My Worship Revolution

A while back we tried starting a CLC blog.

Here was that attempt.
It pretty much died a quick death.

It’s time now to give it another go.

Introducing the new CLC blog home.
At least temporarily.
Let me know what you think.
We have about a week let to test it out and Typepad and decide if it’s
a good use of finances to spend a couple bucks on it.  I personally am
just a huge fan of the ease of Typepad.  Even though it frustrates me
at times, I still find it the easiest platform to really make a site look good.
Even if we stick with Typepad, the plan is to map it to it’s own domain soon.

In addition, we’re experimenting a little with our own social networking site at Ning.
So all you CLCers, roll on over and join our network!
We’ll keep working on it to see how we can use it effectively as a connections tool.

Basically I’ve really been bouncing this around in my dome for a while.
Everything on the web is really moving in the direction of social interaction.  Basically, web 2.0.
In reality we are way behind the curve as the Church.
Most of our church websites are simply nice brochures on the web.
So what can we do to move our website more toward interaction with others?
Hopefully this is a step in the right directions.

So 2 questions for y’all:

• Any thoughts on the blog or Ning sites?
• What other ways can we as a church, or is your church, creatively using the web to reach or interact with people?

Please, do share.

Well, I’m now 3 days away from my first triathlon.
It’s a light one.  400 yd swim, 11 mile bike, 3.1 mile run.
Really, I figure it’s there to prepare me for PG.

I had this old mountain bike that was inherited from Rachel’s little brother.
I new that just wasn’t gonna cut it for the long rides I’ve been starting to take.
So I borrowed a bike from my friend Jono.
He used to use it to tri, but it’s been in his garage for like 10+ years.
I dusted it off, replaced the tubes, and here’s what I have now to ride:

No lubing or anything.  Just put it all together and added some extras he already had on the side.
Allow me to give you the quick tour.

• Carbon fiber frame.  Nowadays, they make the whole thing carbon fiber, but this is a nice start for me.  Light for speed.  Of course, I discovered when I rode with the Ryan’s a few weeks ago, it doesn’t go fast just cause of the carbon fiber.  You actually have to be in shape and pedal fast, too.  Bummer.
• Aero bars.  He had those and I added them to the bike.  Those allow me to hunch over and get that cool “Hey I’m a triathlete” look as I become more aerodynamic.  Again, probably overkill for my skill level, but it sure does make me feel cooler.
• Those tires are still about 20 years old, but they do have new tubes in them.  this was my first experience with presta valves.  Our hand pump was able to be modified to fit.  120 PSI is what the tires call for.  Had no gauge.  The first night I rode they were probably at like 15.  I pumped em up as much as I could with the hand pump and did a couple rides, including the 26 mile coastal ride.  Then I got a pump with a gauge.  They were at about 60 PSI.
• Bike CPU.   You’ll notice in the pic below the CPU on the handlebars to give mileage and what not.  Yeah. It’s old and doesn’t work at all.  Trying to get my hands on one from another friend.
• Cages.  Not even sure they still make shoes for the no clip pedals on there anymore.  But I didn’t want to buy pedals or shoes.  Luckily there were cages to put on there.  Those are nice for tough rides!
• Bike seat.  That’s a seat I bought for the last bike.  Moved it to this one.  A little padded and of course has the jewel groove. 

I’m stoked to have a decent road bike for these next couple triathlons after spending half a day with the bike fixing it up.  Still needs new handlebar tape and will definitely want to get it tuned up for the P.G. triathlon – Olympic distance.  Also need to get some tri shorts, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do that before Saturday.  Not sure if they’re sold around here anywhere.

So there you have it.  One of my tools of the trade.  Wish me luck this Saturday!  I’m sure you’ree get the update!

Yesterday I had the chance to hang with a bunch of peeps at a Church 2.0 forum organized by Greg Atkinson centered on a book he’s writing, and hosted at Santa Cruz Bible Church.
It was fun to hang with Greg, Ed, Omar, Chuck, Paul, Randy, Cynthia, and Dan who drove over the hill to hang, as well as several other new friends I made.
We spent a couple hours talkin both some geek talk as well as more practical discussion about how the face of ministry in our churches is changing and how we approach it as leaders in the Church.

Part way through, Dan and I thought it would be worth broadcasting on Mogulus.
If you weren’t able to catch it live, there is about an hour of it up looping at my Mogulus page.
Sound gets a little messy part way through for some reason.  Sorry.
This should give you an idea what the forums are like and give you some great things to think about.

This was forum number four. If there’s one coming within driving distance of you, go check it out.

Lately it seems like God’s kinda been messing with my paradigm of
what success looks like.  The brutal truth is, at our church, in the
city of Santa Cruz, Sunday services can be pretty hit and miss.  It’s
easy to get discouraged when I look out on a Sunday morning and see 70%
of the mass I’m used to.

Numbers in attendance at Sunday
gatherings has long been a measure of success for us in churches, and,
truth be told, a validation of our worth as pastors quite often.  Not
healthy, I know…nut true.  But as I start to name many of the people
I don’t see, I also realize a large number of them are very involved in
the actual life of the church.  They are people who are doing ministry
outside our church regularly.  They are people who are active in taking
Jesus to the people that surround them everyday.

For a long time
I’ve felt that I’d rather see a church that is alive and active
throughout the week, and that is more important than showing up on
Sunday.  But it’s a lot harder to actually consider the real life
implications of this.  And believe me, we have a long way to go in both
areas in our faith community, but it’s just really had my dome spinning.

Last week I found this post via Monday Morning Insight. 
In a class with Len Sweet they talked about measures of success within
your church.  Measures outside of numbers of butts in seats or amount
of money given.   Here are a couple of my favorites:

• The number of adoptions people in the church have made from local foster care.
• The number of pictures on the church wall of unwed mothers holding their newborn babies in their arms for the first time.
• The number of phone calls from community leaders asking the church’s advice.
• The number of emergency finance meetings that take place to reroute money to community ministry.
• The number of people serving in the community during the church’s normal worship hours.
• The number of churches your church planted in a 10 mile radius of your own church.

Please, go here and read the other 13 he shares.

A
lot of these things are a much better depiction of the heart of Jesus
than showing up for an hour and a half on Sunday morning.  Don’t get me
wrong.  That is important also, but I’d rather see ministry happening
throughout the week.  So why don’t we look at these things as much?  I
think because they are harder to measure.  And they don’t stroke our
own ego’s nearly as much as filling the sanctuary on Sunday morning.

So, how about you?

How would/should/do you measure the success of your/our/a church?

A few pics of Caleb’s first baseball game last week.
Giants v Cubs.
Giants won.
Too bad the only time I ever want the Giants to win is when they’re playing the Dodgers.

A little bummed that his first game wasn’t a Padres game.
But it’s not like he’ll remember it anyway.
After about an inning and a half he was more interested in playing with his toy car on the bleachers.

Thanks to Tom and Balch Petroleum for the tickets!!

Who is your baseball team?  Or do you even care?

Trying to keep these things going.
And we’re up to 33 of em now.
No video from the actual service again this week.
So instead I played with a couple sound effects just for kicks.
Our set:

Hosanna

Revelation Song
We Fall Down/My Jesus I Love Thee
How Great Is Our God (plus special element)
You Are Good

Check out the video for details:

So who else is still posting these?
Let us know!

As many of you may know, I spent 2 of the years I was at Revolution driving down to Vanguard University every Monday night to finish up my Bachelors degree.  It was the #1 goal Rachel and I set after we got married as we looked to the future and set some goals for ourselves and our life together.

I kinda drug my feet at the end there, but a few weeks ago I finally took my last CLEP test.
American History, 1965(oops) 1865-present.
I needed a 50 to pass.
I got a 51.
Rachel took care of the paperwork for me.
And this came in the mail today:

It’s officially finished!
At 29 years old I finally upgraded from that Associates degree.
I took the 11 year graduation plan, but hey, once again, better late than never, eh?
And it only took going to 5 different colleges to get there! (There was a sixth, but none of those units counted.)

And the biggest congrats on this one really needs to go to my wife!
She put up with a lot of crap for me to get there.  Nights away. Late nights writing papers.  (Lots of debt in school loans!)  She’s the best.

So now I’m trying to figure out what really changes.
Anyone think the board wants to give me a raise now?
Haha.  Yeah.  I figured not, too.

Well, time to weigh in once again.

Did more exercising this week, and ate a little better.
Monday: Run
Wednesday: Ride
Thursday: Run
Friday: Ride

A few fun new tools to keep track of my exercise, too.
Got Nike+ for my birthday.  So here’s an embarrassing look at my 2 short runs this week:

Also found this cool site while I was trying to map my run in Oregon a while back.  It’s mapmyrun.com.
I have a profile there and I can keep track of all my workouts, running, biking, and swimming.
Check out my profile here.
So now I really have to go for it.  Otherwise you can see just what a pansie I am.

Back to the weight loss.
Here’s the progress (or lack thereof) up till now:

Weigh in: 171.6
Week 1:  168.4
Week 2:  169.8
Week 3:  169.4
Week 4:  170
Week 5: …

In 2 1/2 weeks I’m doing my first triathlon.
I’ve been exercising, but not nearly as much as I wanted.
Tonight Rachel was picking up a friend in Sacramento.  My band all had work so practice was canceled.
So I went on a bike ride with Ryan and Ryan tonight.

2 1/2 hours.
Approximately 25 miles.
I couldn’t remember where we went half the ride, but here’s the best mapping I could figure out.

First we weaved our way through side streets up to the top of West Cliff.
Then we followed the coast all the way down to Aptos.
Tried to find an easier way out and hit some dead ends.
Made the climb up from the beach and followed Soquel back home.

My legs are dying.  It’s that weird feeling that you can’t really explain when you’re walking around.  Like your legs are moving, but you don’t really feel em.  But I guess that’s a good thing.  They’re gonna hate me in the morning.
That’s about the distance I’ll have to ride in the September triathlon.
I’m the one doing the triathlon and both of those guys pretty much kicked my butt.  I was in the back the whole time.
I’ve got some work to do the next couple of weeks.
And even more over the next couple months.
At least the Ragamuffin Top updates should get better!

So yeah…haven’t filled y’all in on the updates to our building lately.  It’s comin along.  Not as fast as I’d like it to, but hey, it’s comin along.

Filmed this a couple weeks ago, but once again, better late than never.  Enjoy.