My Worship Revolution

Went to my first game at Giants stadium Monday night.  My friend from CLC, Jono, invited me to join him with his season tickets.  He’s also my dentist.  Definitely the first time I’ve hung out at a baseball game with my dentist!

He knew I was a Padres fan.  And he let me come and root or my team.  It didn’t help.  They got whooped.  Too bad we didn’t go last night.  They won.  Still up in the Wild Card race.  let’s go Pads!!

Tom and Annette Balch also have tickets and brought along Ed and Julie Tyler.  So we left the comfort of our club level seats and civil fans to join them in the outfield benches for most of the game.  Tom didn’t like sitting next to me.  Was afraid he’d get hit by a beer.  I figured it was a good way to get free beer.

Steroid Cove                                        Willie Mays


From the outfield benches                    The crew



From Club seats                                   Just cause

And here’s the shot that really makes you wanna heave…

Thanks again for the invite Jono!
Wild Card…here we come!

Wow.  Today Caleb is a full year old.  It’s kind hard to believe.

The past year has been the most incredible year of my life, and I can’t believe how fast it’s gone by.  A year ago Caleb came into our life and completely flipped our world upside down.  I can’t believe how much changed when we had a kid.  More than just the, "Oh crap…I have to keep another human being alive now" part.

Since having Caleb, I’ve been forced to really evaluate what is important in my life.  He’s literally changed the direction of our life in ways I can’t even begin to explain here.  It’s ridiculous to think about how different our lives looked a year ago.  I’ve learned more about myself and my wife in the past year than I could possibly imagine, and even more about God.  All because of Caleb.

He loves people.  He loves to smile.  Man has he got a lot of energy.  He has the best laugh in the entire world.  Hearing him laugh and seeing him smile cheers me up on the gloomiest of days!

Thanks you God for an amazing gift.  And thank you Caleb for the chance to be your dad.  And thank you Rachel for helping to keep him breathing this long.  I’m not sure I could have accomplished that on my own!

Happy Birthday Caleb!!

And below is a short video from his birthday party on Saturday.  Enjoy!

We’re singing this Charlie Hall song for the first time at CLC this Sunday.  Many of you know it.  many of you don’t.  Here are the lyrics:

VERSE
You’re the center of the universe

Ev’rything was made in You Jesus

Breath of ev’ry living thing

Ev’ryone was made for You
You hold ev’rything together

You hold ev’rything together

CHORUS
Oh Christ be the center of our lives

Be the place we fix our eyes

Be the center of our lives

BRIDGE
We lift our eyes to heaven

And we wrap our lives around Your life

We lift our eyes to heaven to You

ENDING
And turn your eyes upon Jesus

And look full in His wonderful face

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace

As I was practicing the song during the day on Wednesday and then with the band that night, I kept coming back to one line in my head.  It’s the one in the bridge where it says we wrap our lives around Your life.  There is something that I love about that line.  I love to sing it.  I could never have written it.  Wouldn’t have thought of it.  Have trouble even wrapping my head around it.  Actually, not sure I even fully understand it.  But it just sounds prophetic, poetic, and profound to me.  (Isn’t alliteration wonderful?)

I’m looking forward to this one.  Any of these lyrics that you’re particularly drawn to?  Just wondering.

That was the invitation for Caleb’s birthday party.
Birthday is Monday.
Party scheduled for today at the park.
It rained a lot last night.
Looks like the party’s moving to the house!
I think I like that better anyway.  Easier to decorate.
Pictures to come.
And has it really been a freaking year?!
Crazy.

Last week I put up three seperate posts about the volunteers at the Monterey Bay aquarium and why they volunteer.  I asked myself what we can learn to ignite a passion and commitment in our volunteers.

A few days later, I got an e-mail from one of the directors at the aquarium.  Kinda fun, eh?  (Thought maybe this was my in to get to feed the fish in the kelp forest someday!    Hehe.)  And I was intrigued by what I read.  The final post talked about being passionate about The Cause that Christ has put before us.  I thought it would be fun to share what the e-mail said:

Your blog on why aquarium volunteers volunteer was forwarded to me. I found that interesting, but was more interested and inspired by your observation that we – as Christians – need to be as unapologetically passionate about our commitment to THE CAUSE. As a lifelong seeker I realized just a couple of years ago that that was why I kept on seeking – I was looking for Christians in leadership who are EN FUEGO for the cause. One would think that would be a no-brainer, alas it’s not!

Anyway, thanks for your comments and for the inspiration. Keep on keeping on.

It was cool to hear about this and to write back.  Here’s someone who spent years seeking, and was looking to leaders and other Christ followers to see if what they believed really made a difference in their lives.  The sad part is that it was so hard to find.

John Wesley was once asked about his preaching and the number of people that gathered to listen.  he is quoting as saying:

"I set myself on fire, and they come to see me burn."

So, as we go through our days today, people are watching.  And what will they see when they look to you?  Are you "en fuego?"

Being in ministry, it’s easy to start feeling like life is just going a hundred plus M.P.H.  There’s always something to do.  I know there’s other jobs and lifestyles out there like that as well, it just so happens that is my experience in ministry.

And my experience throughout my life has been that this is constantly applauded and usually encouraged.  The more you can accomplish, the more driven you are, the faster you go, the more successful you are perceived as being.  And I still buy into that regularly.  Given, it’s not all wrong, but it’s not alright either.

I heard a definition for success last week that I kinda liked.  I can’t recall exactly how it was worded but it was something along the lines of achieving God’s plan, in the steps that he has prepared, in the timing that he has…or something.  You get the point.

Anyway, the bigger point is this.  I read this post this morning and it was a great reminder.  It applies so well to my life as well as, I believe, the lives of most of our churches.

I’m not going to repost it.  Just follow this link and go read it.  Trust me, it’s worth the time.

And then find a time today to be.

I don’t want to ruin the ad if you haven’t seen it, so just take a look:

I’ve always said I wanted to train a chimp to do that for me.  I’d have the coolest band ever.  Good stuff.
HT: Steve

Looks like I’m gonna be here with our team Nov. 7-10.
Anyone else going?

#21.
I know, it’s been a while.
Sorry.
This one:
Over time.
Under produced.
But hey…at least it’s up.
Here’s to getting back on track.
Enjoy!

Ok, so maybe I wasn’t completely honest in the first post when I said "in no particular order."  That was the case for the first two.  The perks are probably a big draw to volunteering at the aquarium.  Staff know that they are appreciated.  The vibe – I sure as heck wouldn’t mind hanging out there with people a couple of hours every week.

But this last reason is perhaps, in my opinion, the number one reason people volunteer their time for the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  People volunteer at the institution for the sake of…

The Cause

Everywhere you go at the aquarium, every exhibit, every show, reminds you that there is much to be done to save our planet.  To take care of our oceans.  To care for the animals.  And every volunteer I came in contact with seemed to openly share this vision, this mission, with unbridled passion.

And not only did it appear to be a valuable cause to each volunteer, but perhaps even more importantly, the aquarium is clearly making a positive difference for the cause.  People donate money because they know it will make a difference.  People donate time because they know it will make a difference.

I guess this was just a good reminder to me…nothing I didn’t already know.  We can share all the vision in the world.  We can serve Jesus and talk about the God we all serve.  But unless we produce results, people are going to lose their own passion for it and go somewhere that is.  People want to know that their effort matters.  The leadership lesson for me: I have to be unapologetically passionate about doing everything I can to set our ministries and our volunteers up to win!  i have to be so passionate about seeing people experience life change as a result of Christ’s faith, hope, and love that I will stop at nothing to do all I can to see it happen.

To be honest, this scares me sometimes.  i have some amazing leaders who have gone out on a limb in a way to get behind our vision of Life Groups at CLC.  Right now, many of them are passionate as a result of the vision.  But I know that it is the evidence of changed lives that will continue to motivate them and encourage them to keep going.  I trust that God is at work and this will happen, but I also recognize that I need to make sure that I do my part in the deal.  And the funny part is, I need my volunteers to see God come through.  We can’t accomplish it without them.

So perhaps when people began to disappear from the ranks of our ministries (especially if it’s a pattern), before we find fault in their reasons for not stepping up we need to ask ourselves if we are being effective in our mission.  Are lives being changed?  Are people coming to Christ?  Are there tangible expressions and evidence that what we are doing is truly impacting the Kingdom?  If not, that may explain the lack of excitement to sacrifice…and understandably so.