Monday Morning Update 4.13.09

Yeah, okay so it's not really Monday by the time most of you are reading this. Let's just pretend like it's a perfect world, and I am never late for anything. Or let's be realists and just accept the fact that I am late lots and just suck it up and deal with it. Whatever....here's the scoop on Easter at The Crossroads.

We began Saturday night by gathering at a home in Anna to watch The Passion. I had not watched the movie since seeing it in the theater. This time I did cry a little once or twice (still not enough to need a kleenex)....made me feel less pagan than at the theater when I didn't cry at all. Instead of crying, I become filled with an almost unbearable sense of urgency to reach the nations. Seeing Jesus' sacrifice reminds me all over again about the great price that He paid for salvation....and how if I really valued His life, I would live a life completely dedicated to Him and to His Kingdom. My priorities would be less jacked up than what they are currently. It would always be Christ and His Kingdom first.

We shared the Lord's supper together and spent time praying for our Easter services. And yes, it began to literally rain (yet again) when we prayed for God to rain down His Spirit on Anna. For me, the literal outpouring of rain is like a promise of God's presence among His people.

Easter Sunday began bright and early at the Kemp's. We made about 100 pigs in a blanket for our Easter brunch, bathed all the kids, and dried 3 girls' hair. And still left on time. Boo-yah!!!

We had the typical huge event set-backs. Things like forgotten videos, lost the clamps to put together the stage, etc. But we pulled it all together and set up for our biggest crowd so far. Best guess is that we had about 75 people in attendance, several first time visitors and several repeating visitors.

Shawn did a "plug and play" sermon. This is when the music is interwoven among the sermon points. Generally I really enjoy this way of doing a service. It breaks the sermon into small, manageable chunks for those of us with short attention spans. Then we get to worship with music, which keeps me continually pulled into God's presence and focused on who I am there to see. You can listen at www.welcometothecrossroads.com and the music will be there as well this week, although sound is usually not as good recorded from a gym setting as it sounds live.

We did a great selection of songs Sunday:
Meant to Live (Switchfoot)
What life would be like (Big Daddy Weave) - if you haven't heard this one yet, you have to download. VERY awesome message about living life like we believe Jesus is really God.
Lifesong (Casting Crowns)
I Will Go (Starfield)
He Reigns (Newsboys) - as soon as we started intro on this, audience members started making eye contact with me and doing the "rock on" hand signs and mouthing things like "awesome" "love this song". And when we came in with vocals....whoosh up stood the audience in full up worship. Stinkin' awesome!!!!
Rest (Nevertheless) This song is beautiful....another must download if you haven't heard it yet.

I enjoyed playing with the new guitar player. Electric guitar really helped fill some of the open gaps in the music. I love our band. Sometimes it's hard for me to really believe that at 34 I'm finally getting to live my dream. I'm playing music that I love with an absolutely incredible team of musicians. I am WAY out of my league and loving every minute of it!!!!!

So altogether it was an incredible first Easter at The Crossroads. But the most incredible thing is that every Sunday is amazing at The Crossroads.

Funny story:
Shawn's mic was popping. Robby mouths at me, "tell him to push up his mic." As a talented lip reader, I just really can't read Robby's lips. Too much facial hair or what, I don't know. So I turn to his wife for an interpretation and she says, "tape the mic." So I abandon the stage to go search for tape to hold Shawn's mic in place. I can only find shiny scotch tape, but figure it's better than nothing. I hurry back to the stage where Robby is doing the longest intro ever to "Lifesong" while he's stalling and waiting for me to return. I quickly taped Shawn's mic in place. Job accomplished. Not sure why Robby is looking at me with total and complete confusion. I just did what he said, right?

So then, the tape started to come loose as Shawn became sweaty. Worship Dude turns and looks and me and mouths, "take the tape off." I interpret, "it's coming off." And think he wants me to retape. I have a spare piece of tape about 7 inches long on my keyboard. We are introing next song, so I handed it to Robby's wife and say, "retape Shawn." I'm assuming that Shawn will tear off the desired amount, but no - he sticks the whole huge piece of tape on his face to hold the mic in place. So when he walks back up on stage, he has tape all over the left side of his face. It was really, really hard not to crack up.

But the funny part was later when I discovered that I had totally misread all the cues of the day. I was simply supposed to tell Shawn to push up his mic. No tape involved. Although the tape did solve the problem, in case you wanted to know. And it was also really funny. Thinking about using Barbie band-aids next week :)