My Worship Revolution

Bret said this: I'd be interested in getting the
entire rundown on the events leading up to and culminating in your
decision to leave Revolution.

Entire rundown?  I don't think you really wanna read that much.  Maybe we can have coffee sometime Bret.  ;)  (Except I guess you've de-friended me because I don't like soccer.)

Now I could use the over arching answer that God was moving me on, which is true, but we'll let that be assumed.  Prayer and confirmation were definitely a huge part of the process.  I'd say that ultimately there were 2 major things that served as a catalyst in my decision.

1. Worship.  I recognize that there is a very good possibility that I will not lead worship forever.  In fact, I recognize that CLC could very easily be the last place I lead worship as a primary function.  But at the time that I left Revolution, I was feeling pretty strong that playing music and leading worship is where God was pulling my heart.  While that alone wouldn't be enough to move on, I think it played a big role.
2. Caleb.  When we had Caleb, it really caused me to do some prioritizing and some soul searching.  The truth was, I knew I needed to do a much better job at putting my family above ministry.  That wasn't something that I didn't know how to do in the system and expectations that I had created for myself at Revolution.  And that was probably the single greatest decision maker.  I knew I had to get out of that context to learn how to take care of myself and my family.

Of course there are lots of other factors and events that led up to what was a very difficult decision in my life and my family's.  I love the community at Revolution.  I love the people.  I love the church.  And both the ministry and the people there have had a huge impact in my development as a person, as a pastor, and as a leader. 

It's now been almost 2 years, and I haven't written about this much here, but I still think about and miss Revolution daily.  I pray for that community regularly and it will always be a huge part of us wherever our journey takes us.  I guess that's part of the nature of immersing yourself in a faith community in occupational ministry and allowing it to shape your heart and your soul, with the recognition that it may very well not be forever.  It will always be difficult to leave a ministry that you have poured your life into.

On a side note, Craig Groeschel had a great series over at his blog last week on the topic of how to know when God is calling you away from a ministry.  Well worth the read to get some more thoughts on the overall topic.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Well, most of you have heard, especially if you followed my Twitter feed through the whole process, we are now a family of four!  Woohoo!

Man…lots of different thoughts and emotions with numero dos.  I may or may not get to sharing some of those here.  I imagine I will.

But in the meantime, I thought you would all enjoy this quick video of Caleb meeting Micah for the first time.  We wanted to be sure to not be holding Micah and really pay attention to Caleb for a while.  But he was just interested in seeing "Baby Micah."  Here he is holding the baby with mommy:

Yesterday I shared this quote from Ian Morgan Cron at Recreate:

Lately I've been camping out quite a bit in Ephesians in prep for our next series, Sit, Walk, Stand.  It's based on a book about Ephesians by Watchman Nee.  A pretty common passage from Ephesians chapter 2:

Verse 10 – We are God's workmanship.  Greek.

Or as my study Bible says, can also be translated "work of art."

So in other words, we are God's work of art, created in Christ Jesus.
This Greek word is used one other place in the New Testament.

The point?  Expanding on Cron's thought, we are God's work of art, and through his work of art people will see clearly what they feel vaguely.  Holy moly!!  Sorry.  That just speaks my language and resonates big time.
According to Genesis, mankind was created in the Trinitarian image of God.  We as a whole, as a community, are a walking breathing reflection of the Creator.

While lots of people aren't sure they like Jesus, many are on a spiritual journey.  They know vaguely that there is something bigger, and they are created to worship.  It is the role of Christ followers to ultimately help people clearly recognize what that longing is.

How are you as God's work of art pointing back to Him in the way you live?  When people look at your life, do they see Jesus clearly?

I'm encouraged.
Inspired.
Challenged.

OK.  Remember when I told you to ask me anything you wanted and I’d answer?
It’s been way to long since I was asked these.
I started answering them here, here, here, and here.
This week, we’re finishing em all up.  So here we go…

A good follow up to the last Caleb singing video post.
Proverbs says to train a child up in the way he should go and he will not depart from it.
He totally started singing this in the living room today:

Looks like the kid has good taste in worship music so far!
Hopefully if we keep this up, I won't ever catch him singing As The Deer.
Maybe he can go on the road leading this song with his friend, Peyton.

And just in case you haven't caught wind of this song, here's Steve Fee sharing it.
Highly recommend adding it to your set if your leading worship.  It's pretty hot.

This past week was Recreate.  An un-conference in Tenessee that is by far the best church leader gathering around.  Rachel and I had to miss out this year being that we are expecting Micah to show up any day now.

But I've been able to kinda follow along via Twitter and blogs.  Definitely not even close to the experience of being there, but nice nonetheless.  There have been some great quotes that have stuck in my head as people twittered them, and I wanna use a couple of posts to unpack the train of thought that one of them has me traveling down.

Love this thought.  It's why I am passionate about art and creative worship.
It got me thinking again about the topic of an artists retreat I was at a few years ago where we discussed the importance of "prophetic art."

Just as some speak of prophetic worship, our art can and should be prophetic.
Good art causes an emotional reaction.  It requires a response.  It often gives expression to the feelings and truths that we just can't fully express through words.

If you are an artist, create art with power.  I hope that the music we write, the films we create, the photography we produce, and the visual masterpieces we labor over are echoes of God the Creator and give expression to the longing buried inside of the people around us and ourselves.  We need our art as a faith community, inside and outside the walls of our church, so that people will see our work and exclaim, "God is really among you!"

That's all it takes my friends, and you can be a 2 year old rock star.
A few weeks ago I Twittered a shot of Caleb in the kitchen with the guitar and the pump…errr…microphone.
But y'all gotta see the video.
And mind you, we're potty training (Tim & Megan!).

Well on his way to leading worship.
But that random lazy eye look while he's rockin get's a bit freaky.

Rock on Caleb!

It’s about to get a little warmer on this blog, y’all! 

Several weeks ago I was teaching our week on the elephant in the nursery and asked for your help.
In case you missed it, this series is about family and relationship issues that we know exist, but that we don’t talk about much.
I had such a good response to that one, I thought we could do it again, just to see what you wish you had known.  Luckily, I don’t have to tackle the topic at church this week.

This week is about the elephant in the bedroom.
Yup.  You guessed it.  We’re gonna talk about the taboo s-e-x topic.
Sex (big S) as God intended it and sex (little s) as the world perceives it.

Being married for 5 years now, I would say this is a topic that is a huge elephant and that many couples are left to figure out alone because discussing frustrations, difficulties, or just questions are frowned upon or just scary.

So, married folk.  (And non-married who apply.)
I’m curious.
What do you wish you had known about sex, or questions you still have, that was/were never discussed or shared with you?
What is the proverbial “elephant” in the bedroom?
Someone just might find out that they aren’t the only ones with that question or frustration.
And hopefully I won’t regret this tomorrow.

And feel free, once again to be anonymous on this one.
Be transparent and honest, but I won’t hesitate to remove any comments that are crass just for the sake of crassness.  I’m trusting that won’t be an issue though.

On your mark, get set, share.

On Nightline.
01.28.09

Say what you want about the guy.
I must confess.
I dig the dude.

I have a bunch of money in the form of iTunes gift cards from Christmas.
So school me friends.
What new music do I HAVE to be listening to?

(And if it's country, don't even bother suggesting it.  Sorry Kevin.)