Monthly Archives: August 2009

The Rock Church Worship Service

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Paul

Praise Him, the Lord, the Almighty
Holy One

Announcements

Paul

The Grateful Ones
Your Name
Who You Are

Uganda trip report

Goal: true understanding of The Rock’s contribution to Uganda

Heather

Quick snapshot
Worked with Sanyu Baby Orphanage for abandoned children, brought them supplies, age birth-4
AidChild orphanage for kids with AIDS (not HIV), age 4-16
Maggie’s Ranch/Cornerstone village that teaches western jobs (table service)
??? Ages 16-25
Played soccer and dancing to get ready for world vision kids
Gulu for the world vision kids
Nice to see 2D picture have personality
County hospital and other hospitals – supply delivery
God is really behind Jeami’s mission
Given the Rock a really good name
It’s daunting the power she wields the way she gets things done
Super-anointed, it’s magical
We need to get behind her
Go and see it for yourself, financially support her, pray for her, ask her how you can help
Don’t let her feel alone in what she’s doing
Heather’s lessons
1. Maggie teaches Western skills to village kids
Maggie was raised in a child pornography ring led by her father
Westerners aren’t comfortable sitting in suffering
Evil is evil, suffering is suffering
But she’s not a tool God is using
God hates what happened to her, He looks at it and grieves
Go isn’t dependent on evil to shape is
Without evil we would still recognize good
Sit in suffering
2. Jeami shouted stop the car, saw a girl throwing up on the side of the crowded street
Malaria is not a walkin’ around disease
With world vision, on their way to do good stuff, Jeami said side track to take care of this one girl
Jeami intensely prepared for trip
She plans and learns from her mistakes
Holds the past with open hands in order to adapt to the things God puts in her path
Planning is good, can’t be irresponsible
Paralyzed by past, or too planned/committed to plan
Place value on THIS moment
You may screw up in the past, but you’re doing ok now
Be in the moment
3. Look for Africa moments
Africa is our responsibility (Uganda that is)
We learn good Christian behaviors
Our problem isn’t in trying to figure out these things
Nothings wrong, but we feel our relationship with God is flat-lining – WTF God?!?
We want BIG moments, we want the Africa moment to fix things
Rearrange the magnets on your fridge
We get so good at behaviors that we let it become stuff
Dormant thoughts don’t always refresh your soul
It’s not beautifully spoken, but it’s a compliment
Mix up how you read the Bible, don’t stop readin the Bible
Reigniting what you already
You don’t have to draw a picture – take what you have and make it alive and real to you
Love God and Jeami’s mission

Multimedia Presentation

Paul

Pictures tell the story
30 minutes version
2 minute version
5 second version – beautiful and awful at the same time
Duffel bag full of shoes – greatest thing I’ve ever done (so far)
Standing in His sufferings with Him
Had a moment and he couldn’t come downstairs and mingle
Why am I doing with my life?
Should I be in Uganda all the time?
Playing music is dumb
God walked in and said that’s not what I’m telling you
Wrestling with his role in worship
God gave us pastors, ministers, worship leaders etc, so we will no longer be infants tossed about in the waves
Teaching, preaching, service
His speaking is a confession: He hasn’t been doing his job
We have to be a body of people that cares for poor people and voice that concern
Mercy Village is a non-profit that Paul and Jeami started, named after their World Vision child (Mercy)
Goal: start a school in southern Uganda
Goal is not to make Uganda sexy for a month
Next time Uganda Trip comes around – it WILL NOT be convenient
Everything big will be not convenient at the moment
Command in the Bible, don’t wait for command
Jesus and James have called us
See what Jesus has for us next
Jeami will be communicating about Mercy Village, Rob about his charity
Provide opportunities for us to do more
Step outside of skill set and get involved
My spiritual gift can be pairing a wall
Matthew 5 – blessed are the poor
Fortunate when poor, when weak, persecuted, when you have less
Don’t just come on a Sunday night to feel better – move as Jesus’ body
Same bush he walked by everyday, then he finally turned and recognized it

Fiddler On The Roof – OCPAC

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Featuring Topol! Apparently there’s more than one Fiddler movie (one of which Topol was the star of). Sorry!

The most interesting aspect of seeing this show again after so many years (not since before I was in the show my sophmore year at OCHSA – as Avhram and a bottle dancer!), and especially now that I’ve thoroughly absorbed Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice (the 2005 movie, the Marvel comic adaptation), is the parallels between the two stories. Obviously research was required, and the following was thusly learned: Fiddler on the Roof is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Milkman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem, originally written in Yiddish and first published in 1894 [placing them about a century behind Ms. Austen's tale]. Tevye the dairyman ([ˈtɛvjə], Yiddish: טבֿיה דער מילכיקער Tevye der milkhiker) is the protagonist of several of Sholem Aleichem’s stories. The character became best known from the fictional memoir Tevye and his Daughters (also called Tevye the Milkman or Tevye the Dairyman), about a pious Jewish milkman in Tsarist Russia, and the troubles he has with his six daughters: Tzeitel, Hodel, Chava, Shprintze, Bielke, and Teibel. Yay Wikipedia! So they shortchanged one daughter and wrote lots of fun songs. But regards Pride and Prejudice, there are a lot of plot parallels that I suspect helped frame Sholem Aleichem’s stories:

Spoiler Alert! (place and hold your mouse over the bar to see)

five daughters, pushy mother, pushover father who loves his daughters, third daughter runs away to get married

 

Very fun production, great show, lots of fun. To life, to life, l’chaim!

The Rock Church Worship Service

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Paul

Mighty To Save
Welcome To The Rock It’s Good To See You All (Desert Song)
Rocks (fast/halftime Lindy)

Welcome and Announcements

Wonders/Be Lifted High (Coda, fade as one to)
Came To My Rescue
Sweetly Broken
Love isn’t an emotion, it’s an action – for God so loved the world that He gave His only son (from yesterday’s wedding)

Jon

Why do we sing? To express our love for You
Notes are useful
Last week we talked about matters of the heart, hard hearts, etc
Eternal life is a term bandied about
Not heaven, but a God-centered life
Genesis 1
v. 27 Even people you don’t like have a piece of the divine
What makes us valuable is that we have been created in God’s image
Told something about humanity – it’s goodness
Today we see a lot of brokenness
But in the beginning we were created good
He speaks
v. 3 there is light, order
v.6 expanse
Light, water, sky, air
v.9 dry land
v.11 vegetation
Reproduction
More advanced creation
Start with big vague concepts, move to more advanced
v.20 waters swarm with living creatures, air with birds
Animals with personalities
Gets more advanced, creates man, watches it, watches it…and says, “I can do better” and creates woman
Created humanity in His image
To experience eternal life
In humanity we have sin
They wanted value and identity from something other than God
Genesis 3 calls that sin
Bends the human soul
Sprayed with graffiti
Graffitized
Masculine and feminine parts bent
Looking for something else to give us life
Guys:
What do you do? what gives you purpose in life
Walk into junior/high school, cliques
What makes you different and unique?
Why do we need to fit in
Created in God’s image, but been graffitized
Have to find a place
God doesn’t make mistakes – He makes people
Created in His image
We all know we’re bent
This is the way you need to be as a man, as a woman
The system of organized religion has something called “doing ministry”
You find people doing that to find identity, purpose, value
Lost in business and lose pieces of soul
Valuable to religious institution, lose pieces of soul
Girls:
Tends to be bent toward the man
Have to find identity in a man
Need his attention or I’ll die
Please don’t – you’ll be left wanting
Bent on this thing called “a shapely body”
Thus eating disorders run rampant
Searching for identity, purpose, value
We keep searching and holding up the mirror – we’re supposed to see image of God, but the mirror has been cracked so we’re trying to remove the graffiti by seeking for identity
As a Christian community, what are we supposed to do?
Colossians 1
v.1-4 if God looks down, all He sees is Jesus
Back in Genesis He saw us behind the tree, in the bushes
Now He sees Christ, the Messiah
When you say yes to Jesus, you are shifted, you are a new creation
To be a Christian – old self has died, new self is alive
Constant awareness that bent part is dead
Don’t just say “I’m a sinner”
Can’t you hear Jesus up there saying, “What did you think I died for?!?”
Kids are a reflection of their parents
New creation
Tired of shame based reality
People know what they are
Not defined as sinners – as new creations
This is who you are – be this!
Only Messiah Jesus is constant
Called to reflect glory of God back to the world
This sounds like really good
v.9-10 Genesis 1 language
Your old life is hidden in Christ
Renewed on a daily basis, in the image of God
Spiritual growth is like a return to Genesis 1
When you hear the word repent, it’s scary
Jesus says repent, teshuva -> return
Return back to God, your creator
Life-giving to repent
Turning around back to God
Revelation? turned to the noise?
Because of bent image we get off track
Jesus says teshuva
People-pleasers say – I can’t have people upset with me
How does God get glory? When we reflect him on Earth
Jonathon…Harold ? Woolner?
Our calling, our job: relentless pursuit of who God has called you to be
This is how He has made me
You be you and I’ll be me, and we are we
As we are who we’re supposed to be
Phillipians 1
v.6 so valuable to me
God doesn’t make mistakes, junk
If you follow Me, I’ll blow your mind
I’ve got a lot invested in you
I’ve got a lot of work I want to do through you
Everyone has a past, dark things happened to us
Past pushes us into the future
Secret deep inside of us that we don’t want to talk or deal with, and our past pushes us into our future
Pushes us forward with shame and conditions
Identity wrapped up in things done to us
Be the light
More becoming the person He meant us to be
Until the day of the 2nd coming, He will keep working on us
You keep being pulled into the future by this past promise
This reality that God is making us into somethig beautiful
I’m gonna let God pull me into what God made me to be
12 o’clock is coming
We want you to be you, not someone else
Don’t just sit around saying how come no one else is passionate about what I’m passionate about – that’s who you are
Sometimes conformity becomes the rule of the day – the only conformity is Messiah Jesus
Some of us need to repent, to return to who you really are
When you are you, and me is me, and we are we…the revolution can begin.
Opportunity
Mary Williams leaves for Chicago on Tuesday
Pray for her and her family

A Non-Frivolous Lawsuit Against Amazon? Windows 7 Announcements? Apple Redoes Album Covers?

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Kindle Users Sue Amazon Over Deleted Orwell Book – News and Analysis by PC Magazine
At first I thought this was a frivolous lawsuit, but the more I think about it, it’s really important.  Amazon may have refunded their money, but they very much did violate the users right to the device by reaching in and deleting the content…I mean the whole point of owning a device is so you can download content and keep it until YOU decide to get rid of it…not the company that created the device…

Microsoft Unveils Win7 Family Pack, Upgrade Pricing – News and Analysis by PC Magazine
I still think there’s too many versions of Windows, leading to confusion extraordinaire…

Apple, Labels Stir Up Deluxe, Digital Cocktail – News and Analysis by PC Magazine
Intriguing…most intriguing…

FCC Demands Data on Blocked Google Voice Apps – News and Analysis by PC Magazine
Interesting…but I can’t trust the government to JUST solve this issue…I would expect them to insist that they can do a better job regulating it….I mean I think AT&T is just being a b!tch regarding Google’s applications, but I don’t want the government taking over AT&T and doing a worse job! 

Microsoft Yahoo merger – The Denver Post
HA! 

History’s ‘WWII in HD’ trailer –The Live Feed
OOOO!!  PRETTY!!!!! 

Jeff Dunham: ‘Funny as a Block of F–king Wood’–The Live Feed
Jeff Dunham gets his own Comedy Central TV show and TV critics cry foul?  Wha? 

Windows 7 Media Center Will Support Netflix – News and Analysis by PC Magazine
Yay!  Now if only I could make enough money to afford Netflix again! 

MySpace Mail Rolls Out With Vanity URL E-Mail – News and Analysis by PC Magazine
MySpace continues to try being relevant. 

iPhone Upgrade Adventures (or Why AT&T Sucks)

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My original, first generation iPhone was destroyed late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. Laura and I had just worked at a friend’s wedding inside the San Diego Wild Animal Park and had just safely driven the 80 or so miles back to my house and I put my iPhone and iPod on the roof of Laura’s car while I grabbed the rest of my luggage (we had stayed the night in Escondido so we could attend the rehearsal/dinner the night before the wedding) and forgot to retrieve them before she left. About two minutes later I realized my mistake and realized I had to call Laura and get her back to me! But I couldn’t remember her phone number (damn speed dial)!!! And my computer had apparently lost power during the blackout we experienced while I was unloading luggage (a Westminster councilman was DUI and hit a car with three people…and a power pole). So there I am frantically encouraging my PC to boot and load Outlook so I can get Laura’s phone number. By this time I’ve actually calmed down and accepted the fact that both devices are lost forever. Finally I get a hold of Laura and she turned around and picked me up so we could go look for my devices. We look along the streets in my neighborhood and the main thoroughfare to the freeway and then decide to get on the 405 N and immediately flip on hazards and get to the side of the freeway to take a short look. Shortly after pulling over, the CHP show up (of course they’re going to investigate any car on the side of the road with it’s hazards on). We explain the situation to them and they say they will keep an eye out for them. So Laura takes me back home and then heads home herself (she reported that as she drove back past where the CHP had showed up, the CHP was very diligently searching for my stuff, bless their hearts).

Sunday evening I don’t have rehearsal, so after church I go hang out with Laura at her house and have fun watching Walt Disney Treasures DVD’s. Around 10pm, there’s a call on Laura’s house phone that is ignored for about 15 minutes. When Laura’s mom listens to the message, she’s curious as to why the CHP would be calling them about my iPod. So I call the officer back and he says the iPod was recovered and the iPhone was shattered into several pieces, which saddens me (fun pictures from the Miller wedding irrevocably destroyed), but isn’t too disheartening overall. So I ask the officer if there is a local office in Westminster where he can leave the iPod for me to pickup. He says there is and he gives me the address.

Monday morning I’m up really early because I have an early massage before working at Staples and I wanted to go to the CHP office before all of that. So I go get my iPod back…apparently when it flew off of the car, not only did the Speck case pretty much protect it, but the iPod started playing all the songs and nobody had paused it leading to a very low battery. But other than that it was working fine! However I’m still concerned about confidential information stored on my iPhone…I need to know for sure that the device is utterly destroyed and data can’t be recovered. But I have to wait until the CHP officer gets back on duty (he works the night shift) in order to call him and confirm the iPhone’s destruction. In the meantime I need to get a new iPhone. So my dad, being the account manager of our business family plan, says he will call AT&T to make sure I’m elligible for the cheap upgrade (aren’t telecom companies wonderfully overzealous?) before I buy the phone at the South Coast Plaza Apple Store. So I go to my massage and finish up a little early (I have an hour to get to work and I only need 30 minutes). So I decide to go to the South Coast Plaza Apple Store to make sure they have the 3GS in stock. I go to the store and they have plenty of them. Then they ask me if I want to get one – I explain about how I’m not sure of my elligibility for an upgrade (aren’t telecom companies wonderfully overzelaous?) and they say they can check that. I’m intrigued, but I’m short on time so I decide to hold off for the moment. Next I find a payphone and use an old calling card I’ve had since high school to call my dad (despite it’s age, the card had 800 minutes on it…hah!). I ask if he’s called the account manager at AT&T, he says he left a message, so I say I’ll wait (even though I explain to him that the Apple Store could check my elligibility). So I head off to work waiting for news that I can snag a new phone. At the end of my shift I headed home to find out that when AT&T called back, the account manager told dad that the Apple Store isn’t supposed to check elligibility for business accounts (aren’t telecom companies wonderfully OVERZEALOUS!) and tells dad to just order it with him, which he does. The last piece of business is to call the CHP officer back and confirm that the iPhone was completely destroyed. He tells me that the only way they knew the shattered parts were from an iPhone was because his partner had once owned an iPhone and recognized the plastic charger bit…other than that the phone was destroyed. So I’m satisfied and ready to recieve my new iPhone tomorrow (Tuesday).

Well…apparently we either misunderstood the AT&T rep or just assumed that since we had ordered the phone before 5pm that it would be there on Tuesday. So I waste most of the afternoon waiting for my new phone to show up. By 7pm, I give up and we leave a message for the AT&T rep.

Wednesdy we get a call back saying it had to come from Dallas so it would ship Tuesday and arrive today. So I go off to work, eager to get a phone back (I’ve survived a year without a car bumming rides off of folks, but I’ve barely been able to survive the 72-ish hours without a phone…yeesh!). I get home from work and the phone is here! Yay! Dad activated it with AT&T and they said to power it off and power it back on. But I can’t! It won’t power on! I reload it with iTunes, I reboot it, i try everything short of banging it with a hammer…nothing is working. So after 15 minutes of mucking about with it, I say, “Screw it! I’m going to the Apple Store!” I get there, let the concierge know what’s going on and proceed to wait (no appointments available, so I’m at the mercy of walk up). The concierge plugs it in and tries to reload it. Still waiting. Another concierge tries reloading it. I pull out my comic books and sit down next to the concierge table. Finally the third concierge takes a look at it, asks me a couple of questions, and them proceeds to bring me a brand new, working, activated 3GS. Hooray! After all that hassle, I finally have a working iPhone! Hooray!