My Worship Revolution

So we’ve been in the process of remodeling over here for a while now.  This week paint is going up in the sanctuary.  Thought I’d give you an idea what it looks like around here during the week these days.  Here’s a quick little video:

It can be frustrating at times cause there’s just very little way to make the building appear nice in the middle of all this, but it’s a process.  Lots to do next week to have it as presentable as possible for Easter.  Good stuff happening over here!

And in a few hours I’m off to the mountains to lead worship at the youn adults retreat up in Tahoe.  Might even get a day of snowboarding in…we’ll see!!
Catch ya after the weekend!

Yeah, I know, I know.  I gotta get back to the video stuff.  But as far as services, our video camera isn’t working, and the churches seems to be missing the power adapter/battery charger.  And I don’t feel like doing the iMovie thing right now…I need a haircut.  So you get this.

As you may have read earlier this week, I had the honor of both leading worship and teaching this past Sunday.  We are in a series called Deeper where we are talking about going deeper in Christ and how we do that.  A few weeks ago was Deeper Through Knowing, and this week I got to talk about worship in Deeper Through Worship.

The main point of the teaching was actually more to get away from the idea that our quiet time with God every single day has to look like reading my Bible for x minutes and praying for x minutes.  Reading and praying are important, but not everybody connects with God primarily in these ways.  God made each of us uniquely and therefore we are created to connect with him uniquely.  In turn, we all worship a little differently in our personal times, and it is authentic personal worship during the week that leads to authentic and passionate corporate worship on Sunday mornings.

Here is an idea what the service looked like, songs and also the message is embedded below for anyone that wants to listen to it.  It’s the little button after the first 2 songs.  That’s where we actually plug the message into the morning, so I thought I’d let you see the flow here.  Here it is:

Majestic – Brewster
Indescribable – Tomlin

Breathe
Only You – Crowder
How Great Is Our God – Tomlin
Center – Hall
Let the Praises Ring Brewster

I wanted to do one other song, too, but I’m a typical pastor I guess…I talk too much!  Overall I think it was a fairly good morning.  I found it tough to concentrate this weekend, and this seemed like a tough message to put together, so I didn’t actually finish it till around 2am the night before.  Thanks to Rich Kirkpatrick for steering me toward checking out Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas.  I couldn’t find the book anywhere in driving distance, but it led to some great concepts I grabbed from John Ortberg.

A few other things worth mentioning.

• Since I was teaching, at the very least I thought it would be nice to have someone else lead the first song.  Lori Hazen, an awesome member of our Worship Lead Team who is leading worship more and more did a great job leading Breathe.
• I read a "call to worship" of sorts at the end of the message.  It was from Charles Spurgeon and called on every part of our being to rise up to worship God.  I almost didn’t read it because of time, but I’m glad I did.  I think for some, it really set the tone of worship nicely going into the response time.
• Throughout worship and the message, one of our high schoolers and an amazing artist, Megan Bradley, painted throughout as her form of worship.  Then during the response time, we invited others to create as well with a table of watercolor materials at the back of the room.  That was really cool.  Take a look at her art, inspired by Psalm 139:13-18

Thursday morning.
Meeting for coffee w/Ryan Lipert.
I walk out the front door.
The ground and the world around is glistening with wetness.
A light spring rain falls gently from the Northern California sky.
As I walk toward my car I notice an unfamiliar whiteness about my car.
Wet toilet paper covers my black Honda Civic.

To the culprit.
I will find you.
Payback is coming.

Every week, Randy Elrod hosts ‘Water Cooler Wednesday.’  A blog carnival of sorts for posting about culture and arts.  Check it out here.

I hadn’t jumped in yet, but then last Thursday I saw this segment on the Today show about SEE: Sweat Equity Enterprises.  An organization that teaches youth how to design for big name firms.  Check it out:

How cool is that?!  At Recreate we talked a lot this year about what it looks like to create the culture that people live in.  I thought this was an amazing picture of how one guy has taken all these teens and helped them take their talents and literally create a huge part of the culture.

One of the things that came to mind as I watched this was how we as a church need to be doing this.  And by that I don’t mean just identifying people’s gifts and helping them develop them to use for our church programs.  Rather, what would it look like if we affirmed the God given talents in people and sent them into the secular world to be extraordinary at waht they do, to influence the people around them, and ultimately to create the culture we are aiming to reach?

Yesterday I blogged about a situation very close to my heart that is happening at Revolution Church, a huge part of my spiritual family.  Today, it is all over the blogoshere.  Some people close to the situation and some not.  People sharing the news.  People expressing pain and disappointment.

Obviously I don’t have an issue with sharing the situation with you all as my community.  I don’t have a problem with the other bloggers either.  However, as I processed all this with some people, it brought up an interesting topic for discussion here.

What is the difference between news and gossip?

Where is the line where sharing information goes from one to the other?
Does it have to do with individual?
Can news for one person be gossip for another, and vice versa?

We watch the 6 o’clock news and here about the missing person, the robbery down the street, the retirement of a sports figure, and the kid who’s doing something significant in his highschool for the feel good story.
We see it all and view it as news.
We pick up a magazine that shares about the lives of stars, who’s dating who, and what their next project is.
We tend to refer to this information as gossip.

So where is the line that something goes from being news to being gossip?
An interesting and important question I think with the nature of the blogoshpere and a new and growing medium for the sharing of news and feelings.

Discuss.
Play nice.

Wow.  Long day today.  Led worship in the morning.  Also gave the message.  Jumped in my car and drove to SoCal (in 5.5 hours…impressive) to be with one friend in particular, but several as well walking through some horrible stuff.  Spent lots of time with people praying in homes tonight like I haven’t prayed in a long time.  It’s now almost 3 am, and I’m finally about to sleep.

I’m assuming this is blogable as it was announced at Revolution Church.  If I’m mistaken, I’m sure I’ll be told and you won’t see this post for long.
Some of you have joined me on this blog in the past year, while a number of you started reading when I was at Revolution Church.  This is a faith community I was a part of for over 2 1/2 years, coming onboard 9 months into it’s existence.  I still am intimately connected with many people there.  It is a family I love dearly, and while I know I am where God has called me, I have also had days of missing them intensely.  I love them a lot.

And now their world has been turned upside down in so many ways.  This week it was announced that the pastor, a former friend of mine, has left his wife to be with another married woman from the congregation.  I caught wind of the situation early on Friday, and in many ways it has consumed my thoughts and my energy this weekend.  As the title of this post suggests, the three major emotions to hit right off the bat were anger, hurt, and oddly enough, hope.

Angry that two people could be so selfish.
Angry that the body of Christ gets another black eye.
Angry that a ministry that so many people, myself included, have poured so much of their heart and soul into is being severely damaged by the choices of a few.
Lots of anger for an unrepentant, uncaring "friend" who seems to have lost his mind.
Anger that there are Christians young in their walk closely involved whose faith will be challenged in huge ways.

Hurting for the multiple kids from both families who are losing their parents.
Hurting for a husband and a wife who really are, in this case, two of the most amazing people you’ll ever meet.
Hurting for extended family involved who I am very close to.
Hurting for a faith community that is going to have to walk through a very dark season.
Feeling personally hurt in some weird way that a man I trusted and called a friend and a partner in ministry would be capable of the things he’s doing.

Yet in the midst of all that, I also feel hopeful.
I have hope because I know Christ is still on the throne.
Hope because God is in control, even when things seem like things are spinning out of control.
Hope as I watch that church family rally around the innocent family members to care for them.  To watch their kids.  To pray for them.  To love on them.
Hope that as this church goes through these trials they will come out the other end far healthier and stronger than they ever were before.
Hope because I see a leadership team already in place that loves Jesus and is going to lead incredibly through this crisis.
Hope that what Satan means for evil, God will use for good.

Revolution family, stay strong.  You are an amazing community where God is still at work.  Revolution was never a movement about following one man, it was always about following one God.  And He’s still God.  Trust in Jesus.  I truly believe he will use this in mighty ways.

And the rest of ya, please say a prayer for that community.  That God would bring about restoration and healing in the lives of that church and the families involved.  Thanks a ton.  I know the leadership appreciates it.

Was trying to get a hold of Sacred Pathways today to get some thoughts for tomorrows message I’m teaching.  Got it referred by Rich.

Unfortunately, NOBODY in the the area had it for sale.  But I did find a test online to find out my Sacred Pathways.  The idea is that we all have different ways to connect with and worship God.  Here’s what it looked like for me and the meaning of the terms:

Summary of spiritual temperaments:

Intellectual – Loving God with the Mind:
These Christians live in the world of concepts. They may feel closest to God when they first understand something new about Him.

Contemplative – Loving God through Adoration:
These Christians seek to love God with the purest, deepest, and brightest love imaginable. They want nothing more than some privacy and quiet to gaze upon the face of their heavenly Lover and give all of themselves to God.

Enthusiast – Loving God with Mystery & Celebration:
Excitement and mystery in worship is the spiritual lifeblood of enthusiasts. They are inspired by joyful celebration; cheerleaders for God and the Christian life. They don’t want to just know concepts, but to experience them, to feel them, and to be moved by them. They like to let go and experience God on the precipice of excitement and awe.

Caregiver – Loving God by Loving Others:
Caregivers serve God by serving others. They often claim to see Christ in the poor and needy, and their faith is built up by interacting with other people. Caring for others recharges a caregiver’s batteries.

Activist – Loving God Through Confrontation:
These Christians define worship as standing against evil and calling sinners to repentance. They are energized more by interaction with others, even in conflict, than by being alone or in small groups. Activists are spiritually nourished through the battle.

Ascetic – Loving God in Solitude and Simplicity:
Ascetics want nothing more than to be left alone in prayer. Let there be nothing to distract them–no pictures, no loud music–and leave them alone to pray in silence and simplicity.

Traditionalist – Loving God Through Ritual and Symbol:
Traditionalists are fed by what are often termed the historic dimensions of faith: rituals, symbols, sacraments, and sacrifice. They tend to have a disciplined life of faith and have a need for ritual and structure.

Sensate – Loving God with the Senses:
Sensate Christians want to be lost in the awe, beauty, and splendor of God. They are drawn particularly to the liturgical, the majestic, the grand. They want to be filled with sights, sounds, and smells that overwhelm them. The five senses are God’s most effective inroad to their hearts.

Naturalist – Loving God Out of Doors:
The naturalist seeks to leave the formal architecture and the padded pews to enter an entirely new "cathedral", a place that God himself has built: the out-of-doors.

Take the test yourself here.

This post is just my quick irritated rant.  Feel free to skip.  Or better yet, if you are a Blackberry owner, tell me if I am alone.  Especially if you’re a Blackberry owner with a Mac.

I could write for days, so I’ll give the way readers digest version.

Get T-mobile service with Blackberry 8100.
Experience excitement because Ive always wanted a Blackberry to try and organize my life.
Within 8 months or so, I start to have issues with the phone.
1 happens when MyFaves on phone don’t match system.  Not necessarily a Blackberry fault yet, but throw it in because T-Mobile customer service sucked, spoke to several rude agents, and was forced to drive 40 minutes to nearest authorized dealer to fix it.
Sorry, back to Blackberry issue.
Blackberry starts turning itself off at random times and in middle of conversations.
They have me reinstall new software.
Still has jacked buttons so they replace it.
New phone comes.
Now the real fun begins.
Get all my numbers and info in it.
Within weeks it gives me a JVM error and erases everything.
So I start over.
Less than a week later we go to Tahoe with staff.
On the way there…yup – JVM error.  But this time the phone won’t even turn on.
I call T-Mobile.
Once again reinstall new software.
Seems to be working now.
That was somewhere in the vicinity of a month or so ago.
A few days ago – JVM error.  But it only wipes out my call logs. So I keep using it.
Today – you guessed it – JVM error.
All my numbers, pictures, calendar, etc – gone.
Call T-Mobile.  Call goes something like this:

Agent: It was a JVM error?
Bobby: Yes.
A:  Then it’s a software issue.  you need to reinstall the software again.
B:  The first phone never did this.  This one’s done it multiple times in 2 months.  But you’re telling me it has nothing to do with the phone?
A:  It’s not a hardware issue.  It’s software.  It happens.  You may have downloaded something corrupted, like a game.
B:  I don’t download anything.
A:  It could even be a corrupted text message.  That’s why Blackberry’s are so good, they give you the software so you can replace it.
B:  They would be better if it didn’t happen in the first place.
A:  I’ve had 3 Blackberry’s and I’ve had to reinstall software within weeks because of JVM errors before as well.
B:  On all of them?
A:  On 2 out of the 3.
B:  So what you’re telling me is Blackberry just isn’t a stable device in general.
A:  No, if that were the case I wouldn’t keep using Blackberry’s.  The good thing is you can reinstall the software.
B:  So how many times do I have to have it crash and lose my info before you guys will do something about it like replace my phone?
A:  There is no number.  It’s not a hardware issue.  All you can do is install new software.
B:  Your product sucks.  I’ll just wait till it does it again and I’ll be calling you again.
A:  OK.  Go ahead and do that.

I’m done with Blackberry.
I’m really done with T-Mobile.
Has anyone else with a Blackberry had these JVM issues?
Or am I just special?

OK.  So yeah, since joining the bandwagon, I’ve had a few posts on Twitter.  However, as I’ve talked with some friends, they still don’t see the value.  I’m sure the reason for this isn’t that there is no value, but I must not have explained very well how to use it.

So, today I came across a great video explanation at Nate’s blog.  Twitter in plain english.  I was once Carla.  I was the skeptic.  Now the believer.  Watch and understand:

There ya have it.  Even if you don’t sign up, at least you get it.
Do you Twitter, yet?

Oh and for those of you who missed this in the past, or still don’t understand the whole RSS thang, be sure to check out this video, a reposting from the past.  I would have to rank this as way more important than Twitter when it all comes down to it.  Enjoy:

I was having coffee this morning with an amazing couple from our church.  God has birthed in them a growing passion to reach out to the builder generation and the retiring boomers to help them see their continuing value in the body of Christ and his work.

We got to talking about music styles and he said something that I found interesting.  Loose paraphrase to follow:

I think one of the reasons that lots of older people desire to see more hymns in the church isn’t just because of their preferences.  These are songs that have been passed down in the church from hundreds of years through the church.  Now, if this generation chooses to throw them away, they feel that they are responsible as the generation that was not able to successfully hand down this heritage.  The line is broken with them.

I thought that was a pretty interesting perspective.  One I haven’t heard or considered before.

Your thoughts?