My Worship Revolution

Anybody out there at Revolution or in the Long Beach area interested in taking some voice lessons? Christina Walker is the Pastor of Belong/Grow ministries here at the church, and she teaches voice on the side.
Christina is a well trained vocalist with a Bachelor’s Degree in Performing Arts Ministry from University of Hartford. She started down the professional opera road, then God called her into ministry. She has sung and given lessons for many years.
This is a great opportunity to grow and work on your instrument if that is something you want to continue doing, whether you are on the worship team, in your high school choir, or just want the person in front you at church to stop cringing during worship (don’t worry, it sounds great to God as long as your heart is in it – the rest of us can suffer cause it’s really about Him anyway).
E-mail Christina for availabilty and rates, or any other questions you might have.

So I saw this article over at the xxxchurch blog. It’s a pretty interesting write up from an integrity online e mail. Check it out:

At Integrity Online we received many customer requests to block Xanga and MySpace, as well as some customer requests to keep them open. We have researched, at great length, the pros and cons of free, unmonitored, Web Logs ("Blogs") such as these. It has become clear to us that in order to provide the best filter protection to our customers, we must block xanga.com and myspace.com.

Blog hosts like these do not monitor, filter, or block the content of the Blogs they publish for all to view. Children can easily access these Blogs, and millions of these Blogs have proven themselves to be obscene and even dangerous.

As part of our research, we chose some words that might be used by ministries or businesses and searched for them on myspace.com. The “hits” are how many times these words are found on MySpace Blogs.

Bible Study 246,000 hits

Salvation 238,000 hits

Ministry 711,000 hits

Investment 82,400 hits

Medicine 571,000 hits

Architecture 164,000 hits

Antiques 25,700 hits

Now compare these words above with some obscene words below, that we searched on MySpace Blogs. These figures are beyond belief but sadly true.

Sex 9,960,000 hits

F*** 13,900,000 hits

Porn 2,300,000 hits

Sh** 17,700,000 hits

Nude 5,380,000 hits

More threatening to our customers are the dangers to children. National headlines have been made with tragic stories of sex crimes carried out against teenagers, and even younger children, through contact on these Blog sites.

My Space is an interesting animal. I have to admit I do have a My Space myself, and I’ve found it to be a useful tool to make contact with some old friends I haven’t talked to in years. Some of them are even doing ministry in other parts of the country and it’s been a great resource and opportunity for us. I’m able to here about the lives of people who are in my ministries. Some of you may have even found my blog through My Space.

On the same note, you don’t have to be on there long to see all the negative uses for it. Obviously, based on my own use of it, I won’t completely condemn the use of My Space altogether. But if you’re a teenager reading this, hopefully you can at least understand why your parents don’t let you use it, and I can’t say I blame them.

Ok, so no, I’m not still fasting from the internet.  Unfortunately, the posts have been a little bit sparse due to some internet issues both at home as well as at work.  The office is working now, but it looks like I won’t have any web access from home til we move, which hopefully be in a month or so.  (Another bedroom for the new family member would be nice)  Speaking of the fast, though, I never did get a chance to share much about my experience yet.  I won’t share a ton, but there were definitely a few learnings worth sharing.

• I noticed I do a lot of work related stuff.  It helped that it was a busy week at work, but some things were less difficult due to the amount of usage because of work (ie. phone and internet)
• I can go a whole week without checking blogs.  And I didn’t even feel cut off from the world completely.  However, I did have quite the blog roll to catch up on!  A bit overwhelming!  And I will continue to blog and read.
• It was really nice not watching TV for a week.  I think this is the one that had the most impact on me.  I’ve been spending quite a bit of time weekly watching various shows, and that is gonna change.  I waste a lot of time there.  The only shows I’m really gonna stick to are LOST and 24. (Even at that, though, I still haven’t watched this weeks 24…that’s huge for me!)  It looks like we will probably say goodbye to the dish and DVR when we move, too.  Another big step, taken both for time reasons and money.
• Finally, I need to spend more time reading!  It was so great to bury myself in some books outside of school work during the fast.  I read through 2 books of the Bible, plus a full book I got after seeing it advertised on inBubbleWrap.

So those were some great observations and learnings for me.  In addition to those things, I have to admit that I really did feel more connected to God.  I felt at the end like I was really getting some good vision from God in regards to the future of ministry here, and I’m excited to see things happen.  I look forward to staying just as connected to God after the fast as I was during it, with a little discipline.

How about others in my Life Group?  Others who randomly joined us?  Others from our church who fasted from other things that week?  I’d love to hear how it went for you.  Leave a comment.  Share a quick story of how God worked or what you learned.

After 6 long days of no "non-work internet" usage (which meant no inbubblewrap entries) God honors the faithfulness and sacrifice of his servant quite clearly. On my first day back from the fast I became a four time winner. That’s right folks, no ground lost. Here’s the book I look forward to receiving in the mail:

Of course there is more to share about the fast than just this.  I’ll share some more in the next couple of days.  Until then, it’s good to be back!

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been talking about the discipline of fasting in our life groups.  So last night was the time for us to pray about it and find something to fast from for the next week.
A few weeks ago I found the blogs of a few friends of mine and Rachels that she knows from college.  One of them, who attends Sandals Church in Riverside, posted about a progressive fast that their pastor challenged the whole church to in order to make more time and space for God.  You can see more about it on this post if you want.  And the message that explains this from their pastor is here (if you dont wanna hear the whole thing, it’s kinda worth it to skip to the end where he explains the fast).
I really liked the idea of this fast, so several of us in our life group are gonna do it over this next week.  Here’s what it will look like for us (we have life group on Tuesday nights):

Wednesday (today): No radio/movies (worship CD’s ok)

Thursday: Add no TV/non-work internet (no more bubblewrap this week!!  NO!)

Friday: Add no sweets/chocolate

Saturday: Add no soda/alcohol/coffee

Sunday: Add no meat/non-work phone

Monday: Add no bread/rice/pasta (carbs) (The Philipino’s in my group complained about this one)

Tuesday: Only juice and water

Wednesday: Fast ends that morning

Now some people might think I shouldn’t post this cause it should be all private or something.  It can be that way, but I kinda look forward to sharing how this goes and what it’s like to have that extra time with God.  Also, if anyone else wants to join us, jump on in and come back and tell us how it went in the comments.  I guess this is a little different for me than some food fasts when you’re more private about it and seeking direction or something.  For me, this is more about getting some distractions out of my life so I can really focus on God.
Also, I wanted to let you know that you may not see anymore posts for a while.  If I could figure out how to pre-program my blog to post daily I would, but I don’t think I’ll figure that out in the next few hours.  I thought about justifying my blog as "work related", but I guess that’s a bit of a stretch, so I’m out til next week…unless I can get one more post up before I go to sleep.  Lates.

I almost ordered my copy of the new Passion CD that’s coming out on April 4th today.  Unfortunately, I had some technical difficulties, but I’ll pre-order it later.  You can get a copy here, or just check out the 30 second soundclips of all the songs.  I can’t wait to check out the whole CD.

We’ve been spending the last couple of weeks in a new series called JACK’D.  It’s a study through Job, and we’ve been emphasizing keeping our trust and faith in God when He allows things to go sideways in life.  I read this quote online this morning, and I thought it was really worth sharing considering our series.
"The disasters that God ordains are not aimed at paralyzing his people with indifference, but mobilizing them with compassion."
- John Piper

Seriously, though, this video is sweet.  I totally want this at our church, and I’m not even kidding.  Who’s in?
[via thevoiz]

Thought I’d go ahead and post this real quick before going to bed
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Many of you here know our newest staff member, our "right reverend of failities" Mr. Charlie Garrison. Well, for a good laugh at the end of your stressful work week, take about 5 minutes out of your day and click on Charlie’s mug above.
If you know Charlie, his wife Bridget (sorry Birge!) or Matt Schartz, you might enjoy watching them in this music video they made a few years back. if you don’t know any of them, I’m not sure what you’ll think. Let us know!
Enjoy!

This past Saturday I continued my learning about multi-site churches with a visit to The Edge at North Coast Church in Vista. North Coast was the first church to attempt the video venue concept back in 1998. The church is located in an industrial business complex where they now own a majority of the space and have 5 different venues on site for their services.

This time, I didn’t visit quite so covertly. I contatcted one of the Senior Pastors, Chris Brown, before coming. He is the venue pastor for "The Edge" as well as one of the two teaching pastors, a duty he shares with Pastor Larry Osbourne.
I spent most of the service at this venue, which is their younger, more rockin venue. Loud music, thumpin bass, my style. I didn’t really get an accurate count, but I would guess there was probably about 300 or so people in there.

During much of the worship, Will and I took some time to check out each of the other venues happening simultaneously. First stop was Country Gospel. This service takes place in "Traditions", the venue that houses there hymn singing service on Sunday morning. It was pretty fun in there with a stand up bass, a fiddle, and some acoustic guitars.

As we left, Will commented that it was kind of like being at Disneyland visiting all the different lands – and we had just left the Bear Country Jamboree. From there we visited the Video Cafe. This venue had a lot of food at tables across the back, a little brighter lighting, and was a more casual and relaxed setting. Then there was the family room. This was the only venue without live worship and was for parents to bring their children into. Really it was more of a glorified overflow room than a venue. There were only 5 or 6 people there when we arrived.
The tour finished with a visit to North Coast Live where the teaching was actually going to happen…live. There was a much more intricate lobby to this building with chairs and TV’s of the service inside, as well as a little book store/coffee shop type of area. I was sort of expecting to walk into a huge mega church feel of a place (North Coast has an attendance overall of about 6500), but was surprised to find a much smaller building that only seats about 450 people. North Coast offers 23 services between Saturday night and Sunday morning, so none of the services feel like your at a mega church at all.
So I ended up back at the Edge for the announcements, message, and remainder of the service. All of the venues saw the same video advertising the Women’s retreat, and then at the tail end of Chris’ announcements, he was rushed off a bit by the live feed of the teaching coming in. Larry Osbourne was teaching that night. Again I was pleasantly surprised by how awkward it didn’t feel watching the message on the screen. This has always been my biggest hang up with video venues, but it seems at times as if he’s in the room. When he would ask people a question they would raise their hands in response, repeat verses back to him, and laugh at the appropriate times at jokes.
After the message, Chris came up and really wrapped things up, and the service finished with one final worship song and a prayer. Here’s a few other things I noticed:

• Good parking situation with visitor parking near the front
• I was greeted very kindly by the parking guy and then again at The Edge by some greeters
• There were greeters at each venue that were very friendly as we stood at the back of the room to observe
• After the service, we still didn’t have any regular attenders approach us to say hello, so it’s a good thing the greeters had at least made contact with us. I have been finding more and more, though, how rare it is to have people really greet and respond to a new person if it isn’t their "job"
• It was really nice to have someone at the venue who was up front and felt like a leader of sorts

After the service, Chris Brown was kind enough to give us like 90 minutes of his time to interview him and just hang. This was very enlightening and an amazing opportunity to hear more about the churches vision and philosophies. That’s where part 2 of this post comes in. By the end of the week, I will try to put up some notes from my interview with him. This is definitely enough for one post though.

Overall, my visit to this multi-site church was a great experience and a place that I would totally be excited to visit again, or even attend if I were in that area.