The Set
Hosanna
You’re Alive

Bromance Mash Up

You Gave Your Life Away
Restless
Glory To God

I was told by some that we have the worst clapping church in history.  So we played this instructional video before worship to start off with a bit of fun.
Restless was awesome to introduce.  Unfortunately I capoed the wrong fret and I’m ticked at myself cause it would have been a bit better up a step.
Singing Guy Love with Chris was awesome and actually went over better than I expected it to I think.
It was a lot of fun to roch out with a full band for my last week after 3 years of worshipping hard with our CLC family.

Below is a recap of the whole morning with clips.
And below that I embedded Guy Love in it’s entirety for your viewing pleasure.

And there you have it.
That was yesterday.
And today marks the beginning of a new chapter for us.
CLC – thanks again for going to the throne with us every week, for investing in us and in the lives of our kids, and for loving us during this season of ministry.  We are praying that God will bless CLC greatly and do amazing things there in 2010.

Merry Christmas.

So last month we had our first barbeque out at San Lorenzo Park.
San Lorenzo is a park near the County building in downtown Santa Cruz.  It’s kinda known for it’s homeless and drug dealing population.
On the 3rd Saturday of each month, we are taking our families out there to grill burgers and dogs and give it out free to anyone who wants to join us.

Last month is was a blast, not to just feed a bunch of people including homeless, but to actually spend time getting to know their names and just hanging out with them.  I love having Caleb doing ministry with us, learning early on to have compassion and recognize the God given dignity that each and every one of us inherently possesses.  There are so many stories behind each person, and lot of the ones we tend to judge by appearance are really not so different from us.

Here are a few pics from last month.

I’m looking forward to being out there again tomorrow.
Anyone who wants to join us, Please do!

You can meet us at the park at 11:30, or help us load everything up at my place at 11.
And if you can bring 5 bucks to help with all the grub, that would be great too.

Looking forward to meeting some new friends tomorrow and being Jesus to our community as a Life Group.

Great question.
And lots of answers there.
I could sit and read all 130+ comments, but…
Especially when it comes to my faith community, it will look a bit different.
So I'd love to know the answer to that questions from you guys.
Especially if you attend CLC.
But even if you don't, bring it.
I wanna hear from my blog and church community.

So what song is it for you?

Here is a video we made as a staff to say thanks.  Not the highest quality recording, but we had a good time making it last week, looking kinda like idiots, and everyone at the dinner seemed to get a good laugh at…errr…with us.
Check it out:

It was a great day of teaching, art, and hanging.  Here’s some notes and quotes from some great sessions I attended.

Erwin McManus
Erwin, author and lead pastor at Mosaic Church in L.A. shared at the opening session and wrapped it up some in the closing session as well.  REALLY great stuff that I think will stay with me and even shape some of my language in the future.

Here’s the gist of his message:

He used Acts 17, Paul in Athens for his text.
Paul reasons in the synagogue first, then the marketplace, and then was invited into their space to share.
The point:
We tend to start in the first space where we feel most comfortable.  This is where people think and look like us.  For us, this is church.  No matter how well you do in the first space, it’s never going to dramatically effect other spaces.
The second space is the market place.  This is where we interact with people who don’t agree with us.
The third space, however, we must be invited into.  This is where others invite us into their first space.  This is where true change and influence happens.

Here are some quotes that were worth writing down as Erwin shared:

• We can feel the warmth of another persons skin and still be light years apart.
• What kind of first place are you creating?  Exclusive, or a space for humanity? Because everyone needs humanity.
• Is it possible for us to create a first space for the world, not just for Christians?
• When people ask me how to get their people to engage culture, I ask what they ever did to get them to disengage from culture.
• I’m a pastor. That’s like saying I’m a cannibal. Wanna have lunch?
• Marketplace people aren’t looking for information, they’re looking for presence.
• God sounds like you. Except when He’s mad and he sounds like your wife.
• In the second space you have to live a life that earns you the right to be heard.
• By the time you get to the 3rd space you will lose the confidence of those in the 1st space.  To reach the 3rd space, you need to be willing to lose your reward and respect in the 1st space.

Naeem Fazal – Essentials Of Transformational Growth
Naeem is the lead pastor at Mosaic Church in North Carolina.
First of all, I was way stoked to walk into this session and see a good friend of mine Nate who is the worship leader at the church.

Naeem shared a whole lot about his own story of moving to the U.S. from Pakistan and eventually being converted from the Muslim faith to faith in Jesus Christ.  Very good, very powerful story.  He went on to share a bit of the story of his church and talk about transformational growth.
Some quotes:

• I really loved progress and a packed house more than I loved following God.
• I was a leader that hoped more than he prayed.
• I tried to delay the inevitable.
• The reason our church is big right now is transfer growth, not transformation.  I wish I could say that wasn’t the case, but it is our current reality.
• I can’t keep talking to God and avoid the conversation about transformation.
• I don’t have all the answers, but I don’t think we are asking the right questions to begin with.
• I really don’t think we have the guts to look at ourselves as leaders and say, I suck.
• If we’re gonna see transformation take place in our churches, we need to discover our voice, and not be someone else’s echo.
• What is the 1 line message of your life?
  • What has God done in your life and why aren’t you talking about it more?
• We need to be led more than being driven.
• When is the last time you heard God say something to you personally?

The Origins Network

Like I said, Erwin, Dan, and Dave finished by sharing about the new Origins network that they are starting.  Feel free to check it out over here.

Should be a good week!
Who else is gonna be there?
Let’s hang.

And here we are in the van:

Julie’s in the drivers seat.
More to come as the week progresses.
Now back to the roadtrip!

So to open up, we taped a little intro out at a local cemetary.
Here’s how it turned out:

Kinda fun to have something a little different to open up the message.
Here’s the message if you’re interested as well:

One of the biggest impacts of my faith early on were some books I read by Randy Alcorn, primarily Deadline.  The book presents some amazing thoughts on heaven and possibilities of what it could be like.

I tend to think that because of our lack of understanding in our theology of heaven, there are a lot of followers of Jesus that actually still fear death because they are afraid heaven might be "boring."  This is one reason I think it can be important to spend some time studying scripture in regard to a theology of heaven.

I know all sorts of different backgrounds swing by here, so it's time to anonymously share your opinions.  3 polls below.  I'm curious how many of you believe there really is a literal heaven and a literal hell.  And for those of you who do think there's a heaven, especially Christ followers, are you looking forward to it?
Or do you tend to agree with the classic Billy Joel lyrics:

Yesterday was on the "parallel war."  The battle between God and Satan for our souls.
To kick off the series, thought it could be really interesting in a place like Santa Cruz to go downtown and get some opinions on the existence of another dimension.  The interactions didn't disappoint.

Check out the video we used to open the series:

Next week we'll hear what those people had to say about heaven and hell.

And in week 3, we doing a panel discussion of the pastoral staff on common questions about the topics.  We've encouraged our church to submit their questions over here.
Should be a fun series!