4 Spiritual Truths

One of the blogs I read is Perry Noble and he has a funny post today that I thought I would share with you.

In the serious times we live in, it is important for all  of us of all
faiths to recognize these Four Deep Religious Truths:

1.  Muslims do not recognize Jews as God’s chosen people.
2. Jews do not  recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
3. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as  the leader of the
Christian World.
4. Baptists do not recognize each other  at Hooters.

There is something about southerners and hooters that I don’t understand but they do make fun of it alot.

Can You Feel It?

Something in me is starting to change. I can sense the changing of seasons. Days are getting shorter. School is back is session. That means only one thing!!!! College Football is here! Oh yeah baby. Saturday afternoons watching my beloved Bruins playing football. The season starts this Saturday with a game against Utah. I was given a bottle opener that plays the UCLA fight song by my Gator friends as a gesture of peace over the trash talking they subjected me to after the championship basketball game. So I plan to play it everytime my Bruins score. I think I’ve conditioned my kids to it because they go crazy everytime I play it.

Each season brings angst for Bruin fans becasue we don’t know how it is going to play out. It’s kinds like being a Cubs fan. So I make no predictions except to say that I will be following every move they make and if God shines His love upon me they will beat SC in December!

Calvary Chapel Vandenberg Update

Many of you have been asking me what has been going on with the church plant in Vandenberg Village. Youve also asked how it will all work out and when am I going to finally leave (you say it nicely by asking when am I going). I will try use this avenue to best communicate what God is doing. We are very excited what God has done so far and will post things for you to partner with us in prayer about.

Step One: Start a Bible Study in Vandenberg Village. We are looking for a house to host the study as we write this. There are a few prospects that will pan out in the coming weeks. Our desire is to move up to the village (sounds so cool) and rent our house out down here (if you know any takers shoot me an email).

Step Two: Build a leadership team. We are in the process of meeting with people who live in the area and have a desire to be a part of the new church. Many people have expressed an interest and several have jumped on board. The is very encouraging.

Step Three: Once the study gets to 25 people we will begin the process to start Sunday services. This means we need a place to meet. Yesterday Jen and I drove through the village and found one very promising spot and another potential. Pray that God will open the right facility at the right time for the right price.

Step Four: I will leave CCSM and become the pastor of CC Vandenberg. This means that I will probably find another job to feed the family and become what they call a bi-vocational pastor. This is scary but exciting and we are looking forward to it.

Okay Who is #14?

For quite some time I have had a faithful following of thirteen people who have visited my blog. Lately there has been a fourteenth person come on the scene and they need to make themselves known. Speak up! Let us know who you are. Since all of you are so quick to comment on my witty remarks I don’t expect anything anytime soon but I do want you to know that you are welcome. Feel free to join in and read the thoughts of a hyperactive mind.

I Am Fired Up!

As I mentioned in my last post I was going to post about a situation that happened in the game last night. To refresh we pulled off a double play on a guy who got a little too cocky and was picked off of first base. When it happened something exploded inside of me and all I could do was yell and spike the softball down. I was pumped we pulled it off but also fired up about the game. We were going to win this thing!

God also showed me something through this event. When a leader gets fired up people follow. Now I am not the leader of the team but I am a pastor of the church that sponsored the team and they look at me as a pastor. When I got fired up the rest of the team got fired up which in turn fired up the crowd. God showed me that I am a passionate person and the whole proper pastor thing doesn’t really fit me. I had been trying so hard to be the perfect picture of the pastor that I forsook what makes me tick.

If I am going to be the pastor of Calvary Chapel Vendenberg then I have to be the person I am created to be and I need to be the fired up leader God has called me to be. People are desperate to follow someone who is passionate and fired up about what they are doing. After I ran off the field and was sitting in the dugout I noticed how charged the team got from the play and my reaction. God spoke so loudly to me in that moment that the fire and passion that I was showing at the moment was how he wanted me to pastor His new work.

There are always challenges to being fired up. First is that people on your side will misinterpret your enthusiasim. They will think you are being a show off or taunting the opponent and the enemy will get fired up also. It is important to believe in what you believe and not falter.

I am fired up about what God is doing in Vandenberg! He is bringing together a team of people who are more excited than I am. Everything is falling into place. We are ready to reach Vandenberg with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We are the Champions!

We Did It!!! Last night our church softball team played in the championship game and we won. We played one of our best games against the four time defending champions and we best them 12-10. Who would’ve thought a team put together in forty eight hours would go on to win the championship. We went out this season as a group of mainly young marrieds just looking to have fun and we ended up beating a lot of established hard core softball teams.

Last night was a good night. Everyone hit. We played good defense and our team got fired up. We gave up three runs in the top of the first inning and with they way we had been hitting we were all a little nervous but we came back and tied it up in the bottom of the first. From then on we  were always ahead or tied. We broke it open in the bottom of the fourth inning by scoring six runs to go ahead 10-4. From there we never looked back.

We had two excellent defensive plays that stopped them cold in the late innings. The first was a infield pop up and runner picked off at first. Aaron caught the ball at short and threw out a runner who got too far off the bag. This really fired us up, especially me (more on that in another post). Things started getting heated between the two teams and culminated when Aaron ran into the pitcher covering home. Things did cool down. In the next ining there was a girl on first and a left handed batter up to hit. She hit a grounder to me at first and I tagged the bag and then threw to second for the tag out.

Everyone played so well. I was very happy with how I hit. There were always runners on base when I came up so I was able to get some RBI’s. It was such a fun season and a great team.

A Day at the Fair

In my previous post about going home I talked about going to the fair I grew up at. We took the family along with my Dad and had a blast. To my Dad the fair is all about eating. He had to get a corn dog, pretzel, corn on the cob, and lemonade. These are a traditon to him. For me I always liked the fried burritos. So we walked around eating at looking at the exhibits. Saw some family members I hadn’t seen since my mom’s funeral.

Then we took the kids to the carnival rides. First off the tickets cost $1 each and each ride was three tickets. I don’t see how these rides are worth $3 each but then when we had to drag Caleb off of each ride it was okay. He had so much fun. He rode the jeeps, motorcylces, the train with Daddy, the Slide with Mommy, and the caterpillars with Allie. He was very bummed when we had to go home. Allie on the other hand could wait a couple more years. Below are a few pictures and the rest are in the photo album on the right.

Church Visit: Christian Life Assembly of God

On Sunday we went to my old church Christian Life Assembly in Lancaster, Ca. It had been a long time since I had been there but it is still the friendly church that I left. I was part of the first service there over twenty years ago. Back then they met at the fair grounds and today they meet in their own building on the eastside of town. The pastor is new also. Pastor Miles is a retired Navy Chaplian. My Unlce Jerry was the founding pastor.

We really enjoyed the visit. It is good to go and sit in other churches from time to time to give you a new perspective. The facility is nice and you have a great view of the stage no matter where you sit. The worship team was good and sang with all of their hearts. It had been awhile since I have been in a church other than Calvary so when it came time to take the offering and the pastor gave an exhortation on giving it kind of took me back. The announcements took fifteen minutes which made me very glad we don’t do them anymore.

Probably the part that got me the most was that there was a guest speaker who was so theologically off. Normally the Pastor teaches verse by verse and we were bummed we didn’t get to hear him. The title of the message was "God is not enough." Jen and I just looked at each of in disbelief. The church is doing a series on community and the speaker was trying to show the church the importance of it but he went about backwards. It was so bad that you kept listening just to see where this guy was going to go. I don’t mean to sound mean but it was bad and I am sounding as nice as possible. The sad thing was that this guy was a good speaker and if someone who didn’t have a good knowledge of the Bible heard him they would accepted it hook, line, and sinker.

I am so thankful for our church, it’s teaching, and it’s beliefs.

You Can Go Home Again

I took the family back to my childhood home this weekend. Lancaster, California is the place where I lived from age two till twenty-two. There are so many memories there that they get lost and forgotten. We stayed at my dads place which was a lot of fun til we tried to cram the four of us into a 9×9 room. Needless to say there wasn’t much sleep happening and my children like to sleep with their feet in my face. Dad bought Caleb his first real set of golf clubs for his birthday. It came with a professional bag and everything. You have to chase the ball a lot furhter with real clubs.

We went to the Antelope Valley Fair which is a huge thing in town. If you can imagine the Santa Maria Fair combined with the Mid State Fair then double the people you have the fair that I went to as a child. I was a little sentimental because they had moved the location to a much larger facility and a lot of the charm was gone. I was kinda bummed we didn’t stay to watch Ashlee Simpson, but maybe next time.

The kids got to meet their 86 year old Great Grandmother for the first time. This woman is a mighty woman of God and a pillar in her church. She gave me much desevered grief for not seeing her but then let up and we had a wonderful time together. She is so proud that I am a pastor which explains why she went so easy of the grief. She taught me my love for the Dodgers. Allie just charmed the socks of her and my Aunt Fran.

We visited my home church (I will do a seperate post about that next) and got to see a bunch of old friends. My youth pastor goes to church there. He works at the Dream Center in downtown LA. I also saw my friend Mike who was a guy I looked up to growing up. He took me under his wing when I was younger and mentored me (before it was called mentoring it was called "hanging out"). Then I saw my buddy Brian who I went to school and youth group with. That was cool. I was blessed with so many wonderful people growing up.

This was by far the best trip home in awhile. I was so relaxed and comfortable.

Beach Party

We decided to celebrate Caleb’s 3rd birthday at the beach. Jen’s grandparents were already camping there so we transformed their site into a party zone. Caleb had so much fun. He was into every moment of the party and this was the first time he got the whole opening present thing. We had a lot of fun witht the family. Below are some more pictures.