The middle & the heart of the series on worship was this past weekend’s message. Every series that we do at Journey usually has a controlling idea a what’s this thing about. When I’m laying out the series for the team that works on this stuff, I write a one-paragraph thing that in my mind is like a press release. It’s kind of a “so what is this & why should I care” description. It’s a good discipline for me & it usually ends up in our weekend guide thing. This series originally had some other titles, but we picked this message title & changed the whole series to “From Consumer to Consumed”.
I think the heart idea so far in the series is summed up in those 2 changes, those 2 “from…to” statements.
From God as means to God as end.
From seeking happiness by pleasing ME, to seeking happiness in sacrificing ME.
Sarah Merk, our college ministries director, did an awesome job setting up the message and the one last look at our amazing “Consumer to Consumed” video.
I’m praying for a noticeable difference in the worship temp as we gather. I feel like the Holy Spirit is landing on our worship in cool way. May it spread out all over the room!
Visitor eyes. I was stoked that someone who works at one of the Starbucks that I hang out at showed up on Friday. We’ve had a number of cool spiritual talks. She often uses her breaks to pull up a chair & ask a few good questions. She’s a UCSD student & I love how our college students (esp. Bethany ☺) made sure she was welcomed. It’s so great to have guests that you bring at church with you. It gives you those “outsider eyes”. Honestly, it makes me a little self-conscious speaking up there. But I’m grateful & prayerful about what God is doing in her life.
Trick or Treat in my hood: I think I live in one of the best trick or treat neighborhoods around. We had hundreds of kids come through. Linda & I eventually just took chairs out to the driveway – no sense trying to chill in the house. It’s great to meet people & see the kids having fun. For you long-time journey-ites, like you, I miss the Family Fall Festival. But I always felt weird being not home the one night of the year when the whole neighborhood is out interacting.
Here’s a value of Halloween that I never thought of till this year: making you feel old. Half the costumes were lost on me. I’d say, are you a “Power Ranger” thinking I was being all “in their world and stuff.” Of course they weren’t. No one is a power ranger. They don’t know what that is. My kids of course don’t do little kid stuff, so I haven’t a clue what movie character costumes are being marketed. Ouch!
I was in the desert the 1st of this week. So look for another post tomorrow on some desert reflections.
