My Worship Revolution

Since being in Santa Cruz we are making all sorts of great new relationships, but of course we always miss some of the great relationships we’ve been maintaining from down south.  One of the bummers about leaving our community there is missing some major events in some major peoples lives.

One of those relationships that Rachel and I really believe will be a lifelong friendship is that of Darrenn and Jenny Platt.  So I had to congratulate them here on the birth of their second child Emma Platt!  After years of waiting for God to give them another child, and lots of ups and downs that we didn’t get to know them through, this kid is definitely a second gift from God to add to their family.  I’m bummed I can’t be there, but I can’t wait to meet her…hopefully soon!!!

Thanks to Lori Velarde for the pics!

I know there’s still a whole lot of you down in SoCal that read my blog…in fact…probably most of you.  So I thought any of you working toward a job in worship arts, or some of you who might know of someone, would wanna know about an intern opportunity for the summer.

Carlos Whittaker posted the other day that he is looking for an intern at Sandals Church in Riverside for this summer.  It’s a great church and I have a feeling you could learn a lot there, so head on over here and check out the details!

I’m pretty much a night person.  Rachel’s out of town.  That means I’ll be in bed late most of the time she’s gone.  Right now it’s almost 2am and I’ve OD’d on Andy Stanley.

This morning a swallowed a whole book of his and as you can see from my screen shot above, I’m sitting here watching him teach.  And I’m loving it.  I heard a while back through several blogs that North Point‘s Drive Conference was available online free.  I thought about checking it out but never had time.  Tonight I started it.  I’m just finishing the first session and I’m ready to go out and kick some butt.  Maybe I should watch the rest of them in the morning before I go to work cause it makes me wanna storm the gates, ya know what I’m sayin. 

OK, almost done.  I think I’ll finish up and go to bed.

Seriously though, at what point do you hit such a low that this is what you have to do to keep your career alive?  And he used to be so cool as Michael Knight.  What happened?

So today I’m taking a day away from the office to hang out with Jesus, do some reading, and some strategic planning/mapping/whatever you feel like calling it for both connection and worship ministries.  So far it’s been nice.

I’m not much of a fast reader, but this morning I sucked down a whole book by Andy Stanley and Bill Willits – Creating Community.


Really helpful book about North Point‘s small group philosophy, culture, and implementation.  Really got my head spinnin thinking about all sorts of questions.  Opened or closed group?  (That’s a huge one for me now.  What’s your experience been?  Which do you prefer, church staffers and attenders?)  How do we help get people into groups?  Leadership development.  Casting vision.  All good stuff.

After lunch I cruised down to a little coffee shop just down the road, The Ugly Mug to get away, get online, and get some stuff on paper…errrr…file?  Anyway.  Cool place to hang and be around all sorts of people.  I love people watching.  Unfortunately they only take a card with a minimum of a $5 purchase and I think I left my cash at home.

Maybe tonight I’ll cruise by Mr. Toots, recommended by my friend Elliott, see if I can catch some good live music and plan more for worship stuff.  This is nice.  It helps me to get away in places where I can be inspired when I’m planning stuff out.    

Finally got out for my first surf session in Santa Cruz, out at 38th (for you locals).  Thought it was kinda worth noting.  I was nice cause it’s been too long since I’ve been out.  Unfortunately the waves were just OK, and I just aint that good (so the waves are always my excuse).  We did however come across a gnarly beached whale on our way out.  Check it out:

Supposed to give it another go Saturday, so maybe I’ll catch some good rides then.

I dropped Rachel off at the airport this morning to visit SoCal, which means I’m all alone until Sunday.  I’ll be missin the fam.  She took Caleb with her, so the upside is I will get to sleep past 5:45 for a few mornings.  Maybe I’ll watch a couple guy flicks with the sound cranked up real loud while she’s gone.  Or play a little PS2.  Random post.  Out.

If you found this page because you just Googled "g-string", you might want to visit this site.

For the rest of you, welcome to another installment of Worship Confessional.  This week I decided to do something a little daring…some clips from our service.  I say daring for a number of reasons.  One is, it’s just a camera in the balcony.  Not only is it not mixed, it doesn’t even come off a board.  So it is what it is, but it will give a glimpse of what we’re doing.

It’s also daring because I’m my own worst critic, all the way around.  Even in regard to the presentation of the stage there’s a lot we are in the works to improve.  So this is where we’re at now, and as I do this once in a while, you can see the changes take place.

Alrighty then, enough said.  Here’s what our week looked like here at CLC in Santa Cruz:

Here’s a video that Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill in Seattle made for a recent Church Planting event he was invited to but couldn’t make it to in Florida.  He doesn’t say what the event was, but my guess is it was probably the National New Church conference I referenced in my last post.  This video was shown and was supposed to be handed out to all of the attenders, but because of criticism of it from another well known pastor, it wasn’t.  You can read the story here at his blog.

It’s definitely Mark Driscoll speaking in those ways that everyone either loves or hates.  It’s got some great principles, and I enjoyed it, so I decided to chance putting it up here in spite of the haters.  Check it out:

It’s a tough balance for most people in ministry.  There’s always something to do and something or someone competing with your time with your family.  Over the years I’ve come to know lots of friends and mentors in ministry, and most of them are still trying to figure it out.  To be honest, I can only think of one that seems to have a pretty healthy grip on it, in my opinion.  The rest of us tend to either work too much and don’t give spouses and children what they deserve, which is the majority of us (myself included at times), and a few who swing the other way.

I bring this up cause I came across a great post last week that reviewed the teaching of Larry Osbourne at the National New Church Conference in Orlando last week.  He is the pastor of North Coast Church in Vista, a leading church in the multisite movement, a church that has an attendance of over 6000 every weekend.  In this session he talked about how to "Grow a Church and Still Have a Life."  Go take a few minutes to read his points over here.

The part that really caught me the most was his take on potential.  In the teaching, he says,

• "Potential confuses what I could do with what I should do."
• "Somehow, serving two masters (God and spouse) is better than maximizing your potential." 

Maybe to other people that just makes sense, but I guess for me it was a bit of a revolutionary thought.  The idea that just because I could have a larger "Kingdom impact" (at least as far as it seems to us) that may not be what God wants out of me.  That can be hard to wrap my head around.  But I recognize that God has given me an amazing wife and son at this point in my life, and they need to be my number one ministry in life.  If I’m not doing my job there, I don’t have anything to give others.

So, as we’ve made this shift into a new season of ministry, Rachel and I have tried to be very intentional in protecting our time together and the growing of our relationship.  Here’s two ways we’re doing that right now:

• Date Night.  This is one of those things we always intended to do, but it rarely really happened in the past 3+ years.  So now, we’ve made Friday nights a sacred night for us.  That night could change as our schedule shapes up here, but we are set on having a weekly date night to date each other.  We take turns each week planning it, and it has to be on virtually no budget, so game nights will be plentiful.  So far it’s been a blast.
• Coming Home.  I’ve promised Rachel that I’ll be home by (or very close to, depending on traffic) 5:30 p.m. each night, except for Wednesdays when I get home real late cause that’s my marathon day.  Of course this is a bit flexible for weeks when meetings arise and what not, but that’s the normal goal.  This gives me the chance each night to help give Caleb a bath, read to him and put him to bed.  And as an added bonus, since Rachel knows I’ll be home, she has a homemade dinner waiting for me every night!  She rocks!

So those are a couple of the goals I’ve set to try and truly put my family first.  I really believe that effective ministry can be done without sacrificing the well being of my family.  Hopefully Larry is an example of that truth, at least based on what I read here.  Another guy who I’ve heard is an amazing example of this is Andy Stanley, lead pastor of North Point church in Alpharetta, Georgia, who decided that he would leave the office everyday at 3:30 or 4:30 p.m. to be with his family.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  So now you know what my goals are and what my nights look like.  I’ll do my best to give myself to those I minister to at CLC, after I’ve ministered to my own household.  How about some of you others reading this who are in full time ministry?  Is this ever a struggle for you  What have you done to balance ministry and family?