December 2007

“o worship the king” chris tomlin arr. (cd “passion: hymns ancient and modern”)
“here is our king” by david crowder band (cd “a collision”)
“everlasting god” by chris tomlin (cd “see the morning”)
“all because of jesus” by steve fee (cd “burn for you”)
connect
message - steve d.
reflection
“everything” by tim hughes (cd “holding nothing back”)

special thanks to my friend david dollar for sitting in on guitar. david is a member and regular guitar player for grace church in chapel hill, where our mutual friend nathan is worship leader. nathan just got married on saturday. congrats!

after the craziness of the christmas eve services and a nice break with my family, it was nice to get back to a “normal” crosspointe sunday.

farewell 2007.

bring on 2008!

i’m a blessed man!

c.c. and i went on an honest-to-goodness date this past saturday night - dinner AND a movie. woo hoo! this doesn’t happen quite as often now that we’ve entered parenthood.

as we were sitting waiting for the previews to start, we ran through our favorite movies that we’ve seen at the theater in 2007.

here’s our list:

1. August Rush
2. wait….that’s the only one we saw this year…

anyway, “august rush” was a well made movie. the story was told in a very compelling way. the main characters developed well. they did a good job incorporating music into the story. and they also avoided a personal pet peeve of mine. they taught the actors how to fake it convincingly on their musical instruments - close enough that it wasn’t distracting.

c.c. and i both had a pretty emotional reaction to the film. it hit close to home with our daughter having been an abandoned child.

on one hand, it was a nice diamond in the rough story…the kid who beat all the odds. sadly, the reason that it’s such a fantastic story is that it’s so fantastic. it just doesn’t happen that way in the real world, and there are roughly 143 million kids in the world that can attest to that.

there was one line in particular in the film that still has me thinking….

august (the orphaned boy) finds his way to a catholic church where he spends some time at the shelter there and strikes up friendships with a young girl named hope and the reverend jay. when he goes missing again, hope is expressing her worry about august to reverend jay, who says to hope, “i prayed for him. did you?” she says that yes, she did pray.

then reverend jay says something to the effect of, “don’t you think that his Father (looking up) will do what’s best for him?”

wow. a double edged sword.

if yes, then what about all the other kids who don’t stumble upon an extraordinary musical gift that they can use to be reunited with their birthparents? seriously, throughout the entire movie i could not stop thinking about all the kids in the world that don’t have homes. everything went through that filter.

more personally….i believe that God planned for darby to be our daughter. we stumbled almost blindly into this plan. there’s no way we could ever take credit for it. but at the same time, it presents a problem for me. what about all the other kids that are not adopted? surely their Father will do what’s best for them as well.

it really boils down to the age-old question - if God is so good, then why all the evil in the world?

i don’t have rock solid, completely satisfactory answers, but i guess that’s what faith is all about. i do believe that God is working a plan of redemption in the world, but that it’s an ongoing project with gains and losses along the way. his project depends on people. we are waking up to this, but we’ve got a long way to go.

it pains me to know that there are kids who grow into adulthood without knowing what a family’s love is all about. i HAVE to believe that this not only is not part of God’s plan, but that it breaks his heart too.

raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of Lianjiang City, China.

didn’t think so.

this is the hometown of our daughter, darby. Lianjiang is in the southern Guangdong province of China. other than darby’s 9 “sisters” that were all adopted together this past february, we have never met anyone else from Lianjiang city. in fact, i can’t remember a single person who has recognized the city since we returned from china, including a handful of chinese people who’ve asked about where darby is from.

until Christmas Eve….

on our way home from the last christmas eve service at our church, we stopped at a chinese take out restaurant close to our house. it turns out that the guy who waited on us is from Lianjiang City!! his name is Lin.

we asked him a few questions, but for fear of coming on too strong and ending up with a restraining order, we decided against inviting him over to our house on the spot. truthfully, we’d love nothing more than to strike up a friendship and learn more about darby’s hometown. i am so curious about what life is like in Lianjiang.

we hope to visit one day. pay a visit to the spot where darby was found and to the orphanage where she spent her first 13 months. say “xie xie” (thank you) to the nannies that took such good care of her.

needless to say, we’ve found our new chinese restaurant of choice.

so……how many orders of kung pao chicken before we try to “next level” it with Lin?

“here’s how you hold it.”

“is this right?”

“hold on, i need to adjust the action.”

“that B string just won’t stay in tune!”

“baby, we have to work on your rock face.”

christmas eve services

“the bucket thing” - thanks to kyle dillard, john hogan, and others….
“little drummer boy” by jars of clay (cd “drummer boy e.p.”)
“hark the herald angels sing” homegrown arrangement
“angels we have heard on high” arr. borrowed from “gloria” by mercy me (cd “the christmas sessions”)
connect
drama - mission nearly impossible - nick and gwenn mangine
video: interview with kids (”what do you want for christmas?”)
message - jBow
“the miracle of christmas” by steven curtis chapman (cd “all i want for christmas”)
carols and candles:
“the first noel”
“silent night”

christmas services were a lot of fun.

started extremely high energy with the bucket thing - a “stomp” inspired extravaganza. 10 guys banging on 5 gallon buckets, water bottles, and a trash can. this was originally performed at willow creek community church in chicago for their 25th anniversary celebration. written by my friend kyle dillard and others. we added a few elements to kick it up a notch.

another highlight was nick and gwenn’s “kid’s story”, which started with nick repelling down from the rafters above the stage, a la tom cruise in mission impossible.

over 2,000 people attended across the 4 services. this is crosspointe’s highest attended weekend ever!

selfishly, my highlight was seeing my wife and daughter dancing and singing along on the front row at the 7:00pm service tonight. this is darby’s first christmas with us. really her first christmas ever, since i doubt they celebrated christmas at her orphanage in china.

THEN, we had an amazing “small world” moment on the way home tonight. i’ll save that for another post later this week…

merry christmas.

my wife, c.c., rocks!

she is full-time mom, part-time tupperware salesperson, and part-time seminary student.

c.c. just finished her first class, intro to counseling. aced it! A.

by the way, as far as i’m concerned she gets “A” for wife, “A” for mom, and “A” for tupperware sales as well..

cuddled with darby
made waffles for c.c. and darby
played “play kitchen” with darby
helped c.c. with christmas cookie baking
watched john mayer and wilco on austin city limits
leftover ham and homemade mac & cheese for lunch
put darby down for nap
(thinking about a nap myself)

all in all, this is shaping up to be one of my favorite sundays in awhile!

3 more christmas eve services tomorrow.

we had our first of four christmas eve services tonight. it was bucketfuls of fun! it was a party from the floor to the rafters, or vice-versa.

i don’t want to spoil the surprises for those who are coming on monday. just get there a few minutes early. you don’t want to miss the beginning. or the middle, or the end, for that matter.

i’ll post the music playlist and service order on monday night…..

monday’s services are at 3:00, 5:00 and 7:00pm.

thanks to all who are involved in pulling these services off. i’m extremely grateful.

i think pretty much every church deals with this issue….

two sunday’s ago we went for something different and opened up the service with a solo voice, a capella rendition of “o come emmanuel” followed by a scripture reading and a stripped down acoustic worship set.

the problem that we knew we had to account for in our programming is that typically there are still people coming in at 10 or 15 minutes into the service. and not just a few. lots. (actually, we ended up adding a 2.5 min video to the beginning just to pad it a little…)

in one sense, it’s a good thing. there’s always a good amount of community happening in the lobby and cafe area. i think people tend to wait until they hear the music start up before they wrap up their conversation and head inside the auditorium. this generally isn’t AS noticeable because we typically start with one or two upbeat songs - it’s easy to slip in without feeling like you’re going to disrupt anything.

but, more than a few times, we as a programming team have felt as though we’ve settled for less than our ideal service order because of this issue. there are weeks that we start the service with less than 50% of people in the room. how can we start into thematic content that half the people won’t get?

so….

do we just accept this as a reality and continue to program around it, making sure that we don’t “waste” the good stuff by putting it in the first 10 minutes?

or do we do the opposite - is it possible to train our crowd to get there on time by occasionally front-loading the service with thematic content?

i’m really open to thoughts from anyone on this….

fellow worship pastors and programming directors?
crosspointe “late comers”? *smile*
crosspointe “on-timers”? *thumbs up*

1. “o come all ye faithful” - homespun arrangement
2. “sing to the king” by billy foote (arrangement ripped off from 722)
–connect–
3. “here is our king” by david crowder band (cd “passion 05: how great is our god”)
message - doc (daugh?)
4. feature song w/communion - “come and worship” by bebo norman (cd “christmas…from the realms of glory”)
5. “here is our king”

steve did a great job bringing the two-punch to jBow’s talk last sunday. more historical context - this time focusing on caesar augustus, who was known in the roman world as “savior of the world”.

for those readers who are familiar with modern worship music, it might be surprising, but we introduced david crowder’s “here is our king” for the first time ever at crosspointe. to borrow from an old nbc slogan - if you haven’t sung it, it’s new to you.

our pastor of communications, don smith, made his solo vocal debut today singing “come and worship” by bebo norman. he was really nervous, having not sung a solo in over 10 years. but he rocked it. i was proud of my bald friend.

i pretty much have no voice left after today. not sure what is the issue, but i’m hoping it’s worked out by thursday night for the first of our 4 christmas eve services. no big deal…except it makes it really hard to yell at my wife and daughter.

here’s a video…

here’s the website…

a lot of the thoughts at this site have inspired our recent “the approach” and our “a different way in a manger” christmas series.

what do you know? traveling with a small toddler and a large dog in a mid-size sedan is difficult!

*update*

we survived. here’s are a couple shots from the return trip…

series: a different way in a manger

opening “unplugged” set:
“o come o come emmanuel” - a cappella
scripture reading
“we are hungry” by brad kilman (various recordings)
scripture reading
“here i am to worship” by chris tomlin (cd “passion: our love is loud”)
message: jBow
closing “full band” set:
“joy to the world” by third day (cd “christmas offerings”)
“the highest and the greatest” by tim hughes (cd “holding nothing back”)

i’m “pre-publishing” this post because we’ll be leaving right after services to drive to TN to an early Christmas celebration with family. unfortunately i can’t comment on the message until later.

let me try to explain a tension that c.c. and i feel as international adoptive parents. in order for this to make sense at all, you have to know that our daughter was adopted from China.

okay, first i’ll put it simply and then you can decide if you want to read further…

the tension is between our heart to live out our faith tangibly by “looking after widows and orphans in their distress… ,” and our desire for our daughter never to feel as if she is a charity case.

let me take it farther….

on the one hand,

our hearts go out to every child in the world who has been orphaned. more and more, we find ourselves wanting to do whatever we can do to raise awareness and try to point people in the direction of supporting and reaching out to orphans everywhere. there are over 143 million of them worldwide, so it’s no small task!! my mind wanders off every day to dreams about what my specific role will be.

to give you an idea of the situation in china, which will from now on always have part of our heart - only a small percentage of the orphanages in the country are set up to adopt their children out internationally. this means that many, many, many children in the country have no real hope of ever being adopted. the conditions of the orphanages vary widely as well. the government, understandably, funnels more resources into the orphanages that are set up for international adoption - these are the kids that will “represent” china in the world. the other side of this coin is that the kids who have the least chance of having a family are also raised in tougher conditions. the reasons behind this situation are many and complicated. there’s lots of information available online. maybe i’ll write specifically about this in the future…

now, on the other hand,

we adopted our daughter, darby, because we wanted a daughter - plain and simple. the thought that she would ever feel like we were obligated to give her a home because of our religious beliefs, or out of a sense of guilt is unbearable.

in a way that only adoptive parents can fully understand, darby is our daughter, and we believe with everything in us that God planned all along for her to be our daughter. as i tell darby in her nightly bedtime “story” - a family is God’s idea. he decides which boys and girls go with which mommies and daddies to make a family. and sometimes he has to go all the way around the world to make a perfect match!

so there’s the tension. i hope that it’s in some way beneficial to someone. if you try to encourage an adoptive parent by admiring how they’ve done a noble thing and you sense a bit of defensiveness pop up in them, now you know a bit about why this may be the case.

and knowing is half the battle.

sorry, my inner G.I. Joe came out there.

peace!

one of my favorite christmas cd’s is “behold the lamb of god” by andrew peterson (and friends).

this is a concept album. you know the way they used to make them, where it wasn’t just random songs, but the whole thing tells a story. this story is about the birth of jesus, but it starts WAY back when the Israelites are enslaved in Egypt and sets the stage for the coming messiah.

powerful stuff.

being a music kind of guy, this cd helps me understand the “big picture” of the bible more effectively than any sermon or book i’ve ever read. it’s more a reflection on me than on the sermons and books, i’m sure, but i guess god speaks to different people in different ways - which is cool.

if you buy one christmas CD this year it should be my friend don’s sister’s cd.

but if you buy two CD’s - the second one should be “behold the lamb of god”.

crosspointe 12.02.07

“o come let us adore him” - homegrown arrangement
“our love is loud” by david crowder (cd “can you hear us?”)
connect
baby dedications (awwww!)
“love the lord” by lincoln brewster (cd “all to you…live”)
“satisfy” by desperation band (cd “from the rooftops”)
message - jBow
prayer

today was one of those messages that every pastor dreads….$$$….. in talking with jonathan earlier this week, he said something that struck me. he actually really enjoys talking about money. counseling people about honoring god with finances, radical generosity, smart money management, etc.

unfortunately, the reason that pastors don’t like talking about money is because of all of the abuses that some christian leaders (most notably some on TV) have perpetrated. we have so many first time visitors every week at crosspointe. we take that very seriously. the fear is that we’ll get lumped in with the abusers before people get to know and trust us.

still, the $$ aspect of a growing church is important.

i appreciated jonathan laying it all out there for us today. i need to be challenged regularly with the question of how important the mission is to me.

i love crosspointe. i love the people i serve with on staff. i love the volunteers that i work with in the worship bands and production ministry. i love the specific vision that we’re chasing after as a community. and i love financially supporting God’s unique mission for crosspointe.

looking forward to jumping into the christmas series - “a different way in a manger” - next weekend….

…of the amazing volunteers (and staff!) who pulled together to make the approach such a great event this weekend!

this was our best-attended approach yet. well over 300 crosspointers and friends came out. i know of at least one group from out of state!

these events are a lot of work, and WOULD NOT happen without an ever-expanding volunteer team. if any of you are reading this - please know how much i appreciate your creativity, your tireless service throughout setup, 12 hours of the actual event, and then a massive tear-down effort. (shaun w. rocks!) i wish i had that part on video…

i want to write more about this later, including some thoughts on evaluating “the approach” and some ideas for future approach events.

for now, if you experienced the approach this time, i would LOVE to hear from you about your experience. we want to continue to improve on the quality of these events. use the comments section here to give us your thoughts!