Contagion

I think that the "real" front door is still extremely important. What a person feels when they walk the door is going to determine the rest of their experience. So we have tried to be ourselves with guests and be as friendly as we are with our best friends. So far, so good. We've had endless comments on how friendly we are and that's the culture we want to have. At the same time, there is a new front door

Websites have been around for long enough that it's easy to tell a good one from a bad one. And in my opinion, going to a church website that sucks is the same as walking through the front door of a church and having a grouchy person greet you(I've had this enough to never want it to happen again). And yet, hacked church sites abound! I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's because we think it's simply the dissemination of information that people want to know or they simply don't care enough to put the money in that is required. To me, the website is HUGE! And that's why we're investing money into our newly redesigned site. The one we have right now is okay but it still doesn't communicate who we are. With the one we're having made I think someone could look at the site and then walk into the theatre on Sunday morning and get the same vibe in both locations.

We want to communicate who we are, not just what we do. It's hard to tell someone who you are. Most times who you are is something that's seen and felt. I believe that if someone was to come to our Sunday morning gathering, they would be stoked the whole time up. I think the experience will stick with them through the week. That's what we want from our site, people getting stoked up enough to want to check our faith community out in "real life".

Just a few more weeks and it will be unveiled. The guys over at Emerging Productions are working furiously to get it finished for us by our launch in January.

I was raised in a small po dunk town on the very furthest northern tip of Vancouver Island. Oh you've never heard of it? I don't blame you. There isn't much to do in Port Hardy except for fish and run around in the great outdoors. When it came to halloween there were two options: trick or treat or go to the "Harvest Party".

The way I see it...the cool kids trick or treated. I went to the Harvest party. Every year I'd dress up as a cowboy or a bear or some other "harvesty" type character. It was great fun. We'd get goody bags that were actually bags loaded full of peanuts with a few candies sprinkled on top. It actually makes me laugh when I think about the whole ordeal. The thing is that this trend is still around. Providing an alternative for Christian kids so they don't get subjected to the wickedness of the world. I have a few thoughts on this matter.

1. Since when does having a harvest party in a church mean you aren't celebrating halloween? And what on earth does celebrating halloween look like?

2. Do we really think that keeping our kids off the streets is going to keep them from evil? When was the last time you turned on the T.V.? You better lock them down in some silo somewhere if that's the goal of not letting them trick or treat.

3. Some people want to let their kids go trick or treating but not let them dress up. How is not letting them dress up keeping them from participating?

I could go on forever but this is the way I see it.

• The world is dark.
  
• It's messed up no matter what way you look at it.
  
• Bad stuff happens on other days too!
• Keeping your kids away from Halloween doesn't make it go away.
• As far as I'm concerned, Harvest parties are as much of a "celebration" as trick or treating is
• Are we really glorifying Satan if we go door to door asking for candy dressed up like tinkerbell? What about the couch potato watching too much T.V. every other day of the week?
• Christians are supposed to be light in the darkness. How can the dark get lit up when the light is running scared?

Someone once said that there is no other day of the year when neighbors will actually come out of their little bunkers called their homes to converse with their neighbors as openly as they will on Halloween. It's the perfect day for the kids to meet their neighbors and for the adults to actually be civil with each other. It's not impossible, but it probably unlikely that you are going to see multitudes decide to give their lives to Jesus on Halloween. But at least we can somehow, in some way, be light in the dark.

How does a dark space become light? Exactly! This isn't rocket science and yet we've made it into this impossible game of hide and seek. I've been so guilty of hiding in the church, waiting for people to find me. "If you come to me, my pastor will get you saved and maybe (if you're lucky) I'll tell you how to live a good Christian life by showing you the formula for successful Christian living" (Read your bible, pray everyday - that doesn't work for you?) It really sucks when I think of all the years I wasted thinking that going to church on Sunday was the answer. I think it's an important part...but it's not the whole anymore. It just doesn't work.

I had a conversation with someone today and asked him how church was going. He said fine but that they needed more young people. He then told me that it all started to decline when prayer was removed from the schools. I'm not sure I was alive when that happened or not so it may be true. But this was my comment back to him.

I said that may be true, but the problem is that all of these people that have abandoned prayer in schools have kept on living their lives and things have changed drastically since that time. But what I think has happened is that the church has sat pretty and wished that prayer was back in schools. So they've been left in the dust...hoping for the day when it returns...while the world keeps moving...leaving us back in whatever year we are stuck in.

Youth don't want to go to a church that is stuck in slo' mo'! I told this guy that I don't have the answer but that we've got to start asking ourselves some really hard questions and honestly seeking out the solutions. And when we think we may have found something, we need to ask ourselves if we are willing to make the necessary changes. If not, we've gotta stop wishing prayer was back in schools (cause it's not), wishing that young people would come to church (cause they're not) and be content with what we've got.

If we're not happy with what we've got...well...you know what needs to happen.

Git 'er done!

It struck me the other day that I would much rather listen to a bunch of people who don't follow Jesus swear and be with them while they got drunk than a bunch of people that said they were followers of Jesus. This is one thing that sometimes drives me nuts and you can throw me in this category to - the hypocritical category.

The thing about the "I don't follow Jesus crowd" is that they aren't pretending to be someone they aren't. They have just chosen to live their lives for themselves and this is who they are. In the "Jesus follower crowd", we've got a bunch of people that say they are something but aren't what they say they are. These are the people that go out, get smashed at a party and wake up beside someone they've never met before. Then they roll out of bed and cruise into church thinking they've just pulled the biggest con ever. This bugs me.

I say if you are gonna be something, be it. Save yourself the time. Save the rest of the world the headache of putting up with the charade.

Maybe this is what Jesus was thinking when he was hanging out with the sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors...at least they were real. The Pharisees were a big group of fakes trying to make up for the day the school bully called them fat in the playground. I bet Jesus liked hanging out with the sinners because he knew what he was gonna get...a big massive pile of...yep...you guessed it...sin. But with the religious people it was always a gamble...are they gonna be on or off today? Are they gonna be personality #1 or personality #10?

So I've decided that it's way easier to hang out with a bunch of guys that don't claim to be anything but living for themselves...at least I know what to expect.

I spent the whole day in a golf tournament! Man was that hard work. It was a perfect day for golf. Not to hot, not to cold. I thought we were going to get rained out but it was awesome. I got asked to be in it around a month ago by Brian and Melonie. It was a fundraiser for their son's hockey team. The beautiful thing about it was that it cost $65 and they covered my cost! To top it off, our team came in second. It was texas scramble so it was best ball, thank goodness we had some good golfers on our team!

It was just a good day to get out of my little sphere of influence and meet some new guys. This may sound really profound to some, but I think being a missionary in the communities in which we live requires us doing things with the people in the communities in which we live. I know, I know. It's profound and revolutionary. The funny thing about this is that if a lot of us were to examine our lives (especially mine) we'd find that we are pretty crappy missionaries. We think that going to church and listening to a pastor talk for hours about stuff we already know is what it's all about. We think that giving money to the missionaries overseas is how we fulfill our duty to missions. What we miss is the essence of what being a follower of Jesus is all about.

I told a guy today that if being a Christian is just about going to church on Sunday and trying to follow a whole bunch of rules and be a good person, I don't want it. In fact, that's the prescription for the most boring life ever! It's when you let your faith consume your whole life and see everything as spiritual, that's when the adventure begins. You actually start to hang out with real people, with real lives and you see that they are really cool to hang out with. You don't have to impose your beliefs on them or anything like. Trust me, these guys could swear like the best of them and I didn't say a word. I've been around people that make it known that they are Christians and that people shouldn't swear when they are present. Give me a break! What do we expect from people who don't follow Jesus.

Part of being a missionary in our culture is to be with people on their turf. We don't have to do everything they do but we need to be with them. I look at it this way, if I was going into a village in northern africa as an overseas missionary, I couldn't build a church building and wait for people to come to me. They wouldn't. I couldn't sing western songs, eat western food, dress western, talk western, act western...and expect them to give a flying rip. I would have to go to them and become one of them (just like Paul said he did). Eat their food. Dance like they dance. Dress like they dress. Learn their language.

So why do we have such a hard time getting this here? Why are we hung up with all the formulas and 4 steps to Christianity? Why not play some golf? Why not grab a burger with the guys after work? Why not join the local hockey/soccer/etc league? Why not get into their world and live so contagiously that they have to ask questions about who you are?

What are we so afraid of?

Okay, you have got to check this out! The site is called The Church You Know and for those of you that think any form of laughter in church is wrong, this site is meant to be funny. So don't go here if you get offended easily. If you aren't hyper religious, check this out. It gave me my fill of laughter for the day.

I'm half way through Mark Batterson's book "In a pit with a lion on a snowy day" and it rocks. The whole thing is about facing your fears which is what I'm all about right now as we do our "Prison Break: Escape your fear" series with TXC. I'll post some more as I finish it up. If you find yourself living in fear, living comfortably with no risk and having no fun because of it, READ THIS BOOK!

I was just reading in Joshua 7 (go read it)about the Israelites being super confident that they could defeat the city of Ai but when they tried, they were completely surprised to see Ai defeat them. It was such a surprise because they had just shouted and the walls of Jericho crumbled at their feet and now a little tiny city defeats them.

I can sense Joshua's frustration wih the whole thing. Here they are a might force to be reckoned with and the unspeakable happens. God later reveals that someone stole something from Canaan when it should have been given to God. Achan is found out and then stoned him and his family to death with their bodies being burned afterwards.

Yikes! That's some serious punishment. Now I'm not sure if this should be the punishment for sin today or not. I know I probably deserve it sometimes. But what I really got out of this is how easy it is to take sin lightly when God doesn't take it lightly at all. In fact the punishment is death Thankfully Jesus is our mediator and satisfied the wrath of God with his death on the cross. However, I don't think that means that we are still under God's grace. So many people think that God's grace covers them when they are leading lives of blatant sin and rebellion. I'm not sure this is the case.

I like to think of God's grace as an umbrella. When we sin, we turn our backs on God and in essence say to God that we don't need his grace. So we step out from under that grace umbrella.

I believe it's in this place that Israel found themselves. They thought God was still fighting for them but clearly he wasn't because someone chose to sin, this pulling the whole group out from under the umbrella with him.

I never want to get to the place where I take sin so lightly that I think I can just go on leading my life the way I want to, still expecting God to show me his grace. I just don't think God forces his grace on us when our actions show we don't want it. I never want to get to the place where we as a faith community are making headway in the spiritual realm with people getting connected to Jesus that we forget we are winning because God is fighting for us. That it's not our strength or talent that is making things happen. That apart from God we're pretty hopeless.

So we need to ask ourselves, do we have anything buried that belongs to God? (by the way, He knows you're hiding it which means it's not actually hidden!) Is there any part of who we are that we've given to something or someone else that belongs to God. And finally, how long do we think we're gonna get away with it? All I can say is I'm gonna start digging. I've got to much to lose to keep hiding it.

Today is one of those days where I wish we could start meeting weely earlier than January. It's been super good meeting once a month in that we've had a lot of time to figure out what needs work and what's working. It's hard to build any momentum though.

We did grow in number at our second gathering but that doesn't necessarily mean we have more committed people. Our goal is to have 100 people who are committed to the church by January. I'd say we have about 40 right now. That hard part is getting people to come back the next month instead of the next week. For some, I think the anticipation of returning disappears after the first week and then it's almost as if we have to re-convince them to come back. At least that's how I feel, it may not be the case at all.

With all that aside (just stupid emotions), I'm still super stoked for January. We had a leadership meeting last night to talk about our God @ the Box Office series last night. We are going to be branding each of our gathering series (graphics, videos, takeaways, etc) and so we looked at how we can do this best. The one thing we realised is that it's hard to brand a series based off of movies when you are in a theater, which obviously already lends itself to branding movies. In essence we would have to rebrand which seems rediculous. So we decided against stupidity and chose to utilize the theatre to our advantage (which makes perfectly logical sense as I type this) Instead of removing things that distract(which is really hard to do when they are everywhere) like Basic Instinct 2 posters, we are going to try and utilize this stuff to our advantage. It should be a fun series. There may even be some costumes involved. Not too sure about this one yet, still praying about it:) I'm not sure too many people want to see Dan dressed up in a spandex superman suit!

On a different note, I can't wait to move into Mission. I'm out here monday-thursday to work out and to do as much as I can in one of the coffee shops (right now I'm in City Blends). I just love it here but hate driving here everyday. The gas bill is a complete gong show. Bek and I just keep fantasizing about what it's going to be like. We're already planning our first Christmas Party. The reason this is so revolutionary for us is that we've lived in places where having company over was really difficult. Either too small or really oddly shaped (where we live now). This new place is huge (at least we think so) and will enable us to have friends over without requiring them to sit on each others' laps just to fit in our living room/hallway.

So there we have it. The theme seems to be waiting in anticipation for something to come in the near future that will change my life in one way or another.

Yesterday was a day where I just 'was'. There was no frantic running around trying to get this or that accomplished. No trying to prove my worth by what I could do.

Bek and I packed up the kids and headed down to Grandville Island to just be. The fall leaves were abolutely amazing. It was one of those days where you wanted to just romp around in them. The temperature was brisk but the sun was out and made it warm as well. I got my j.j. Bean coffee and we just walked around with our two kids and enjoyed life. No better time spent than with my beautiful wife and amazing kids on an incredible fall day.

Sometimes I forget that I'm living...now. I'm always striving for tomorrow and what could be and that's good and all. But if it comes at the expense of enjoying today, it's worthless.

Life is good. By no means is it comfortable right now but it sure is good. There is no better way to live life than to live it with God in control. It's definitely easier to say this when I'm not right in the middle of a situation that requires me to relinquish control but after I've done it, I have the hindsight to be able to see that I made the right choice.

When we started this church, just meeting as a launch team, Bek and I made the choice that we were going to tithe out of obedience and generosity instead of obligation on our gross income (before any of our taxes came off) For us, it was an issue of control. Did we really trust God to take care of us? We made the choice that we would tithe substantially more than we have in the past because, more than anything, we want God to have our hearts and that's what tithing is all about. It's not always easy when I've got these massive bills to pay off or I've got something I want to buy. But I have to believe that God is who he says he is and that he'll do what he says he'll do...take care of me.

I think tithing has more to do with us than it does with God. It changes us more than it makes God happy with us. If we can get to the point of admitting that God is bigger than us and can take better care of us than we can, that's when we begin to live life as it was meant to be lived.

So where are you at? What is your attitude about tithing? Does God really have your heart? Take a chance this week. Put yourself on the line and release the control of you life. You want an adventure? It starts here.

Are you in?

I know I brag about my team too much on this blog but I can't help it. They seriously are stinkin' amazing. I just can't believe the caliber of people we have in our different areas. I know that Sundays aren't everything but they are a part of who we are and we don't want to be a bunch of hacks trying to point people to Jesus. I know we can't compete with the world with their massive productions and flash and glitter, but we can try to do our best. I think people expect the Sunday part of faith communities to suck. I think they come in expecting to be bored to tears. We don't want that to be the case with TXC. Do we have high standards? Yes. Are they unrealistic? I don't think so.

Every person on our launch team has a critical role to play in how our Sunday gatherings happen. I'm not sure if this is normal for most church plants but it's the case for us. If any of them were to leave, we'd have a huge gaping hole to fill in.

This week's gathering was proof of who we are capable of becoming. We get comment after comment each week of how friendly we are. That is thanks to Charlene and the connections team. They say that they've been to other churches where not one person has said hi to them. We feel that we have one shot to connect with guests and if we blow it, we can't expect them to come back. We want to have an ethos that is warm, friendly, relaxed, relational and open and Charlene is doing a phenomenal job and creating that culture.

This week Tina was away at a camp speaking at a girls' conference (did I mention our team is diverse too?) and while she was gone we had a team from our Bible college helping us out. It's nice having a team of students that are willing and capable of leading Upstream Kids on Sundays. But what's even more amazing is how well everything was organized for them in Tina's absence. They said everything went amazing and that was all thanks to Tina's foresight. That is one thing that I so appreciate about her is that she is always thinking about the future and how to do things better. I am so confident that we have one of the best Kids pastors around and I can't wait to see how things take shape in the coming months.

And then there's Dave. I've already bragged on Dave enough to make his head bigger than it needs to be but I honestly love having him as our lead worshipper. I am so confident when he's leading. I know it's going to be good and I know it's not gonna be a rockshow with a bunch of guys trying to show off. They practice their rear ends off to get as good as they are and that speaks highly to me. We got so many compliments on Sunday about how good they were.

I'm just so stoked about the future it's not even funny. And with the launch of our UnderCurrents in January we will see a much needed element added to our faith community. The possibilites are endless as to what we can do in those undercurrents. We will be able to connect with people on so many different levels that our depth as a faith community will be far greater than it would be with us just having sunday gatherings each week.

So there you have it...yet another bragfest. There are so many other people that do so much but I just thought I'd highlight the ministry leaders for now.

As the years go by I'm slowly starting to see who I am and who I'm not. There are so many people that say focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses. However, what happens when one of your weaknesses should be a strength?

One of my good friends, eddie def, challenged me a while back asking me what my top 5 strengths were. His conclusion was that I'm a 1,2......10 type of leader. I see the first few steps in front of me and then I see the larger picture of where we are going. But it's hard for me to see the process of how to get there. I wasn't totally sure if that was accurate but as time goes on, I think it is. It is so easy for me to see what TXC can become in the future. I can paint the picture in front in people and spurr them to action. Then they come to me saying "So what should I do" and I say "Ask someone else". It's quite brutal sometimes.

Internal Communication is one of those things that I seriously need to work on. I think I'm on the road to being able to communicate to a large gathering effectively. It's the small group stuff that gets me, even to the degree of my leadership team. Because I can so easily see the big picture I forget that I have to communicate the steps along the way (if I can figure out what they are!) Sometimes I just think that people should be able to figure everything out on their own and that has proven to be a wrong assumption and probably a really naive one at that. It's been difficult with us having monthly gatherings because meeting weekly as a leadership team get tough when there isn't a whole lot to discuss. A possible solution would just be to continue meeting weekly anyways just to be sure that everything was being communicated properly.

Anyways, this is me unloading my thoughts of the morning. If you have something that works super well for you, I'd love to hear it!

In January we are going to be launching our Sunday Gatherings fully public. This is gonna be a wild ride and an exciting adventure and yet, it's not enough if we want to have healthy faith community. There can only be so much interaction in a theatre on Sunday. If we were to just meet collectively as a large group the thing would eventually fall apart.

Our launch team has been meeting as a small group for the last 6 months and it's been an awesome experience. I honestly believe that these months of connection are one of the reasons why our collective gatherings have been going so well this far. We know each other and see where we can help eachother succeed. Sundays will only be one part of who we are, not the sum total Even though these gatherings are important they are only an hour out of each week, hardly enough time to connect on a deep level.

So starting in January as well are Undercurrents. These will be smaller sub communities of TXC. In many cases these are small groups but we decided to name them something that had meaning behind them. As well, we don't want them to be confined to set pattern of doing things, such as a Bible study every week because that's what a god small group does. We are going to start with Undercurents that will meet for 4 months and then take the summer semester off. Each undercurrent will have it's own flair and no two will look the same. The one guideline that will apply to each one is that they have to connect the disconnected to Jesus in some way or another. So if you can prove to me how a knitting undercurrent could connect the disconnected to Jesus, have at 'er!

What we have to understand is that being a follower of Jesus is not about going to church. It's about life. It's more about every other hour of the week than it is about church. And our goal is that these undercurrents would be an outlet for us to live life together in the middle of The CrossCurrent and connect people to Jesus.

So if you have an ingenius idea of something you would like to do, let us know. They fire up in January so start dreaming!

Today I spoke on why being naked is the point. I spent a good portion of the talk on nudity and the whole deal with Adam and Eve in the garden being naked. And how it wasn't until they rebelled against God that they saw their nakedness. The reason that was, I believe, is because before they rebelled their validation came from God and him alone. Once that relationship was broken, the only place their validation could come from was each other. And there is something inside of us that loves to judge each other and so we hide ourselves from each other.

I asked everyone at what point does a child understand that being naked in public is wrong? Do they just figure it out or are they programmed by society to know it? I think the Fall is what makes us understand it because we are born into sin. (sorry for the preachy language here).

The point was this: who you become is determined by who you listen to. The central idea of this talk came from Donald Miller's book "In search of God knows what". I used it because I believe it's true. We are wired to recieve our validation from someone. It doesn't come from us. We could sit around and tell ourselves how good we are and in an instant, we can be deflated because someone comes along and tells us we are a loser. But it doesn't have to be this way! Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the relationship that Adam and Eve had with God in the Garden of Eden can be ours. We have direct communication with God if we choose it. We can be validated completely by God and become the person that we were meant to be all along. But we have to choose to listen to him and not the culture around us.

We showed a video of a homeless guy on a curb rocking back and forth. That's all it is. We then added Beck's "I'm a loser baby" into the back ground and put Psalm 139:13-18 on the screen one verse at a time. It was awesome It created this crazy tension where you hear these lyrics and they tick you off but you see these verses on the screen of God speaking to us of who we are. It mirrored how society screams at us, telling us who it thinks we are and at the same time, God speaks to us validating us, telling us who we really are.

The question is, who are we going to listen to? Because ultimately, who we listen to determines who we become. I'm making it my priority to do everything in my power to listen to who God thinks I am. I've let others determine my future for way to long and I'm ready to become the person that I'm meant to be. Are you in?

Wow! What a ride this morning was. We had our second gathering and I was totally caught off guard with a situation that could have easily been avoided.

The theatre has been so good to us in letting us store our stuff in one of their rooms. However, I'm pretty sure that anyone that has a key can just walk right in. Needless to say, we were unpacking all of our stuff (in record time too might I add - not hard seeing we've only had one other gathering) when we get to the end and find out that a bag that had our VGA cable, computer mouse and some extension cords got seriously misplaced and was not able to be found anywhere. We searched high and low and determined that it was definitely not there.

So now I'm sweating worse than Mike Tyson in a spelling be...seriously. I'm so stinking linear it's not even funny and when something like this happens it's hard for me to adapt. But with failed attempt after failed attempt (Jonny C driving all over the country trying to find an open store...you rock buddy!) at finding a solution I came to grips with the fact that our video was going to be shot. We had made two videos that supported our theme (Who you become is determined by who you listen to) and all our MediaShout stuff was thrown to the side.

10:00am rolls around...our bass player is no where to be found! He calls and says he's at London Drugs (which opens @ 10!) We start @ 10! Not today. 10:20am rolls around and Donavan flies into the parking lot with the exact extension for our previous attempt at a patch job, we hook it up and it stinkin' works!

I'm telling you, I haven't been stressed out like that before in my life! I thought I was flexible on the fly like that but apparently I've got some growing to do. (Sorry to all the people who got caught in the wake of my freak out personality this morning) I thought people would be annoyed that we started so late but they just rolled with the punches as we tried to and it all worked out great. We switched it up from our last gathering and I spoke right near the beginning after the band played "Stars" by Switchfoot. My brain was quite scattered and all over the place but people say it made sense so that's good. I had some massive detours and showed a video that we were initially gonna show at the beginning in the middle of my talk which ended up working out perfect.

The the band came out and absolutely rocked the place. These guys are so stinkin' good for being a 3 piece band. Everything I throw in front of them they devour and make it sound better than the original. And with them being so good you would think that there would be some showy rockstar syndrome accompanying it but as they were playing today you could see right through them into their hearts and it was evident that they were all out worshipping. One song they played "Great is the Lord" by the Starfield and I just got rocked. Their sensitivity is incredible and everyone comments more and more as our gatherings go on how good they are. I probably doesn't hurt that we had an awesome sound man (plug: if you can mix sound extremely well and wanna make $100 a Sunday, come talk to me)

We had an all time high with our attendance which isn't to hard seeing we've only had one other gathering to compare it with. But it felt good with more people in the room. Not because it makes me feel better about myself or anything like that but the vibe/ethos in the place shifts as more people show up. It felt like there was a little more anticipation/participation by people which was really cool.

All in all, I think we are on a train that is gonna pick up steam rather quickly. Our goal of having a core of 100 committed people by January isn't too far off.

One last thought, my friend Jeremy said that when he goes on a trip if there isn't a crises by a certain time, he creates one. The reason why is that a crises unites the people involved to accomplish a focused task and lets them get to know eachother in a way that couldn't happen apart from the crises. I think this morning was just that. My true colors showed but despite that, we found a solution as a team and made it happen. I thanked Donavan after the gathering for taking initiative and getting the cable cause if he had asked I would have said for him to stay put. But because he went, everything worked out better than we had planned.

I have an amazing team of people working with me to get this church launched. Our launch team rocks but not only that, the people who are in the place of decision regarding whether this will be their church home or not rock too. They bust their butts every week to make sure that we get set up/torn down in time. I could not do any of this without their commitment and dedication to see Jesus' church built.

I look forward to the coming days and getting to serve alongside you. Here's to all of you that are in this crosscurrent with me! Cheers!

After searching for a few months of looking at complete dives for basement suites, we found a winner. Yesterday's paper had what seemed to be tons of nice looking suites so we started phoning. We narrowed it down to a few and went and looked at them today. The first one was the most disgusting thing we've ever looked at. There was dirt and garbage everyone on the floors and it was empty. So they were just lazy and hadn't gotten it cleaned yet. I basically decided that I wouldn't rent it just based on that fact alone.

So on we went to our second place and the whole time we were thinking that this was gonna be just like all the others. We thought it might be nice but based on every other place we weren't hopeful. We pull up this 900 foot driveway and as we come around the last corner at the top, BAM! There it was. A house that was just built in February. A far cry from what we were expecting. It's on 5 acres of land and sits on top of a mountain overlooking the valley. We walk inside the front door and my jaw drops. It has cherry laminate flooring throughout, brand new appliances, 3 bedrooms and massive living/dining room and a sweet kitchen. We looked out the massive front windows and the view is absolutely breathtaking. What makes this deal so sweet is that it's only $1000/month with utilities and satellite included! It's about 8 minutes drive out of town but that doesn't bother me at all.

Here we thought that because our last deal fell through that we wouldn't be able to find another place for that cheap. And here it was just waiting for us for this time. We move in on Dec.1 and we are so stoked to be moving into our city. We love Mission in a way that is very odd for us. We just can't wait to get into the place we feel God has called us to and having a house like this is just icing on the cake. The fact that we launch TXC fully public on Jan.14 gives us time to get settled in and ready for the crazy adventure ahead!

God is so crazy with his timing sometimes but it's awesome. Someone asked us the other day if they should tithe directly to our family instead of the church and Bek turned it down. She told them that in essence them and us would be doing is telling God that we didn't trust him to provide for us and that we needed to have some control. The way this deal has just gone down today is proof that having God in control of your life is the best way to live. It seemed that everything was spiralling very quickly out of control but I think it had to get to that place so that God could come through like he did today.

I gotta try and go and get some sleep now. Maybe I'll post some pictures if I'm able to take any tomorrow.

Probably one of the biggest things I want to avoid through the week leading up to each of our gatherings is getting sick. Since we are only meeting 1/month until January, we have one shot to give people a taste of who we are. So I've been overdosing on Zinc and Vitamin C the last few days. Seeing my throat is my instrument I think I should try and protect it.

I was just on my way over to Dave's (our lead worshipper) to drop off our thumb drive with some of the media for Sunday when I ran into him at the end of my street. Well, I didn't really run into him, he was just walking across the crosswalk as I pulled up. Turns out his throat is shot and couldn't even sing at practice last night.

So two things you can pray for: Health and that those who are sick would recover quickly. The second thing is faith. I'm not sure what it is but the week leading up to our gatherings there is just an onslaught of emotions that come our way. Some days we wake up stoked about what is going to happen. Others there is tremendous doubt and fear. Just pray that we would have faith to believe for the impossible. You can also be praying that those who are far from God and decide to come to TXC on Sunday would take a step closer to Him.

We're back from Quadra Island. We had a very relaxing time just chillin' in the waterfront resort/camp. It was good to just get away and not think about what needed to be done for this weekend. However, now that I'm back I'm totally amped for this Sunday. I like having once a month gatherings because it lets us get sick with anticipation.

It's been good having the time in between gatherings to iron out some of the kinks as well. When Jan.14 rolls around, we should have most of the technical stuff figured out (besides not knowing where our sound tech. is coming from).

We stuck our first ad in the paper today so we'll see if anyone even notices it.

The buzz everywhere is crazy so as the months/weeks go on I think we're gonna see a massive surge of people.

I strongly dislike the administrative end of church. Every gifts test says it's my top gift but I don't like it so I think the gifts guys are nuts. Budgets are my biggest nightmare. I would love to have someone that could organize all of this for me. As we grow, this is going to be crucial to have figured out.
So there we have it, my random thoughts from this hour of my life.

I've been following Granger Community Church for a while now, just seeing what they do and how they do it. They've given me a lot of inspiration with respect to their use of video and "marketplace" songs. With us just planting TXC, we can use all the help we can get, even if those doing the helping don't even know it.

Anyways, today I was reading Tim Stevens' blog who is the executive pastor at GCC and didn't notice anything to abnormal. Then later on I was looking at the stats on my blog and noticed an unusual amount of people from Granger looking at my blog. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why this was until something clicked and I remember seeing something about Kem Meyer being compared to Seth Godin on Tim's blog. So I went, checked it out and the missing link was found as I'm sure the crew at GCC found it quite humorous that I made that comparison and commented on it. The funny thing is I still can't remember who made the word of mouth statement. For all I know, it could have been someone completely different. Whoever said it has got it engrained in my head and has just reinforced what I already thought about church marketing.

So thanks again Kem, Seth and the other mystery blogger that remains unknown. I hope to bring some more comic relief in the coming days!

To the 3 beloved readers of this blog, we'll chat again on Tuesday!

Labels: word of mouth marketing

Here we go again. I'm pretty positive that technology hates me. First it was my mac. Now it's my phone, of which I just got 3 months ago. At least it's still under warranty and they don't assume that I jumped on it just so I could get a new one. They said it would be a week, at which time it will be a trade straight across the board. There is good and bad to this. The bad is that I just got my bluetooth keyboard in the mail yesterday which worked great with my phone. It just decided to die this morning. The good thing is that we are off to Camp Homewood for our annual Thanksgiving reunion with our close friends and now I'm forced to be fully unplugged. So, unless I get some earth shattering thoughts that I feel like I need to blog in the next few hours, I will be signing off until next Tuesday. I'll be out in the middle of nowhere enjoying God creation and relaxing before we start gearing up for our second sneak preview next Sunday.

Labels: mac, motorola, phones, technology

What do you think is the better choice when it comes to singers/musicians on a worship band, someone who has a worshippers' heart but can't play/sing or someone who is really skilled at playing/singing but doesn't know how to worship?

This book seems like it is going to be incredible. I feel like I'm chasing a Lion with this church plant and I've never felt more alive! It scares the snot out of me with all of the unknowns that lie way down the road and ones that are right in front of me. None, the less, Christians aren't meant to be comfortable. If they are, I'd venture to say they need to rethink which Jesus they believe in. MMI does a little mini review that gets me totally amped up!

I try and work out at least 4 days a week and while I'm at the gym I listen to sermons by some amazing communicators. One of those guys is Rob Bell. He's the face you will see on the Nooma videos as well as the pastor of a huge church called Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan. After my little rant yesterday about Christians who say alot but don't do anything I figured I may have been a little harsh, and then I got over it. Today while I was at the gym, I was listening to the second part of Rob's series "Jesus wants to save Christians" and he nailed this issue head on. Listen to it here. (It's Part II on Sept.17)

Now I know I'm not the only one.

We got word today that one of the girls that worked with us at our last church as volunteer staff just lost her 1 year old in the middle of the night due to SIDS. It's this kind of stuff that you don't have an answer for. It starts to stir up the kinds of questions that David asked when he was being chased down by Saul. There is just no explanation. My friend that replaced me went over and saw them and said that they were just broken. No words can describe.

And to top it off, we just came back from SuperStore and there were hundreds of people lining the streets with signs that said "Abortion Kills" and "Jesus heals". No doubt they were Christians. What else would you expect? Do we seriously think that the women getting abortions don't know they are killing a baby? Just ask them five years down the road and they'll tell you the pain they experience every birthday that rolls around. So why on earth do we feel the need to sit around, holding signs thinking that we are doing something about it? It just gets me so fired up!

We are so stinkin' good at telling the world what we are against and how wrong they are! Why would they ever want to follow Jesus? You ask someone what Christians are for and they would probably be stumped. You ask them what Christians are against and they could ramble off a massive list.

I've posted about this before so as you can see, it's a little bit of a sore spot for me. I've known what I'm against as a Christian forever. Now that I'm older, I don't care what I'm against. In fact, I don't care what everyone else is against either. My good buddy James said that when you are trying to sell something, you never tell your buyer what your product isn't. You always tell them what it is.

So here's my question: If we say abortion kills and we are so confident that these signs are going to do the trick, what are doing about it at the next level? Where are the Christians that getting their hands dirty and putting their money where their mouths are, so to speak. How many Christians do you know that work in clinics to coach women through the rough times of deciding weather or not they should get an abortion? Or maybe even people that adopt babies that would have been aborted had they not stepped in and actually done something about what they say they believe? We may know some, but those that talk far out number those that act. Why is this? Could it be that the Jesus we follow is against more than He is for?

One last thought: Jesus never lambasted "sinners" like we do. He never put on his sandwich board and walked the streets screaming into his megaphone that everyone was going to hell if they didn't get saved. In fact, he invaded the space of the "sinners". He ate in their homes. He laughed with them. He became their friend. Tell me what he did with the Pharisees? That's right. Got in their face and put them in their place. He heart broke for those that were disconnected from His Father. He knew that protesting wouldn't cut it. He had to get to know these people. He had to swallow his pride and turn his belief into action.

So the parting question of the day is: If Jesus walked down South Fraser Way today, what would be running through his mind?