This year has been an amazing year for our church. As our ministry has been growing in many different ways, we have worked to make our worship environment a more relevant place for people to worship God. Here’s a pic from a year ago that even actually taken AFTER we removed a large communion table, 4 big chairs and a huge pulpit from the stage:
And here’s a pic of yesterday’s Christmas Sunday service:
In this past year, some of the things we have done:
move the screen to the center so that people would not have to constantly turn their head and leave with a crick in their neck
removed the speakers from stands and go speakers flown to hang from ceiling for a clean look and better sound spread
added lights, LED color and spots that come from the right angle rather than straight down from top of the stage, that casted huge shadows on the face
acoustic paneling, that dramatically reduced the amount of echo in a logistically acoustic nightmare type of space
moved the worship team from the side, under the screen, to center stage, so that they can effectively lead people into worship
Yesterday’s Christmas service was one of the best worship experiences that we’ve had! Here’s some pics from the service:
In the service, we showed a video that people really enjoyed:
Praise God for the journey of 2008 and praise God for what He will do next year!!!
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My son (youngest) is 6 years old today. I got home late today and so I didn’t see him before he went to bed. So I went to his bed, woke him up, and took these pics. He’s back in bed now.
So, like father like son? Do we really look a like? Is he really my mini-me?
It’s been a long time since I changed my blog theme. It’s been just as long, it seems, that I’ve touched code. Well, I guess I still like the color blue, but the new theme does highlight my twitter a little more, since I twitter much more than I blog.
Father in heaven, as we approach this election on Tuesday, I pray
1) that your people will vote,
2) and that they will vote with a sense of thankfulness for a democratic system that at least partially holds in check the folly and evil in all our hearts so that power which corrupts so readily is not given to one group or person too easily;
3) that we would know and live the meaning of
being in the world, but not of it,
doing politics as though not doing them,
being on the earth, yet having our lives hidden with Christ in God,
rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesars, and to God the things that are God’s;
4) that we would discern what truths and values should advance by being made law and which should advance only by the leavening of honest influence;
5) that your people would see what love and justice and far-seeing wisdom demand in regard to the issues of education, business and industry, health care, marriage and family, abortion, welfare, energy, government and taxes, military, terrorism, international relations, and every challenge that we will face in the years to come;
6) and above all, that we will treasure Jesus Christ, and tell everyone of his sovereignty and supremacy over all nations, and that long after America is a footnote to the future world, he will reign with his people from every tribe and tongue and nation.
Keep us faithful to Christ’s all important Word, and may we turn to it every day for light in these dark times.
Ok, I need your help. My wife and I have a little wager going on here. We decided to have a little friendly contest on who would make the better pumpkin. So, we both got a pumpkin and our carving tools to see who could do a better job. The pictures are below and I won’t tell you who made which one until the voting is closed. They are shown in alphabetical order.
Emily is now 49″ tall and therefore can ride almost every adult roller coaster at Six Flags. In fact, to our surprise, when we stood in line for Titan (the largest ride every built by Six Flags), even Nathan (youngest child) qualified in height. So, we wait in a very short line only to find out that we would wait for another 15 mins for them to clean up some throw-up from the previous run. Nasty! And it happened to be the row that we were waiting in! So, we decided to change rows. Kailey (oldest daughter) decided that she would not be riding this ride. The two younger kids, who barely qualified in height by 1″ and .5″, were gungho about getting to ride. So, I first take Emily (2nd child) on her first adult roller coaster. All I have to say is a picture is worth a thousand words:
Zoomed in (you can click on it to see even bigger):
Emily was petrified and as you can see, holding on to dear life. But she was a champ. When we were finished and rolling in to the stop, all Emily was yelling was, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Didn’t know what she was saying. Maybe she was delusional? I said, “Serious about what?” She said, “Are you serious that Nathan is gonna ride this?”
We came to a stop and I looked at my wife who was waiting to go on with Nathan and had to exercise some godly wisdom and say, “No way … there is no way he is going!” She agreed and handed him over to me. Whew, that was a close one!
We were there from opening to the close of the park and had a great time, although I’m exhausted. But I will have the memories through this picture (although that’s the last pic that you will see my arm and leg = expensive!). My wife said that whenever she is sad or upset during the day, she will look at this picture and it will bring a smile to her face.
Today, I preach the first part of a sermon series called “Global.” In talking about God’s global heart for all the nations, I told an illustration of something that happened this week:
On Friday night, as our family was watching the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies, I was reminded of God’s global heart. Besides the fact that it was one of the most incredible display of technology and humanity that I have seen in my lifetime, the kids and I were looking forward to seeing the different countries enter the stadium with their respective flags. And just like we are all conditioned to do, the first thing you do is you want to see the country that represents you. Kailey was looking for Korea and Emily was looking for USA. But Nathan, well, he was looking for Texas. We tried to teach him that Texas wasn’t a country, but I guess I would have a tough time trying to teach that to some of you Texans about that fact. Just when he finally understood, the country of Georgia comes on, and all my kids are now confused. So, anyway, as they sat there, country after country, trying to pronounce these country names, they were getting restless. They were looking for their countries. I’m sure you did the same.
The other thing I noticed on TV is that there were Chinese women dressed in white that were dancing and cheering for every country to welcome them to the games, and by the end, I could see that they were getting tired and their smiles were more like fake smiles. This was made obvious when, of course, China was announced.
Well, after both USA and South Korea had passed, I told the kids to go to bed, but Kailey insisted to go to bed right after seeing the country of Mongolia. You see, her two best friends moved to Mongolia about 7-8 months ago because their parents became missionaries there. And since then, she has been emailing with them, choosing to do school reports on Mongolia, and praying for them every night. And when we were talking about the possibility of USA playing against Korea, who they would cheer for, they were torn but used the reason that they live in US to cheer for USA. But, when I asked what they would do if they played against Mongolia, Kailey blurted out that she would cheer for Mongolia.
I took away something that night. Because my daughter’s heart was becoming more like God’s heart … a global heart. Not looking out for and cheering for her own country, but for another. I wondered as I was watching the Chinese women cheerleaders getting tired with fake smiles, if God got tired that night. Or I wondered if He had a genuine smile on His face for each and every country.
On Friday night, as our family was watching the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies, I was reminded of God’s global heart. Besides the fact that it was one of the most incredible display of technology and humanity that I have seen in my lifetime, the kids and I were looking forward to seeing the different countries enter the stadium with their respective flags. And just like we are all conditioned to do, the first thing you do is you want to see the country that represents you. Kailey was looking for Korea and Emily was looking for USA. But Nathan, well, he was looking for Texas. We tried to teach him that Texas wasn’t a country, but I guess I would have a tough time trying to teach that to some of you Texans about that fact. Just when he finally understood, the country of Georgia comes on, and all my kids are now confused. So, anyway, as they sat there, country after country, trying to pronounce these country names, they were getting restless. They were looking for their countries. I’m sure you did the same.
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