Writings on the Wall

man…do we live there??? ha. amanda and i are heading into town with some arcade peeps today for this! i cant wait!

tonight my good buddy chad is coming in town to speak for arcade’s mens gathering this year. i am so pumped! havent seen chad in forever, so i am looking forward to connecting with him again as well as growing closer to some guys over the weekend. and yes, we are going to the sierras. man i love nor cal.

check back in with ya on sat when we get back!

we started a new series this morning at arcade - and mr jolink was at it again for us. check it… 

tonight at 7pm we are having a gathering of all the life groups at our church for a night of singing, storytelling, praying and glorifying our maker and creator. if you are in the sac area and want to come and join us - feel free! we will be at arcade church from 7-8.30 rockin and rollin!

see you there…

at arcade this morning was amazing. i must say i was a little rushed as sound check began before the celebration gathering because someone spoke for 50 mins at the classic gathering…ha! but after i let that go and the gathering began the church was ready to sing! so great. so loud - even on new tunes. jake’s message was so great - you must go download the podcast.

this sunday was our last sunday in our spiritual formation process - serve. it is so refreshing and convicting listening to how the church can be the church - how we need to be jesus - following his incarnation - developing an incarnational mission. taking the focus off of getting people into the church building and placing it on going to the people and being the church. good stuff.

for the response we did:
hearts of servants - shane and shane
god of justice - tim hughes
take my life - hymn
all because of jesus - steve fee

these words dont do the morning justice - there was just an amazing overall sense of people wanting to offer themselves up as a sacrifice to God and to go and be the church. also a great sense of all of us unified, moving forward in passion and purpose. man - i am so pumped to be a part of this community and looking forward for what is to come…

this is the title of our new sermon series at arcade and also our path for spiritual formation. after being a part of many churches and trying to figure out how to communicate who we are and where we want to go, it is refreshing to be a part of this church movement that seeks to simplify. the next 3 weeks (including today) will be to dive into this and communicate what it means specifically at arcade. this morning jake spoke on the ‘know’ aspect of the process which is our journey connecting with God. our primary source of this is the gathering on sunday morning.i directed, dan shot, and radkey edited this bumper for the gathering today. check it out…Know Bumper

so this week has been crazy. to say the least. here was my schedule on tues:9am - 10am :staff chapel10.15 - 11.30 :pastors meeting 11.30 - 1pm :staff lunch1 - 2 :gathering planning meeting2 - 3.30 :meeting3.30 - 4.30 :figure out what i was supposed to do today.luckily wed was way more chill - it is a day that i am working out of the office so i can avoid days like tues. ha! after a restful and productive wed - thurs began. showed up at 8am to work, but my desk wasnt set up - so i started to put it together - then had a meeting from 9-10. and then another from 10-11. then put together the rest of my desk til noon. then planned songs and printed charts til 1.30. then went to a video shoot til 4. another crazy crazy day. but i am so loving it. it is great to be at a church that has a lot of life and a lot of stuff going on.for the video shoot today i made my directorial debut! we will see how good radkey makes me look (he is editing it, ha!). just got home now after capturing it into imove and exporting it to a .mov file and leaving it to upload. not waiting for that 3 hrs tonight. so full days but good days. time to rest. 

man - what a great day. church went well - week 2 in the bag - even helped lead the 1st service! whoo hoo - watchout now. we had the privilege of having richard devylder, the deputy director of the california department of rehabilitation,  as our guest this morning. what an amazing man and an amazing story. check out the video my dogg dan did for this morning: 

richard devylder final cut

after a lunch with some folks from arcade it was back home to plan songs for flood. i helped lead tonight because ry was speaking. he did a great job (you need to teach more often bro!) communicating and it was fun to play there. both sets today i did the ben lee tune ‘we’re all in this together’. loving that song right now…

after i got back amanda had an excellent dinner prepared and we grubbed down!! YUM!! then we proceeded down J st and hung a right on 10th to hang at temple for a post dinner sweet treat. now its back to 800 J to chill out and relax.

good night world.

so i must say that being in sacramento for me has redeemed my thoughts on the hope of ‘the church’ and i really feel a huge sense of calling and renewed passion for who i am and what God has called me to be. these past few days in the office and around arcade have been amazing. it is new, fresh feeling at the same time filled with feelings of home, love and comfort. amanda asked me how my day was today and i told her that i felt like i am back to ‘normal’. and maybe it is just the newness of it all - but i sense and deeper sense of peace and wholeness - of amanda and i being put back together. as soon as i said i feel normal again she said ‘me too!’ it is hard to describe right now and i dont know if this is making sense at all…i guess all that to say we are so thankful for where God has us right now and we look forward to moving ahead! one of our biggest prayers was that we would experience healing while we are here and i must say God is doing that…and i breathe him in and out tonight… 

so it went well! lots of paperwork and time spent in ‘orientation’ - i feel more oriented for sure. got to spend some time with jake as well  - and it was great. i cant wait to dive into life and ministry - i am so pumped! here’s to new beginnings and the continued journey…