My Worship Revolution

Today (Sunday June 8th) was birthday number twenty-nine, only one year away from twenty-ten!  As everyone so kindly reminded me all day when they heard my age.
“You got one more year!”  This was commonly heard.
Apparently life ends at 30.  Hehe.

A few thoughts and recap of the day for those interested:

Facebook Birthday:  Social networking can be great.  I had people posting Happy Birthdays all day long.  In reality, lots of them wouldn’t have without the ease of Facebook.  Some look at that and say it isn’t worth much then.  I, on the other hand, appreciate hearing from everyone and appreciate the ease it allows for in communicating.  So to all you who wished me a Happy Birthday on Facebook, thanks a ton!  I was surprised how much it actually brightened my day.  If you said it on MySpace, haven’t even checked it yet.  Didn’t occur to me til now.  You should be using Facebook instead anyway.

And that’s not to downplay those of you who called or sent snail mail.  Even cooler.  You get my point with the Facebook thing though.

Community Service:  Today instead of having our typical gathering, to end our Outflow series the church left the building to do service in our community.  So consider this my Worship Confessional as well.

We gathered and sang 2 songs.

• Stir In Me – an oldie for me, but only the second time we’ve sung it here.  It’s an all-time fave for me and I couldn’t resist eventually introducing it here.
• Be Glorified – A real oldie, but also one of my old faves and thought the words worked well for the morning.

From there we did a few announcements then organized to go.
I led a team doing yardwork and other maintenance for a couple neighbors right around the church.

Met 2 other neighbors while we were out.
One was very thankful for the work we were doing in his next door neighbors yard and said he was really glad we never moved as a church.  Glad to have us around.
Good to get to know neighbors and create a positive image!

Creative Planning:  I then spent from 1pm-4pm in a meeting planning creative elements for our next series, One Prayer.  If you haven’t heard about this series yet, check out the website!  over 1300 churches, over 787,000 people.  We’re starting a week late cause of our service weekend.  but hey, we’re Santa Cruz.  We show up late to everything and we like to be the rebels.

It’s been way too long since we’ve had one of these creative meetings for our services.  It makes a big difference and I am REALLY excited about plans for this next series.  The video teachings may be a stretch for our church, but if we can get past that, I think this series really has the potential to be the highlight of this year!

80’s Themed Surprise Party:  My wife told me we were going to Maggiano’s for dinner, then out to see Indiana Jones.  I was wiped and oddly looking forward to a low key evening.  I walked in the door and a bunch of people dressed funny yelled surprise and the party was on.  I’m a people person and an extrovert, so it didn’t take long to shift gears and have a great time.  A quick shower and a 5 minute 80’s outfit creation and I was ready to go!

Rachel, although apparently it way stressed her out all week, did a great job planning this without me finding out.  Unfortunately for her I do have “Spider Sense” and the thought breezed through my head for some reason as I was walking up the steps, but I still didn’t really expect it.

The house looked awesome.  As you walked in it said “Welcome Back To the 80’s” and had pictures of me as a kid in the 80’s.  None of our picture frames had our pictures in them.  They all had pictures like the Seaver’s, the Cosby’s, a 3 picture tribute for the King of Pop himself, Ronald Reagan, and Paula Abdul just to name a few.  Thanks to Shawna for helping her decorate all afternoon.

Our friends James and Jill hooked me up with a gift I’m totally stoked about.  My Nike +.  Really wanted this probably more than anything.  Will be great for my workouts.  Thanks guys!!

Another Friends Birthday:  And it just wouldn’t be right to finish this post without recognizing my good friend Jamie who shares the same day of birth and celebrated her __th with a different last name than last year.  Swing by her blog and wish her a Happy Belated Birthday.

Now, I’m really wiped!  And with that, friends, I’m hittin the sack!