I got to lead worship all Summer and it was awesome.  Every week I knew I would be up there singing and playing with the band and getting to do what I love most, which is leading our church in worship.  My boss Kimberly was preaching all Summer which meant I got to lead every week and now that she’s not teaching for a couple of months and since she hasn’t led, she needs to be up there.

This has given me the opportunity to do other things (more producing, learning more of the technical aspect of our worship services) and it’s been really good except for one thing; I don’t get to lead worship.

This Tuesday, though I got to lead with the band in Celebrate Recovery and it was awesome!  The band ripped, as usual, and the crowd seemed to be totally in to it.  I have to admit I was getting a little stir crazy.  It’s hard not getting to do what you love, and while the new stuff I’m getting to do is fun and challenging, it’s a different feeling than stepping away from the microphone and hearing the church sing praises to God; there’s nothing like it.

So I still have a few more weeks on the bench as it were, and that’s okay, because Kimberly is pretty fantastic at what she does.  It was just really nice to get to lead on Tuesday and it will go a long way toward me making it through the next couple of weeks.  Thanks to the Celebrate Recovery peeps for inviting us to come and for that crowd for serving up some great food and a great time of worship!

Each month or so I put together the new schedule for our musicians and singers.  I find out people’s availability, pick the worship sets and feature music and then send it out for everyone so that they know when they’re playing.

I like keeping groups of musicians together in specific bands to create continuity (for a season) and, because all of our musicians are incredibly talented I want to avoid calling these bands, “Band 1, 2 or 3″ or “Band A, B or C.”  There’s no JV here, we’ve got a lot of great players and I don’t want there to be a spirit of competitiveness in our group.

So as a substitute for the generic numbers or letters, I like to give the bands names.  Last time around I named them after Lucky Charms Marshmallows and now I’m looking for new names.  No one really knows the names of the individual bands and most people would just say the Clovis Hills Band and that’s totally fine; this is pretty much for my amussment and for the amussment of the band members.

To help me, I googled “Band Names” and found this site: http://www.bandnamemaker.com/

It’s great!  You can put in your own key words and it will generate something using those or just let it go randomly and be amazed.  So far, I’m narrowing it down between “Noise Spine,” “Refried Disco,” “Flushed of the Lumpy,” and “Flabby Mystery and the Loving Worship.” 

Oh the internet!  I tell you, if this world wide web thing catches on, it’s gonna be huge!

This weekend, our church was, well, the church.  We’re in the middle of our series called, “Redeeming Grace,” and it has been amazing.  Two weeks ago, Steve, our lead pastor ready the diary of a young girl who died shortly after receiving Christ.  She chronicled her faith journey and then we gave people a chance to respond, in prayer and worship, to what God had done in her life and what He was doing in their own.

This past weekend we had a guest, Scott Gossenberger, who was a pastor at another church here in town until he resigned because of an innapropriate relationship with a woman who was not his wife.  Scott has been coming to Clovis Hills for the last few years now and it was so amazing to hear his story and see his brokenness at the damage he caused as well as the loss of his dream for ministry and his marriage.

As we worshipped afterwards, a member of our church approached Pastor Steve and said, “I think we should pray for Scott.”  So we ended the song and Kimberly invited people down front to pray as she lead us.  It was spontaneous, unplanned and amazing.  In the next two services, we told the story and invited people to come.  What amazed me was that nearly half of the people in each service came and prayed.  This picture is from our Saturday night service and is a glimpse of what grace looks like.  I am so proud to be a part of this church and to be in a place where lives are changed! 

This weekend is going to be an interesting one to say the least.  I’ll be producing the weekend services, leading the band and playing the role of technical director, while our production manager, Jen Strong is on vacation.

I’ve gotta say, I’m a little nervous about this.  I’m responsible for every element of the service!  Let’s just hope that nothing happens to Pastor Steve or I may have to preach!

Needless to say, I’m a little stressed about the whole thing, but luckily for me, Jen got everything organized and gave me some extensive training on how to work all the moving parts of our service.  Man I wish I was paying attention.  Just kidding.

 So, if you’re at Clovis Hills this weekend and the building catches on fire or the service is cut short due to massive technical difficulties, you know who to blame.  If it’s seemless, we’ll just assume Jen cam back from her vacation early.

Over the last several months, I have become enthralled with all things Chuck Norris, and judging from this email I got from one of the guys in the band, it might have caught on.

The Chuck Norris “facts” are nothing new, they’ve been going around the internet for a long time.  Sayings like, “There’s no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard, only another fist!” and “Chuck Norris’ tears can cure cancer, which is too bad, because Chuck Norris has never cried…ever!” are good for a laugh, but now it’s getting serious.

This is what Dave wrote to me:

“PS – I don’t mean to alarm you but I read this article the other day about Chuck Norris and how he was vacationing in Montana back in August and well, you know what happened when he vacationed in The Virgin Islands, or as they’re now called, “The Islands.”  So if that baby your wife is carrying kicks their way out of the womb you will know what happened.” 

Could it be?  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.  Do you think a sonogram will show a red beard?

In October we’ll launch our series called, “Ask Anything,” where we’re asking Clovis Hillians (just made that up) to bring their friends to church, but also to do a bit more.

We’re handing out thousands of business cards that direct people to a website, askanything.clovishills.com, and an email address, askanything@clovishills.com. 

We’re hoping to hear from unchurch people in our community and find out what questions they have about Christianity, the church, and really, anything else on their mind.  Over the next month we’ll be categorizing these questions and each week we’ll answer the most asked about category as well as providing a live Q&A for follow up.

There have been a few churches across the country that have done this and we’re excited to bring it here! 

So go check it out and be one of the first to Ask Anything!