Loud & Clear

ask anything

I’m super stoked about this.

The church at large has a bad reputation and history of being a place where you shouldn’t ask questions. Not Clovis Hills.

We’ve done services like this throughout our history, where people could ask questions during the message and we’d answer them live at the end. No prep time, just Pastor Steve on the spot.

Well, inspired by what some other churches have done, we’re taking that to the next level. We’re going to do an entire series entirely based on the questions people want to ask the church.

So here’s the deal. If you don’t go to church, have a bone to pick with the church or God, or feel the church has let you down, go to askanything.clovishills.com and ask your question.

It’s completely anonymous. We’re going to spend the month of October answering the questions you ask. THEN, we’re going to take more questions during the service and answer them live at the end.

So go ahead. What do you want to ask? askanything.clovishills.com

Amazing Grace

I just walked into the green room from the auditorium where I got the rare opportunity to just be a volunteer during the Lord’s Supper. We’ve done this many different ways. Today, we had people come in rows forward to receive the elements. As each person pick up the cup, a volunteer  spoke a blessing about Christ’s sacrifice for us and how he has forgiven our sins.

I watched row after row of our people come forward. And I was wrecked. God completely overwhelmed me with how much he loved each person individually. And each person, through this act, was signifying their surrender to God, recognizing and accepting his gift of forgiveness. I watched families come through, generations of a legacy of following Christ. Fathers leading sons, mother’s their daughters.

What an amazing God we have. What an amazing church who loves him. What an honor I get to be a part of a place where God changes lives.

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.

pre-service run through

Here’s Paul and the gang getting ready for tonights service. Taken and posted from my phone (not an iPhone).

Man Day is coming…

To get you prepared for the insane amount of fun we’re going to have on Father’s Day this year, I present to you this video on how to tell how old your dad is from our friend Kenn Kington.

Mother’s Day recap

Well, it was another Clovis Hills slam dunk. Another can’t miss weekend.

The music smoked: Paul was awesome doing Mr. Mom, complete with a southern twang that just a little seemed “too natural” if you know what I mean.

It sounded like we had Point of Grace in the house with the message capper.
And I was told my rendition of Phil Vassar wasn’t too shabby. The band sounded great the whole weekend.

Steve and Kimberly co-taught a fantastic message about women of influence. This is one of my favorite parts of Mother’s Day. I still remember when Jen and I were struggling through the emotions of our inability to have a child of our own. Mother’s Day was such a hard day back then. A day celebrating what those we were incapable of becoming. We heard the stories of others like us. Or of those who had lost their children.

I’m proud of the fact that Clovis Hills takes the courage to expand this day to show how God has called women (and men, but that’s a different holiday) to take charge of the influence they have in the lives of others. To cherish them for the way they were created. And give them tools to continue to grow in the work of changing lives.

Mother’s Day photo’s were a big hit. A huge thanks to our photographers: Alicia Alejo, Michelle Koch, Becky Crecelius and Katrina Rocha for serving on what was technically their holiday so everyone else could get great family pics. Also, thanks to Amy Glines for working behind the scenes and making sure everything ran smoothly. There were many other volunteers who helped as assistants, with set up and take down and a dozen other things. If it wasn’t for these folks doing what they do, things like this could never happen. Way to go church.

If you didn’t make it, you can check out the pics at clovishills.smugmug.com/mothersday2008

What was your favorite part of the weekend?

Photographer needed

I’m closing in on having Free Mother’s Day photos all wrapped up. I have three scenes with all the materials. I just need one more photographer. I have two confirmed, but we learned last year that two just isn’t enough. I want to keep those lines down and let people have a great experience without having to stand in the sun too long.

So, if you’ve talent with a lens, or if you know someone with a knack for taking great photos, ask them to Serve at Clovis Hills on Mother’s Day weekend and give a huge gift to moms and their families this year. Or let me know who they are and I’ll throw out an invite. It’s going to be another great day at Clovis Hills. Let’s make this happen together!

***EDIT***

Wow, just hours after posting this a volunteer called me and agreed to be our third photographer. I’m always blown away at the amount of talent hidden inside Clovis Hills. And I love it when people use their gifts for God and his church.

picture by lucie the beat

my week in 4 letters

Sick.

And I don’t mean that like, “Dude, that movie was sick!” or “That car was so pimped out it was sick!”  Really, just plain sick.  Not just me either. The whole family. Which in some way I should be grateful we didn’t trade it around over the next three or more weeks.  But still… ick.

With that, nothing really interesting to write about this week. If you missed last Sunday, you missed an awesome team teach with Steve and Kimberly.  I still hear people talking about how “this is only a snapshot, not the whole movie” as encouragement to each other. If you missed the message last Sunday, you can catch it here.

In good news, I think we’ll be able to bring back Free Mother’s Day Photo’s. I have two photog’s confirmed though I’m still looking to secure a third. I love doing this. I dig not only seeing my family (especially now that we have a boy), but also dig seeing all the other family’s that go to Clovis Hills.

I’m working in the tech booth this Sunday as the technical director. Never done it before, so if you’re in services this weekend and something goes wrong, it’s probably going to be my fault. Just fair warning.

*EDIT* Disaster has been avoided. It turns out I’ll just be observing this weekend instead of technical directing. Probably not a bad idea over all, and really, a service upgrade for you guys.

mother’s day dilemma

So I’m trying to brainstorm what we could do for Mother’s Day this year to draw in the community. In the past we’ve done Free Mother’s Day Photo’s, which I think has turned out great. However, because of our budget cutbacks this year, my department can’t afford to go with paid professionals like we did last year. I have some feelers out to see if we could pull it off with some volunteers but is there something else we could do?

I need some ideas. What could we do that would be a draw to the mom’s in our community to bring their families on Mother’s Day? Have any creative ideas on how to let them know about it? Chime in and help shape one of our big days of the year.

Easter video

Paul worked up a pretty cool video giving a couple shots of the Good Friday service with some behind the scenes and actual footage of our Easter Services. I love the shots of people going forward. Check it here out on Paul’s Blog.