I did not vote "Present" this weekend

For 6 1/2 years I've been leading worship at LifeChurch.tv in Tulsa. I normally don't get sick but maybe once or twice a year. I've always been able to avoid missing the weekend but this weekend was an exception. Out of almost 350 weekends leading worship at Life....the sick bug got me.

Fortunately for me, I've got a couple of guys that are rip, roarin, and ready to go. Chris Kizzia stepped up on Saturday night with two hours notice AFTER running the Tulsa Run (15k) in under 90minutes!!! Instead of saying no, and leavin a brother high and dry, he sacrificed and even learned Bennie and the Jets (our walk in song this week.)

That made me think...had I not had guys trained and ready at a moments notice, there would have been a small catastrophe on our campus. Not to say that it can't run without me (cause it did.)

So, who do you have trained and ready to go in your ministry in case the fever bug bites?

Band LifeGroup

Every week during the message at the 10am experience, the band and I get together in the green room. We sit down and have a small group together. This is a great way for me as a Pastor to help get a pulse on what is going on with my band at home, spiritually, personally, etc...

We took a small break during the summer but have since started meeting and this time is very crucial (can't believe I took a break) for me to connect with the peeps in the band. Today we talked about obedience. In My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers, we looked at October 10th's reading.

The cool thing is that it talks about knowing God and being Holy through simple obedience, rather than knowledge or intellect. That is huge! I grew up trying to know God by amassing knowledge about Him, and then not really doing anything with it. It's one thing to be able to exegete a passage of scripture, it's completely different to actually obey what I know God's word says.

So, check out the reading (here) and let me know what you think.

Derrick

MORNING OU GAME!!!

Normally I'm off to the Tulsa campus of LifeChurch.tv around noonish. This week I was pretty productive and got completely ready before the weekend so I could come in later and enjoy some of the OU vs. Texas game. Most of the time the games are in the afternoon or evening and I miss them completely. Boo.

Excited to see my Sooners open up a can on Texas!

Two contributing reasons for my productivity:

1. Justin Cowell, our Switch worship leader, has become autonomous with ProTools and didn't need my help at all this week! Score!

2. Aaron Swensen, our Lifegroups / Missions pastor (who sits right in front of me in the office) was at the Catalyst 08 conference.....just leaving it at that. (wink, wink Aaron.)

#Catalyst08 Conference

So there is a lot of church leaders from all over the country attending the annual Catalyst conference this year. For those of us who are not among the fortunate to go and hear from amazing leaders, hear awesome worship, and mingle with other believers doing ministry together...you can partake of Anne Jackson's Backstage blog. It's called Catalyst Backstage. (LINK)

Anne is streaming some live content and interviews and you can follow when the new content is up from her twitterfeed.

Check it out!

Cooking With Balls

Yep, I came across this cookbook...and I must say I would never purchase it...because I would have to actually purchase the main ingredient.....testicles. I can think of a couple people that I've worked with that would find humor in this book.











I personally am a little grossed out by it...

So, have you ever had em?