If this stuff doesn’t get you hyped for the game, nothing will!  Boomer Sooner!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1MpHG5x6q0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rVsytgaGn8]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjF93E4LjlA]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWrETsfgeDk]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32_ZaNwFQW4]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdVkz8YpT6Q]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s2rt6qv44o]

Hope all the OU players watch these videos.

Well, it is officially a sad day here in Orange County.  Well, maybe that’s a little overstating, but still.  It has finally rained.  It has rained for a couple days now.  Wait, before you start getting things in a twist, let me clarify.  If this had happened in Oklahoma, people might have used their windshield wipers.  Here people have their wipers on full!  We don’t get much rain.  In fact, this is the first change of weather we have had since June.  I really don’t count some fog in the morning as a change in weather.  But for real, I don’t know that there has been any precipitation (that’s water from the sky for you ‘fornians that don’t get much of it and consequently don’t hear about it on the news) at all since at least June if not longer.

But, the sad day comes in when I had a few days in a row that there was rain and had to make the decision to put the top back on the Jeep.  It has been 5 months.  I have quite a shirt tan line now too.  But, unfortunately, as the water from the sky (or precipitation) has started appearing, I decided that they couple hours a day I spend in the Jeep shouldn’t be wet the whole time.  Poor Jeep.  Looked real good topless.

PS – Our rain looks nothing like the picture above.

I just found this website and wanted to post this to make sure you all see it.  It is a pretty cool thing to see people stand up for what they believe.  Not just that but it is cool to see role models from all walks of life that everyone sees and wants to be like stand up and not be afraid.  The site is I Am Second.  Go check it out.  It makes you stop and think.  Are you second or are you living for you first?

Here is the video from Sam Bradford.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDt3Iu-j51Q]

And one from Colt McCoy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qygFhxCkFkg]

A few mornings ago I was up getting ready to leave for work and I put on a black hoodie that I have from LifeChurch.tv.  While on staff at LC.tv your closet becomes overrun by LifeChurch.tv clothing and t0 stop wearing them altogether would cost me a bunch of money in replacing shirts.  So I haven’t.  But as I was putting this hoodie on I happened to look down and read the phrase that is printed on it.  It says “One Church, Multiple Locations”.  For LifeChurch.tv and many other churches with satellite campuses, this phrase is a way of saying that they have several smaller campuses meeting separately but acting and joining together as one larger church.  Good stuff.

But as I stood there for a moment (partly because it was really really early in the morning) and thought about it I started to think about that phrase.  I have heard it so many times and never thought about it like this before.  What if that wasn’t just a given church’s phrase?  What if that was really true?  What would happen if we became one CHURCH in multiple locations?  What if instead of being a million different denominations and rival churches across town we became one united CHURCH?  If we could just join together and agree on some basic Biblical truths about Christ and salvation it would be huge!  What if we weren’t about the name of our pastor or the name of the church and all about the name of Jesus?  Think about all the things we could join together to accomplish.  How would the “secular” world’s opinions of Christians change?  So we have different methods and do things differently.  So our order of experience is not the same.  So we don’t call it a service.  So what!?  Those things don’t matter!  The love of Christ is what matters.

I don’t think I could imagine all the things that God would do through a community of churches that while differing in methods all agreed on the message and worked together.  It would be insane!  Why can’t this be the theme of the Church?  I think it should.  For the past several years there have been thousands of churches that join together for a month for One Prayer.  This is a huge start.  They are putting aside their petty differences and getting past stupid rivalries and aiming for one goal.  The fruit of it has been amazing.  God has been all over it.  What if we could take it past that to another level and move beyond denominations to be the CHURCH?  Then we could all be satellite churches for God’s church.  That would be awesome.

That’s right.  The title says it all.  We are now 8 days from finding out if our baby is a boy or a girl.  Many of you have weighed in and made your guess, but finally we will know (unless the baby is being annoying and not wanting to show the world).  We have an ultrasound on the 20th and then the whole world will know (well maybe our world and not really the whole world)!

We are very excited!  The baby is growing to the point that we are starting to feel kicks!  I wanna know if we have a little Mia Hamm or Cristiano Ronaldo!  I wanna feel that powerful kick!  (See I can say that because it won’t keep me up at night or drive me crazy because it won’t stop kicking.)

Make sure you keep checking back to see what this kid is!

As we all know, the financial world is in a very big and flailing swan dive.  You know the kind.  It’s like when you were learning to dive and you had the normal dive down so now you want to try to do a cooler dive.  Enter the next step up dive: the swan dive.  The only thing is, you aren’t the best diver in the world so your swan dive is awkward, flapping, uncoordinated and heading for a rough landing.  Apparently that’s my picture of the dollar.  But the good thing is that if you keep working on that swan dive, eventually you start get it figured out.

Throughout the last few years as the market has come crashing down we have all started pinching pennies.  Our tips aren’t as big, our tithe is smaller, vacations are cut short, or we opt out of air conditioning for the oscillating fan because “it works just as well”.  I mean seriously.  Even if you have been smart about your finances the media isn’t going to let you forget.  The news is freaking out about it.  Every car commercial is practically begging you to buy a car by doing everything but making them actually affordable and reliable.  Yet, I think I am seeing a common trend.  I started actually noticing it recently in my own life and then realized that I’m not the only one.  We all do it.  We pay to do what we love.

We pay to do what we love.  Even during a massive recession we shell out the cash (or credit card used just like a debit card if you are us).  I started catching on to this whole thing when I realized that I love where I life.  I love my town.  I love my beach.  So I am willing to sacrifice the time and money to drive longer than I have sworn all my life I would do.  Another example in my life is paying for gas to go play basketball with the guys every week.  We only play for a couple hours but I drive 45 minutes to get there and still believe it is absolutely worth it.  But there is more than that.  We are trying to knock out our debt as the baby is on the way, yet still I love to treat my wife to the things that she enjoys.  Of course she is preggo so that tends to range from a frosty to steak to flowers to notes, but still.  I love to see her happy and excited and doing things she enjoys so out comes the wallet!

Think about your life.  I’m sure there is something that you love that you pay for.  Maybe it isn’t directly money, but your time or your energy.  We pay to do the things that we love.  We pay for Disneyland (well some of us do…others of us just don’t go there).  We pay for tanning.  We pay for hair coloring.  We pay for dog food.  We pay for poker.  We pay for concerts.  We pay for conferences.  I’m definitely not saying this stuff is bad by any means, but just stop and think for a minute.  What are you paying for?  Your life and your wallet speak the truth.  Don’t neglect the most important things you love (family, church, God) and blame the recession.  Get your priorities straight, stop wasting time and money, and pay for the things you love.

So right now there is a massive battle of the sexes going on.  In less than two weeks we will find out the sex of our baby!  So which one will win out?  My wife seems to think it will be a girl.  So therefore I have to choose boy if not only for the accumulated points I would receive if I were correct and the “mother’s intuition” was wrong.  We’ll see.

So you tell me!  Will we be having a warrior or will I be putting massive bows on this kids head?

I really want to write a new blog post right now, but my brain is screaming at me to go to sleep!  It’s been a long couple weeks and basketball finally started back up again and now my body is trying to play catch up.  I guess I should let it sleep.  Ok, fine.  No blog post for tonight.  You win.  You always do.

That’s why I come up here.

As my career life in full time ministry rolls on I find the conversation of methods vs. message continuing to come up.  Granted, right now we are in a relaunching phase and this conversation is bound to come up with all the things that are changing, but why is it a hard thing to hang on to?  What is it about this topic that always brings it back to the surface?

A very wise man once said (well actually he says it a lot) that the message of the Church never changes, but the methods must change.  Thanks to Craig Groeschel for drilling that into our brains.  I absolutely appreciate him for helping me understand that.  It’s not about what the cool thing is, but what’s effective.  It’s not about the comfort in knowing, but the discomfort in trying.  As a pastor, I don’t want to forget this.  If in five or 10 years my ministry looks exactly the same, I will most likely not be reaching out to the same types of people (those who don’t go to church or hate church or are burned out).  Even as a church that isn’t necessarily “seeker friendly/oriented” there still must be change in the methods.  Without it we are never out of the comfort zone of our little church world.

Have you ever been driving down the road to some place that you go all the time and you look up and think, wait, how did I get this far already?  You realize that it has become such routine that it doesn’t even register in your head anymore.  We should never let church get this way.  When it does we miss all the things that God is doing along the way.  Just because the way you went before was the best way at the time doesn’t mean that it is always the best way.  I’m not saying that every church should be done in a certain way and all change in the same way every time.  Each community is different.  Each staff is different.  But if we don’t learn to change our methods, not only will we start to die off, we will miss out on all the things God wants to show us along our routines.

Remember that the main confusion about this conversation is that THE MESSAGE NEVER CHANGES!  That does not get old!  That’s the beauty of God!  We will never be able to wrap our minds around it all!  Change your methods.  Try new things.  Step out in faith.  Lean on Him knowing that if it all rides on what you are capable of doing, it will fall apart!  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the way you have always done it is the best and the rest should conform.  Follow God’s lead even when it is into something that isn’t comfortable.  Mix it up!  Hold your breath!

(Stop holding your breath.  That’s not what I meant.)

Don’t you dare close your eyes.

Sorry.  Had to do it.  Just couldn’t pass that up.  Anyway, yesterday was our first official Sunday as a church in the theaters of Aliso Viejo.  It was our first Sunday to have a Host Team.  It was our first Sunday to do setup and teardown.  It was our first Sunday to use our new gear.  Apparently it was a first for a lot of things!  But the biggest thing, I think, is that it is a big first step toward what God is leading Kingsfield Church to do here.

For KK and I the morning started out at 4 AM (which is really only early in the morning for those of you crazy people that stay up later than 3 in the afternoon…wait…).  We made our nice little drive and began to get things ready to go.  After a very busy setup filled with searching, finding, not finding and much more we launched our new 8:30 and 10 AM gatherings and then immediately embarked on the task of tearing down quickly in order to meet our 11:30 deadline.  Good times!  Thankfully the Lord has provided us with some AMAZING people around us to help make things happen!  Even before I made it home for naptime I was thoroughly appreciative to all those that made the morning possible.  Without all those setup and teardown people we would have been hurting.  Without all those Host Team people we would have had a ton of people that didn’t know where they were going!

All in all I believe we had a very successful morning of which God was a huge part!  I gotta say, that’s a pretty awesome deal for the chaos of a brand new launch, not to mention a portable one (so if I say not to mention and then follow it with something that I am now mentioning, do I completely contradict myself???)!  Thank you for all your prayers, support, time and energy!  I leave you with my one, only and favorite picture from the morning.

If you would notice with me the movie that is apparently playing as soon as we clear our kids out of the nursery/theater, I believe you will giggle.