My Worship Revolution

I dropped Rachel off at the airport this morning to visit SoCal, which means I’m all alone until Sunday.  I’ll be missin the fam.  She took Caleb with her, so the upside is I will get to sleep past 5:45 for a few mornings.  Maybe I’ll watch a couple guy flicks with the sound cranked up real loud while she’s gone.  Or play a little PS2.  Random post.  Out.

If you found this page because you just Googled "g-string", you might want to visit this site.

For the rest of you, welcome to another installment of Worship Confessional.  This week I decided to do something a little daring…some clips from our service.  I say daring for a number of reasons.  One is, it’s just a camera in the balcony.  Not only is it not mixed, it doesn’t even come off a board.  So it is what it is, but it will give a glimpse of what we’re doing.

It’s also daring because I’m my own worst critic, all the way around.  Even in regard to the presentation of the stage there’s a lot we are in the works to improve.  So this is where we’re at now, and as I do this once in a while, you can see the changes take place.

Alrighty then, enough said.  Here’s what our week looked like here at CLC in Santa Cruz:

Here’s a video that Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill in Seattle made for a recent Church Planting event he was invited to but couldn’t make it to in Florida.  He doesn’t say what the event was, but my guess is it was probably the National New Church conference I referenced in my last post.  This video was shown and was supposed to be handed out to all of the attenders, but because of criticism of it from another well known pastor, it wasn’t.  You can read the story here at his blog.

It’s definitely Mark Driscoll speaking in those ways that everyone either loves or hates.  It’s got some great principles, and I enjoyed it, so I decided to chance putting it up here in spite of the haters.  Check it out:

It’s a tough balance for most people in ministry.  There’s always something to do and something or someone competing with your time with your family.  Over the years I’ve come to know lots of friends and mentors in ministry, and most of them are still trying to figure it out.  To be honest, I can only think of one that seems to have a pretty healthy grip on it, in my opinion.  The rest of us tend to either work too much and don’t give spouses and children what they deserve, which is the majority of us (myself included at times), and a few who swing the other way.

I bring this up cause I came across a great post last week that reviewed the teaching of Larry Osbourne at the National New Church Conference in Orlando last week.  He is the pastor of North Coast Church in Vista, a leading church in the multisite movement, a church that has an attendance of over 6000 every weekend.  In this session he talked about how to "Grow a Church and Still Have a Life."  Go take a few minutes to read his points over here.

The part that really caught me the most was his take on potential.  In the teaching, he says,

• "Potential confuses what I could do with what I should do."
• "Somehow, serving two masters (God and spouse) is better than maximizing your potential." 

Maybe to other people that just makes sense, but I guess for me it was a bit of a revolutionary thought.  The idea that just because I could have a larger "Kingdom impact" (at least as far as it seems to us) that may not be what God wants out of me.  That can be hard to wrap my head around.  But I recognize that God has given me an amazing wife and son at this point in my life, and they need to be my number one ministry in life.  If I’m not doing my job there, I don’t have anything to give others.

So, as we’ve made this shift into a new season of ministry, Rachel and I have tried to be very intentional in protecting our time together and the growing of our relationship.  Here’s two ways we’re doing that right now:

• Date Night.  This is one of those things we always intended to do, but it rarely really happened in the past 3+ years.  So now, we’ve made Friday nights a sacred night for us.  That night could change as our schedule shapes up here, but we are set on having a weekly date night to date each other.  We take turns each week planning it, and it has to be on virtually no budget, so game nights will be plentiful.  So far it’s been a blast.
• Coming Home.  I’ve promised Rachel that I’ll be home by (or very close to, depending on traffic) 5:30 p.m. each night, except for Wednesdays when I get home real late cause that’s my marathon day.  Of course this is a bit flexible for weeks when meetings arise and what not, but that’s the normal goal.  This gives me the chance each night to help give Caleb a bath, read to him and put him to bed.  And as an added bonus, since Rachel knows I’ll be home, she has a homemade dinner waiting for me every night!  She rocks!

So those are a couple of the goals I’ve set to try and truly put my family first.  I really believe that effective ministry can be done without sacrificing the well being of my family.  Hopefully Larry is an example of that truth, at least based on what I read here.  Another guy who I’ve heard is an amazing example of this is Andy Stanley, lead pastor of North Point church in Alpharetta, Georgia, who decided that he would leave the office everyday at 3:30 or 4:30 p.m. to be with his family.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  So now you know what my goals are and what my nights look like.  I’ll do my best to give myself to those I minister to at CLC, after I’ve ministered to my own household.  How about some of you others reading this who are in full time ministry?  Is this ever a struggle for you  What have you done to balance ministry and family?

See the red X’s up above?  That’s where the displacement camps will be on Saturday.  I’m talking about an event called Displace Me and it’s happening this weekend.  It’s organized to raise awareness about the longest standing war in Africa, in Uganda, where children and adult civilians are living in fear everyday.  Last year, a similar event, the Global Night Commute, was held and 80,000 people across the nation traveled to cities and slept on the streets.  That’s when I became aware of the movement cause our friends Bet and Erik participated in Long Beach.

I wish I could be there, but I just heard about it and my Sunday morning responsibilities kinda prevent me from being there.  But there’s still time for you to sign up.  If you haven’t heard of it before, go check out the website for Invisible Children and learn the story.  I am still wanting to see the full movie.  It’s a cause you may here about here some more, so go see more of what it’s about.

Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about my weight loss attempts.  I guess I haven’t attempted much lately.  So!!  Here we go again!  Round 2.  Sorry the videos a little long.  I’ll make em a bit shorter in the future.  In my wife’s words, I’m a typical pastor – could have said the same thing in a lot less time.  Ouch. 

Time to get skinny.  Here’s the update:

Tagged by Rich Kirkpatrick this time.  Here’s the deal:

When tagged, you have to take your
birthday date and find out some things about it. You have to find,
events, other people who were born on the same day, deaths and a
holiday.

I’ve seen it goin around, and now it hit me.  So like the others, I stopped by Will‘s favorite site, Wikipedia.  Here are the discoveries I found most interesting for June 8th:

Events

• 1789 – James Madison introduces a proposed Bill of Rights in the U.S. House of Representatives.
• 1912 – Carl Laemmle incorporates Universal Pictures
• 1949 – Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is published
• 1968 – James Earl Ray is arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.

Births

• 1917 – Byron White, American athlete and Supreme Court Justice
• 1925 – Barbara Bush, First Lady of the United States
• 1977 – Kanye West, American Rapper
• 1977 – Jamie Petersen, American worship leader

Deaths

• 632 – Muhammed, prophet of Islam
• 1845 – Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States

Holiday

• World Ocean Day  (Hey, sounds like a good excuse to surf to me.)

Alright, so now it’s time to "tag" a couple of you. And the winners are:

Songs of the Closet (and you can’t use any of mine!  Don’t worry, I made sure to leave you plenty to pick from.)
Fickle Obsessor
Kuya Jet

Comment left by Ben on recent post, "The Good News":

You are tempting me. I’m up for a new pc in October. I will need some
strong convincing though Bobby. The thought of learning a new OS just
doesn’t sound like it’s worth the trouble. Convince me.

OK…with some help, I’ll give it a go.  Here are a couple of the reasons, after making the switch last year, I’m glad that I did and am not turning back:

• Stability.  I know some people have claimed to me that they have a new PC and haven’t had any problems with it.  That just hasn’t been my experience.  I got a bit tired of the whole CTRL+ALT+DEL thing.  Now granted, I won’t lie.  I did have a few problems with an iMac I got at Revolution.  But overall it was still better than any PC I owned, and the customer service was better as well.
• Virus Protection.  I guess this could have gone along with stability, but I think it’s deserving of a bullet all it’s own.  With your PC you MUST have some serious virus protection or you’re screwed.  Even with it, you’ll probably have a problem somewhere along the line.  Not that it hasn’t happened, but I have yet to hear of a Mac getting a virus.
• Media.  Part of it has to do with what I use it for.  I guess PC’s are better if you’re doing lots of accounting and spreadsheets (or so I’ve been told), but I’m using my computer for music, photos, graphics, video, web, etc.  Fact of the matter it, Macs are becoming the industry standard in most of these areas…for a reason.
• Compatibility. Not as much a reason, but a response to an excuse I guess.  People keep saying they need a PC because of the programs they need.  I have Microsoft Office for Mac on my laptop.  It has Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, fully compatible to share with PC users.  A large number of programs are available now a days for Macs.  And if it’s not, you always have the option of running Windows with Boot Camp or Parallels.
• iChat.  Small feature, but I must admit, I love the ease of being able to video conference with friends and ministry colleagues via my built in iSight.  Also makes me look forward to our parents getting Macs now so they can see Caleb more often now that we’re further away.
• They’re Sexy.  OK, not a real good reason to switch over, but when all the other stuff is going for it, it’s kinda icing on the cake, ya know?  It’s the best looking hunk of electronics you’ll see.  And their ads are pretty entertaining too. 

Anywho, that’s me.  Sure, when I switched over I felt like an 80 year old grandpa on his computer trying to figure out the ins and outs of this new-fandangled operating systems, but it aint really that tough.  Within a week or two I was fine and wishing I had made the switch sooner.

So there’s a response for you Ben.  And how about the rest of ya?  Help me out.  Own a Mac?  What’s your favorite feature?  Don’t own one and don’t want to?  Why not?  Go ahead and let me know.  This is an equal opportunity blog.

Here it is.  A bit earlier this week.  Check out my hood.  Enjoy.

***WARNING/DISCLAIMER:  You’ll notice that I catgorized this post under humor.  After talking with several people, I discovered that the story isn’t quite outlandish enough to realize that it’s satire.  It’s a joke.  Now, read and laugh a little.

Blogging.  A place to be authentic and share my life with you.  Here’s the next step.  All you pastors out there, here we go!
[HT: Lark News]

Pastors go live 24/7 on Internet

LEWISTON, Maine — Recently, several
hundred members of Holy Trinity Church watched pastor Jeremy Woods eat breakfast,
work on his sermon and make a Starbucks run. Woods had just joined a growing group
of pastors who are broadcasting their lives 24/7 on the Internet.

    "When I first heard of going live I thought, ‘This is
the future of pastoring but I’m not sure I like it,’" Woods says. But after
a month he says he "totally digs it."

    "It’s the next step beyond blogging or even live blogging,"
he says. "It’s about sharing life."

    The trend is believed to have started in 2004 when Rick Givens
of New York’s West Side Church decided to make himself "more accountable
and accessible" by webcasting every waking moment live. But his pioneering
effort has forced other pastors into awkward decisions. Donald Taylor, 37, of
Nebraska didn’t want to go live, but relented because of pressure from his board.
He hated his first week.
[READ MORE]