Alive Worship

Hi everyone. This past weekend was really wonderful. For me, it was so much fun watching Ken and Leah come along side with their leadership gifts and head up some songs for for our community!  I wanted to highlight the new song we started doing this past weekend. Preferentially, I LOVE this song. Musically speaking, I think it really is a work of art and really does take me places emotionally when I hear it. The great thing about songs like this is that they don’t forsake really good theology for musicality.  Theology, simply put, is the study of God. There was an amazing scholar named A. W. Tozer who said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” I agree with this. If we see that God is merely vengeful, angry and wrathful towards the world, we will act accordingly towards the world. Even if we don’t believe in God, our decisions and worldview are entirely different than if we do believe in the existence of a higher...

This past weekend was amazing! There was an incredible buzz in the air with the beautiful weather enthusiastic worship, great teaching and of course, the baptisms! In my almost 20 years of following Christ, I have seen a lot of life change, redemption and countless baptisms. I love the way our community celebrates this “rebirth day.” I love that we break out balloons, get cupcakes and welcome people who usually don't come to church, but come to celebrate and support loved ones.  For me as Christ follower, there is something else that gets highlighted whenever I see someone surrender their life to Jesus; His faithfulness. No doubt there is a decision on behalf of the individual giving his or her life to Christ, but surely this decision is the culmination of Jesus faithfully pursuing them and wooing them with His relentless love, grace, and mercy.  “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God s...

Growing up here in the desert, I loved star gazing. It was difficult when we moved to Las Vegas because the city was so bright at night, it would drown out the brilliance of the night sky and all the stars that danced across the sky.  At one point as a child, the thought occurred to me that if I were to fall upward into space, I could just float out for an eternity. The bigness of space became terrifying to me. The beauty I had gazed upon night after night was only matched by its vastness and enormity.  There are lots of times I have felt my “finiteness.” Being close to the ocean during a storm, standing at the edge of the Gand Canyon, or even when I almost lost Sarah during after the birth of Silas. There are times when we feel incredibly helpless, out of control and the sting of our “finiteness” is staring us in the face revealing how limited we really are.  When I think of who God is, I feel this way sometimes. Think about this for a moment. Everything tha...

When I was a young man growing up here in Tucson, 2nd Saturday was called Downtown Saturday night . Confessionally, I haven't been down to a 2nd Saturday since we've moved back, but it sounds a little more grand than it was back in the day.  It used to be that there were a few musical acts playing in the Ronstadt Center, people selling handmade crafts, and a few food vendors... And then, there were the Christians. The Christians always seemed, well, angry. Really angry. It seemed that there was always a shouting match breaking out between the Christians and some other group of pedestrians.  I never engaged in these arguments and would avoid the Christians like the plague. They never seemed like people I would want to be around.  On the other hand, about the time I met Sarah, I was working at a music store on the east side. One of the drum instructors was a guy named Carl. Carl was (and still is) a bit of a local legend. On that merit alone, I had nothing but...

I've been a musician much longer than I've been a Christian. I was in multiple bands as a young man and most of the bands I played in wrote original music. I've always enjoyed that creative process of making music. After I came to Christ, writing music was difficult. It wasn't the creating of the rhythms or melodies, but the lyrics. What should I sing to God? Would anything I want to say even carry merit?  After I took my first ministry job in Las Vegas as a youth pastor, I was so green in my role as full-time minister that I felt like I was making mistake after mistake. I have the first clue on how to create a schedule, manage my time well, counsel students (or adults!), or build teams. I felt like the only thing I knew how to do was sing and play my guitar and I knew I needed to grow in tons of other areas to really be the leader I was called to be.  This angst inspired the first song I wrote as a believer. The lyrics to the first verse an...