My Worship Revolution

The goal of church planting is not to build a church

…The
goal is to reach lost people. Jesus reserved the right to build
churches for himself. Numbers definitely matter, but the most important
one is the number of lost people in our community… and it should be a diminishing one.

Ever see the cheesy Kevin Costner & Ashton Kutcher movie The Guardian? Costner is a legend in ocean search and rescue. All the young recruits are in awe of him and try to guess the number of people he saved in his career. The popular estimate is 300.

Love this dialogue at Costner’s retirement:

“What’s the number” Kutcher asks Costner point-blank
“22″ says Costner.
“Well that’s pretty good, but it’s no 300,” says Kutcher,
As Costner finishes packing his bags, he says…
“That’s not how many I saved; it’s how many I lost. That’s the only number I’ve kept track of.”

HT: Ben via Pete

My thoughts.
at 5:30 am.
This morning.

Whoever decided changing our clocks was a good idea probably didn’t have a baby that wakes up at the same time every morning and can’t read a clock yet.

OK, a bit behind on this, but this was the video that played before I spoke a little over a week ago.

Meet Rae Albrecht.
She is a young adult at CLC.
She is a talented songwiter.
And a painter.
And she’s got some amazing thoughts bouncing around in her head too.
Wish I could have kept em all in, check her out:

And bonus points for anyone who knows where the first line of her song comes from.  (Except you Ed, since you were there when Rae told us.)

This is basically just a big shout out to my old life groupers at Revolution

Bugaboo 2005 game booth – LBC Life Group

Bugaboo 2006 game booth – same life group, Cerritos

Bugaboo 2007 game booth – same life group, Belmont Shore (minus us, of course) 

Way to carry the torch Charlie (who never blogs) and crew!  Trophy or not, way to be the best booth there!  Miss you guys!

Well, it’s been way too long since a worship confessional.
Sorry.
Last week I didn’t lead.  We had Erynn Ragland, a guest leader who is a student at Bethany University.  She was awesome!  I recorded it and was gonna throw it down.  But I didn’t.  Sorry.
Again not leading this week.  We’re talking about students, so our youth band, led by Rachel Hopkin, will be leading this week.
So hopefully the week after that I’ll get back in the swing of things.

However, as I mentioned, I did teach this past Sunday.  Thought I’d throw the audio up here is you wanna check it out (ummm…mom…).  First, a few thoughts, learnings, and fact:

• As I mentioned last week, it was tough in a way because it wasn’t a straight passage to speak from.  However, the more I thought about it the more I discovered there was plenty on my mind to say.
• This was probably the first time I’ve taught and put together my message without ripping off someone else’s points.  All me.  Good or bad thing?  you decide after listening. 
• There was a lot happening that morning, so I planned to just keep it real short.  Didn’t happen that way exactly.  Typical I guess.
• I embarrass myself in the beginning during the "child of the eighties" stuff.  Shoulda just passed that by maybe.  But isn’t self deprecation a great way to gain repoire?
• I am my own worst critic when I speak.  I want to keep doing it and get better, but it’s much less comfortable for me than leading worship.  But I’m learning and I love it.
• That being said, my 2 biggest critiques (not having listened to it back yet: first, it was in my head all week, but I didn’t really hash it out on paper til the day before.  That probably contributed to my getting lost in the notes once or twice. 
• Second, as I sat there in worship, I questioned if I really stressed the radical call that Jesus made to the rich young ruler quite enough.  He wasn’t asking for just a small shift, but a LIFE CHANGING paradigm shift and call to action.  I still don’t think I hit that hard enough, but hey, live and learn.

So thanks to those of you that gave me some thoughts to chew on last week regarding Generation X.  If you’re interested in how it came out, feel free to listen below (player embedded here if you’re reading via RSS).

And Oh yeah, it started with another video testimony, this time by Rae Albrecht and then her playing a song she wrote.  I want to get the song added to the video, so I’ll try and post that in the next day or two.  It was a pretty amazing interview and song.

Anyway, that’s enough reading.  Now it’s time to listen.  i think it clocked in at about 35 minutes, so get comfy.  Enjoy!

This was our third pumpkin.
A team effort by myself and Rachel.
She did most of the carving part.
All that to say:

Be safe.
Have fun.
Eat lots of sugar.
That’s all.
Lates.

Here’s what it looks like when an earthquake hits during life group:

The best part was Katie under the table.  That made me smile.  Sorry Katie, but that table is from Ikea…you’d probably be safer under a shelf.
I guess I’ve been too desensitized to earthquakes.  As everyone else ran for cover I laughed and pulled out the camera phone.

5.6.
Centered near San Jose.
About 30 seconds.
It was kinda fun.
Better earthquakes than tornadoes.
I love California.

OK, so we experimented with the brainstorm idea last week.  It went ok.  So I expect enev more participation this week.  Here we go.

For the past several years, our church has headed up "Caroling on the Wharf" here in Santa Cruz.  In the past it was an event the city had put on, which they lost funding for and we took over.  So now we partner with the community to provide this for families.  It takes place on an open area out toward the end of the wharf.  Apparently it hasn’t been a huge turnout the past couple of years.  Especially dependent on the weather here in December (it happens December 11th).  People just show up and sing some songs for an hour.  Free cider and brownies by us and a local coffee shop.

So as I was processing through our holiday activities, what we would do and not do, add and get rid of, I started thinking.  What a great opportunity for us to provide a service for our community.  Why not do more and make it more attractive to unchurched peeps.  No gospel presentation or anything.  i mean heck, we’re already singing CHRISTmas songs.  We’ll just make sure everyone who comes gets an invite to our Christmas Eve service and New Years series.

So here’s where your help can come in handy.  You’re not a church goer, or even a believer.  You get a mailer at your home or see advertising around town.

What would draw you to want to go to this event?

What activities?  What features?
I’ve got a few ideas.  You know, Santa, crafts for kids, etc.  A few more too.  But I’d love some of your thoughts.
What have you done?  What have you never done but always wanted to do?
Think big.  Don’t even worry about cost.  Have fun.  We can eliminate the stuff we can’t afford or do later.
So, any ideas?

THANKS!

Because a base was stolen in the World Series, you can get a free taco today between 2 and 5.
Click here for more info.
Enjoy!

Last week was busy.  I taught on Sunday.  More on that later.  Video for Sunday morning to edit.  And yesterday was also our annual Hillbilly Harvest Festival for the community.

It was AWESOME!!!

• Jane (our children’s ministry director) did an amazing job putting together so many of the details and making them happen.  Way to go Jane!!
• Thank you so much to all the volunteers who helped out.  Many hands make light work and we had a blast and people were great.
• Speaking of, I have to give a special shout out to those who stuck around to teardown.  You rocked!!  I looked around at all the hay, games, fences, tables, etc. when the event ended at 7 and was ready for some serious work.  We finished putting everything away and having everything cleaned up and it was only 7:35!!  Amazing!
• I haven’t had a chance to count the raffle entries yet (it is my day off) but we guesstimated somewhere between 250-300 people showed up.  I got to talk to lots of visitors, several of which came as a result of the mailers we sent out.
• And oh yeah, it definitely helped the weather was beautiful!  (Unlike today, as the thunder crashes loudly and the rain starts suddenly pouring outside.)

All in all, it was a great day and a great family community event.  Here’s some pictures, including my little Giraffe!