Why my Starbucks is the best, pt 1

I wondered into my local St. Arbucks this morning, saw this, and was reminded why the one by my house is the best. This is just one of the many reasons. The artwork. Not the standard starbucks stuff that you see in every store, but the stuff that is only found on Campbell Lane. You see, they have an artist who works there by the name of Jeff Dehut, you can check his work out here. He changes the signs up often and keeps them fresh and fun.

Just one of many reasons why My Starbucks is better than yours.

Nightmares

Do you ever have nightmares? I rarely even remember my dreams, let alone know that I had a nightmare. Last night (this morning) I had a nightmare. Things coming up from my army days, and other things. I was bolted out of bed at 4:30am from this one, having remembered everything in the dream, and covered in sweat. I like it better when I don't remember. I have been having night sweats again recently, and now I am wondering if they are not related to nightmares and I am being spared the memory of the dream itself.

I would covet your prayers on this matter.

Thanks,

L

Worship Confessional - 8.24.08

Set List
Famous One
Sing to the King
You Never Let Go
Grace Like Rain
Let it Rain
Surrender

Today was one of those days that I thought would never get here, but when it did, it was all I imagined and more. It really started last night with a really good nights sleep. I have said here before that I usually don't sleep very well on Saturday nights. I attribute this to my mind racing, being excited about worship, and just plain ADD. Last night I fell asleep around 9 or so and woke up 7 hours later in the same position that I fell asleep in. It was great.

I usually wake up at 5am so I can pick up our screen graphics guy @ 6. I like to get there really early because it gives me time to get some coffee down, get prayed up and warm up my voice. 2 out of 3 ain't bad. I don't know what was going on with my throat this morning, but I had something caught in there, and had the worst time during sound check. Luckily it got better before worship started. We had a good sound check, got to run through everything, and were ready in plenty of time to let the band go get some coffee.

When worship started the room was only half full, like usual. During the first song, people filed in, and started to sing right away. Laura did a great job with the welcome and sermon set-up, and then we went into the next 2 songs. Again, the voices of the congregation were strong, and we could hear them on the stage.

Rick was speaking today and gave the second message in the Soul Life series ( this was actually #3, but the 2nd spiritual practice), speaking on submission. The biggest face slapper for me was the question, "Can I trust Christ enough to lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get my own way?" Now, I am a selfish kind of guy. I like to get my own way. I am going to be praying hard about this week. Thanks Rick.

At the close of the sermon, Rick led the congregation to stand and we sang "Grace Like Rain" together. The congregation sang it really well, and we ended it with just the voices singing the chorus. It was beautiful. As "Grace" ended, I started "Let It Rain" and we built it up into a reading of Ephesians 1:7-8 that Laura did.

For offering Jon and I did the song "Surrender" by Marc James. I hadn't heard this song until last weekend when I went to Crossland for worship. The lyrics fit perfectly for the sermon and was a good way to end our time together.

Over all, today was an amazing day of worship. The tech teams were spot on with lyrics, and video, the sound was really good and the band was as tight as we have been in a long time.

And I get paid to do this? The grace of God is good.

Later

Soul Life Wednesday

I am trying to get back into the swing of doing worship confessionals for all our experiences here at Broadway. Wednesday night we had our first installment of "Soul Life Wednesday", the weekday component of our current series, Soul Life. Wednesday nights programing is not a regular part of life here at Broadway. But in the last year of so we have heard much from our congregation that they are longing for this kind of opportunity; a time to eat together (we are Methodists aren't we?), and study together. We heard, we listened, and last night we answered.

The schedule for the night was: Meal from 5 til 6:15 with 15 minutes then to get the children checked into Kid's Zone and get back so we could start @ 6:30. Teaching and discussion time from 6:30 til 7:30.

I think that Wednesday night was a red letter day for our congregation. We had 280 adults & students, and over 90 children participate and everything went off without a hitch. I am posting a couple of pictures that Don and Shirley took of the night down at the bottom of the page.

During the meal time there were people sitting together that don't normally get to see each other on Sunday because they go to different services, or their times of serving in Kid's Zone are on opposite weeks. The sound of community reverberated throughout the MAC. It was amazing to hear the laughter, and see the hugs and the smiles.

After the meal, our attention was centered on the spiritual practice of simplicity, and the scripture, "seek first the kingdom of God". Adam, our associate pastor, led the discussions and for the next hour, people engaged in teaching and discussion that led them to a deeper understanding of bringing simplicity to our lives.

All in all, it was an amazing night. Thanks to all the volunteers and staff that made it happen. I can't wait to see what happens next week.

Here are some of Don and Shirley's pics
from Soul Life Wednesday...

Good food and good company



Ditto



Adam bringin' the Word

Caption Please

Disappointed

Even as I write this, I am in shock. I cannot tell you how disappointed I am to find out that Mike Guglielmucci was exposed today as not having cancer, and that the whole story behind the song "Healer" was a hoax. It saddens me to think that he thought he had to make up a cancer in order to get people to listen to the song. He tried to manipulate worshipers and the leaders of churches around the world. My heart is broken, not for Mike Guglielmucci, but for God, who I know has been disappointed by this deception. But I also know that God's grace has already been given to him.

Because of this, worship leaders will be painted with the same brush as he is, by association. I hate that.

Later...

2 reasons why I love my church.

This is a picture of my friend Duncan (He is the one with the thumbs up). He is a sophomore in High School, and good student, runner and a member of the media team here at Broadway. This picture is from the first night of the fall season of our Student Ministry called Rhythm. Duncan serves every Sunday running camera for our 9:30 service, and whenever he can, he helps me with lighting. He also is a member of the cast of our Kid's Zone Live children and family worship time. He is a great kid, and an example of how youth should live out their lives.

I say all that to say that 2 of the reasons that I love my church is 1) I get to work alongside people like Duncan, and 2) We have a Student Ministry that loves our kids, and lets them know how much God loves them, and also gives them a solid foundation in their faith. The bulk of our Sunday morning tech crew is either currently involved, or have recently graduated from the Student Ministry and are headed to college. They are prepared for life and for ministry.

That is just 2 reasons why I love my church.

Happy Birthday

Today is my beautiful wife's birthday. Her day started by sleeping in, which is a luxury that she does not get very often. We started the celebration with lunch at Wah Bah's. For those of you who don't know, this is a great steak roadhouse kind of place. It is also somewhat of a biker bar. Great atmosphere and even greater steaks.

Afterward, we went to Wal-mart so that Andrew could buy something to put candles in. He always buys something and then puts the appropriate number of candles into the smallest piece of cake he can. For his mother, he put them into a creme-filled chocolate covered donut. Here is a picture.



He also bought her a princess crown, because "she thinks she is anyway..." Here is the picture that we took as the boys and I were about to give her the real present. An afternoon of playing in her flowers and in the dirt, without interruption from us.



Happy birthday babe.

Morning Worship @ Crossland

Today is one of those rare days when I am not leading worship at Broadway. I got a great opportunity to go to worship at Crossland Community Church. I really enjoyed worship from start to finish this morning. I knew a couple of the guys in the band and it was great to get to see and hear them. The band was well rehearsed and sounded great. The set flowed smoothly and the vocals were tight. The songs they did were not familiar to me but were very easy to pick up on and sing. They did a song for offering (and ended the service with it as well) that was really sweet. I am going to email the worship leader and find out the name of it, and try to get copy of the chart.

They were starting a new series called "Family Secrets". The sermon today came out of Ephesians, one of my favorite books of the Bible. The pastor is, like me, the product of an Italian home. I felt right at home with his movement and talking with his hands. I particularly enjoyed that he owned the fact the scriptures were going to be tough to swallow, but that if you look at them with desire to be more like Christ, they swallow a lot easier.

All in all a great service. It was good to get to worship and not have to concentrate on anything but worshipping my Savior.

Where have I been?

Man. I looked at my own blog today and realized it has been a really long time since I blogged anything. Lazy bum.

The reason that I looked at it was that I am going to be participating in a national blog initiative called Blog Action Day. This is where the power of the blogging community comes together to bring awareness to the plague that is poverty. I will be taking part in this and I hope you few, the proud, will as well. Go to the site and check it out.


Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.


More later... I hope.