My Worship Revolution

So I’m a bit overdue on this one, but I’ve been on vacation. So get over it.

My wife asked: If you had three wishes – and you could wish for absolutely ANYTHING (except for more wishes) what would you wish for?
1. A crystal ball to know what the plan for the future is.  I know.  I probably don’t REALLY want to know, but it’s hard to convince me of that.
2. The chance to be on Survivor.  Probably shouldn’t write that, cause if I ever get real serious about it, and CBS finds this post, I may not make it.  But I’ll take my chances.
3. All of my kids to be followers of Christ.  Obviously, I’m doing my part to try and make that happen.  I don’t even wish for it to be an easy road, cause I know better.  I just want them all to get there, and touch exponentially more lives for Jesus than I ever will.  Does that stil count as one wish?

She also asked: If you could keep only three memories, what would they be?
Ooh,  That’s a tough one.  Like remembering where I put my keys?
1. The day I asked you to be my wife.
2. The night I saw a student freed from demonic possession at Laurel Pines in 2000.  Seriously changed my life forever.
3. Traveling to Australia/New Zealand with my choir in high school.  Not so much cause of the travel, but because I shared it with my mom, dad, and sister.  I feel like it seems so long ago that Vic was around that the memories kinda fade, so I would never wanna lose some of the great ones that I have, with him and the rest of my family.

On a lighter note, Steve asked: seriously do you still think the padres are better then the dodgers?
Umm…I plead the fifth.
Or should I say, sorry, I just hate the Dodgers.  Doesn’t even matter who the better team is in a given season.  The Padres are just better overall.

This is Erika.

She looked beautiful as she got ready to marry my brother-in-law, Joel.

Go to his blog and congratulate him!

They were married in a beautiful setting at the Ritz Carlton in Maui.

Caleb was the ring bearer.

He walked down the aisle great.  After that, not so great.  This next pic encapsulates the wedding for me.

Wedding ended with all of us gathered around the couple to pray for them.

Very cool moment!

On a completely unrelated note, today I got to surf in Lahaina!
Small waves, but had an absolute blast nonetheless!

Had fun teaching Rachel to surf too!

Her mom, dad, and brother, Isaac, all got up at least some too!
Here’s her mom giving it a go.

Meanwhile, Caleb enjoyed the “kiddie pool” area of the beach park.

So this is like a month overdue, but well worth sharing.
For Ryan‘s birthday, there were like 30 of us that all went out for a sail in Santa Cruz.
Yeah, that’s how we can roll out here on the coast!
The plan was to sail out and anchor near the pier.
Then we had a little dingy that was supposed to ferry people to and from the pier to get drinks and have dinner.
Then, as we were heading out, the guys on the dingy got a visit from these guys:

Yup, a visit by the Coast Guard.
Unfortunately, they didn’t exactly have everything they needed.

So next, the Coast Guard came by our boat.  And boarded.
It started slightly tense.
It ended with them pretty much hangin and partyin with us, and making some nice inappropriate passes at eh ladies.
Made for a good story and some great times though!

Oh…and of course I got a bunch of it on video.
Glad I had the SD1000 handy.
Always gotta be ready for bloggable material!
Check it out:

Y’all asked those questions a long time ago!
My bad!
Time to get on it.
I’ll be aring over the next couple of weeks.
So here we go with some more.

Ryan asked: Who is your current favorite CLC Board Member?
Sorry Ryan, gonna have to say Ed.  He is my boss, and he reads my blog.  And as the chair of the board, that makes him a board member.

Steph asked:  what is your end-times theory?
My theory is, it’s gonna happen, so be ready.
Seriously, if you had to pin me down, probably pre-trib, pre-mil, but wonder about the possibility of mid-trib.  Don’t get those Au-mil reformed peeps.  (All you theology geeks hopefully understood that.  The rest of you, don’t worry, it’s not that important.)
Seriously, though, don’t care near as much as I did at one point.  Probably because Rachel helped me get over it.  I still like to talk about and study it some, but in the end, my view of it doesn’t change the fact that I should live for Jesus tomorrow whether he’s coming back that day or not.  Thousands of scholars over the years haven’t figured it out, I’m not arrogant enough to think I have.

She also asked: what would your ideal worship leading experience look/sound like?
The obvious is the whole Spirit moving, God is in the place sort of thing.  So I won’t go with the cop out on you. 
If you want to know more specifics when it comes to personal preference and taste…
Loud.  Lots of bass.  So you can feel the music.  I think loud music, well mixed is immersive and enhances worship.  I enjoy mellow intimate times of worship, but I am definitely more drawn to upbeat and celebratory music.  My ideal worship experience would include people expressing praise with all sorts of expressions and postures.  People jumping, shouting, pumping fists, and just having a great time worshiping God.  I also love as a worship leader when I can back off the mic and people are singing so loud you can just hear their voices ringing through the building.  It would also probably include some artistic form of expression to get people outside their comfort zones worshipping God creatively.  How’s that for a random eclectic mix of answers?

How about y’all?  What would you add or change to make it your ideal worship experience.

This is actually from last week.
Since I’m not leading this week, maybe I’ll film one from about this past Sunday to put up next Sunday.
In the meantime, enjoy this one!
It was a fun one!

A while back we tried starting a CLC blog.

Here was that attempt.
It pretty much died a quick death.

It’s time now to give it another go.

Introducing the new CLC blog home.
At least temporarily.
Let me know what you think.
We have about a week let to test it out and Typepad and decide if it’s
a good use of finances to spend a couple bucks on it.  I personally am
just a huge fan of the ease of Typepad.  Even though it frustrates me
at times, I still find it the easiest platform to really make a site look good.
Even if we stick with Typepad, the plan is to map it to it’s own domain soon.

In addition, we’re experimenting a little with our own social networking site at Ning.
So all you CLCers, roll on over and join our network!
We’ll keep working on it to see how we can use it effectively as a connections tool.

Basically I’ve really been bouncing this around in my dome for a while.
Everything on the web is really moving in the direction of social interaction.  Basically, web 2.0.
In reality we are way behind the curve as the Church.
Most of our church websites are simply nice brochures on the web.
So what can we do to move our website more toward interaction with others?
Hopefully this is a step in the right directions.

So 2 questions for y’all:

• Any thoughts on the blog or Ning sites?
• What other ways can we as a church, or is your church, creatively using the web to reach or interact with people?

Please, do share.

Well, I’m now 3 days away from my first triathlon.
It’s a light one.  400 yd swim, 11 mile bike, 3.1 mile run.
Really, I figure it’s there to prepare me for PG.

I had this old mountain bike that was inherited from Rachel’s little brother.
I new that just wasn’t gonna cut it for the long rides I’ve been starting to take.
So I borrowed a bike from my friend Jono.
He used to use it to tri, but it’s been in his garage for like 10+ years.
I dusted it off, replaced the tubes, and here’s what I have now to ride:

No lubing or anything.  Just put it all together and added some extras he already had on the side.
Allow me to give you the quick tour.

• Carbon fiber frame.  Nowadays, they make the whole thing carbon fiber, but this is a nice start for me.  Light for speed.  Of course, I discovered when I rode with the Ryan’s a few weeks ago, it doesn’t go fast just cause of the carbon fiber.  You actually have to be in shape and pedal fast, too.  Bummer.
• Aero bars.  He had those and I added them to the bike.  Those allow me to hunch over and get that cool “Hey I’m a triathlete” look as I become more aerodynamic.  Again, probably overkill for my skill level, but it sure does make me feel cooler.
• Those tires are still about 20 years old, but they do have new tubes in them.  this was my first experience with presta valves.  Our hand pump was able to be modified to fit.  120 PSI is what the tires call for.  Had no gauge.  The first night I rode they were probably at like 15.  I pumped em up as much as I could with the hand pump and did a couple rides, including the 26 mile coastal ride.  Then I got a pump with a gauge.  They were at about 60 PSI.
• Bike CPU.   You’ll notice in the pic below the CPU on the handlebars to give mileage and what not.  Yeah. It’s old and doesn’t work at all.  Trying to get my hands on one from another friend.
• Cages.  Not even sure they still make shoes for the no clip pedals on there anymore.  But I didn’t want to buy pedals or shoes.  Luckily there were cages to put on there.  Those are nice for tough rides!
• Bike seat.  That’s a seat I bought for the last bike.  Moved it to this one.  A little padded and of course has the jewel groove. 

I’m stoked to have a decent road bike for these next couple triathlons after spending half a day with the bike fixing it up.  Still needs new handlebar tape and will definitely want to get it tuned up for the P.G. triathlon – Olympic distance.  Also need to get some tri shorts, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do that before Saturday.  Not sure if they’re sold around here anywhere.

So there you have it.  One of my tools of the trade.  Wish me luck this Saturday!  I’m sure you’ree get the update!

Yesterday I had the chance to hang with a bunch of peeps at a Church 2.0 forum organized by Greg Atkinson centered on a book he’s writing, and hosted at Santa Cruz Bible Church.
It was fun to hang with Greg, Ed, Omar, Chuck, Paul, Randy, Cynthia, and Dan who drove over the hill to hang, as well as several other new friends I made.
We spent a couple hours talkin both some geek talk as well as more practical discussion about how the face of ministry in our churches is changing and how we approach it as leaders in the Church.

Part way through, Dan and I thought it would be worth broadcasting on Mogulus.
If you weren’t able to catch it live, there is about an hour of it up looping at my Mogulus page.
Sound gets a little messy part way through for some reason.  Sorry.
This should give you an idea what the forums are like and give you some great things to think about.

This was forum number four. If there’s one coming within driving distance of you, go check it out.