Sacred Digital: Chuckk Gerwig

Find Out About The Elevation Dream: keep THIS Tuesday evening August 7th free for Ele-Vision, a vision-cast, Q&A and prayer evening for Elevation. -6:30pm @ the Santa Cruz Bible Coffeehouse.  God is brewing something tasty for Santa Cruz and beyond, come find out if He is calling you to cook along with Him at Elevation.

LOGO UPDATE: A huge thanks to everyone who has been submitting Elevation logos, we have a bunch of nice candidates already!  If you'd like to join the fun and submit a logo for Elevation there's still time - we'll be taking submissions through the end of July!  Logo submissions details are found at THIS entry.  We'll pick one official logo and use the other entries over time for special events and the like.

On The iPod: Joe Walsh - So What  This album along with his amazing "The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get"  are among the most soulful classic rock albums of all time.  They remind me of driving across snow covered West Virginia in my cousin's red Firebird when I was a young kid.  My cousin had both albums on 8 track and they were the soundtrack for the long snowy drive to my grandfather's funeral.

Does anyone really need an item like this?   ...and don't miss the companion item, here...

In the GOODNEWS Section: The clock is ticking down to Ele-Vision this Tuesday Nite!

  ...yeah baby !!!!

On the iPod: Fall Out Boy - Infinity On High

Elevation continues to gain volunteers, fans  and well wishers.  We had another 65 people (in addition to the 20 or so at our beach bonfire) show up to our vision night to hear more about the dream. 

It's been cool seeing people of all ages resonating with the vision and plan.  There is a lot of excitement about the new ministry.  We recorded the vision session, but true to form the recording broke midway through.  We've been experiencing an uncommon barrage of technical problems in the last 3 weeks, all three of my email accounts have gone down at different times, my wireless at home broke, I lost voice mail on my cell for a time, then I lost text mail and then mobile web puked on another day recently.  My Harley (electrical problem) and spa are down too lol...If you have tried to reach me and not gotten an answer I am not ignoring you please try again, I think my communication channels are working again.

What's next for Elevation??? Next step = to hire a youth pastor to replace me and then I go full time in Elevation!  Great news ,we have a couple of great  replacement candidates already!  I am also getting started on interviewing and hanging out with possible Elevation Music pastors too so if you know a world class worship leader give them my number!

I will be out of contact from this Sunday - through the 20th : on the road again , this time to MEXICO with 60 of our students and staff for our annual Mexico mission.  We'll build a home for a needy family, run a large kids outreach in a Tijuana condo sprawl and have a team serving at an orphanage too.  Strange to think this will likely be my last trip as a youth pastor after almost 24 years dedicated to youth.  I still plan to volunteer for youth stuff and even help as staff for trips from time to time and to still feed into youth workers - but this is the end of an era in a way. 

Burglar alert : Our house sitter is drinking tequila and sharpening his chainsaw on our couch at this very moment... he looks dangerous.

That's all the news that's fit to print.

Missional churches are very different than Seeker churches, the wonderful Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church explains the difference.  Breath mission my friends.

We're back from Mexico - it was a great trip.  We found the best taco stand in the known universe - Taco's Arana..the holy Nirvana of taco stands (I am addicted to Mexican street food and have tested more than a few stands). They had a pepper at this place called a Chili Bomba, it is the hottest pepper I have come across - it nearly melted one of my students to his base elements.  His strong  reaction to the nuclear pepper provided great evening entertainment for the customers and restaurant staff.

One group of our students led a vacation bible school , women's bible study and sports ministry in a sprawling, graffiti-ed, trash-strewn condo complex in Tijuana - it was a blast and God was at work in and through the students. The Gospel was preached and incarnated.  If you were to show up you would have found skits, music, crafts, testimonies, bible stories, sweat and the occasional used hypodermic needle in the play area we lovingly call the "dustbowl".  2709 piggyback rides were given and 642 games of Futbol were played in the blazing heat, the American's lost most all of the games I think!

Some of our other kids built a brand new home for a family that had been living in an aging aluminum trailer.  Giving house keys to people who didn't have a house 5 days before is....powerful.  Jesus was on hand, sitting at the corner of the hot new roof, He was smiling. 

BEFORE -  

AFTER -      

The final group of our students ministered to and loved on kids at an AMAZING  orphanage, run by our friends the Palau's  they were blessed and a blessing.  One day we took about 20 of the children to the beach to play in the sand and the waves it was wonderful.  If you don't know about the Palau's work in Mexico check it out at the link in the last sentence, it is Christ-soaked - plug in with these people!

Well I'm home for about a week then off for a few days in Alabama with my dear friend Andy Wulff!

On the iPod: Audioslave - Out of Exile

Peter tells us in his first epistle " always be ready to give reason for the hope that is within you". 

Question , how many people have asked you about this lately? 

Maybe we need to develop deeper relationships so that people can see the hope and joy inside our lives and want to know where the well of such things is located... 

Ed Stetzer has some ideas on how to get started in these postmodern times.  Great thoughts on starting "spiritual discussions" - worth a read : HERE. 

Elevators, read this one.

Jesus loves the poor.  In fact, Jesus was poor.

Ever hear a message that just sucked you in and made you ask yourself "how do I need to change - right NOW?" 

Tim Keller's stellar sermon "Doing Justice" is one of those messages you HAVE to hear, it's simply that good and that important.  Compassion and action are words that are vital to Elevation thinking.  It's vital that we continue to learn from the Word of God and evaluate our actions and thoughts from the Eternal Standard.

Listen to this message, it can be downloaded to your mp3 player or listened to directly on your computer.

Caution: if you listen to this before bed as I did your mind may be very awake for a while! 

The fall is coming and LOST will be back on, but until then...

Have you ever noticed that the storyline of Queen's classic opera-rock opus  Bohemian Rhapsody lines up with the storyline of  LOST?  Kinda like Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz ...  If you have missed this amazing mystical alignment push play below...

   Tomorrow I head  off to Alabama, "where the skies are so blue" to visit the Right Reverend Andy Wulff,  David Thew (Church in a Brewery) and their ministry friends.  If I see Neil Young I'll remind him that evidently "a Southern man don't need him around anyhow". 

ELEVATION NEWS: A key event will be the hiring my replacement in youth ministry ---guess what? ...we have some GREAT guys in the pipe right now.  When we find and hire the right man, I'll be a full time Elevat-or!  Forward movement is happening !!!  ALSO:  If you have a logo you haven't submitted yet shoot it on over. Things will be gaining speed in September.

Big news coming this weekend regarding a huge step forward for the Elevation launch.  We have some cool new Thrust.  Check back in a couple of days for a big update. 

BTW: HUMIDITY SUCKS... but Alabama is very nice.