Scandalous Grace

Luke 6:27-28

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

In a win/lose society, we are taught that our enemies are our opposition. Jesus, however, takes this concept of an enemy and turns it 180 degrees the other way.

Here Jesus says we are to love our enemies by:

1. Show your love. Treat them as they haven't wronged you and express your love to them in what you do.
2. Share your love. Speaking well of them, even when they don't speak well of us.
3. Pray for them. Not the "God, give them what they deserve prayers," prayers. Pray that God will bless them.
   

I believe that action leads to motivation. When we pray for God to change our hearts, we can't be naive and expect the feeling of love to come so we can act. We need to make those prayers and then look for opportunities to "Show love" and to "Share love" and then we'll begin to "feel" love.

We start a series this weekend on "Scandalous Grace" at Westside Family Church. We are praying that this becomes a part of our church's DNA and I pray that it becomes a part of yours too.

Managing and Leading

Many times we find ourselves juggling between managing a team and leading a team. Managers become task oriented while leaders are people oriented.

While we need to be people oriented leaders we cannot disregard our tasks. Leaders need to balance driving the task and driving the person.

Here are a couple of things to do to keep a balance in your leadership:

1) Evaluate the tasks and your teams competancy. Does your team find themselves challenged with the "to do's" or are they just coasting? When your team is challenged, they grow. If they are performing meaningless tasks then be prepared for boredom.

2) Ask yourself, "Am I about getting the job done or developing your teams potential?"

A manger focuses only on getting the job done. Strong Leaders find ways to get the job done while developing the team.

3) Create tasks based on strengths. Managers react. Leaders create. Don't always be in "reaction mode." think ahead and develop your team to solve problems on their own.

Front. Find. Share

In staff today, Dan Southerland shared a quick and effective leadership lesson with everyone that started with an activity.

He told us to do three things. Move toward the front, find someone you don't know well and then, thirdly, share with them a highlight of your week.

After the 3 min commotion, he began to teach that leaders. I've broken down what he said and put my own spin on it:

1. Leaders lead from the front. As a leader you are to be at the front. You cannot lead from behind. Leaders always find themselves at the front of the line, ahead of others, paving a way for others to follow. Leaders take the initiative.
2. Leaders seek out followers and followers flock together. As a leader, you need to be looking for people who are wanting to be led. Leaders take the initiative to develop the relationship.
3. Leaders share their lives. Leaders gain their influence by sharing their life with others. People follow because they believe in the person and not the position. When a leaders shares with others and becomes authentic then the value of that leader increases.
   

Bubble race

Blues game

09.21.08 Service Review

I'm sitting in my big recliner, that Cassie keeps threatening to get rid of, watching the Cowboys qb Roma talk about their win tonight.

Looking back on today, it had it's ups and it's downs. One up was I led worship in the Venue today. One down was I totally for the words to the first verse of "You Never Let Go." How many times have I sung that tune?... Over 40 at least and I forget the words?... really Robinson. I was a little preoccupied.

Around 8a. this morning the whole campus lost power for a split second. The bad thing is that we have a lot of our equipment that runs off IP adresses, so it took them a while to get back on, and Jared our TD was scrambling to get things up and going for the 1st service. So in the back of my head I'm thinking, "What happens if the power goes out. Worship we can cover, but the message... just have everyone go in the auditorium? Do I get Larry to preach? Could I preach? I would love to preach but I don't have any notes... wait it's "You Never Let Go" and what is the first verse?

Another up: Our Venue band did a great job. We only had Lori on Keys, Shelly on Acoustic, and Paul on Bass. They did a great job of providing energy without the drums and engaging God and the congregation.

Another down: The bridge on the Hillsong song "You Are My Strength" starts off like the chorus of "Your Love Oh Lord" by Third Day. I practiced this and practiced this bridge. Got it in my head only to default back to Marc Bird singing "Your love, oh Lord, is like a mighty mountain..." instead of "Your love oh Lord, reaches to the heavens." I even sang the melody like third day's arrangement.

Another up: The 5pm band came in prepared with music rehearsed for rehearsal. Imagine that concept! Coming to your rehearsal, rehearsed! Awesome job team. Way to be the bartender for the rest of us.

Another up: Played the new Rhodes today! Hooked up some pedals to it. Had a phaser going at one point and a wah at another... we'll just leave the wah to the guitar guys. Some things just weren't suppose to go with a keyboard.

Another down: Didn't use the Rhodes in the service. But we will next week...!!!! :)

The services today did go great. The worship was solid and Dan did a great job delivering a much needed message on Sexual Purity. We threw in the song "Slow Fade" by Casting Crowns to help drive the message home. I hope that people really take this message to heart and build guard rails in their lives to stay pure.

New Free Tool for Churches

Here's a great new online tool for churches from the Digerati Team, the team that brought youversion.com:
ChurchMetrics.com


Introducing ChurchMetrics from ChurchMetrics on Vimeo.

New Option for Meyer Brothers Marketing

What do you think?

Jesus Messiah Chord Chart

Here is the Jesus, Messiah chord chart from the "Hello Love" album.

Key of A :: pdf | docx

Key of B :: pdf | docx

09.14.08 Service Review

We had a great day yesterday. They Vocal Team choir was singing strong, the band memorized the music and were even singing. I love it when the band engages and even sings, much less memorize the music. The congregation worshiped with enthusiasm and passion.

We opened with Tomlin's "Let God Arise" then Dan S. came out and did a shout out to the church and prepped his message. After that we went into:

Let the People Praise Him (Troy Kennedy)
Breathe On Me (Todd Fields)
From the Inside Out (Hillsong)

Even at the 5pm service, the congregation was pumped and into the worship. Troy did a reprise of Let God Arise after the welcome and we had a great set. It was good to see the 5pm gaining in attendance. We've been asking people to step away from 10 & 11:30 and move to 8.3 or 5p and it also helped that the youth began their Sunday night services this week too following the 5p.

I look forward to the weeks ahead!

Design Web Sites

For all you design junkies, I found a couple of new sites for design inspiration and free stuff.

• Smashing Magazine
• Motionographer
• the automatist

Use Your "R & I"

Successful people use their "R & I." This phrase was coined by Steven Covey in his book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

R=Resources - Jesus saw a crowd around him and he knew they were growing too large for him to vocally communicate to everyone so he looked around and saw two boats.

I = Intuition - Resources are great, but we must begin to think intuitively on how to use them to best serve the current need. Jesus knew that the water would amplify his sound.

Leaders use their "R & I." It's not about buying the best. A lot of times it's about using what you already have and letting God inspire your creativity to make something happen.

Storm I-70 E westbound west of downtown

Storm I-70 E westbound west of downtown
Originally uploaded by p341.com

This was what I drove home to after working at Meyer today. I'll admit, I was nervous driving home. It was the worse going down Johnson drive. Steep hills and sharp curves, but made it home ok.

With the R filled in, or outlined?

Here is the website I used to get me started with the rain effect.
I made these for Meyer Complete. They wanted to see it with the "R" filled in and outlined. Which is better?...hmm

Interesting

I think that this is something Wes Bell needs to do at his church!

Living room

Good Loops

Duane Rogers has a virb account where he posts his loops. His loops are great and they have a unique twist... on the click side of the track, he gives vocal leads as to when instruments come in and out. Great idea, why didn't I think of that!

Chord Chart :: Breathe On Me (Todd Fields)

I will start posting any new chord charts I make here on the blog. Here is a chord chart for "Breathe on Me" by Todd Fields at North Point Community Church in Atlanta. It is from their "Louder Than Creation" Album. Unfortunately, you can only purchase this from their website.

Breathe On Me (Fields) chord chart in Db

Seeker model disempowers Evangelism?

Here is a quote from Ed Stetzer that I think has some validity:

"The seeker movement has unintentionally disempowered evangelism by training people to bring their friends to church services so professionals can take over and seal the deal."

Click here to read the full article.

What do you think?

Scandalous Grace

This is our 1st brainstorm for Scandalous Grace. We looked pretty much at the music and how we can incorporate "Grace" as a lifestyle. What does grace look like and how can we remind people on a daily basis to live with Grace and to be transistors of grace.

Music vs Culture

Looking at the Top 20 mp3 downloads at amazon.com raised a question along the likes of the "chicken and the egg:"

Which is more true?

• Music influences Culture or
• Culture influences Music

Weekend Review :: 09.07.08

As I write this, the fatigue from today is beginning to kick in, but as I think about the highlights of today, I become energized with excitement, which is good b/c I have to one more song to sing at the closing of this service (5:00pm).

We launched the new series called "Covenants" and today was on Parenting. Speaking of parenting, Kaysha (my sis) and my neice, Kylee, came up to see Cassie and I and we had a lot of fun together and celebrated Kaysha's bday today at Cheesecake Factory.

With the focus on family, we had the house band do the 1st two songs then had the welcome, then the youth band finished up.

I led today and we opened with "Salvation's Chorus" followed up with "Here is our King." After the welcome, the youth band took the stage and did "Salvation is Here" and "Mighty to Save." Coleman, the youth worship leader, did a great job. They also have a 14 year-old drummer that is scary good. He played "Salvation is Here" flawlessly all day.

Dan S. and John Huber (our Family Ministries Pastor) tag-teamed today's message and they did a good job playing off of each other and making the message applicable and relevant. They took their Scripture from Deut. 6:1-9, "Impress them on your children."

We had a family fun day with carnival like games outside free for all families. That was a cool thing. Wish I was a kid again.

Well I've got to run to sing "Rescue" for the close.

$4 ball and rope or $0.10 cup?

Kylee is bowling with uncle kasey and aunt cassie

We had a great time with Kaysha and Kylee bowling on Sat. night. Kylee bowled a 67!