Alive Worship

Hello Alive family. This is not going to be a very long post. There are just a few tings I want to say.  I met with a council member of the new church I will be joining staff with for coffee this morning. As we talked, it came up that this would be my last weekend service with Alive Church. He asked me, “how is that for you?” Without hesitation I replied, “sad.”  I love Alive Church. Not the non-prophet entity, not the building, not the brand. I love you men and women who I have had the privilege and  honor of serving with for the past 18 months or so.  When I think of not having the joy of working with you, singing with you and doing life with you day in and day out, I feel a loss. I am grateful I’ve had the chance to do ministry with you over the past year and a half and will forever cherish the experiences and opportunities I have had at Alive.  I will continue to pray that God will show His favor to Alive Church as He guides the leadership i...

Last week, I had the incredible joy of reconnecting with an old friend for breakfast. This is someone I hadn't caught up with since I left Tucson in 1999. As we talked about being in our 40’s, our marriages and fatherhood, it struck me how similar our journeys have been to wrestle with our shortcomings over the years and pursue meaning and joy in life. As we caught up, I was reminded of people and events that I hadn’t thought of for around 20 years. As my friend and I sat across from the older versions of the young, foolish men we were in our past lives, I found myself reliving memories of the man I used to be and began to compare contrasting world views and values of my old self to who I am now.  The biggest contrast between who I was then and who I am now can be summed up in one statement; it’s not about me . In my foolish 20’s, I believed that I was one of the smartest guys in the room at all times. I believed that my experiences, feelings, and perceptions gave me a leg up ...

This has been a rough week for our nation. The devastation from the mass shooting that took place on Sunday night in Las Vegas is far reaching. Victims were not just local to Las Vegas, they were from different parts of the country and even the world. In their deepest moments of grief, people tend to ask a very poignant question: where is God in all of this? We may not always be able to answer “why” something like this happens, but I can assure you that God is always present with us through our pain. We serve a God who so deeply desires to be relational with us that He broke into His creation in an act of love and mercy. God left the throne room of heaven to dwell among His beloved, to feel what we feel, and ultimately take up His cross on our behalf. In his book And the Angels Were Silent , a uthor and Pastor Max Lucado paints a beautiful picture of Jesus’ own humanity the night before His arrest and crucifixion. Jesus wrestled with the decision He had to make to be tortured,...