hike. As you can see below, I got a laugh out of a message left by a well meaning Christian who apparently couldn’t spell so well.

 

I still haven’t been able to find Jhon in my Bible. Anyone else have it?

Before joining the team at Revolution, I was part of a small church plant called Kol Church which was led by Boomer Reiff with Brian Yoshida and Paul Taylor. Yesterday was their last day meeting as a church. All of them will now look to get plugged in at other communities. This event didn’t come as a huge surprise, but I have recognized that there is still some grieving that I do as a result. I had lots of really awesome times there and it really is sad for me to see it gone. Of course I am sttill in touch with many of those people and I plan to stay that way.

The church was started on Easter of 2003, and while it lasted only a couple years, God used it tremendously to do lots of great things. I was able to see multiple people come to Christ and truly deepen in their faith in the time I was there. I met some amazing people who have changed my life. I saw multiple people who had been involved in the ministry even before it became it’s own church be raised up by God and move off into other bodies to serve in leadership capacities. And I know that I grew a ton while I was there, too. I grew so much closer to Christ during that time and learned a lot from the leadership there. To this day, Boomer’s vision has significantly shaped much of my vision and ministry passion for my future and I am incredibly thankful for him. I believe that he is an amazing visionary with awesome dreams and I look forward to seeing God to continue to do great things through him.

It is sad anytime a church plant comes to an end. My heart goes out to their community, and I just thank God that Kol Church existed for the time that it did.

It was a real long night without much sleep last night, and I think I’m still trying to process everything that happened in the past 24 hours. Rachel and I were woken up at about 12:30 a.m. to the sound of a loud bang. I decided to step out on the balcony to see if it actually was anything when I saw a major accident right on our corner. I called 911 who already had people on the way. After hanging up, Rachel noticed that my Jeep which I had parked on the street just a few hours earlier was up on the curb.
I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to find out what had happened and what I needed to do about my Jeep. I was not close to prepared for what I found. I will spare the details cause they’re pretty unpleasant, but it was a really bad scene. It was clear from the things I saw that someone hadn’t made it through the accident, and it was a lot harder to stomach than I could have ever imagined. I gave the cops my info and got out of their way and went back upstairs to Rachel.
All of a sudden my Jeep wasn’t the least bit important. In light of everything that we knew was going on downstairs, there was a lot to talk about and process together. It was so evident to me last night just how fragile life is. It is so short and we never know when that last moment may be coming. We took time to pray for those involved, for the families of those involved and for the police officers and fire fighters who have to see this kind of thing on a daily basis. It’s so scary at times to think about how quickly, easily, and unexpectedly something like that can happen. I just know that I was deeply effected by the things that I saw last night. God is so good and I am so blessed to have all that he’s given me.
This morning I was able to visit my Jeep to survey the damage more thouroughly. Below are some pictures I took of it.

Needless to say, (but I will), it was pretty jacked up. It was actually shoved about 8 feet forward and hit the truck in front of it which hit the truck in front of it which hit the SUV in front of it which tapped the car in front of it. I took it in to the shop today and they told me it is definitley going to be totaled.

While I have to admit I am pretty bummed about losing the Jeep, I also have to admit that I am just very thankful that Rachel and/or I were not in it. So, I guess it’s time for the car hunt to begin. Any suggestions? I don’t think Rachel wants another Jeep, and it’s probably not the wisest gas wise either.

All in all, it was a pretty sobering experience. It was a great reminder to me to just be thankful for every moment I have with those I love, and really to make the most of the time I have in giving back to God. Please keep it on your heart to pray for the family of the person in the passenger seat who lost his life as well as for the drivers of both cars who made it out ok.

So last night I had the opportunity to get together with a bunch of my old friends to just hang out and worship God together. My friend Daun is heading back to Australia for another 6 months after being there for the past year, and she got us all together before she flew out this morning. These were all people who I used to do church and life with. So many times we would go out and have fun and the night would end up back in someone’s living room and Izak leading us in worship with his guitar. Those were some of the best times of worship that I ever experienced. It was during that stage of my journey that I most felt God’s romancing and wooing. It’s something that I long to see happen more in our community at Revolution. Times of getting together to worship because that’s just who we are and what we love to do. No script, no plans, just time to let God lead.

It was so awesome to be able to revisit that with old friends last night. Some of them I had not seen in 1 -2 years easily. It’s amazing how when people make such an impact on my life, I can not see them for so long yet still feel so close to them when we reconnect. It was amazing to see how God had taken so much of our group in so many diferent directions. Out of the nine of us who gathered to worship, we represented 6 different churches. It’s great to see how God raised us all up and then sent us out to make a difference in so many different places in so many different ways.

All together, it was just a great night of hanging with friends and hanging with God. It always means a lot to me to be able to catch up on old relationships and focus on God in the process. Like I said, it’s something I feel God’s definitely challenging me to do more of with the people I’m in community with now. One chance to do that will be May 15th when we have another night og “Going Deeper.” This is something we’ve done a couple times to just spend a few hours in prayer and worship. Hope to see lot’s of Revolution faces there.

You gotta here what this 911 operator said to a mom who called in. Given I’m not sure why she would’ve called 911 when she was having behavioral problems with her kids, it still probably wasn’t the brightest way for the operator to respond. Check it out below.

911 Recording

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Been pretty busy lately with Easter and other stuff. Lot’s of stuff that I would have liked to write about. Oh well.

Easter weekend at Revolution went awesome! Thank you so much to everyone who made it possible. I will definately have to take some time to write about it later. Right now though, I’m in class at the library listening to a lecture on how to research. Lookin on other peoples blogs to fill time while she talks I found 43 things. Pretty cool site. Maybe I’ll write my goals while she finishes talking. Or maybe I’ll start paying attention.

I went with the lead team from our church this week to see the movie Constantine. If you’re not familiar with the movie, it’s about a guy who has been able his whole life to see angels and demons. Throughout his life he sends many of these demons and “half breeds” back to hell in an attempt to gain salvation from God.


I’ve always thought that Keanu Reeves is perhaps one of the worst actors ever, but I was really intrigued to see how our secular culture and the world of Hollywood sees the spiritual realm and spiritual warfare. All in all, the movie itself wasn’t that great and not nearly as scary as I expected it to be either. Of course the theology of the movie was way off. But for those of us who as Christians recognize the forces that are at work in this world, it also rang of some heavy truth. If there was anything redeeming about this movie, perhaps it is that Christians as well as non Christians will become even more aware of the supernatural taking place around us all the time. Like I said, not the greatest film, but I would still recomend it just for the conversation piece alone. Has anyone else seen it? What did you think?

Got an e mail about this today. Sounds like it could be fun. I’ll be at worship practice, but if anyone else can make it, let me know how it is.

WHAT: SOUL SURVIVOR PRESENTS “MOMENTUM”

WHERE: Soul Survivor Church. TRIANGLE SQUARE 1870 Harbor Blvd. Costa Mesa, CA 92627

WHEN: Thursday, March 10, 7:00 p.m.

COST: FREE!

FOR WHO: Young adults, College students

WowI’ve done a lot of driving in the past two days. Yesterday I went with Rachel and her family down to Rosarito Mexico for her cousins wedding which we also sang in. Got back late last night (or early this morning, depending on how you look at it) and this afternoon I just got to San Diego where I drove to visit family after church. No more please!

Mexico was nice and it was a great wedding. Took place out on the pier at the beach. Unfortunately the wind was pretty brutal out there which mde it really cold as well. Made it a bit difficult at times to rally concentrate on what wa going on. Every time I attend a wedding, I can’t help but appreciate the picture of us as the bride of Christ. In this wedding the brides father officiated, and it was pretty amazing to see the emotion on his face as she walked down the aisle. Maybe a very small glimpse of what it will be like for the Father when Christ is united with His bride once and for all. Good stuff.