My Worship Revolution

Merry Christmas y’all.
I know a little late.
I’ve been out of town, so here’s a few updates of the past week.

That’s Caleb before our Christmas Eve service.
I keep thinking he looks like a little ska baby.
He dressed up more than I did.
His mom dressed him she didn’t dress me.
Christmas Eve service went well.  Confessional to follow…someday.

Christmas morning was just the three of us.  It was relaxing.  It was great.
It was a blast watching Caleb open gifts.
This year he actually cared about the gifts more than the wrapping paper.
The pic above is Caleb opening Uncle Will‘s gift.
Christmas afternoon began the 8 hour drive to San Diego.
Been here the last couple days with family.

Tomorrow (Friday) is Disneyland with the fam.
You passholder friends keep an eye out for us.

Then it’s off to spend the weekend and New Years with Rachel’s fam.
In Big Bear.
Doin me some snowboardin on New Years Eve.

So blogging will continue to be spotty.
Hope you all had a great Christmas!!

So, a while back I introduced you to Robert Pinky (A.K.A. The pink Guy, The Pink Lady) who strolls around downtown Santa Cruz very slowly all day…every day.  In Santa Cruz, everyone’s got a gimmick.  I had said i would try to share more of our cities oddities with you, the faithful readers.  Downtown always promises to be an interesting journey.  And today was no exception.

I think I ran into Pinky’s cousin playing the accordion after church today.  Take a look:

Yup…that’s a real person.  "Sorbet Santa" according to the box.  Just another day in Downtown Santa Cruz.  Best part is…I love where I live!!  Might as well keep life interesting!

This one’s from Dec. 9th.
I know, I’m behind.
Have an even older one waiting to go up one of these days.
Enjoy this one in the meantime.
It was a good Sunday!

Every so often I’ll take one of these.  I’m fairly consistent.  Here’s about what it usually looks like:

Although this one is the least extroverted and the most intuitive of any I’ve taken in the past.

What are you?

HT: DT

An update…

Hmmm…not doin so well after this post I guess.

That’s what came to my mind when I saw this picture from our hike yesterday:

She loves to hike.
She loves to camp.
She skis.
She loves to be active.
She’s an amazing mother.
She makes great sacrifices to stay home with our son.
She regularly has dinner for me when I get home from work.
She loves to be involved in ministry.
She manages our household and money incredibly.
She watches football…and enjoys it!
She’s a Charger fan.
She loves falling asleep to watching golf on a Sunday afternoon.
She makes me a better person.
She puts up with me everyday!!
And did I mention she’s hot?

I’ve gotta be the luckiest guy in the world.
I appreciate her a ton.
Single guys…good luck finding a catch half as good as this.

I know.  I’m way behind on Worship Confessionals.  I’ll try and get one up tomorrow while I’m not working.  But in the meantime, how about a Caroling Confessional?

Tuesday night was "Caroling on the Wharf," basically the big Christmas event for our church this year.  We’ve done it for several years, picking it up a few years after the city lost funding for it.  In the past, it’s not something the church has really emphasized from what I understand.  This year, we decided we would take this opportunity to reach out to our community.  How often do you have the city inviting you to be in a public place and sing songs about Jesus and hang out with the community, not to mention with other businesses jumping in to help out?

So we sent out mailers and tried to get the word out.  This year we also added an extra hour with cookie decorating, crafts for kids, and free pics with Santa to view at our website.  (Nice little trick I learned from Trotter to drive people to the new site.)  The idea also was that everyone who comes gets a flyer with an invite to Christmas Eve and the first series of 2008.

Random Facts

• We sang about 26 Christmas Carols which took about an hour.
• Unfortunately, my drummer, who was set to play percussion for the night had to bail last minute.  The positive side was we had someone fill in last minute and he brought his whole trap set.  Thanks Justin!
• It was freezing by the time we were done.  Almost literally.  It was forecasted to be 32 degrees, someone said it was 36.
• I couldn’t feel my hands as I played my guitar toward the end of the night.
• My legs and body were cramping up from the cold.  That was the not fun part.

Celebrations

• Turnout.  We guestimated about 200-250 people turned out for the night.  At least double if not triple the umber from last year according to some who were there in the past.
• Cookie decorating.  Big hit!  We burned through all 200 cookies by 6:30 (event was 6-8).  Again great turnout.
• Along with the great turnout, Rachel pointed out that there were LOTS of people who she didn’t recognize from our church.  Another big win.  This event wasn’t to serve our church family.  It was for our church family to serve our community.
• Russ made a great Santa!  And lots of people were really excited about pictures.
• Whitney and Caitlin were the most amazing elves EVER!!
• The screen.  This year we did away with the photocopied books and set up a screen with the lyrics.  We were supposed to have 2, but had some technical difficulties.  I think it worked better with 1 anyway.

Learnings

• Signage.  We didn’t really have any.  Would have been nice to have some identification and directional signage as well as…
• A schedule.  Some people thought we’d be singing the whole time from 6-8.  They still may have been a bit disappointed, but some signage near the stage with the evening schedule would have helped some.
• More greeters.  We didn’t really get greeters well organized beforehand, thus I don’t think we got nearly as many flyers out as I would have liked.  Unfortunately I didn’t organize that part so well.
• More leaders.  I’m still kinda in the phase of identifying some great leaders that can really own areas of ministry and events.  Having more leaders in place next year and equipping them well beforehand will take a lot of stress off of me the night of.
• I think we might want to try renting some gas heaters next year to see how that works out.  Did I mention it was cold?
• Cookies.  We’ll be making at least double the amount next year so we don’t run out in 30 minutes.
• Some more decor would be nice to add next year.
• A little more background for Santa pics also.  It’s nice having the wharf vibe, but a little more Christmas scenery might enhance the pics.

THANK YOU…

• Marc for running sound.
• Santa and elves!
• Steve for running lyrics.
• Jane and Julie for running with the cookies.
• The band.
• Everyone else who helped (there were plenty, so I better stop there at risk of leaving someone out!)
• Marini’s for donating the brownies.
• Carniglia’s for helping with the cider and hot chocolate.
• Santa Cruz Parks and Rec for helping allow us to facilitate the event.
• Kenny and Legend Theatrical for helping us out with the technical setup and issues.

Long post, but maybe it will help someone out there with an idea or two, and if nothing else, it will be good for me to look back on during planning next year!  I tend to focus my energy at times on what could have been better rather than stepping back and celebrating.  Overall, it was an awesome event and we all had a great time!  now time to get ready for a rather chill family style Christmas Eve service and then it’s off into 2008!!

Caleb is 14 months old.
His cousin Ryan is a week older and has been walking for months.
He’s been ready to walk for months, but just won’t.
Ladies and gentlemen, the momentous day has finally arrived.
In Arizona in the presence of his aunt, uncle, and cousins.
See for yourselves:

For all you "valley" people…

And I thought Mo-town had nothing worthwhile to offer.

HT: Matt Olds

So here’s what happened.  This weekend, I had Rachel’s Christmas gift planned.  The plan was to surprise her with a drive north to Portland for the weekend to visit one of her good friends, Kari.  We were also going to visit some really good friends, Boomer and Lisa, too.

Then Kari’s grandma died last week.  There went that gift.  I had already covered worship for this week and put in vacation time, so, we just diverted our plans.

Just a few weeks ago, my cousin had his second baby, a little girl named Zoey.  So, instead of making the 12 hour drive north, we decided to go see family, jumped in the car at 6:30 yesterday morning and made the 9 hour drive to Bullhead City, AZ, just outside of Laughlin, NV.  Staying with my aunt and uncle who seriously live in the middle of NOWHERE in the desert.

Caleb did surprisingly well on the long drive.  So here we are getting a nice weekend break between "Caroling on the Wharf" and Christmas Eve.  And the wharf event went great, by the way.  Hopefully a post on that later.

Maybe I’ll catch up on a little blogging while we’re here, and keep you updated on a nice relaxing weekend.  Here’s a few pics of their family and new addition, Zoey:

And of course the most important one…

Notice Tracy’s not in the Charger pic.  Last night she was rooting for the Broncos.  I don’t think she can fully be considered family right now.