My Worship Revolution

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!

We have time for snowball fights…since we only work one day a week anyway.

Merry Christmas.

Welcome to the new blog.

If you came straight to this post, click on home to see the front page look.

I mentioned in an earlier post that his blog tends to be somewhat a reflection of my life.
So I figured it was a good time to use a new theme as we enter into a new season of life and ministry.

Yesterday we announced at Christian Life Center that February 21st will be our last Sunday on staff there.
Why?

We’re planting a church.

Well over 5 years ago God placed a passion and call in mine and Rachel’s hearts to one day be church planters.
And this past year this passion has bubbled up within us in huge ways.

After lots of time talking with God, fasting, praying, looking at different options; we finally think we know what God is up to.
And we plan to start a new movement/faith community right here in Santa Cruz.

You will hear a whole lot about this church and our plans here at the blog.  It is going to pretty much consume us.
I’ve already got like 83 posts in  my head to share with you guys about where we’re headed and what God’s doing.

We are currently discussing partnership with a church planting organization/denomination called Converge USA (formerly Baptist General Conference).
As a final step in that process, they are sending us to a 4 day intense church planters assessment at the end of January.
Please pray right off the bat that all goes well there.

So that’s the BIG news coming out of our lives right now.
And for us, it really is big.
It means huge shifts for us including raising support, finding another job, and moving again at some point.

It feels like stepping out in faith in a big way.
There’s plenty to be nervous about.
And it means all we can do is hand it over to Jesus.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We are excited to see what God has for us.
Excited to live out passionate spirituality in the context of radical community.
Excited to rethink being the church in our community.
Excited about living out the values of transformation, dependence, justice, beauty.

So we are inviting you to see it happen from square 1.
We don’t have it all figured out yet.
I didn’t wait til we had a logo and a real cool website to unveil it all at once.
This is a work in progress.
And we’re stoked to have you on the journey with us.

The blog should start looking better in time also.

And so we head into another transition in our lives.
Thanks for coming with us!

Now…here we go!!

New blog theme.
New season.
Change.

Coming tomorrow.
See ya there.

Christmas is a time where we feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
It’s a time that we cherish our families and loved ones.
It’s a time that we reflect on our year.
It’s a time that we thank God for all He’s done and is doing.
It’s a time when we are supposed to be happy that all is right with life.

And for those reasons, it’s also a time that can be the most painful time of the year for many.
For those who have lost loved ones.
For those who had a tragic year.
For those who can’t see God’s hand right now.
For those who don’t feel very thankful.
And sometimes we forget or just gloss over that for the sake of keeping it happy.

I know people who read this blog who are more aware during this time of those who are no longer around to celebrate with.
I know people who read this blog who are in uncertain seasons of major transition.
I know people who read this blog who recently miscarried a baby they were looking forward to loving.
I know people who read this blog who are in the throes of dealing with cancer in the midst of a holiday season.
I know people who read this blog who are working through clinical depression.
I know people who read this blog who don’t feel like they have a lot to celebrate.
And the season magnifies that pain they feel.

Life is pretty good for me.  Most days I am enjoying the yuletide bliss and time with my family.
But every now and then, even I have that day where things seem a lot grayer and I am more focused on the struggles than the blessings.
I think we can all relate.
We’ve all been there.

Which is why this excerpt I read yesterday resonated.
It comes out of Meditations of a Hermit.
It has some great thoughts for those of us who follow Jesus.
Maybe if you are having a tough time this season, or you know someone who is, this is something you can reflect on.
See what you think:

Let us thank God a thousand times if in the sadness which invades us it seems to us as if we are rejected by the world.  The depression and suffering, the bitterness with which we seem sometimes to be soaked to be soaked, were the lot of Our Lord on earth.  Are we not fortunate to share them?  We should pity the happy people.  Pity those whose happiness, even though it be quite legitimate and innocent, keeps them attached to the world.  God is good that he has so despoiled us of everything, that we can draw breath only by turning our heads towards him. How great is his mercy, how divine his goodness, for he has torn everything from us in order that we may be more completely his.  So the suffererers are the happy ones through the goodness of God.  In suffering I give thanks.

May these days of Christmas festival bring you, in your suffering, I do not say consolation, but the blessing God intends for you. The child Jesus will perhaps not give you any sweetness, – he reserves that for the weak ones, – but his hand will none the less be spread to bless you in these days of Christmastide, and whether you feel it or no, he will pour abundant grace into your soul.

Not much for me to add at this point.
How about you?

We head out this past Monday to cut down our Christmas tree.  Had a blast with the fam.  Got the tree home, and thought I’d share our decorating festivities with you.

So with no further ado, our tree from start to finish…in 60 seconds.

I do have to extend a quick apology to my German readers.
Apparently Sony owns that song, and they don’t want you to hear it on YouTube if you are in Germany:

Just in case you were sitting in Germany wondering why you can’t see the video.
My sincere apologies.

Last night I watched The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian for the first time.
Not sure why it took me SO long to get around to that one.  Such a good movie.
I was so captured by the story and some of the simple yet profound writing.

It made me wonder… who/where are our modern day C.S. Lewis’s?
Who is our Tolkien today, telling stories that reflect the nature of God in an engaging and powerful way?
Where is the Lewis, capturing our imaginations in telling stories of redemption and hope that reflect deep theological truths pointing us back to the greatest story of all?
We truly have the greatest story available, and it seems to me that we have lost the art of telling that story in creative and captivating ways.

Perhaps we need more pastors and leaders today who have graduated from film school rather than seminaries.
Again…just a thought.

“But God is present in reality no matter what unreality our practices and our ponderings imply.  He is forever trying to establish communication; forever aware of the wrong directions we are taking and wishing to warn us; forever offering solutions for the problems that baffle us; forever standing at the door of our loneliness, eager to bring us such comradeship as the most intelligent living mortal could not supply; forever clinging to our indifference in the hope that someday our needs, or at least our tagedies will waken us to respond to his advances.  The Real Presence is just that, real and life transforming.  Nor are the conditions for the manifestations of his splendors out of the reach of any of us!  Here they are’ otherness, openness, obedience, obsession.”

-From The Captivating Presence (via this prayer guide)

One of the books I read recently that had a big impact was Culture Making by Andy Crouch.  One of the big ideas of the book…the only way to change culture is to create new culture.

A few weeks ago I caught this story on Sunday Morning on CBS as I was on my way out the door.
Take 3 minutes to hear about how Brent Green of L.A. created culture in his neighborhood.
I found it pretty fascinating and inspiring.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

…Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
-Jeremiah 29:7

I love the part of the video where he talks about how much he loves his city and wanted to give back.
I found that it was somewhat difficult to fully wrap my brain around the best ways to create and cultivate culture.  This is a perfect example.
A lot of churches and Christ followers like to get out and do our one day service project and go to sleep feeling good about ourselves.  But imagine if we used the talents we had on a regular basis to really bless our city with no strings attached.  Who woulda thought that a passion for plants and landscaping coupled with a little bit of vision and a heart of generosity could bring a neighborhood together and reduce crime.

So what do you have to offer to the community you live in?
How can you use your passions to start meeting your neighbors and bettering your city?
Perhaps starting there could be a lot more effective in the long run than a lot of our “outreaches” and crusades.
Just a thought.