BabuLife

IGNITE Wednesday

We're ramping up for another IGNITE session this Wednesday eve from 7 - 8p.m.  Check below for my previous reasons why you should come:

1. You get to worship with your kids if you have them.  It's an all family worship time.
2. You get more than 5 songs like you typically get in a weekend service.  We're talking 12 songs or so.
3. You get more decibels.  Yes, we crank it up a little more.
4. You get to refresh in the middle of the week.  OH yeah...an oasis in the middle of a hectic week where you can corporately worship God with others.
5. You get the opportunity to invite others who might not typically attend church.  We've had several people attend these events because they love music and are intrigued by the thought of hearing something unique at church.  It's been a connecting point for some people.

And here are some possible reasons why I don't think you should come:

1. If you come you'll probably be a little too refreshed in the midst of your work week.  This means you might outperform your fellow peers at the office and this could lead to some uncomfortable relationships.
2. You might have too many songs in your head during the rest of your work week.  This could also annoy your peers at the office as you continually hum worship songs.
3. You might meet someone new.  If you're not into actually meeting new people and possibly making new friends, IGNITE may not be the place for you.  You might prefer staying home in your Lay-Z-Boy watching American Idol or something.
4. Too much music.  Yeah, if you don't like to praise God with music, this isn't the place for you.  An hour's worth of worship music is waaay too much for you.  Maybe just pop in a CD at home that you can just skip tracks on.
5. You might have to teach your kids about worship. Since this is a family event (which means kids and adults attend) you might feel the need to encourage your kids to worship God and give Him full attention.  In fact, your kids may even see you singing to the Lord.  If you're not into that...IGNITE isn't the place for you.

Hope to see you Wednesday!

Worship Confessional: 3/30/08

Week 1 of our series on the Tabernacle called "Indiana Jones and the Tabernacle of You". This is going to be a fun series.  Tim ran out in full Indy garb cracking his nifty little whip (by the way...I'll let you know if he actually does use this new tool in our staff meetings).  Today's subject was The Ark: Revealing Christ as Your Lord.  Give it a listen here. Great job once again to Video Doog for putting together the video clips from the Raiders film.  It may seem easy, but it's not.  Doog rocks!

I'll be honest...today, I was NOT feeling well during the worship.  We've got a sick kidlet and I think I might have gotten a touch of the stomach stuff.  It must have showed because someone said I didn't seem myself.  Oh well...hopefully it wasn't much of a distraction during the music.

Lynnora played with us again today on the violin.  Beautifully done.  This past Thursday was a "make-shift" rehearsal in that our electric guitarist and violinist were absent at rehearsals.  We didn't really have a full rehearsal until 7:30 this morning (in reality we started at about 7:50a.m. which left us about 30 mins rehearsal time).  We also had to reset the stage since there was a wedding on Saturday.  We elected to get rid of the center scrim this week and use the curtains as a backdrop with some colored lights pointed at them.  This allowed Thunderfoot Jon the drummer to come out of the light and actually be seen a little better.  I forgot to mention this to our lighting team who work from pre-programmed lighting for individual songs...threw them this curve ball which was not smart on my part. Keith made it happen and all seemed to go well.

Great job to Jenny who had to go it alone as the lonely female vocalist today.  Addie was supposed to sing as well however with the sicko kid one of us had to stay home.  Addie was missed. :(

The team did great and the church seemed to respond very well to the songs this morning.  Blessed Be Your Name and God of Wonders were fun to play.  These are some oldies that the church loves.   If you're doing a series on the tabernacle, what better song than God of Wonders to close out the service?

Here's the worship set list.  Don't forget you can purchase on iTunes if you click the titles.

• Not to Us by Chris Tomlin
• Come Thou Fount - David Crowder Band arrangement
• Son of God by Starfield
• Blessed Be Your Name by Matt Redman
• God of Wonders by Mac Powell of Third Day and Caedmon's Call

IGNITE is Wednesday!  I forgot to have Tim announce it!  Don't forget to come!!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen....

This is Soakie.  Soakie plays guitar at Grace Church.  Soakie plays guitar real good.  Soakie has funny hair.  Soakie likes to make fun of my 1992 hairstyle.  Soakie owns a media company that creates video and animation called Real Media.  Soakie is crazy for sending me this picture.  I think Soakie wants the world to see his basketball talent.

Say hi to Soakie in the comments and let him know how what you think of his picture.

1992

Ran across this old photo and dropped it in the scanner.  The lady and myself circa 1992. I didn't want to go to my prom so I, being the good boyfriend that I was, took Addie to hers.  Man my wife gorgeous!

Enjoying my last day of vacation!

You Version Beta

A nifty Bible study tool that is not your typical search engine or reader.  Inspired by the idea of community and connecting with others through the web, You Version takes Bible study to a new level.  Let your friends see your notes and see others comment on scripture as well.

I signed up a few days ago.  Check out YouVersion here and let me know what you think.

Stop by the YouVersion blog here.

JoeTVee comes to my House

Yesterday Grace Church had a visit from JoeTVee Givens.  It was two years ago on Easter when I saw him last. Joe has been a friend of Grace for over 3 years when he moved to the east coast to work at ESPN.  After Easter services at Grace, Joe popped over for some lunch where I had a chance to see up close his camera which he uses to capture and broadcast his life on the web.  Sound familiar?

Before our third service as the clock was counting down, Joe came up to the front of the stage with the little camera on his hat.  He was broadcasting his visit to Grace over the web.  You can check out the video of Joe driving and entering the church here and the message here.

Joe introduced me initially to Twitter back three years ago to which I replied at the time "Who would care about what I'm doing?" Now I'm a Twitterer (you can see them in my right bar on the blog).  I don't know if I'll take the step Joe has in broadcasting his life over the web.  But who knows...I said the same about Twitter.

You can visit Joe's blog here.  You can visit Joe's video broadcast and archives here.

Worship Confessional: 3/23/08

What a day!  Easter services were packed out this morning.  A little over 1,500 people walked through the doors of Grace Church today.  I can't tell you how many folks received Christ this morning but seeing those hands raised at the close of the message leading into "The Glory of it All" by David Crowder.  "Everything will change, things will never be the same..." awesome.

The band put a TON of effort into the music these past two weeks.  Learning three songs and rehearsing for two Saturdays in a row in addition to our typical Thursday rehearsals paid off.  They did a great job.  Thanks to the lighting dudes (Scott and Todd) for making the red highlights happen on the door frames.  Thanks to Steve Jones for making the frames!

With a lamb (yes a real one), three door frames, fake hyssop, and some fake blood, a machete and one lead Pastor's son...we had a lot of items to take care of.  Great job to the stage crew for making each one of those things happen (Addie and Jason thank you!!!!).  To Video Doog...excellent job on the video transition.  You just can't make a simple video like I ask! :)  Lynnora and Chris did great putting together that little Amazing Grace pre-service tune.  And to the Marie for helping coordinate the traditional Easter buffet backstage...thank you! 

Check out Tim's message on the Passover as it relates to the crucifixion here.

Here's the worship set-list.  Don't forget you can click the title if you'd like to purchase on iTunes:

• Amazing Grace (instrumental - violin & keys)
• Hosanna by Hillsong United
• Let God Arise by Chris Tomlin
• Jesus Paid it All, Kristian Stanfill version
• Mighty to Save by Hillsong
• The Glory of it All by David Crowder Band

This was an awesome week for Grace.  Praying now for all those folks who made the pilgrimage to church for Easter.  I pray it's only the beginning of a new/renewed journey with the Lord.

Great job team!

Indiana Jones at Grace Church

Each week the staff pastors get together for an hour to talk about upcoming messages.  We have known for months we were going to be doing a series post Easter on the Tabernacle.  The conundrum we faced was making an intriguing series theme for a study on such an incredible historical theme.  It isn't that the tabernacle itself isn't interesting...for many churchgoing Bible believing Christians, there isn't much that needs to be done to draw people's interest.  However, we're a church that is consistently looking for intriguing ways to communicate the message, always looking for ways that could draw folks who may not typically walk through the doors of a church.

We had a working title (honestly I can't even remember it it was that memorable) but weren't 100% sold on it.  A few weeks ago Tim was walking through the weekly message subjects and landed on the Ark.  Of course you know there had to be a movie clip from Indiana Jones for that week.  But we realized then we might consider branding the entire series based on the Indiana Jones theme.  I mean hey...the movie comes out on May 21...the same week we end this series on May 18.  Hmmm...

A little behind on the graphics front but hey...cranked it out yesterday.  This'll be a fun series methinks.  Check it out below.  Starts March 30 at Grace Church in Overland Park, KS.

Mud Bathing In front of Grace Church

So I went ahead and finally put our Easter banner out on the major intersection that sits near the church.  Big deal you say.  Oh yes...it's a big deal.  You see, the city of Overland Park has begun the project to widen the intersection at 159th and Antioch due to the booming growth in southern Johnson County.  This is good news for us as it creates even more opportunities to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with more people.  What this means temporarily, is that our perfect corner for banners at this busy intersection is going to disappear for a time while construction is under way.  Since it's Spring Break, it appears the city decided to take a vacation from the project.  The corner is ours for the week...until someone tells us otherwise.

During the lunch hour I ventured out to the corner and found a way to put up this banner showing our Easter Service Times (8:30, 10 and 11:30 a.m. this Sunday).  Due to the construction we've got quite a bit of mud on the corner there.  As I climbed the giant hill (I say giant because it felt like it) I worried about falling.  You see, I'm a guy who (believe it or not) does not like attention.  I don't like being watched on a corner as the wind blows a banner while I'm trying to rig it up.  So to the person in the blue van who smiled at me while I grabbed the banner falling to one knee in the mud...I forgive you for smiling.  You know not what you did.  It's okay.  If I was in your position, I probably would have done the same thing.

The mission ultimately was a success.  We'll see if the banner stays up for the next four days.

By the way, here's the intersection looking towards the church.  Google Maps has this incredible new "street view" feature.  Feel free to click right on up to the entrance of the church. HT: The Hammer.

View Larger Map

Worship Confessional: 3/16/08

This was the final message in our 24 series.  Tim closed it out telling the story of Jesus' final hours leading up to the cross.  What a great way to lead into Easter.  Check it out here.  It was awesome to see two folks get baptized this week during services.  Congrats to Cecilia for making that HUGE step!  It was awesome!!!

This week we rolled out the Hillsong United tune "Hosanna" at the close of service. I LOVE this song!  Gina knocked this out of the park.  Special thanks this week to our WST utility man Scott Stanley for stepping away from the audio board to play bass in Jimmy Luv's place.

We've been doing something different these past couple of weeks.  Five minutes before the service starts we've been playing a song as sort of a "pre-service" tune.  We've had some pretty packed service schedules so rather than electing to cut a song we've moved one to this slot.  We moved a regularly scheduled song "Wonderful Cross" to the middle of the message and did it acoustically.  I thought it'd be cool to add a tune and drop it before the actual service time.  I think people enjoyed it.  Maybe we'll keep doing it even if our services aren't packed.

Here's the worship set-list.  Don't forget to click the titles to purchase on iTunes:

• Enough by Chris Tomlin (This was our pre-service song)
• Filled With Your Glory by Starfield
• Awesome is the Lord Most High by Chris Tomlin
• Here is Our King by David Crowder Band
• Wonderful Cross
• Hosanna by Hillsong United

Next week we're playing a couple of new tunes.  Check out David Crowder's "Glory of it All" and "Jesus Paid it All" Kristian Stanfill's version.  Gracers can click the titles and buy them on iTunes and start listening before Easter.