My Worship Revolution

First, some reflections.

Wow.  It really was a long week.
One thing that was told to us by someone who had been before was how stressful it was, yet they had never felt so loved and cared for.
I can understand why they said that.  We were talking to one of the assessors who was there for the first time, and even he was amazed at how much time they spent as a team truly praying over every single candidate and going through everything they had.

This past week was a huge one for us.
As we listened to so many ideas and models of ministry and strategies for church planting, 2 things happened.
First, as we saw some very different models from what we want to do, it just confirmed our conviction and passion for what God has put on our hearts.  Many times we would hear people talk about what they wanted church to look like, and we knew that wasn’t at all what we wanted to do.  All great stuff and needed for the Kingdom…just not where we’re at.
Second, we were surprised and encouraged that several people had very similar ideas and vision for what God had called them too.  We really aren’t totally crazy and these ideas we have of what church can look like is something god is doing in places all across the country.

We made some relationships that I trust will last, on some level, for a long time to come.  Especially with the help of Facebook.
I sat in the room this morning, and I looked at Rachel and said, “Wow.  I just realized, I’m actually going to really miss these people.  Even the ones that may have bugged me a bit at times.”
Not that anyone bugged me at all, of course.
There is something about going through a week of that intensity with like-minded people that really makes you feel bonded and close to people who you may never have connected with if it weren’t for this sort of experience.
It was so encouraging and inspiring to be in a room full of people who in some way or another were like minded.  Who understood each other.  Who “get” church planting.
Often times when we share that we will be starting a new church, we get the blank stare in return.  You’re doing what?  Why would you wanna do that?  Fun to be with people who have been around it, to hear stories from those who have done and are doing it, and dream with those who will be doing it.

So, the update…

The Lead Up

Last night we went out to Elephant Bar with a bunch of the candidates.
Pretty much all the people who went were from the other team, whcih ended up being one of our favorite parts about it.  We hardly knew they existed from the way things were set up during the assessment, so it was so great to connect with some other people and get to know them a little better.
After returning to the hotel, I had the worst night of sleep I had all week.
I woke up a good 4 or 5 times during the night, and every time I had a new dream about how the next morning would go.  Some really weird ones too.  And I’m pretty sure I got all four outcomes at some point in my sleep last night!

We talked about it when we woke up.  Here’s what I came to realize.  An assessment like this is something that many church planters experience, and we’ve known about it for years.  For the past 6 years we’ve felt called to church planting and everything we’ve done has been to help us grow in that direction.  This was a major milestone on that path.  This was like the culmination of the past six years of our life for us.
But it was good to remember that this truly was about another piece in discovering what God has for us.
It was an opportunity to humble ourselves and ask 12 other individuals, as a group, to tell us what they see.
And this is one of the few times that we would be told the truth in love in order that we could really grow from it.

So we got to the church, and after a short devotion/message time, it was time for exit interviews.
We were told to just hang out and assessors would come grab us for interviews.
Paul, who we’ve known for the past 7 or 8 months and is the one who sent us, let us know that he was gonna do 2 others then ours.
Those 2 took a while, and we were the very last people to finally do our exit interview.
It kinda felt like American Idol, with people coming out and disappearing and us just waiting for our turn as the room emptied.
I though about singing “Pants On The Ground” when I got taken out for my interview.
It was also kinda awkward, cause you kinda wanna know how it went for people, but you sure don’t wanna ask cause you don’t know if their happy with it or not.

The Exit Interview

So finally it was time for us to hang with Paul and talk about the outcome.
We sat down and he started by asking us how the week was for us, and then talking about their process.
He reminded us that there were 12 of them involved, so he couldn’t make it come out the way he wanted.  He couldn’t sway it by himself.  All these people had observed us for 3 full days.  And this outcome was the culmination of our application, references, an assessor interview, a counselor interview, our presentations, and multiple small group experiences.
With that he invited us to open the report to see what it said.
I don’t have it right in front of me, but it looked like something along these lines…

Assessment disposition:   Recommended

So there you have it.
It said underneath that they think we are able to plant a church and ready to do it now.  And that they believe we would be successful in ministry and encourage us to get coaching to help the process go well.
You would think we’d be all stoked and full of excitement.
I mean yes, inside we were.  But more than that, we were just relieved to know the outcome and have it all behind us now.

That definitely wasn’t the end.
From there we went through the report, and they let us know where there are growth areas that I need to work on and some suggestions on how to do that.
It’s amazing how well they are able to pin you down in a matter of 3 days.
Just about every area in need of growth was so true and totally made sense to me an Rachel.
It also outlined the strengths they saw in both me and Rachel and encouraged us to foster those.

Finally, we talked with Paul about some next steps and where things go from here.
There’s a church multiplication meeting next week, but for the most part, our partnership with Converge is now a done deal.
The green light has lit and this journey is really beginning in a crazy way.
Next stop…fund raising.

Thanks again to all of you who prayed for us this past week.
It was an amazing week that God has and will use in amazing ways.
Please continue to pray for us as we continue on this path.
For that matter, if you don’t mind, say a quick prayer for all 20 candidates who were at the assessment center this past week.  God is guiding each of them in unique ways, regardless of the outcome of the week for each of us.
And keep with us on the journey.
You’ll hear plenty about it here.

And now there’s a little something at my blog to give the next guy an idea what he’s about to walk into!

Today was the shortest day of the assessment, yet oddly enough still one of the most intense.
It started off with worship again.
I actually enjoyed the song selection way more this morning.
During worship there was a moment that I started thinking about all of you out there who have been praying for us this week.  And I was overwhelmed.  Seriously brought me to tears.  I can’t even begin to express how much it means to feel so loved and cared for.

Church Planting Project

That was what most of today was about.
Wow.  The process of coming usp with an extensive church planting plan with 9 other driven opinionated leaders is quite an experience.
Truth be told, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds from that.
We broke up into multiple teams to put stuff together.
One of the fascinating aspects was how easy it was to get bogged down in lots of the details and forget to keep a good view of the big picture.  But at the same time, a lot of those details were needed in order to put together a strong presentation.

Some of the people who stepped up as leaders did great jobs at delegating based on some of the strengths we had discovered in people over the past couple days.
Rachel’s job was to create the outline for the presentation and to work at getting rid of everything that we didn’t need.
Everyone in the group had to be involved in the presentation in some way.  So for the opening, myself and a couple of the other ladies put together a creative reading that people shared room all over the room, interspersed with everyone else.
People in committees seriously planned out specific budgets, figuring out how much staff we would have, percentage of giving based off the average incomes of our area, and calculating rent for meeting space and office space, and evangelism and advertising budgets.
We had four of us present in addition to the opening that involved everyone.  Our lead pastor opened with the vision, another shared the multiplication plan, another shared the financial plan and made the ask, and then I closed, recapping and reminding the donor of what the vision was, and cast vision for why this was a great Kingdom partnership.

Counseling Interview

Midway through the morning we had a meeting with a counselor.
He asked us some questions about our families where we grew up and asked if we had any traumas or concerns that could effect planting.
He also talked with us a little about our relationship and asked how we coped with being polar opposites on the personality scale.
We seemed to get in and out of there fairly quick, and again I was amazed not to get some tougher questions.  Still not sure if that’s good or bad!  Maybe we were in and out cause we’re that healthy!  On second thought…nah, probably not.

Listening Exercise

There was also a sheet for us to fill out which they gave us the night before.
To help round out their view of us as they make decisions, they wanted to know what God had been revealing to us, what we were surprised by, and whether we felt like God was calling us to plant a church and if so, when?

Church Plant Presentations

After a working lunch, we all gathered to present our churches.
Team A went first.
As they started, we quickly realized they were starting word for word with our opening reading.
They had found our reading in the copy machine and straight up stole it!!!
It was actually quite hilarious.
They had a great presentation with videos they had created, great slides, and a pretty killer logo.
I was worried.
Afterward, the assessors asked questions and put some heat on em.

Then we were up.
They could steal the reading, but it was all in the delivery.  The opening rocked.
Overall the presentation went way better than I expected.  Way better than the practice.
Ultimately, they loved our presentation, but decided our plan was too unrealistic and gave more money to ther first group.
Sucks for the community of Elk Grove I guess. 

And with that, we prayed for all the assessors, and we were done.
They, on the other hand, all retreated to spend hours on end talking about us and deciding on outcomes.

I’ve pondered whether or not to plan on sharing my outcome on here any time soon.
If I get ‘recommended,’ of course I wanna put it up.
But if it’s anything less, I may want to grieve and not tell you.
But then if I don’t say anything, you’ll know that I got less than I hoped.
So maybe I should not plan on telling you anything so you don’t guess.

But in the end, if I have a value for transparency and authenticity, I figured it best to just share how it goes.
So the next post you see here should be a quick reflection on the overall process, a sharing of what the exit interview was like, and of course my outcome.
But you need to wait a while since I’ll be driving to Tuscon, so don’t assume anything when it isn’t up by noon!

Alright, after lunch.

Small Group Exercise

Now we went back into our small groups for another exercise.
Same small groups, different set of assessors watching us.
For this one there were two sites (areas/cities) that were described.  We had to pick one and had about 40 minutes to create an idea of what our church plant would look like there.
One of the sites was a suburban midwest city, and the other was a large city on the California coast with a large college in the town with an east side and west side, with college students mostly living on the west side and a high homosexual community and lot of artists and professionals, and not a lot of families on the east side.  Hmmmm.  Sound familiar.
In a way I was hoping we’d choose the midwest town cause I knew I’d be way too opinionated on the California context.
We chose California.

After our last group experience and seeing how different people led, I was a little concerned to tell ya the truth.
I was pleasantly surprised by how well it went and how we worked together as we created this fictional ministry.
We all then presented our church.  We had 45 seconds to do so.

Evangelism Exercise

This was the nice contrived situation to see if we knew how to articulate the Gospel to someone.
Role playing situation.  You meet with someone at Starbucks who has been coming to your church and they let you know that they are ready to be a Christian and want to know how.
To be honest, this scenario was actually not nearly as awkward as I thought it could be.
I was with a great assessor who I liked, so that helped.  I was able to just articulate to her in my own way that I felt comfortable what it looks like to cross that line of faith and follow Christ daily.
Good times.

Golden Personality Presentation

This was the third and final personality profile that we took before coming.
Many of you may have taken the four letter Meyer-Briggs test before.
This one is Meyer-Briggs on steroids.

It’s actually really cool.  Rather than just give you your 4 letters, it also breaks each letter into 4 contrasting options and tells you how your subsets came out, and you can even see where those subsets may have 1 that is out of pattern with the overall.  Also, this one gives more of a degree to just how much you really are each thing.
As usual I am an ENFA – Extrovert, Intuitive, Feeling, Adapting (updated language from perceiving)
My extrovert level is to the max with absolutely no introvert.
And of course, in true form, Rachel is the polar opposite ISTZ – Introvert, Sensing, Thinking, Organizing.

One final note on the personality test.
They have been given and explained by two guys who do this and run their own team building company in MN.  Jerry and Steve Dahl.
These guys are really good.

Church Planting Project

That took us up til dinner.
Now, after dinner is when things really get interesting.
We were broken into 2 groups.  So 10 candidates in the group.
We were given the Elk Grove, Sac town area in our group.  Had a folder and demographics and everything.
We were told that a donor called one of us and wants to give us money.  He wants us to plant in that area and wants a presentation on how we will plant 10 churches in ten years.  We were given 2 hours yesterday and will get like 4 today.
The presentation has to be 20 minutes, and all 19 people have to share at some point.

Oh yeah, and during this planning process, multiple candidates are being pulled out to do ministry and counseling interviews.  So be ready to adapt when one of your leaders disappears.  Or more than one.

I was real interested to see how this was gonna go.
10 alpha males in a room asked to lead together.  Woohoo!!
We started with prayer and started to discuss how we would go about this.
Pretty quickly Rachel and I as well as one other couple were the first ones pulled out for an interview.

Ministry Interview

This was an interview with 2 of the assessors that lasted about an hour.
We actually loved this part.  They asked questions about our marriage, about how we do ministry, where we are in the process, how we connect with God, how we rest, and how we anticipate dealing with the stresses of church planting.
Both assessors were great peeps and it really was fun to have conversation with them, and seriously, the questions weren’t nearly as difficult as I thought they might be.

It actually worked out pretty awesome in my opinion that they pulled us out at the beginning when they did.
Basically we missed all the chaos of trying to figure out how to get the ball rolling with everything.
So as we walked back in, they had picked a lead pastor and working through the values and vision of the planting movement.
We definitely felt disconnected and it took some listening to figure out where we were at and get cought up, but once we did we dropped right in and gave our contributions.
We created some teams for the next day, myself being on the team to develop the strategy for planting the first church, and we finally wrapped up around 9:30.

Definitely were pretty wiped by the end of that day.
So we head back to the hotel and blogged, and didn’t last much longer beyond that!
Thus the end of day two in the life of an assessment center.

Wow.
Long day.
But good.
I’ll try to give you another quick snapshot.
Then I’m off to bed.
Well, maybe after watching 24.

The morning started with worship.
The team that led did a good job.
Unfortunately, call me unspiritual, but as a worship leader I sometimes struggle to worship in these contexts cause I’m thinking about the sound or how I would lead.
Also, call me unspiritual, but the truth is, while I recognize I can worship and connect to God no matter what, I think we’re foolish to think that certain types of music or songs don’t affect us differently.
All that to say, they started with Friend of God, which is a song that just bugs me.  A little too happy clappy for my blood.  Then More Love, More Power.
So I struggled a little to get into it from those, but it was a good warm up into some really good songs – Desert Song and Everlasting God.
So overall it was great.
Then a really good devotion from the executive director of the southwest district about Lance Armstrong and the peleton of protection.  Basically the idea that we need a team to win.
Good start for the day.
At 8am.

Mini-sermon/Call To Church Planting

In our group this morning we got to kick off the mini-sermons.  10 minutes to teach a message.  I did a very abridged version of a message I gave back in the summer about creating and cultivating culture.  Unfortunately it wasn’t quite abridged enough as I got cutoff before I hit the end.
Then we were to go into a 5 minute explanation of our call to church planting.  That was fun.
After that, Rachel joined me and we each shared 5 adjectives about each other.
My 5 for her…
Dependable, Meticulous, Gracious, Encouraging, Hospitable
And then I was able to sneak smokin hot in there too.

Finally it ended with the assessors asking us questions.
This group of assessors were consistently tougher than the last with their questioning.
There’s one dude with a doctorate who is obviously the preacher man.  He’s kinda scary.  No lie.
He asked what books have impacted me in the area of preaching and what the point I was trying to get across in my sermon was.
It’s easy to read into those sorts of questions.  Maybe just cause of my own insecurities.  But we expected some tough questions from him more than any.

Overall, I didn’t come away from that experience feeling so great.
It kinda brought me back down to earth.

Small Group Exercise – Plant City

From there, we were broken up into small groups of about 6.  And spouses were separated for this.
We were given a scenario about a bible study that wanted to become a church and the process they went through.  We had to discuss pros and cons and come to some consensus on whether not we would accept a call to lead the plant.  I said no way, but was outvoted by my group.
We then received more information as time went on.
Just for the record, it didn’t turn out pretty.  Not to say I knew it, but… lol.

This really was pretty fascinating to see different personalities interact.
Just imagine getting a bunch of opinionated leaders who are the type that want to start new churches and ask them to try and agree on something.
As one candidate said, it was a case study on alpha-males!

As we went through this process there was a group of assessors just watching and taking notes the entire time.  We basically had to pretend they didn’t exist.  They couldn’t help us in any way.  Just there to observe and judge us.

Right after that was some debrief on the exercise.
This is worth mentioning cause there was some good stuff shared about leadership there.
In a nutshell-
4 groups of people and how to handle them
Like you, like the church – leave them alone!  It’s working, keep  it that way.
Like you, don’t like the church – short term mission.  Give them a place to serve to gain ownership.
Don’t like you (oddly enough), like the church – Connect them to another leader.
Don’t like you, don’t like the church – LET THEM GO!  Help them find a place they do like, but don’t let them poison your church.
In relation to that last note, here was a great quote I got down.
“If you don’t want to protect your church, you’re not a leader!”

StrenghtsFinder 2.0

This is a pretty cool tool you may be familiar with.
The idea is to find your top 5 talents that you possess and that have the most potential for you if you cultivate those talents.
I took this test about 4 years ago.
This time it was almost exactly the same with the exception of the last strength.
My 5 strengths…
Woo, Communication, Adaptability, Belief, Futuristic

And that got us up to lunch.
Hopefully the rest of the day later, but I’m toast for now.
Just remembering the day is making me more tired!
Peace out!

One of the things I did before heading here was asked some people who had been through the Converge Church Planting Assessment Center what it all looked like.
I could only get so much of an overview.
So now that I am in it I will share with all of you who care about what we’re experiencing, and in addition it will now be online for some others to get an idea what to expect!

First a quick explanation cause we’ve been realizing that virtually no one understands what this part of the process it.
It isn’t an interview.
There isn’t one job opening for all 20 candidates to battle it out for.
It isn’t a reality show like The Apprentice.
It isn’t an application process.

For over 20 years Converge has run these assessments.  Churches from Converge as well as other churches in the country send people who are thinking about church planting, who they want to see church plant, who are wondering if they are supposed to start a church (definition of ‘church plant’ in case you’re really lost right now), or people who are maybe already in the process of planting a church even.
A bunch of people who have done church planting for years as well as people trained to understand personalities all watch you and interview for 3 days.
As a 3rd party, it is then their job to give the sending agencies their perspective on whether or not that candidates has the building blocks it will take to successfully be the lead person or couple for a new church.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, a brief overview of day 1.

Welcome/Orientation

In welcoming and explaining the process, they do a great job of reminding us that this isn’t about pass/fail.  Their heart in this process really is to help each person discover what it is that God has created them to do.

That being said, their job is to look at us all through the lens of whether or not we can be the lead people for a new church.  So on Friday we will receive 1 of 4 outcomes:
Not Recommended – this person would not make a good lead planter
Strong Conditions – slow down…some conditions that will take 18-2 months to resolve
Recommended Conditionally – conditions can be resolved in under 24 months
Recommended – this person is ready to go

Portrait Predictor

Rachel and I both took 3 personality tests online to prepare for this.
Today they presented the portrait predictor.  You may have heard of this one called DISC.
If you’ve ever done the Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever, Beaver thang, it’s the same idea.
Four personality types – dominant, influencing, steady, cautious
My personality type?  Definitely an I.

Got a 6 page packet of what that means, but here it is in a nutshell:

Words that describe I: inspiring, persuasive, motivating, enthusiastic, optimistic, collaborative
Strength: Will get everyone on board, build a motivated team
Limitation: May tend to promise more than they can deliver
“Thirives on Opportunity”

My secondary is dominant.

My wife, of course, is pretty much my polar opposite.  She’s a C.

Philosophy of Ministry Presentation

There are 20 candidates taking part in the assessment.  17 couples and 3 single dudes.
We are broken up into 2 teams.
Among those teams we further broke down into 2 groups, so now you have basically 4 groups of 5 candidates each.
In preparation for this weekend, I had to put together some presentations.
One was a philosophy of ministry presentation.
I put together a 2 page document outlining our vision and strategy for the church we want to plant.  I tried to create something we could continue to use in the future.  Maybe I’ll get it up here to share with you sometime soon.
We took turns sharing our individual philosophies and then being asked questions as a couple by the assessors.

For ours we presented our ministries name, why the need for another church in Santa Cruz, our vision in a nutshell, our 4 guiding values, and the strategy of how we were going to get there.
While I was somewhat nervous for this time to come, I ended up actually having a really good time getting to present what we had and really sharing our hearts for ministry as they asked us questions from who we see as heroes of the faith to how we would use art to express God’s beauty in our community.  Good times.

We broke for dinner and afterward went into our second presentation which is a 10 minute mini-sermon along with a 5 minutes sharing of our call to church planting.
3 of the 5 went tonight.
Yup, we are first up tomorrow.  So no more on that now.

Bible Knowledge Evaluation

The night ended with a 50 question multiple choice quiz on the Bible.
The main candidate had to take it and it was optional for the spouses.
Rachel took it.  She’s the bomb.

OK, I feel pretty comfortable with my understanding of God’s story and the content of the scriptures.  But not gonna lie…this seemed like one of the more intimidating portions to me.
Questions from what is the third to last book in the Old Testament to what book would you find the following quote in…
It was good talking to some of the candidates after and knowing we weren’t the only ones to struggle on some of the questions.

So, that’s day 1 in a nutshell.
Overall had a good time getting to know a bunch of people from all over the country who are in the same boat we’re in.
Any questions you have I didn’t address?
Throw em out there in the comments and I’ll try to get to em.

Tomorrow we start with worship at 8am and roll through till 9pm I believe.
It’s definitely the long day.
So I’m off to join my wife in bed.
Hopefully more to share tomorrow night, if I’m not too wiped out!

Literally, I have like 3 minutes to post this.
So no edits.  Just off the top.
Here we go.

• Have 3 minutes cause we’re about to head out for the Converge Church Planters assessment center.  3 days of intensity.  Psychologists, pastors, assessors, coaches, all inspecting us to say whether not they think we’re capable.  Errr…called?  Anyway, BIG week for us.  Please be praying.
• Visiting Patience in Perris right now.  The amount of space you get in a house compared to costs in Santa Cruz is freaking insane!
• Went on the first run in months yesterday.  Felt good.  Well, it hurt so good.  Time to start training again for this years triathlon schedule!
• Speaking of triathlon, Friday, as soon as we’re done with the assessment center, we drive to Tuscon Arizona to lead worship at the ICTN Triathlon Camp.  looking forward to it.  A bit frightened though since I’m a bit out of shape and will be working out with really IN shape people.
• Gonna try to teach Rachel how to swim for reals this week while we have a pool to help get her ready for her first triathlon in June.
• Did I mention we are without kids for a whole week?  Kinda miss em, maybe more worry about em, but overall just stoked to experience what it’s like to just enjoy my wife without distractions for a week!  Even if it is the midst of a stressful week.
• Last week was my last full wee in the office at CLC.  Only 3 more opportunities to lead worship there.  Kinda bitter-sweet.
• Looking forward to leading worship at Rancho Vista Church in Chula Vista on March 7th and on Easter this year!

OK.  There’s a random mind dump for ya.
Now that my head is clear, I’m out of here!
If I can muster up the energy, I’ll get out a full report when I can as the assessment progresses.
And maybe a triathlon post in my head later in the week about triathlon and gateway drugs.

Thanks for the prayers!
See ya soon!

Or maybe I should say church websites.

As we get all prepared to leave CLC and get ready for this new adventure of starting a new church, I’ve come across a couple of websites for churches that I’m really digging.
We’re not wanting to do the typical church planting sort of model.
Recently I’ve stumbled across several churches that seem to be in the same realm of what’s resonating in our hearts.

Check out these sites (especially the first one) and it shouldn’t take you too long to find a common thread and get a glimpse of what we envision this movement of God in Santa Cruz looking a little bit like:

Apex Community
Zolder50
Adullam Denver

How about you?
Whether it’s a church, a random website, or something else related to your field of work…
What’s inspiring you lately?

For 7 or 8 months now, our life group has been heading out to San Lorenzo park about once a month for a barbeque.
We show up with the BBQ, 2 big jugs of water and lemonade, and about 50 burgers and 50 dogs.
Then we share the food with whoever’s around and just get to know the people, many of whom are living in the park or nearby streets.

We chose San Lorenzo specifically because of it’s reputation for being a place that many homeless hang out.
There is a dynamic that I’ve noticed as we’ve hung out there that fascinates me.
At the park, in addition to a market that happens during part of the year (and that has a story in and of itself, but we’ll save it for a different blog), there is a lawn bowling court.  (is it called a court?)

If I were to stereotype the typical users of the lawn bowling facility, it would be primarily well of older white people.
Between this crowd and the shady homeless crowd is noting but a chain link fence.
In essence, they are standing within feet of each other, but they really couldn’t be further apart.
One group hardly even acknowledges the existence of the other.
Here’s a few pictures I snapped trying to an image of the divide:

I wonder, how often do we walk through life, walk right by people in need or people just not like us, and even though our eyes are wide open we choose not to see the humanity around us.

We’ll be out at San Lorenzo again tomorrow at 11:30 (provided it doesn’t rain).
Feel free to come and hang with us!

I leave you with the lyrics of a song from the musical Big River.

Worlds Apart
I see the same stars through my window
That you see through yours
But we’re worlds apart
Worlds apart
And I see the same skies through brown eyes
That you see through blue
But we’re worlds apart, worlds apart

Just like the earth, just like the sun
Two worlds together are better than one
I see the sun rise in your eyes
That you see in mine
But we’re worlds apart, worlds apart

I see the friendship in you eyes
That you see in mine
But we’re worlds apart, worlds apart
Together, but worlds apart

For those who didn’t get one, or if it got lost in the mail (as I’m sure yours did), I figured I’d go ahead and post our Christmas letter as a way of quickly looking back on 2009…

Another year has passed and it’s time for the third annual Marchessault family Christmas letter.  We recognize that in this age of Twitter and Facebook statuses, it’s become difficult to read anything too long, so in order to help you out, we’re writing Twitter style.  A summary of the year in bite sized pieces of 140 characters or less.  Here we go:

• Started 2009 with 40 members of our church, building a house and serving the working poor in Mexico. Great way to bring in the New Year!
• 02/09/09 we had healthy baby boy #2 – Micah Robert Marchessault. He’s super cute and Caleb was stoked to be a big brother.
• Bobby continued his triathlons racing his first half Ironman at Wildflower in May. Took him 8 hours, but at least he finished, eh?
• Many city storytimes ended ($$$). Rachel & friend Kendra started SCcreative play.  Moms keep comin & great connection w/community.
  (santacruzcreativeplay.com)
• We raised over $3500  4 Hemophilia in Zachs name & Bobby rode his bike from San Fran 2 San Diego. Thanks 2 all who supported #coastalrace09!
• Caleb started preschool this year w/Santa Cruz city. He loves getting to go to school & Rachel loves the 1 on 1 time w/Micah.

Hopefully that kept your attention.  In all seriousness, as we look back on this year we have seen our family grow and have had some great adventures, both with ministry and family.  We sensed a time of transition coming and spent lots of time this year asking God what that meant.

As we look ahead to the coming year it is certain to be one of huge transitions.  We recently announced to our church that Feb. 21^st will be our final Sunday on staff at Christian Life Center and we will be starting a new church/movement here in Santa Cruz.  This is a dream that God planted in our hearts over 5 years ago and we are both nervous and excited to see what the coming year has in store.

We have been discussing partnership with an organization called Converge USA and they will be sending us to a 4-day Church Planters assessment at the end of January.  We ask for your prayers as we head into that final step before really starting this journey.  We look forward to sharing more with you in the coming months.  And maybe there are some of you who would want to prayerfully consider joining us here, as well!  Can’t find a better place to live.

We hope that this year has been great for you as well.  We’ll include our contact info and would love to hear from any and all of you.  Also, as usual, stop by our blogs and dialogue with us regularly.  We can’t wait to see what next years letter will look like!

God bless.  Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I don’t like to join in on the hype of a New Year.
But at the same time it truly does provide a great, natural opportunity to look back and reflect on the past year, and to consider what God has in store for the year ahead.

This year more than ever for me, the change over in year actually feels like a significant transition point.
I am incredibly excited, anxious, stoked, and nervous to see how God is going to pull things together in our lives over this next year.
So this year I’m thanking God for 2009, for the great stuff and the tough stuff.  And I’m saying goodbye to ’09.  It’s been nice knowin ya!

Now bring on 2010!!
Thanks for livin it with us.

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:6-9

When it comes to kids ministries and stuff like that, Rachel and I have always believed pretty strongly that it is our job as parents to be the primary teachers of our children.
In other words, it is not the job of your church to be the one’s teaching your child about Jesus.
It is not the job of daycare or public schools to teach your kids right from wrong.
Sure, the church needs to come alongside you in supporting you as you disciple your kids.
But if the only time they are learning about Jesus and the narrative of scripture is Sunday School, it aint really gonna take.

I say all that to set up an opportunity to brag about my wife.

This past month, she set up an advent calendar with a special activity every day to prepare us for Christmas.
More importantly, it was a way to start teaching Caleb and Micah at our house what Christmas is really all about.
Every Sunday we lit an advent candle and had a Bible story sharing the events of Christ’s incarnation.
She did everything with them from making gifts for our Compassion sponsored kid, learning about St. Nick, and having a birthday party for Jesus to dancing to Christmas music, enjoying local holiday events, and making fun crafts.

Go to this post at her blog to see the calendar of events, and then continue through the month of posts to hear about each one.

It was an awesome month.
At 3 years old I can already see Caleb starting to “get it.”
And my wife is the raddest mom in America!

And I had a blast getting to play the part of Whiskers the puppet during our family devotionals!