Worship Recap: Yesterday we celebrated the fact that 30 people at our Christmas services made first-time decicions to follow Jesus! Also, we highlighted our missions effort in India with the orphanage we helped put into existence. People were challenged to consider going to support on a major trip planned this summer. We had some media that helped communicate this. It all seemed to work very well, capped by a message about sharing our faith.

Set List: Our focus was surely salvation this weekend to accentuate the theme of missions.

• Everyday - Joel Houston
• Salvation Is Here - Joel Houston
• The Greatest Gift - Rich Kirkpatrick
• Our God Saves - Paul Baloche

How was your worship weekend?

[Wanna see more set lists from this past Sunday? Go to Fred's blog. ]

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A good post by audio guru Jeremy over at Tehilla Music Blog.

Isn’t Sunday and interesting way to spend 1/7 of your life? Where else can you feel like it should still be Saturday but just plain isn’t? And where else can you find the people and fellow volunteers you love all worshipping Jesus at church? Certainly not Tuesday.

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Happy New Year to my friends, family and readers of RKWL! What a whirlwind 2008 has been as the first year in our new southern California life as a family. From 2008 the following is a snapshot…

• Kids finish first time being homeschooled for the 2007-08 and enter public schooling. So far so good.
• Both kids get braces. Ouch. Ouch.
• We sell our house of five years we owned in Redding, CA for a decent price in this economy. Miracle.
• I become even more geeky. We have router issues at home now.
• My wife starts a business, or two.
• I  pass my 4oth year in 2008! Ouch.
• Blogging favorites like Worship Mythbusters and a new blog at Tehilla Music started.
• I performed the wedding for my good friend Zach Tanksley.
• My daughter entered High School, and now leads worship with me.
• We are “post minivan” now as a family.
• Cigars are nice. Ahhh.
• iPhones are nice, too.
• 20th year in ministry passed me by. Wow.
• New friends. Missing old friends.
• A quiet small family Christmas.
• Need for long sleeves reduced to half. New sandals, anyone?

For 2009? Let’s roll…

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As a member of the typical worship team, singers often rely on the gear presented to them by the situation. I have served in church plants in school cafeterias and in new worship houses that seat over 2,000. Either way, the issue of gear for any musician is important. One thing I have learned: If something sounds cheap, it probably is.

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Recap: This weekend was a family affair with both my wife and daughter helping me lead worship on Sunday. Because this is the “Christmas hangover” week for us involved in Christmas Eve services. (By the way, we had a GREAT evening on Christmas Eve.) The hangover week meant we had to work without a full rehearsal. I am very pleased in our tech and music teams at the consistency and commitment they have to make a Sunday like today work so well.

New Year means a change to refocus on the priorities we have and Mark Strauss of Bethel Seminay in San Diego reminded us at Sunridge of that fact with the message he delivered. Mark has been with us a couple years in a row on this weekend. Thanks to Mark for his words and encouragement to us today.

Set List: The songs this weekend were tried and true except for one original I wrote that was introduced early in 2008 called “This Sacred Place.” Our worship set was put together to get us to decide to focus on Christ as our ” go to” instead of anything else.

• Let The Praises Ring - Lincoln Brewster
• I Will Boast - Paul Baloche
• All We Need - Charlie Hall
• This Sacred Place - Rich Kirkpatrick
• Everlasting God - Brenton Brown

How was your worship weekend?

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This famous 2008 Youtube “Obama Is Going to Pay For My Gas And Mortgage” represents the high expectations Obama has to live up to. Biden seems to think that its not domestic, but international issues that bring high expectations for Obama.

“You asked me earlier if I am worried about the exceedingly high expectations that people have for President Barack Obama,” Biden told CNN’s Larry King in advance excerpts of his interview with the talk-show host.

“I said domestically I wasn’t so worried about that but internationally I am,” Biden said, adding that foreign hopes for the incoming administration were overwhelming.

Regardless of your political views, its is obvious expectations by some of Obama are strataspheric and perhaps a challenge in and of themselves. So, I think we should pray for our new leader to succeed. (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Pray.

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“Get Fit To Preach” with a bald, ripped guy who probably is a model who never heard of parsing Greek in order to preach. Or, if he is a pastor, I bet he preaches from the gym, not just attends the church of gym.

All this to say that I have become soft and am mad the Big Brother of Facebook found me out and reminded me of this on the sidebar of my profile. Thanks, Facebook.

What ridiculous advertisement have you endured on your social media site of choice?

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RECAP: I enjoyed our Christmas tunes this week, and literally was out of breath singing “Gloria” (or “Angels We Have Heard on High”) by Mercy Me. Bart, their lead singer can sing high. But, at 8:30 AM it is quite breath taking. When I did the welcome for the first service I had to pause and restart do to being light headed after singing ove a minute of high notes! Merry Christmas.

SET LIST: This set is all Christmas, but one tune from Mark Roach called “You Are.” I felt we needed a call to worship to focus us on the “hope of peace on earth” and “every questions answer” before we went into the Christmas set.

• You Are - Mark Roach
• Joy To The World (original arr.)
• Gloria - Mercy Me
• O Come All Ye Faithful - arr. Third Day
• The First Noel - traditional
• I Heard the Bells- arr. Mercy Me

How was your Christmas worship service?

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Here is another potpourri of interesting web posts…

• Mobile Phones Are Changing Our Behavior says Phil Cooke
• Mark Lee of Third Day is Pulling an “Old Yeller” on his blog… stop him!
• CNET News says Twitter might make me some dough with news that Twitpay brings micropayments to Twitter.
• Shawn at Lo-fi Tribe is making buzz with his God Loves Fundamentalists, Too thing.
• Yes, Perry Noble, Church Really Is That Important, but you say it better than I can.
• If you are in the Dallas area, PLEASE check out Church Tech Camp’s site.
• FREE Christmas CD from Tony Guerrero on his blog. Gotta love that!

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Well, I am actually neither a bonafide geek or a real rockstar. What is important is how funny it is that I can look like either with a simple haircut . What is even more important is the idea of “both and” and why labeling people or our ministries as one-all-or-nothing entities is old school. Either we evangelize or we disciple people. Either we are growing or not healthy. Either we have conflict or loving relationships in a staff.

The fact is that the law of “both and” pervade every area of our lives, making it a messy endeavor. It would be much easier to simply be one thing. We are told in business books to copy the In-n-Out model and just do hamburgers. What is interesting is that you can get that hamburger is so many ways that it could be that your options with variations supercede the smorgousbord approach entirely.

Imagine this: choice and simplicity? Or, to not be so serious, could I be both a rockstar and a geek?

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