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?

LifeChurch.tv Worship Pastor Confessional #6

Marc Broussard at LifeChurch.tv Tulsa!

Ok, so it's not really Marc Broussard but I would possibly like to cover most of his stuff. If you've not heard of Marc, go ahead and set aside $50 and download his entire catalog. He's flipping amazing!

Someone captured this song that we did this week at church and so I'm re-posting it for you to see. FYI, we do a secular cover song at the beginning of each experience at the Tulsa campus. This is a very intentional move that has proved to be a very useful tool for people to invite others. It has also been a great tool to break down walls that an unchurched person may have about church not being relevant, or that we lack the capacity to recognize where they are.

The cool thing about this is that we get to acknowledge that the world asks great questions through the medium of music, and we're recognizing those questions and offering the greatest answer through Jesus.

Another effect these songs have is that we've re-trained our culture at the Tulsa campus. Several other campuses at LifeChurch.tv do a "walk-in" song like we do and we've noticed that in a very consumerist culture, people actually arrive early and each experience is almost 80% full (est) by the end of this first song. Other campuses that don't do these songs often notice a large portion of attenders stroll in all the way through worship.

Okay, so enough of my explanation...here's the video.

Fugee The Displaced Rottie

Hurricane Gustav has brought about memories of three years ago when Katrina devastated New Orleans. About that time the Humane Society of Tulsa brought up about 100 dogs and 50 cats for people to foster until they could be returned to their owners in New Orleans.

Rachel called me at church and begged that we go and get a dog. I was reluctant thinking that there would only be pitt bulls and emotionally scarred dogs. When we got there this was pretty much the case. I did however find one crate with a very excited Rottweiler. I had a Rottie when I was a kid and loved him! Contrary to their bad rap, they are wonderful kid-friendly dogs. In every dog book you'll find them described as a great family dog that has young kids. This was definitely true when I was a kid.

We brought Fugee home (Fugee is short for Refugee) and no one claimed him. He was found wandering the streets, emaciated and scared. When we got him he weighed around 70lbs and we could see his ribs. We loved him and fed him lots...now he weighs a healthy 100lbs and loves Ezra. Although he can get a bit rambunctious and knock our toddler over, he is a great jungle gym for him and a wonderful family pet!

Here's some pics of our Hurricane Katrina dog Fugee:

Injured Bad

Man, I've been out the past week with all sorts of medical issues. I had an upper endoscopy where they stretched my esophagus to help with acid reflux n'such. Aaand I learned that my gall bladder has to come out soon...boo!

The worst part of it all is that Ezra (18 months) had a surgery on Friday of this week. There were some problems with his nether region that we had to correct so that he would like us when he got older.

When we met him in the recovery room he was awake and screaming. He had pulled out his I.V. and was really ticked off. The worst part is that for two weeks he's gonna walk around like he just rode a horse for 7 hours straight.

Please pray for the little guy and a quick recovery! There is one video that sums up his experience....here it is...

He's Already Leaving Us

Ezra is over a year and a half old now. So, were were able to enroll him in "Mother's Day Out." It's a program that Asbury United Methodist church offers that allows us to put him in "school" for 5 hours, 1 day a week. We're really thankful that Asbury offers this ministry!

I'll get to take him every week and drop him off before work. That will allow Rachel to get some time to herself and Ezra will get to play with other kids his age.

Here are some pics from his orientation today: