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Jan 06 2012
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Bible, Church

The God who sees me

I ran across this on youversion that I wrote a while back on Genesis 16:13. I dont really journal and then I find things like this that still speak to me.

Just a couple quick things. I love reading and figuring out small pieces of God’s character.

Genesis 16 is all about the conception of Ishmael, Abraham’s son via Sarah’s servant Hagar.

Hagar becomes pregnant and the when she does she lost respect for Sarah. Sarah then tells Hagar to leave.

The first thing I see here (and i had to re-read this passage to even understand this) is that God takes care of his own, and will bring about restoration.

God tells Hagar, yeah you’re pregnant, now what? you don’t have any where to go and the baby needs taken care of…go back to Sarah. I could give you examples out of my own life where i see this taking place either with me or others, and if you thought long enough I’m sure you could too. God brings about the restoration necessary for life to go on…did he fix the problem the way Hagar wanted it to be fixed? probably not, was the proclamation that Ishmael is going to be fighting for his entire life what she wanted for her son? doubtful, yet God worked. God restored Hagar to Sarah, maybe not under ideal circumstances, she was still pregnant you know, and she probably still didn’t see eye to eye with Sarah.

Secondly, the obvious statement is God is the one who sees me, he saw Hagar’s affliction, her pregnancy.

Although obvious it is incredibly powerful.

A little glimpse into the character of God, even when we’re not expecting it, even when we’re hiding, even when we don’t want to be found, God sees us. Then, we see God. We see God for who he truly is, we begin to see his plan, we begin to see that he’s always been there watching over us. Like Hagar we see God as the protector and restorer. It does not say here that God fixes everything just right with a cherry on top and everything is peachy keen, it just says that God saw, and in return she saw God.

That is actually a powerful statement…to see God…
just relish on that for a second.

are you seeing God? am I?
What am I burying myself under, trying to hide myself from God with?

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Nov 20 2011
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Bible, Church, Communications, Leadership

Why We Do What We Do

A guest post I did over on churchblogideas.com I talked about how everyone leads out in worship in a church congregation, whether it is a worship leader, an usher, a tech person or an attender.

Continue reading →

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Sep 21 2011
2 Comments
Bible, Church, Communications, Leadership

What’s in a Name?

name  (nm)

n.

1. A word or words by which an entity is designated and distinguished from others.
2. A word or group of words used to describe or evaluate, often disparagingly.
3. Representation or repute, as opposed to reality: a democracy in name, a police state in fact.

4.

a. A reputation: has a bad name.
b. A distinguished reputation: made a name for himself as a drummer.
5. An illustrious or outstanding person:
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Mar 30 2011
5 Comments
Bible, Books, Church, Reviews

Love Wins a review

This is going to be my quick review of Love Wins by Rob Bell because I’ve got about half an hour to write it, and I don’t really want to take more than that because otherwise I might as well write a book. Continue reading →

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Mar 05 2011
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Church, Equipment, Leadership, Nonsense, Stage, Tech

Community

My boss Rick and I went up to Dallas for a Church Tech Directors Round Table meet up.

It was a cool time to get together with a small group of Tech Directors, share passions, frustrations and the like and just be able to lean on each other. It really is a support group because working in a church is like a drug. It’s absolutely thrilling and addictive but it can tear you down too. It’s always good to hear other people are going through what you are currently dealing with, or have dealt with it in past whether tech wise, personality wise or life wise.
On top of the meet up Rick and I took the opportunity to go visit several churches in the area and lets just say…if it wasn’t for the highways I’d want to live in Dallas! There are some stellar churches up there. Lake Pointe Church with Jason Cole as their tech director has it going on. Several campus, a rockin system and solid teaching. We snuck in to Fellowship Dallas and had a look at their hall ways  the building was locked up (yes we found an open door due to maintenance and snuck in) so we didn’t get any real cool sneak peaks but were impressed none the less. We got into Irving Bible church and loved the warm open atmosphere of their building. There were actually people WORKING and HANGING OUT in the lobby. Very cool atmosphere with lots of art everywhere. Again the auditorium was locked up tight, but awesome to look at the energy the place had and even talk to a member about how much he loves his church.

Last on the list was Gateway Church and lets just say, wow. I know that they’ve got some stellar worship with Kari Jobe who by the way we ran into at Starbucks while hanging out with Fellowship One’s Anthony Coppage. What I did not know about Gateway was just how much tech they’ve got going on, and how well put together it is. Their new Southlake campus has only been open a few months, and it still smells brand new. Not only does it smell brand new but it oozes professionalism, and tech goodness. It’s easily my favorite place I’ve visited and pretty sure it would rock your face off.

While visiting these places was seriously killer and made me drool over all of the tech goodness I walked away with some thoughts about processes for my teams, and the churches teams as we start looking into potentially starting a new campus and just try to streamline and bolster our tech process as well.
So thanks for the tours and talks my fellow techs.

Much learned and much appreciated.
Oh and if you’re missing a piece of gear just ignore it and know it is being put to good use.

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Feb 23 2011
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Church, Leadership

Stand Out

In today’s market you have to do some really stand out things to get noticed.

It doesn’t matter what your job is, or what you know. Paper goes through a shredder, so the only thing that travels is word of mouth.

I’ve been asked before why I’m so easy to work with. I’ve been commanded a couple things, to live humbly and to show the grace that I’ve been given. If you can live by those two simple rules then you can work with anyone (almost, there are ALWAYS exceptions). This also goes to how you stand out.

Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Whatever project, meeting, conference, situation, etc that you are finding yourself in that person is the most important person in the world, no matter how much it pains you.

That is the word that travels about you. That is what make people stand up and take notice of you. Not that you have worked in the industry 12 years (or the required 5 years), that you’ve got a list of ink below your name that would make a college freshman blush or that you’re awesome, or can talk like you’re awesome.

Talk is cheap and a lot of people do it better than you. So walk it out, live it. Take a few simple rules in the Bible to heart, whether you believe it as truth or a good moral book those are principles anyone can live by.

99% of the people that do what you do are either on level or better than you.

It’s time to stand out.

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Aug 02 2010
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Bible, Church, Creative, Tech

Fostering biblical worship

I’m at camp, camp is a full emotional worship experience, but do the kids know what they’re doing? or are they just doing what they’re told?

Morning worship services for camps and retreats are tough when students stay up all night, there is no energy. We break up the highschool and middleschool for morning worship, challenge and devotions because each group has different needs. At sugar creek the student ministry has fostered a sense that in order to engage in worship you have to bum rush the stage (not that it’s a bad thing to do!). A couple of middleschoolers were standing up front, one with hands raised in worship. They realized their friend didn’t have their hands raised and so they reached over and put them in the air for them. Because that is what they’re supposed to do right? – story via Aric Harding

How do you foster and teach authentic biblical worship?

I’m just asking questions, not giving answers.

If you’re fostering a worship environment then there has to be some kind of gauge for the temperature of authentic worship. What do you consider a gauge? Is it when all of the kids rush the stage and stand there looking at you with a deer in the headlights look? Is it when kids raise their hands but don’t know what is going on?

  • But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
  • Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!
  • All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name. Selah

Judge worship out of scripture. Are people worshiping in spirit and in truth? What does that truly look like and is that solely in music? Is worship all about raising your hands? Scripture says the man bowed his head and worshiped, another section of scripture says Moses worshiped this way. David DANCED before the Lord. It all seems to be personal preference and comfort level to me. The other thing that bowing your head says to me is that there is a huge sense of reverence. Scripture in relation to worship shows people bowing their head or laying prostrate in presence of God. The Psalm 66:4 verse separates worship and singing praises to God. That just gives an inkling that worship isn’t just surrounded by music but is life itself. Are you worshiping God in spirit and in truth not just in music, singing, dancing, or bowing your head, but with your life?

If your goal is to foster biblical worship how are you teaching it? are you teaching it to where its a series of motions like the middleschool student who thought worship is engaging by raising your hands? Are you explaining WHO they are worshiping and how that is to look like? Are you using scripture in worship or are you just getting up and singing songs? Are you leading out with a life of worship?

Last but not least, what does your worship environment look like? Is it sterile? As a tech/creative I look at the room environment too. Because the protestants wanted to move far away from Catholicism we stripped away any iconography or visual element to a sunday ‘worship experience’. As a creative I want my senses engaged. I enjoy engaging others senses with sound but also visually, bringing in with projection what the environment lacks with images of the cross, nature, stained glass, color etc. We shouldn’t be afraid of the visual, God is the creator of the visual and beauty.

We need to embrace what God has created us to do, worshiping him in spirit and in truth.

So how do we do that?

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Jul 22 2010
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Church, Communications, Creative

How Outspoken are you?

Alright all of you Church Communication geeks! I’m sure most of you have heard of a new collaborative effort out there called Outspoken.

I’m a little pumped about this personally, because I get to be a part of this endeavor to help us all communicate the same incredible message of Christ to an ever changing culture.

The other exciting part about this book is it will be easy to read. With over 50 authors contributing you will get every style of writing and communications knowledge you can imagine in one handy dandy notebook (ok i stole that from blues clues, sue me). If one piece doesn’t resonate with you, skip on over to the next section and get something a little different.

I don’t want to keep you long because you’re out there trying to communicate. I hope you’ll go visit the facebook link above and “like” the book, tell your friends and follow it on twitter. As it comes closer to release more information will be available on the book, its authors and all of it’s awesome content.

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Jul 22 2010
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Church, Communications

Your local val-u-mart

The Importance of Value.

How many times in meeting with others have you walked away from the conversation thinking you had a good idea of what needed to be done or not be done, only to find out how incredibly wrong you were?

In ministry I think we forget that other people have a different view of what is important or valuable to them and their ministry. I’ve had numerous occasions where in a meeting, something was briefly brought up that would have fallen into my area of ministry but it was stated like a suggestion. So like many suggestions do for most of us, it gets filed. What I didn’t know is that suggestion was actually more of a mandate. I was not understanding what that person was valuing for ministry at that moment. Because I didn’t see it as valuable or important I didn’t act on it directly.

This isn’t something that is easy to do, but our focus needs to shift just a little bit in order to be a little more sensitive to, not only our valuable items but things others see important as well.

If we’re going to communicate more effectively we need to learn to listen more effectively too.

oh and if you’re waiting on more creative stuff from me I’ve got my magazines full and I’m ready to shoot I’ve just got to find time to unload it all on here! my guess is after camp you’re going to see quite a few blog posts on some recent creative endeavors.

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May 18 2010
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Bible, Church, Uncategorized

Bypass Surgery

Proverbs 29:18 (kjv) Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

This verse popped into my head today and unfortunately it was in relation to the state of the church today. I started reading Mad Church Disease and it has really started me thinking, analyzing and inspecting my own life and the church. There is a lot of death both inside and outside of the church.

Out side of the church people are dying without the grace of God. They’re being damned to an eternal life separated from God. There is no vision, no work of God and so they are perishing. The church is supposed to be light and life in this dying world but at second glance there is as much death and decay inside as there is out. I’m not talking about eternal separation from God, that is covered, I’m talking about confusion, lack of direction, apathy, ignorance, pain and suffering. God isn’t the author of any of that, so the enemy is at work to destroy the church from the inside out.

Proverbs 29:18(msg)
If people can’t see what God is doing,
they stumble all over themselves;
But when they attend to what he reveals,
they are most blessed.

I love the way the message puts this verse. If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves. What the heck are we doing to cause people not to see what God is doing?! God doesn’t stop working so that must mean we are impeding the vision of His people. The church should get vision from the leadership, so if you do not have a clearly defined vision, or are not explaining what work is going on locally and globally how can we expect passion and vision to spread.

Maybe the church needs an emergency bypass surgery.

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