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This is the new office / kids room / extra bedroom for friends and family with the help of an aero bed / sweet room for life groups.
This morning I had the life group leaders over to talk about the new year and I'm stoked.
So excited to be so closely connected to all of our groups.
I love to hear what God is doing.
I feel alive in a living room with leaders...it's in my DNA.
What makes you come alive?
This morning I had our life group leaders in
It was awesome!
So glad Alyssa and I had a chance to take a group of couples through that material.
Relationships were healed, tough issues were wrestled through.
I love the dynamics of Life Groups.
Real life stuff...working things out in community...that's what I want to give my life to.
I was talkin' to some dudes about Ephesians 4 and 5 yesterday and we got on the topic of greed. God is really calling us to be a family that is marked by generosity. Somewhere along the line that distinction has been really blurred in the church. When the church is really living out its call in the world it is always subverting the predominant trends in culture. When the culture is calloused and immoral sexually, the church should be showing the world through our relationships and marriages what God is like. When the culture is angry and hates and demeaning towards segments of society we should be a refuge of reconciliation and love. I think the one that's really hard for us is greed. When the culture around us is bent on more and is never satisfied we should be sharing our stuff, balancing injustice, bringing people into our homes, not living in excess, and living out of contentment.
I gave the example of the goal of our living situations in the US.
If you're poor and living in the ghetto you are most likely living in an apartment. More than likely you've got some extended family living with you to lower the bills. People are always around and in your business because of the close proximity. The goal is to move out of that situation and get into a house and to lose the extra family or friends living with you. Preferably a house with a garage that's attached to the house so you can pull in and not have to deal with neighbors. The goal after the first house is the second house that is bigger and further away from neighbors because you need your space. Then you're looking for the huge house in the gated community and now someone needs to know 4 digits to come see you and a guard gives you the "once over" if you look a little shady.
Greed breeds isolation. Our desire for more drives us further away from people. The American Dream is a joke and has nothing to do with living in the way of Jesus. Jesus said he's going to prepare a place for us in his fathers house. (John 14:1-4) That is wedding language talking of a groom that goes to add a room onto his fathers house to bring his bride back to. Only the Father can tell the son when the room is ready. Then the son goes and brings the wife to live with him and his family. Living in real community is what eternity is going to be like. I have a feeling "mansions" are going to have no place in the new heavens and new earth. I'm pretty sure we'll know our neighbors and be close to each other. Wouldn't it make sense for us to start practicing for eternity now? Just some thoughts. What do you think?
Saturday July 12th, 11-1:30pm
Mom's show up with their kids at 11am at the Nazarene church.
We're taking portraits of the moms with their kids that we will print off and give as gifts.
Mom's leave the kids, we have a crew that will spoil the kiddos.
Mom's carpool with another crew that is taking them to Tierra Oaks for lunch...our treat.
While they're gone we got a crew that will be washing and detailing their cars.
We have 6 moms right now and we can take around 10. Know a single mom that needs some love? Send em' our way.
I can't think of a harder job in the world then raising your kids by yourself. We want to be the kind of community that takes care of our single moms!
Our hope is that this one event will turn into long term investment in the lives of these families. We want to be a church that is known for our love...anyone down to help?
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!
Bought this CD for Alyssa on Valentines Day...it rules. First song seriously blows my mind. The passion, dynamics and harmonies that come out of two people, an acoustic and a piano are ridiculous. Go see the movie, go buy the soundtrack, it doesn't disappoint.
We went to Tierra Oaks for dinner with 3 other couples and had a great time. Our friend Sean is the executive chief there and he makes amazing food.
I love my wife...she blows my mind. Our first date was on a Valentines day thing our church put together. I was 17 and she was 16. That gives us 14 years of being together. I'm 31 now and I love her more every year that I get to know her. It's amazing that you can know a person better than anyone else in the world and still learn things all the time. I'm a lucky man. I love you Alyssa!
Just wrapped up our first group and I'm really excited about it. We had no idea what to expect. We had 15 total and 2 that are gonna show up next week. The group is stoked to serve together, and live out what we've been talking about at our Sunday gatherings. I think we are going to go through one of the gospels and I'm gonna supplement a bunch of context from books that talk about the political, social, and economic climate that Jesus entered into in his ministry...if you don't know...I'm a junkie when it comes to that stuff...should be amazing. I'm just excited to start living this out with a group of people. 17 groups started this week plus about 10 that aren't being advertised. I'm sharing on Sunday about God's dream for everyone to have family...especially the least. Can't wait. Hope I have a voice by then!
Two days left in Riverside. Yesterday I sang one of my songs to close out the Grove services. It was nice to be a part of one last thing at the church I've been a part of for so long. Tonight we are getting together with a bunch of friends to celebrate the New Year and say goodbye. Tomorrow we are having lunch with our families to celebrate Sofia's B-Day and say goodbye. Wednesday after lunch we are taking off. Lots of goodbyes, a couple loose ends to tie up, then Redding here we come! I'm ready to get into some "normal" life and get our kids into a routine. Staying with our families has been awesome, they've been a huge help. Alyssa and I went out to dinner last night and saw Juno (great movie). We haven't been able to do that in forever. (Thanks mom and dad). We will miss you all. I'll try to be consistent in blog world so we can stay connected in nerdland.
New life
New family
New church
New friends
New house
New food
New conversations
New opportunities
New struggles
New provision
New vision
New hope
New dreams
New songs
New heavens and new earth
Happy Thanksgiving
Tonight I said goodbye to Anthem. It started out as a dream about 2 years ago and came to fruition about July of 2006. Tonight was the last show that I will be apart of before I leave for Redding. It was bitter sweet. Anthem was a dream that artists and musicians could find a place to be creative and showcase their God given ability. We always talked about it being a family and I think it really has become that. Alyssa brought Zeke and Sofia and Zeke was flipping out on the front couch when I was playing but I loved it. My son loves music and I can't wait for the day he gets to express himself to the world. I was able to play a short acoustic set which was nice. I got to look back one last time at my faithful friend Ian at the sound board as he brought the love through the speakers as only he can. Seriously Ian..thank you sooo much! You have been right by my side every show helping me set up...do sound...and tear down. I think Anthem is as much your baby as it was mine! Thanks Casey for the planning, calling, emailing and organizing. You've been an amazing hour and a half a week employee :) Josh...thanks for always bringing Caleb to shows and letting my son have a buddy to be obnoxious with. Elizabeth and Micah...thank you for your support of Anthem and always bringing creativity and great work. Damien...your friendship and ability to share your heart with words is amazing. Jenn...your work wasn't too shabby either :) Joel...thanks for being a little genius that makes me really mad at how talented you are. Marissa...thanks for all your help. Your behind the scenes help is priceless. Andrew...your set of music was beautiful tonight. And I can't leave Darryl out of the mix even though he hasn't been around for a while with his new job. Darryl was a huge help in keeping Anthem going. Everyone else...Jon, Daley, Jordan, Jessica, Jim, Lindy, Suzy, Eric and everyone I'm forgetting...thanks for the great memories. Please keep this community alive and kickin!
Here's the bomb drop...prepare yourselves...
About two months ago a very close friend of mine asked me to come on staff with him at his church in
I was born on a Wednesday and started attending VCC (now the Grove) that following Sunday. That puts me as part of this church for 31 years! I feel like I have 100’s of parents and grand parents that have looked after me here since I was old enough to start getting into trouble. The Grove has been an amazing place to call home and I have 1000’s of positive memories here. I have nothing but love and respect for the Grove and for my parents as they lead this church. I wish the Grove continued blessing as they strive to make the reality of Gods kingdom alive here in
The Stirring has grown from 80 last summer to over 600 this summer. Nate is in desperate need of help on his staff as he is the only full time employee at the church. The Stirring is committed to being and making disciples and living out the way of Jesus in
Alyssa and I love Redding and we will always have room for visitors if you are ever headed north for any reason. If you have any questions I would love to spend time talking to you about the journey that has brought me to this place. We will miss all of you greatly so feel free to take us out to lunch or dinner in the next month and a half :)
Bomb officially detonated!
May his kingdom come...
It's amazing how central this concept is to the heart of Jesus' teachings and how badly I've glossed over it in the past. In our global economy I believe the definition of neighbor has changed drastically but I'm pretty sure Jesus would still want us to love the people that literally live right next door to us.
Well as many of you know...Alyssa and I are extremely nomadic (5 residences in 7 years in Riverside). We've always meant to make relationships with neighbors and we have with a few but we never made it a priority until this last move. The week we moved in we walked up and down the block and introduced ourselves to everyone. (Hint...write everyone's names down because after a week you forget everyones names!) At Christmas we took cookies to everyone. We spend tons of time walking around our neighborhood and out in front of our house playing with the kids. We are especially close with our neighbors directly to our left and right. Aaron (neighbor to the right) injured his back badly and has been on disability. He is also in the construction business which is really hurting in a lot of areas. There's been about 6 times that he has come over to borrow money or has asked me to take him to the gas station to get some gas. He pays me back most of the time, he's just living bill to bill, behind every month. I love that my neighbor feels close enough to me to come over to ask for help.
Last night he came over at 11pm and asked to borrow my phone. (he does this often because he runs out of prepaid minutes.) He told me his wife went to a wine tasting with her work and was supposed to be home 3 hours earlier. He was clearly scarred and had no idea what to do. He would call...go back to his house...come back 5 minutes later....call someone else...go back....and the cycle continued. Finally I went over and gave him my cell phone and told him to call her and leave this number. I said he could have it till whenever. I told him if he needed to leave that I would come over and watch his kids. And finally I asked if I could pray for him. He agreed. We prayed. Kim showed up 2 minutes later. God is awesome.
Love your neighbor. Love the people in Africa but love the people in your neighborhood first. You know them and understand their situations better. I am so bummed it took me 7 years to start making these relationships with my neighbors. Learn from your dumb friends like me and say hi to the people you see everyday. They may actually come over when they need someone to minister to them.
It gets at the heart of my journey. It's a little long but it tells the story of why I am who I am today.
From my reading today of "Everything must Change"
A lot of us are very happy to go through life knowing as little as possible about economics, politics, and ecology. As long as we can pay our credit card bill, avoid going to jail, and enjoy a cold drink, we'd rather not deal with the complexities of the societal machinery around us. But if we start becoming concerned about emerging global crises and the effects they may have on our own future and the lives of our children and grandchildren, then maybe we'll want to learn a little bit more about how the world works. (page 59)WOW!!! This was me in a nutshell for most of my life! Don't ask questions...Vote Republican...Hang out in the Christian ghetto...Caring about the earth makes you a hippie and a pansy...Listen to these 5 safely prescribed pre-processed cookie cutter bands...Read these authors...Laugh at and antagonize people that think differently...Science is stupid...All those people that have spent their entire lives studying the earth and think its really old are out of their minds...Clinton is the anti-Christ (both Clinton's...they are co-anti Christeses')...This world is going to blow up someday so I'm just helping the process of having Jesus come back and get me out of this God forsaken place!
Bill and Patti came over last night and we got to hang out for a little bit. They just moved to Salinas and they are greatly missed around Riverside. They were accompanied by their lovely children: Jon, Kathy, and Heather (seriously Heather...no blog yet?), and their dogs. It was awesome to hear how great they are doing and to hear what God is doing in their community. They live about 45 minutes away from Trav and Annette now so they made things easy for us on road trips!
I would have to say that the single best thing I've done with my life in the last year is walking around my neighborhood almost every day for about an hour. The one hitch is you have to get going about 6:45am so you can slip out before the kids wake up and it's not 128 degrees yet. I've been able to cancel my gym membership ($27 a month) because God has created an amazing treadmill that just so happens to be wherever I walk. I don't know why it took me so long to realize that! I don't pay for Weight Watcher meetings ($14 a month) anymore because if I can stay disciplined in walking I'm not gonna get fat again. Plus I get to walk under the amazing acorn trees that we have in my neighborhood. I get to hang out with God, Rob Bell, Mike Erre, my buddy Nate and occasionally U2. I get to pray for my wife and kids and neighborhood, friends and world. I get to wave to everyone in my neighborhood. I've built a relationship with this really cool homeless couple (Michael and Michelle) that sleep in between the tables at Shamel Park. I bought Michael a battery for his cell phone last week and now he is able to get calls from his lawyer about his disability case. This morning I ran into this guy named Steven...he's about my age and he has this huge garden in his front yard. I told him I wanted to turn into a farmer and he told me about his onions, pickled cucumbers, tomato's, grapes, raspberries, blueberries, pumpkins, potato's, and squash. He was really cool. Then as I'm walking back to my house I stop to talk to my next door neighbor Isaac. He has a wife (Linda) and 5 kids (Holly, Sharlet, Gracie, Jack and Jacob). He saw my article in the paper and wanted to talk to me about being a pastor. He has a big catholic family that is trying to "convert" him. Those are the words he used. Great morning, great walk, great conversations! Get outside and walk...it will change your life!
First things first.
We put Sofia down last night at 10pm...she woke up at 6am! I was amazed...slept through the night without a peep. (notice I said peep and not poop. She woke up with and orange soupy explosion in her diaper that is hard to describe with the language God has given us!) We also gave her a bath. She was a trooper.
Side note: Mike Berk...we saw Bolot and he is doing great. (He was rockin' these pink sweats with matching booties.) Looks like he's gettin' a bunch of teeth in. We went to take a picture of him and Sofia together but the care taker didn't want us to do it. I was really bummed. If we get back to the orphanage I will sneak a quick shot in...promise! He's doing great.
Today we went to the Consulate and everything went good. We got the birth certificate but we still need prayer to make sure everything goes threw by Monday. We still plan on leaving for Almaty on Tuesday.
Today has been a real chill day. Sofia's been kind of fussy but I think I would be to if people that sounded ridiculous took me away from all my friends and started clicking this shiny thing in my face all day that makes these crazy flashes.
So now to the theology of the slow nipple:
6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm. That's the bottle schedule. We are using the slow nipple on her bottle so each feeding is taking about 20 minutes. This is time that I spend holding my little girl, looking into her eyes, not saying a word. Each time has been a special 20 minutes of slowly giving my baby life through the sustenance of baby formula and thanking God for this amazing adventure he's led my family into. I'm starting to wish all of my relationships had slow nipple experiences. How much better would life be if we would take significant time at intervals throughout the day with our kids, spouses and friends to slowly pour life into each other. It wouldn't involve a lot of words, just a deep understanding of love and commitment. Of course there would be periodic breaks for pats on the back and spitting back a little of that life onto the other person. (it's always good to have a little give and take. Hopefully it smells better then what Sofia is spitting up on me!) Sofia is teaching me so much already and I haven't even known her for a week.
Slow life giving relationships...isn't that part of what God created us for.
More nipple theology coming soon.
We go to pick up Sofia in four days. Thank you so much to all of you blog friends that have chipped in to make this trip possible. We were blown away with the amount of support from our community. Our family helped out a ton for our first trip but its been all our friends that stepped up huge for this trip...we can't say thank you enough. We will be gone July 10-20. (Remember to walk and ride your bikes for us while we're gone). Keep your eyes on the blog...if there is internet I will put up pics and video.
Side note...Karen Dunlap is super stoked that Sofia has Elf ears. She thinks she might have a innate connection with Lord of the Rings. If you know Karen, that was funny!
...go here and download Matt Krick's message from Mars Hill titled "God is green." They are starting a series that I'm really excited about. Matt takes you from Genesis to Revelation showing you the mandate we have as humans to lovingly care for the earth God has given us. You have to listen to it! When you're done with that go to Borders and find "Myth of a Christian Nation" by Greg Boyd and read chapter 7. If you have money...buy it...if you don't...put it back and buy it when you get some money. Or you can get it used here for cheaper. I'll give you just a taste:
Like Jesus, no part of Paul's kingdom ministry involved trying to tweak the morality of the culture at large. Like Jesus, his only concern was that kingdom people consistently live out the new life they have within the kingdom, for only when they do this will they offer the culture at large a beautiful, kingdom alternative to their present, sinful, self-centered, and ultimately, destructive way of living. (pg. 133)
I started my morning with that and searching through Numbers and Deuteronomy because I had a thought about the similarity in Moses and Jesus not being able to see the fruition of the dreams for their people. They both trusted others (Joshua, and the Holy Spirit + church) to pull off their dreams even though they knew the process would be flawed and we'd get a ton of it wrong. How crazy is that idea?
Who needs seminary? I got a Bible, a brain, some friends, a mentor, some books and my ipod. My version is much cheaper.
Working title:
Born in the pew
Working chapter titles:
Born in the pew
The youth group years
The jock turns rock star
The beauty of the F word
The college (wonder) years
Coffee, Cohiba and Newcastle
The love roller coaster comes to a halt
The rock and roll life
The Porch is born...The Porch is dead
Infertility
Adoption
Building the empire
Church Culture
Dad/Employer = weird dynamics
Awaken to the kingdom
There are two more chapters but they will remain secret for the time being.
It's going to be the story of my journey towards something real.
Would anyone be interested in reading something like this?
It will probably be more like therapy for me than anything else.
No phone...and no messages on Sunday!
No computer...no blogs
Got up...mowed the lawn. Would of done it on Friday but I forgot to turn the sprinklers off on Thursday night. Plus Alyssa was hinting that we were becoming "those" neighbors. Not exactly sure what that meant but I knew I had to mow the lawn on Saturday.
After that the day was great.
Went to the in laws to celebrate a nephew's b-day. Good grub...pool...and a nap by the pool.
Came home...took another nap. Got up...made dinner with Alyssa, went on a walk with Zeke, read my book, watched two episodes of Curb your enthusiasm. Great Sabbath.
Lawn, BBQ, pool, nap, dinner, walk, read, tv. Thanks for keeping me accountable to a sustainable life. I think about having to blog to all of you and it helps me make decisions when I want to accomplish on my Saturdays! Did you get a day this week to rest?
