So where have I been and why haven’t I been writing stuff down? I don’t know honestly. I have been working alot. I have been doing all kinds of stuff with the high school boys. I have not had much down time since we got back from Jamaica and I feel like now that the school year is starting for Erin again we might stand a chance at getting back into a regular routine.

All that being said, one of the highlights of the last couple weeks was getting to see one of my oldest and dearest friends, Patrick Rice who was out here in Phoenix with his wife Amy. Erin and I had a great time hanging out with them and honestly a request of his is one of the reasons that I have not posted. 

When the Rices were here we did not have time to have them over to our house and so a request was put forth for a video tour of our house. Any of you who may be like us, working from 7-5 and then going out with either a church function or friends from 7-11pm know that it can be difficult to keep a house clean and functional, so that is a reason for the delay. I simply cannot bear the thought of how mad Erin would be if I put a video up on the internet of a messy house. Also, there has been a significant change to our house that I would like to have in the video and the dust from that even is finally settling down so you may be closer to getting that tour than you think Patrick.

In closing I would like to remind you that if you are interested in what I am looking at or doing on the internet you should check out my activity feeds in either of these places:

FriendFeed

Swurl – Timeline

Also of note, I got a haircut. There are pictures on Flickr or on Swurl.

I was going through some of the past posts on Patrick Rice’s blog and came across one that gave me pause because it hits near home with what I am involved in. I read through both Patricks and his friend Scott’s posts and I do agree with them both to a point. So below are my thoughts kind of as they came to me without any real editing so if it does not make any sense, I apologize.

I guess I would just say that you should not as a local church body try and be something that you are not. If you are made up of poor college students and that is who you all want to keep on ministering to then by all means do it. If you are in a really conservative environment and it is expected by some people that the pastor should wear a “tie” or “slacks” when he is “preaching” then by all means, those people need to be fed and ministered to as well.

On the other hand, I personally am heavily involved at one of these “churchasaurus’” and work on the environment and atmospheric team no less. The pressure that we put on ourselves as a team to make the atmosphere not only as inviting as possible but also the most conducive for worship and learning is intense to put it mildly. However it is worth it all when we can look back and say that the atmosphere and the environment helped put enough seeking people at ease that God brought more than 150 people to himself last year. We just had a baptism service yesterday after church and around 50 people were baptized, most for the first time.

I guess I am saying that as someone who is involved in the church environment and is on a team that works on the “sex appeal” of what we present it is certainly not for every church out there nor is it for every demographic. There needs to be a mix and local churches are parts of an overall body just like each of us are as well. We all have different parts to play. Our church is about life change (I actually came up with the slogan on the website during a branding brainstorming session) and everything that we do goes to facilitate that happening. 

As for the references to trying to be to excellent or trying to put too much emphasis on excellence I would say that is a big bogus. Excellence does not have to be in the same areas for everyone. We just moved into an eight million dollar building that is not even finished yet but the parts that we were able to complete are done with excellence. It does not mean that if you cant be the best in the county don’t try something, what it means is that what you do attempt do it to the best ability that your resources both human and financial will allow.

For me excellence means that if our lighting cues just got changed right before the service we go down and rebalance the cameras so that it is not distracting to someone who is trying to pay attention to what the pastor is saying. For someone else it might mean that as a solo worship leader they practice their songs one more time before Sunday morning to make sure they do not make a distracting mistake during worship time. Whatever the situation do it in such a way that at the end of the day everything was done in a way that allowed guests and regular attenders to get as close to God as possible. That is what I strive for when I volunteer.

All that was kind of just coming to me. Not really sure if it all makes sense or if it sounds stupid but I just wanted to throw something out there from the perspective of one of those “sex appeal” churches.