Does God rise to our expectations?

Troy, our Worship Pastor, is back from India. As we sat together in staff today, he told us about his trip and being around the untouchables and in a dark place where animal sacrifice and worship took place. 

He talked about the receptiveness of the people there and the need for love they have.

He told of a story of one night they were at a youth ralley. It was hot muggy, not much wind. He was leading worship and they were just vamping as a band and he just began to pray propheticlly and he prayed "God we envoke your presence into this place." As soon as he finished praying a burst of wind came from the back of the place and blew toward the stage. He said that he turned to look at Schaun, our Missions Pastor and the local pastor and they had this look of awe on their faces.

It is amazing when you get people together who are desperate for God, how he reveals himself. 

Sometimes living in America, we lose the "wonder" of God amidst the busy-ness of life. Also, when you come expecting something, especially to church, it produces an atmosphere that God can work.

I like what one preacher who is well known says: "The atmosphere of expectancy is the breeding ground for a miracle."

May we start to expect big God things!

We're not 0 for 4

We found out that we are not out of a house. They took it off the market since a couple of offers are now on it. So now we wait to see if the bank chooses our offer.

Here's Hoping!

Could we be 0 for 4?

I went online to send the house we bid on 3 weeks ago to a friend so he could see it. When I looked it up, it wasn't there!  I hope they haven't taken it off the market. I guess we'll find out tomorrow. I don't want to be 0 for 4 in a buyers market.

Our last time in iur first home

Here we are.. the last day at our 1st home. We took the trash out and left the keys and garage door openers.

Hopefully we will hear something tomorrow. We heard that another offer is coming in on the house and so we hope that ours looks better since as of tomorrow at 10a. ours will officially be sold.

A Day of History

It was an honor to lead worship today. We are in the tail end of a series entitled the Fantastic 5 and today was on Worship. Troy, our worship Pastor is returning from a missions trip to India today, and I had the privilege of leading the morning services.

Not only was it the "Worship" day, but today we voted in Pastor Dan Sutherland as our new Lead Teaching Pastor with a remarkable 96% yes vote.

The first service was the most shaky. I had trouble staying on pitch for a couple of songs and I was fighting the tiredness of the week of moving. But when the second service came around, Jared (our Tech Director) worked his magic on my mix and got my ears to where I could hear myself.

We flipped the whole service around. We opened up with just the chorus of "Made to Worship." We trash canned the second half of the chorus and took it straight into "All Because of Jesus."

After the welcome, we played the bumper video and Dan S. took the mic to bring the message. He eloquently took the message of worship into communion and as the ushers passed out the elements we sang "Revelation Song."

After that Dan led the congregation in communion and Jason Mills (our Music Director) started this cool track that could be the next score for the Braveheart sequel. That track led into "Everlasting God." Then we ended with the Todd Fields song, "Let Me Sing."

Then we went into the business meeting and we ratified Dan Sutherland as the new Lead teaching pastor.

For anyone that does a vote on a large scale for a church of thousands here are a couple of ways to administrate a large vote, we did the 1st one listed:

1. Call a business meeting after each service (we have 4: 8:30, 10:00, 11:30 & 5p.) Ask only voting members to fill a ballot and have ushers collect them.
2. Mail out ballots to members and have them place them in the offering boxes. For those who forgot theirs, they can pick one up at the info desk where a list of members will be kept to verify membership. More secure approach. (this would depend on your bylaws)

Well this closes another Sunday at Westside!

We're Moved... just have no home

We are now official residents of Linda and Jon Willard (Cassie's Parents). We finished loading the PackRat yesterday. Check out this pic.Needless to say, it is full. I wore out our new beast of a dog "Lewis." Oh yeah, since we lost Lucy a couple of weeks ago, God decided we needed another one, cause a coworker of Cassie's asked if she would want a dog. We're suckers. Today we took out the last of the boxes... like 2, and fixed a couple of things. The new owner signs on Monday and takes over. We then went to the pool and are going to get pizza and a movie tonight. It's nice not to have to pack. But it will be even nicer when we're unpacking in a home of our own.

Hopefully we'll hear back on the offer we placed 2 weeks ago on the house in Shawnee.

Our 1st 5k

Cassie and I ran our 1st 5k. We both beat our goals. I made it under 28 min. I'm not in the shape I used to be.

Become a "Bartender"

Jason Morris and Jared Wells, two staff here at Westside, were discussing some things and a term emerged from the conversation in a passing comment from Jason to Jared. 

Jason called Jared a "Bartender." 

What was the context? It is was one of keeping a standard of excellence and as the Technical Director, Jared was keeping the bar of excellence high.

What a great term and challenge to all leaders! We must be "Bartenders." As leaders we constantly need to be looking toward raising our bar of effectivenes, excellence, competency, and character of ourselves and of our teams.

The moment we allow this ideal to vacate we the effects will be substantial on us and even more on the teams we are "Bartending."

Week of Woes

Last week was a pretty rough week as we received news that one of our dogs (which we were keeping at my parents as we relocate to the Kansas side) had died from lighting striking the tree next to her. That was a sad day.

That same day we received word on the 3rd house that we had put an offer on was awarded to a different contract.

Questions rise during times like these, but you can't let them get the best of you. You have to embrace the circumstances and adjust your attitude to one of "thanks" and "trust" that God has His best interest for you.

Good news that follows the bad is that today we signed our closing docs for the house we sold. 

And better news is that we might make an extra $4k in it. 

So we now wait for the bank to get back with us on the 4th house that we have placed an offer on. 

So I'm signing off, expectantly, hoping that we hear good news on that today.

I am Coveting

I know this is borderline sin, but I really want an iPhone and I'm not too happy with waiting until Nov 15 to get one. However the subsidized price is forcing me to be ok with waiting until I can upgrade.

here is a pic of the 39th St. AT&T line at 8:05 this morning.

Passion Leads

The many great leaders, good and bad, all have passion.

Today in our worship arts staff meeting we sat down to listen to Benjamin Zander talk to a group of people about Classical music.

He passionately communicated his love for classical music and did so in a way that made those who did not listen to classical music much, sit back and enjoy it.

It was his desire that everyone see the benefit of classical music. He was passionate about it. He lead the people because he never doubted the capacity of the people there to catch his dream.

After we sat and listened to this segment with Maestro Zander, we began discussing the power of passion and came up with some great thoughts:

PASSION LEADS (through)
1) Authenticity...which is derived from:
- Trustworthiness that is based on character.
- Expertness... which is developed through experiences and desire for excellence
- Dynanism (charisma)
2) Inspiration
- Inspiration isn't about giving people the way to do things.
- Inspiration is equipping people with the tools to discover the gifts, talents and truths.

PASSION CAN BE QUENCHED by:
1) Doubt
2) Failure
3) Fatigue

To fight doubt, we must continue in obedience.
To overcome failure, we must change our paradigm on the way we define failure.
To beat fatigue, we must do less for more.

Developing an Environment of Fulfillment

A leader that has the ability to attract and develop strong leaders has a number of challenges:

1) Constructing an environment that brings fulfillment to their team.
2) Creating avenues to use the developing gifts.
3) Keeping team members challenged during mundane tasks.
4) Equipping team members to sent off to better things and coaching them to know when is the best time to move on.

The leaders challenges are always there and provide great opportunites to build a great team and influence people that can influence others.

Today was a pretty successful day overall. We started a series entitled "Fantastic 5." We are covering the 5 purposes and how we can apply them to our lives. Brice, our communications director, did a great job of making comic book-like characters for each series.

Here is the center screen graphic that we used for the preservice.

The song set was:

Song of Hope (Robbie Seay)

Let God Arise (Chris Tomlin)

Let Me Sing (Todd Fields)

Mighty To Save (Hillsong) - we cut this after the first service since we were fighting for time.

Typical (Mute Math) - that one was a fun one.

This week was on "Connect." Here's the center screen graphic for this week.

We used Orchestral themes from Superman, Batman, Zorro, X-Men, Transformers, Star Wars, ect. as Pre/Post Music which gave the service a cool vibe.

Overall a great weekend.