25 peeps in my front room

Yesterday was a really great and really long day. It started with a Life Group leaders meeting at 9am and people left around noon. We crammed 25 people into my front room...it was pretty crowded...plus the fact that we were missing 10 people...that would have been crazy! It was awesome to hear what's going on in groups and to push forward some vision for where we want to go.
Grabbed lunch, changed the strings on my guitar and took off for the Stirring.
Led worship...taught a new song that I just wrote...went over well.
Nate started our "We are family" series. Changed everything he was going to say an hour before he shared. We had no idea how hard the word would hit but it was really intense. We have a ton of restoration that needs to happen in our community when it comes to the idea of family.
Great night...went home...talked with Alyssa and my mom...went to bed...woke up at 5:30am to take my mom to the airport (thank God for flights out of Redding to LAX)...came home...went back to bed and slept till 9am...haven't done that in over a year!
Today's been an awesome Sabbath...family, reading, resting, eating, riding on my Vespa with my son...it's been a good couple days!

Work day at Cypress

This is the school that we are sending our proceeds to for our Erase the Dark (music, art, and film) festival. We painted doors, railings, cabinets, moved furniture, built shelves, sanded benches. It was a good day. Small things done with great love. We are hoping this is the start of a long relationship with this school and this neighborhood. The principal was totally pumped when we left. It was fun!

Busy weekend

Mom came into town Thursday night
Went to work this morning
Hung with Nate a little to talk about Sunday
Off to dinner with fam
Couples night at the Leavers
Work day at Cypress Elementary tomorrow morning...9:30am. Feel free to come out
Nate is shooting for his short movie all day that he's putting into Erase the Dark. I'm supposed to be in it at some point.
Sunday morning we have all the Life Group Leaders (30 people) in my front room for two hours talking about vision.
Sunday afternoon I'm off to the Stirring to lead worship.
Mom heads out Monday morning.
Not complaining...just a lot going on...all good stuff...some weeks I wish we had 26 hours in the day...not to do more stuff...I'd spend it sleeping!

Hagabeefy has entered the mix...

...go give him some love. For those of you don't know him by an alias: Hagabeefy, Homequist, El Fumar, or Fume. This is Josh Hagquist. Formally of Dogwood, Belvas Diesel, Silage, Ediger 309, Ember, The Beautiful Mistake, The Midwinters, and now his solo project. We go way back...way back. Ask him questions about Bramble, Casa G, White Chocolate, big gulps, and three rolled tacos. I could go on forever.

Do not question the prophet of rock!!!

I'd like to introduce you all to MY SON!!!!
There's another picture that shows his manhood in all its glory but I didn't really want to humiliate him before he entered the world...there will be plenty of time for that!
Maybe we shouldn't have given away 7 boxes of Zeke's clothes right before we moved...oops!
We are super excited. Thank you to everyone that is praying for us.

Hung out with Joel and his buddies last night

Joel's the one in the middle. Great guy, great musician, great artist. It was great to catch up and talk with his band...awesome people. His band leads worship at Biola and they are on a mini tour up the coast. They stayed at our house last night. You can check out there stuff here and Joel's solo stuff here. Keep rockin' Joel!

Boy or girl???

Erica told Alyssa we needed a poll and time is running out. We go in for the ultrasound tomorrow to find out what we are having. I will hold out till the weekend to tell everyone what we're having. I already know that there is a little boy growing inside of my wife and his name is going to be Moses "the Edge" Lance. But we want to hear from you. Do you think it's going to be a boy or a girl? Let's hear it...

Amazing

Last night at the Stirring was crazy.
A bunch of people that signed up to get baptized didn't show up.
First gathering we only had two but both of them were amazing. Friends and family around the tank praying and celebrating new life...it was awesome.
Then Randy Miller comes up to me after the gathering and starts talking about my testimony last week. He asks if he can get baptized...I grab his wife and Jeremy and we dunk him in his street clothes.
Second gathering we baptize 12 that were scheduled...each one was amazing...two people from my Life Group...one girl that started following Jesus this month.
After the scheduled 12 I ask, "does any one else want to get wet?" A girl throws her hand up and runs up. Then her sister jumps in. All in all I think we had about 7 people decide on the spot to get baptized. Street clothes, no towel, ready to follow Jesus and identify with his family!
For one girl it was her first night at the Stirring. She got baptized with a hoodie on. When she came out of the water there was still 8 gallons of water on her. Derek and I rang out her hood before she drenched the entire church.
I left a comment on Nate's blog last night just thanking him for calling me up her to do this with him. I love the Stirring. I love baptism. There is no denying what God is doing in the person. They are soaked in his spirit and their new family rejoices with them.

Jesus is alive...

...and he is seen by the world when the people that claim to follow him love each other.
WE LOVE. WE MAKE DISCIPLES. If we could focus on those two things I think this Easter story would make sense to the world. I want to give my life to those two things. Everything else is way down the list. We love God, we love each other, we love the world, and we love the least. Then we teach others to do the same thing.
This is me thinking out loud. I'm trying to make things more simple in my life.
Jesus is alive in you and me!

V-necks and chesthair

like...peanut butter and jelly
like...white on rice
like...stink on poop
a match made in heaven!
like...you fill in the blank...

Much needed update to Rev Rock

Gave a lot of link love.
Split up my Riverside crew, Redding crew, and Random crew.
Side note...there's some people like the Risinger's and Osborne's that feels weird putting in the random crew but it also felt weird keeping them with the Riverside crew.
If I put someone in the wrong camp let me know.
If I left you out and you come here a lot let me know.
Go check out all my new peeps...they're awesome.

Turning over a new leaf

No I did not go outside and pick a leaf off a tree just so I could take a picture in photo booth that would visually capture the idea that I am turning a new leaf in my life. There just happened to be a leaf sitting on my computer desk for some reason...I'm assuming Zeke's doing.
Anyways...I've decided that I'm going to start becoming a blog commenter. I've realized that I still have a lot of Riverside crew that comment up in this piece and I hardly ever get to talk to them so I figured blog comments are the next best thing. Because everyone knows that a comment on your blog is just like hangin' at Starbucks and sharing your heart over an Americano! I'm going to start with commenting back to people that post to my blog. There's a possibility that I will venture into commenting on other blogs but don't bank on it. But just in case you're wondering...I do check in on the Riverside and Redding and Random crew everyday. Keep bloggin'...I'm readin'!

Baptisms

While we celebrate Easter this Sunday we will be baptizing 25 people right in the middle of the room at our gathering...isn't that awesome. Earlier this year the Stirring baptized 25 at someones house. That is really exciting to me. There is a girl at our Life Group that's been following Jesus for 3 weeks and she's gettin' dunked. God is good. I love celebrating new life.
I made an observation about baptism a while ago. I might be the last one to figure this out but I was wondering why we are baptized into the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Then I realized that baptism into the Father is a realization that we are newly born into God's family and he is our Father. We are baptized into the way of living we saw modeled in Jesus. And we are baptized to live that way through the power of the Holy Spirit. What a beautiful symbol and invitation to the world.

Martian Child

Love Cusack. Love that he has his sister in every movie he ever does. Love that this was the first PG movie I've seen in forever.
As the adoptive daddy of two...this movie destroys you. Thought it was great.

Cool responses from last night

I like to cross pollinate my blog with the Stirrings blog. I spend a lot of time posting there so I'll periodically send you over there to spread the love.

Trying to wind down

I got home from the Stirring about an hour ago. Talked with Alyssa and her parents for a little bit. Seemed like they really loved our church. Bob and Gloria are leaving in the morning early. We had a great visit with them. Alyssa just went to bed and asked me, "do you need a little more time to wind down?" I responded with, "yeah, a little."
It's weird but Alyssa knows me too well. Tonight I laid my heart out at the Stirring and she knows I always go into this mode for a while after. My mind is kind of on overdrive and I can't focus too much on conversations. She's learned just to go to bed and let me blog for a little bit and I'll reach wind down mode shortly.
We talked about the Road to Emmaus tonight and how God is walking with us in our disappointments. I shared our story of infertility, adoption, miscarriage, adoption, and now pregnancy. God is awesome. I'll post a link when the podcast comes out. And just in case you're random to my blog and don't follow Jesus I want you to know that God is with you! He never leaves you!
Shalom

Heather hooked Zeke up

Last night we were at Chevy's and Heather Smith hooked up Zeke with this amazing balloon hat. Seriously Heather...no blog yet?
Anyways...Zeke loves it and will be wearing it till the very last balloon pops. Thanks Heather!

Pimp my garage

a

So the inlaws rolled into town and our garage got an extreme home makeover. We broke down the 458 boxes that we had still from our move. Put up hooks to hold extension chords and the ridiculous amount of canvas bags that we had laying around. I was getting anxiety every time I walked out in the garage. Walking over things...feeling claustrophobic. Now our garage looks sweet. Thanks Bob and Gloria...you're awesome!

Busy weekend

Alyssa's parents are coming into town tomorrow night and staying till Monday morning. It will be awesome to see them, we haven't seen them since we moved.
I'm gonna try to sneak out to see the Myriad and Wesley Jensen and friends on Saturday night.
Nate and I are doing a tag team teaching this Sunday at the Stirring. I asked him if we could set up a ring and have him tag me in half way through and I would jump over the ropes like the British Bulldogs. (If you don't know who the British Bulldogs are you are no longer allowed to read my blog...sorry...that's the rules!)
Should be fun...hope it doesn't rain too much...it would be cool to get outside and show the in laws how beautiful Redding is.

What am I letting school do to my son???

This is Zeke and Ava (Nate and Erica's daughter). They are in the same class at school. Today they dressed up like lambs for their class presentation. They put mascara on my sons nose...seriously...what the heck???
Here's the real story though. My son has been working on this presentation at school for months. Every day I ask him what songs he's been learning and what verses they are going to say and he tells me, "I don't want to talk about it dad." (Classic)
I show up today with Alyssa and he is the shortest kid in all of pre-k and they have him standing in the back row behind a girl that is taller than I am! He's peeking out the side though and he yells, "hi mom!" Then he proceeds to sing every word of every song. He says every verse and he does all the hand motions perfectly. I was so proud. Zeke cracks me up. I guess I can handle the privacy at home as long as he's getting it done at school. How can you not love that face?

The two different faces of my daughter

Happy Sof

Not happy Sof

This picture is better than birth control. I think I'm gonna save this one and give it to my kids and the people they choose to date to remind them what kids are like and that they can wait till they're married to have sex!

A recovering cynic

Last night Nate wrapped up our "When God Dreams" series with a message on encouragement. He talked about how Jonathan's armor bearer isn't the focus of the story in I Samuel 14 but how crucial he is to the story. We want to create a culture at the Stirring where people are living out God's dreams and they are encouraged and supported in every way possible. We need those people in our lives that are speaking words of life into us. I shared at the end that Nate has been huge for me in this area. If left to my own thoughts I naturally find the negative and I can be very cynical. I also find that my attitude is shaped by the people I spend the most time with. In moving to Redding I had several conversations with Nate where he spoke hope and encouragement into my life. He brought out the things that God has put inside me and it has changed me into a different person. I want to be that person for others now. I want to be an armor bearer for people in our community. I want to speak God's words of life into people. If you are not a Redding person you should really go here and listen to this last series on line...the teachings are really shaping what we want to become as a church!

I've waited two years for the day...

...when my son could fit into his Weezer shirt. It still doesn't fit too good but who cares...it's Weezer. How cool is this band? Never change their logo...just rockin' the arial font...writin' great songs. Quick poll: Favorite Weezer songs
1. My name is Jonas
2. Only in Dreams (best bass line ever written)
3. Pink Triangle (that was a joke)
Ok...what's your favorite Weezer song?

Seriously...how am I just hearing about this???

N.T. Wright has a new book coming out and I'm just hearing about it now. It comes out in two days. Do yourself a favor and pre order. Here's the tag line...Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, and the Mission of the church. Can't wait. I've been needing a new book to dive into.

My kids and dog food

I noticed a couple of days ago that Erica is having this same problem with her kids. Both of my kids love dog food. We pull Sofia out of the dish at least 5 times a day. And now Zeke is intrigued by things he's never tried. Today he asked if he could have a dog treat (see pic). My new response is..."sure!" I'm tired of saying no 400 times a day. So he takes a huge chomp out of the treat and gives me this face like, "why in the world did you let me do that?" He tries to play it off but then I see him spit it out and go for his juice. Earlier this morning he wanted to eat a coffee bean. I said, "sure!"
Please hold back all of your Father of the Year nominations...I get embarrassed when people recognize me for my superior parenting skills!
Side note...please don't call CPS on us for my sons forehead. He headbutted the counter yesterday.

Rev Rock needs a face lift

I've been looking at my blog and realizing that I need to spruce it up. I haven't given any link love in forever. I apologize to all of you that should be on my blog roll. I haven't added anyone from Redding...basically I've been slacking. I like the way that wordpress sights look but I have a feeling that they are a lot more work. Any ideas. I could reskin the sight with a new template but I'm not sure that will change very much. Ideas???

This is amazing

Introducing Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber

This is a picture of my son after he took some scissors this morning and decided to cut his bangs off. You can't really tell in the picture but he was a spitting image of Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber

This picture was taken half way through me hacking Zeke's hair off.

This was the final product. He was really happy with me.
This hair cut was in response to Zeke's school. They told us that to keep up with the dress code we had to cut his hair! You know I always respond well to issues like that so I decided to stick it to the man by shaving it all off. It's a non-violent protest. I'm planning on doing a sit-in next week.

Weird floating baby

Now you can check in with weird floating baby on the sidebar of my blog everyday to keep up with our pregnancy! I like to call him Moses...but you probably already knew that! Casey has a weird floating baby on her blog. I had to drop Casey from my reader because I couldn't keep up with the overwhelming amount of blogs she is pumping out :)
Come on Case...you started this whole blog mess...we need more love!

Sabbath

I love that on a weekly basis I see a ton of blogs talking about their Sabbath now. Nate has just started his own blog and he blogged about his Sabbath this week. Everything is new right now so it is taking me a while to find my rhythm with Sabbath. They say the three most stressful times in your life come with 1) You move 2) You get a new job 3) You have a baby. Just in case you're keeping score that is check 1, check 2, check 3 for the Lance family! New friends, new neighbors, new stores, no Trader Joes, (but take heart world...one is coming!), new office, new church, new school for Zeke, no family, new sleeping patterns, new feelings of have no idea what to do with a biological baby that actually comes out of your wife...you get the picture. Along with all this my new Sabbath is Monday...still getting used to that. And I usually shut my phone off but now we don't have a home line. That shouldn't really change anything but now I have this overwhelming sense that the world is going to fall apart and no one is going to be able to get a hold of me. Again I need to remind myself that I am not important! Anyways, I am in process. Yesterday was relaxing...all day with family. Food, wrestling, movies, books and laughs.
I love my new life...it's just taking a while to get used to it!
Thanks for all the love with the pregnant news...it's fun to be able to share your joy with your world!

Prepare for the bomb drop of the century...

are you ready for this???

not yet...

now...

not sure...

here comes the biggest news in the last 7 years of Lance history...

now are you ready???

still not sure...

hold on to your hats and glasses...

Alyssa is PREGNANT!!!! We're having a baby!!!

For those of you that know our story...this is a miracle in every sense of the word. We have struggled with infertility for 7 years.

I remember pleading with God almost 5 years ago for a child and we became parents in a day to Zeke. Last year we brought Sofia home and now I'm gonna be the dad of three...what the heck!! We waited to let people know because we wanted to make sure that everything was ok with the baby. Alyssa is over 4 months along...check out that belly! She is doing amazing. I think it's going to be a boy and if it is his name is Moses! Alyssa is pulling for a girl so we'll see who has the better prayer life. I can't believe we are going to be a family of 5!

God is awesome.

That's all I have to say about that.

Bomb officially detonated!

Wrote a song today

It's been a long time.
Last week I was meeting with the Stirring leadership in the Bethel prayer chapel early in the morning. I watched the sun come up over the mountains and I was reminded that God starts every morning by flooding light into darkness. What a picture of what he is consistently doing in this world. Then I thought of the beating of my heart, reminding me that God is holding everything together. Stuff that is always there but sometimes it just hits you in a huge way. Here's what I wrote.

Cant' hold back the morning

Every morning you arise you flood the earth with light
Reminding us that you will never change
The beating drum within our hearts the rhythm held within your life
Reminding us that you will never change. You will never change

Because when you appear you drive out the fear
And in your light there’s nowhere to hide

Every day the same story Evening can’t hold back the morning
And creation is longing to be bathed in your glory
Everyday the same story Evening can’t hold back the morning
And creation is longing for you

I hope to start recording some things soon. I like how it turned out. It's nice to be writing again.