BabuLife

Banned Church Planting Video

Recently Mark Driscoll did a video for a church planters conference down in Florida.  Apparently the video was shown at the conference and was supposed to have been given out for free to the conference attenders.  It was banned after it's showing and was not allowed to be passed out.  Mark Driscoll elected to put the video on YouTube for folks to see.  Read the story on his blog here.

The importance of the man in church leadership is the topic at hand.  While he's speaking of church planting, the topic of male engagement in the church goes beyond the initial phase of the life of a church.  By the way, Mark Driscoll wrote the book I enjoyed the most in 2006..."Radical Reformission".  Check it out and see what you think. HT: Bobby

View From the Stage: 4/29/07

Great Sunday this week.  There are times where you're leading worship and you get those goosebumps when you just sense the presence of God in that room.  Yesterday was one of those days for me.  Could've just been me I suppose...either way, God was moving in my heart during our worship.  I LOVE to take pauses during songs to hear the congregation singing out.  Just chilling.

Here's our setlist:

• Here is Our King - David Crowder Band - Off of the album "A Collision"
• Let God Arise - Chris Tomlin - Off of the album "See the Morning"
• How Great is Our God/How Great Thou Art - Chris Tomlin - Off of the album "Live from Austin, Tx"
• You Never Let Go - Matt Redman - Off of the album "Beautiful News"
• I've Always Loved You - Third Day - Off of the album "Time"
• Let My Words Be Few - Matt Redman - The version off of the Friends of His CD (You can buy this at the Grace Church info center...shameless plug).

Yesterday's message was very cool.  Tom shared the stage with his wife Mindy discussing the intricacies and importance of communication between spouses.  Tom and Mindy have such a huge heart for couples and have been such a huge blessing to me and my family throughout our 14 year friendship.  You can know that everything they talked about yesterday is 100% genuine...not just teaching something they've heard others teach...but real life experiences.  Be sure to check out my wife's post that tells it all here.

One thing our team learned yesterday - Make sure to double check with new speakers if they are using the new Windows Vista OS.  We had to scramble to get the update on our PC's so we could actually present his PPT's.  Hush up all you Mac users....:)

Great job team!

-Babu

A Night for the Geek in Me

We had a fun night with a couple of friends.  It's funny how geekiness runs throughout the church body.  Kendra and Brian came over with a game that Kendra has been dying to play with me.  We played an intense game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit along with Doug and my wife.  Yes...I won.  While it was a valiant effort by Doug and Kendra, my geek knowledge got the best of everyone.  Oh my wife was proud.

Thanks Brian and Kendra for the good time.  The force was with me tonight.  Maybe next time. :)

-Babu

Free Music

Passion is offering a few free songs this week as a source of encouragement for folks at VA Tech or around the world through the greiving process from what happened last week.  You can download these great tunes here.

Huge ol' HT to fellow worship bloggers: Pete and Matt

A Lesson Learned

Never laugh at your 7 year old daughters hair...even on crazy hair day.  Even though the hair is supposed to be crazy...it's not supposed to be funny...just crazy...in a cool kind of way. That red nose and those red eyes are from crying after Dad's insulting laughter. Click here to read the full story on my wife's site.

Lesson learned.  I hope I get this fathering little girls thing down soon...I've got two more.

Creative Outlets and Unfinished Songs

I've got the itch.  It comes and goes frequently.  Usually when life gives me time to pause.  Back in July the little band we formed some time ago decided to give it another go at recording our own music.  Notice I haven't posted anything since then.  Sad isn't it?

We all need an outlet for our creativity or just an outlet that helps us relax and rejuvenate.  I've got a couple of outlets.  Time with my family which involves playing monster on all fours while my kidlets jump on my back and run away in phony terror is one outlet.  Vegging out with an Xbox controller is a second.  Another one for me is creating music and playing guitar eventually recording.  I miss that last one a lot lately. I think it's time to kick it up a notch and finish the songs God's given me and the other fellas.  I'm tired of carrying around these unfinished songs.  Maybe life will afford me some time to kick it into gear?

Anywho...enough rambling.  Just felt like writing about my desire to get rolling on this stuff. I thought about posting a rough recording of one of the songs here on the blog, but I'm not sure if that'd be a good thing to do.  I'm curious to see what y'all think and maybe get inspired to turn the heat up on myself and get working. 

What's your creative outlet? 

Later,
-Babu

View From the Stage: 4/22/07

New Band is getting to a point now where I can't really call them "New Band".  First of all, Dr. Jon is now the lead percussionist for our team, so he's playing every week, and second they're just getting better each time they play.  Yesterday was a growth moment for the team as a technical glitch at the beginning of the first service kept us from kicking off the worship on time.  As I've said before, I'm good with glitches as it pushes us to grow even more.  And the team kept cool.  Great job fellas.

This was week 2 for our "Let's Fall in Love" series on marriage and dating.  Jim Williams did an excellent job Sunday tackling the tough issue of dating.  Go have a listen in the Grace audio files here.

Recently from the stage we've seen more "observers" in worship than participators.  What does that mean?  With the influx of new people checking out Grace Church, I've seen more people observing the worship rather than participating.  Is that cool?  Yes it is.  Here's why...

You cannot expect visitors to engage in worship with a church body they don't know right off the bat.  There are some who can and are excited about the music and worship here, but for many folks it just takes some time.  Recently in our Johnson County community there have been several churches going through some turmoil.  And as expected, many people have been visiting our church looking for a place to heal. Many of these folks may need some time to heal broken relationships with others, their former church and ultimately with God.  I could be wrong, but from the stage yesterday it seemed this was the case in the congregation.  Many of these folks just need to be welcomed and loved.  It's my prayer that our time of worship provides an opportunity for people to do just that.

Here's the setlist from yesterday:

• Praise Awaits - Matt Redman - from the album "Facedown"
• Holding on to You - Paul Colman - No idea what album this is on
• Everlasting God - Written by Brenton Brown - We did the version found on Chris Tomlin's "See the Morning" album.
• Shine - Matt Redman - From the album "Beautiful News"
• Once Again - Matt Redman - From the album "Blessed Be Your Name: The Songs of Matt Redman"

Someone ran up to me yesterday asking where they could find all these songs so I figured I'd add the albums to the list.  Great job team!

Super Cool Person of the Week: Jon

Recently our praise team suffered a possible HUGE setback with the loss of our faithful drummer of almost 7 years.  While God had been working in his life and the life of his family about his long trek to Grace from across the state line, the Lord was working in the life of Jon as he joined the new band we started back in November.

Jon has been a HUGE blessing to our church's worship team.  From the moment our former percussionist left, Jon has been a rock learning a ton of songs.  In his first week he tackled learning twelve songs for our April Ignite and jumped in on drums for our biggest weekend ever on Easter.  All of this while working on his doctorate which he will receive on May 20 this year. Jon has been such a giving servant to the Lord and is just another reason why the W.S.T. at Grace rocks! Not only is Jon a great musician...he's a fellow Star Wars officianado.  Jon is a great team member and a great friend.  Thanks Jon for filling such a huge role and giving it 136%!

Be sure to tell Jon this week that he's super cool!!!!

Revenge of the Sith in 2 Minutes

Nothing Like It

Our monthly Prospective Members class was held yesterday after our second service.  This class is hosted by our Senior Pastor Tim Howey and gives people an opportunity to hear the vision, history, beliefs and ask questions.  Straight from THE dude himself.  At the conclusion of the class people are paired up with a current Grace member to walk through the membership form.  Each month I get to be a part of this process by volunteering to be one of these "connectors".

I really enjoy doing this for a few reasons. 

1. I get to meet new people visiting.  I RARELY get an opportunity to meet folks after services and this is really a joy for me. During the visit I also have a chance to hear stories of how God has worked in their lives eventually leading them to our church.  TOO COOL!
2. I get to hear how people came to Grace Church (which is fun for me as the web/communications guy at Grace).  Still the most popular way is through word of mouth.
3. I get to be a part of someones next steps in spiritual growth. A lot of folks who come are faced with the realization that they may have never been baptized, or they want to grow by being a part of the Grace Church community.  Being a part of a local church is a HUGE part of the life of a believer.  It's a big step for people to make that commitment to join.
4. I get to hear how God is using Grace to impact people's lives. Seriously...if you are ever weary from hearing people complain about stuff that goes on at your church...you know, folks who don't like the color of carpet, the music, the preaching, the fact that we care too much for people who aren't Christians etc...you really should sit with someone who is brand new to the church and has genuine excitement about what God is doing here and in their lives.  It is so worth it.
5. I get the opportunity to lead people to Christ. Yesterday I prayed with a man who received Christ as his savior.  A week earlier during our Easter celebration, his wife trusted in Christ as well.  Now tell me...what is more exciting than that?!?  This is what the whole thing is all about. They've been coming to Grace now for 2 months and have experienced a life change that they can't believe.  He told me he leaves church thinking about what he'd just heard and tries to apply it to his life.  He said what he loves about Grace is the fact that we don't just sit and expound truth religiously like his former church background, but that we are able to give him things that can practically be used in his life.  He's never seen anyone apply the Bible in this manner.  He also mentioned he was a huge Star Wars fan and loved the message I did coming out on the stage with the lightsaber during our Reel Faith series...ah yes, even Star Wars was used by the Lord. :)

Prospective Members makes for a long day for my family staying sometimes until 3pm (yesterday was 3:30) after being up here since 7am.  But really, what better place to see physically the actual fruit from the labor invested by so many people here at Grace to reach others? I wouldn't want to miss that for the world!