Loud & Clear

auditorium upgrades- step by step

So we talked about it for a few weeks leading up to this past weekend- new auditorium upgrades.

Now, here’s the magic. Our center screen is made from styrofoam. Oh, you heard me right. Instead of a $3800 screen, we build this baby for $500. And that’s just the cost of the custom cut foam. A volunteer donated all the framing material from his business.  The projector ceiling mount would have cost us $600, but another volunteer custom designed and build a ceiling mount for us for free. And let me tell you, Panasonic should call him up for his design. It’s beautiful! Those hazer’s we’re using?  That’s right- donated by a volunteer!

I love our people. It made me think of Solomon’s temple with each person bringing his gift of expertise to add to the beauty of God’s temple.

So here’s the run down of the install last week.

First we made the frame. You can see the stack of styrofoam behind it.

Next, we glued the foam to the frame. We tried really hard to match seems so you wouldn’t see the lines. It’s not perfect, but came out great.

After we let it set overnight, we put the screen on a stage and mounted the border to the frame. That’s Jeff in the background putting in the final touches.

Hanging the screen was a challenge. At 12′x21′ it’s no small thing and while mostly foam and aluminum studs, it still weighs a bit. Was glad when it was done!

Next, we hung the projector. As you can see 30 ft. is a long way down in a tiny man lift!

The finished product is amazing. I’ll try to get a pic up from this weekend with the series logo on the screen. It’s awesome.

Special props and thanks to Jeff and Lance, Richard and Bobby for all their help and expertise. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Weight Loss Challenge: week 3

Today’s official weigh in:  221
Last Weeks official weigh in: 220
Official start weight:  225.5

Well, I’m up a pound this week. Which is actualy a nice surprise. You see, my struggle with eating is that I use it as a reward. Work really hard, have a big bowl of sugary cereal or ice cream. Yesterday, it was tollhouse cookie/brownies.  I think I ate four or five. They were REALLY good, especially right out of the oven.

So, I know, I know, I need to find some non-food rewards. I’m working on it.

For now, the center screen and hazers worked and looked beautiful this past weekend (post soon to follow on that process). And I’m back on schedule to be down some pounds next week.

Man Day- Success!

What an awesome weekend Man Day was!  I wish I had more pictures. I was running around too much to grab many.

Clovis Hills members, and World Champion lifters Nick and Raul were beasts benching over 400 lbs. They ripped phone books and broke apples in half with their bare hands. Very cool to watch. And both these guys are the nicest guys you’ll meet. Strength + meekness = very cool.

Steve and Dave Mac spent weeks in the gym training to show off their muscles.  Or at least weeks waiting for the muscle suits to arrive in the mail.

Dave Mac proved his Iron Man prowess and broke two bricks with those manly muscles before Nick showed him up by breaking six. (it’s not your eyesight, it’s a pic of the tv screen in the green room taken with my phone)

Paul Haugen tore it up with some big feature music including featuring ZZ Top, Queen, Thin Lizzy and the “Bad Boys” song from Cops.  “I Wanna Talk About Me” by Toby Keith rocked with some seriously smoking video by Kevin.

Outside, families had a great time in our Sports Center, K2 Challenge, 2 Man Freethrow Challenge and Putting Green.

A couple long days, but another can’t miss Clovis Hills weekend in the record books.

Weight Loss Challenge: week 2

Today’s official weigh in:  221
Last Weeks official weigh in: 222.5
Official start weight:  225.5

Well, only down a pound and a half this week.  Really, I’m pretty happy about it. I didn’t eat well last week. Eating has always been a stress reliever and a reward for hard work. With Man Day and the auditorium upgrades and being on my 8th of 12 days of work in a row (not all that impressive compared to others in the office at the moment, but still a nice stretch), I’ve been rewarding myself too much.

Of course, as I write this right now I’m sitting in Cinnamonster eating a roll with an Earl Grey chaser. My assistant was nice enough to give me a gift card to help me get through. I’m practically obliged to eat one. I guess we’ll see at next weeks weigh in.

designing the service

Paul Haugen and I were talking about producing weekend services today. Specifically, we were talking about doing the service “out of order” and why we never really do it. There’s several reasons I won’t go into at the moment (if you want to know them, leave a comment and the discussion will be on!), however the reality is people had a hard time when we’ve done this in the past.

This thought was echoed today when I read this blog post by Stephen Denny. He says in his post:

“We have a deep psychological need to be consistent with previously taken positions, even when those positions no longer hold any relevance.”

We all simply have a hard time with change, with going outside of our preconceptions and giving other’s perceptions a chance. Mostly, if worship isn’t up front, the people who know they can come late and still hear the message miss part of the message.

I’ve had some great discussion with others on this topic before, but I wanted to distill what I want out of a church service; and what I love programing into them. Here it is:

A church service should draw seekers while exciting believers by delivering what people need and expect in completely unexpected ways.

The deal is if you’re going to do unexpected things, you have to do it consistently. People have to know we always are changing things up. Random change causes trauma. But if you expect change and experience it consistently, you know to expect something unexpected. That’s exciting!

AND if you are excited and moved in unexpected ways through those changes consistently, you’ve created a culture that is more flexible to fliers and risks and more forgiving of flops. The danger is that we all have an inner compulsion to settle in. When we give in to that pull, than we become a consumer instead of a participant. The focus shifts to having my expectations met instead of coming ready for a fresh experience. And, in my opinion, that’s when the church can begin to loose touch with the culture. You’re busy meeting expectations, not creating fresh experiences.

Let me clarify: I’m not saying Clovis Hills is not creating fresh experience simply because we don’t switch the service order. I think we do a lot of things right in that regard. I’m just using this one example to illustrate how I connected to Stephen Denny’s post and my discussion with Paul.

For me it’s all about reaching seekers, thrilling believers, getting what you expect in unexpected ways.  This is the core of my passion in designing a church service.

Where do you fall on the spectrum?  And how do you think Clovis Hills doing in creating fresh experiences?

Weight Loss Challenge: accepted

Well, Paul issued a challenge and I accepted. It’s only taken me a week to post on it. So, here it is for the world to see- I’m a bit pudgy. An fairly in shape pudgy thanks to karate, but yet I’m still well prepared for the next famine.

That said, I’m setting my goal to loose fourty pounds.  Weigh-ins are on Wednesday mornings. 185 is the goal.  My official weigh in last week was 225.5 lbs.

This morning’s weigh in - 222.5 lbs.  Down three pounds.  Not a bad start. Faithful weekly blog updates on progress to follow. Promise.

the black plague

In days gone by, I lived in Sacramento where a few of my best friends and I would gather on Friday nights for games of strategy and brilliance.  Penny ante poker was the subject of many an evening. The other evenings were dedicated to a game called Risk.

Risk is a turn based strategy game where you try to take over the world. Each player’s armies have a color and you gain additional armies based on the size of the countries you controlled. I was always black.

What made this game so fun, was the strategies we would employ to prevent certain players from growing too strong and wiping out the others. Then it was all about negotiations. If you could convince the others you meant them no harm, you could gain a precious foothold toward global domination.

Of course, my friends always called me the black plague. My negotiation skills were supreme, and despite the warnings of others, I often lured my prey into a false sense of confidence.  This comic brought back all the warm memories of those Friday nights. Just substitute “black” for “blue” and it was like it was written from our living room over a decade ago.

Ah, good times.

If the above is too small to read, check out the original page here.

most awesome series promo ever

I can’t be redundant with the title. This is the most awesome series promo ever. Shall I say it again? When Kevin and I brainstorm for series promo’s these kinds of ideas pop out, but as we could never pull them off, we sigh and get back to reality.

That said, check out this series promo for lifechurch.tv’s new summer series.

life, uncensored

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine a couple weeks ago. He’s somewhere in the seeker/early believer stage. One of the things he’s struggling with is the lack of transparency in church people, staff folks in particular.

I understand where he’s coming from. A lot is riding on what we do - people’s eternity. The Bible gives us clear instruction (Paul in particular) to live spotless lives, to make sure that how we live causes no one to stumble in their faith journey. When you take that with how judgmental folks are of Christians, leadership, celebrity, etc., it’s easy to get drawn above the water line and live on the surface, hiding all the dark secrets of your sin and struggle. It’s not just the world either. Church people can be the worst offenders of the bunch.

Our culture demands us to be real, true authenticity and transparency. (Jesus too, by the way) On the other hand, it crucifies anyone who makes a mistake. An odd mix.

But I understand. Let me confess: I’m no different than our culture. I totally believe in transparency. Ask my friends, I’m always the guy that says “more than he should” when it comes to self disclosure. I just am who I am. I crave that in my relationships. But there’s always that line of how much can you share and still remain safe. I don’t always know. But I’d rather opt for transparency. My only other option is to begin to live only for other’s perceptions. And that’s a dark and lonely road.

So I’m here to confess: I feel tired, insecure, and stressed out. For reason of brevity, I won’t go into all why my week was junk. I tried and this post got way too long. Here’s the sum up. My son’s really sick, I’m suffering for lack of sleep, my wife’s out of town, work is crazy with innovation and obstacles and I feel like crap.

Not that I feel like you’re only being real when you share your junk. It just tends to be what we hide the most.

How’s it going in your world? Really?

understanding the source

Great devotional post today from our Exec. Pastor, Greg Warmerdam.  It really reminded me to evaluate my motives, keep my focus pure, and understand the source of every good thing. Many of Greg’s devotionals focus on having confidence in our faith. I think that’s awesome.

Check out today’s post here.