Sacred Digital: Chuckk Gerwig

My current fav Mac Dashboard Widget is the YouTube Widget.

If you download the ut widget you just hit f-12 and your Dashboard appears and whoooosh you can view the latest YouTube vids without even loading your web browser. YouTube is a culture barometer and world class info source, it's worth keeping track of ...and it's filled with fun stupidity too.

Another nice widget with more eternal value is the Logos Bible Widget.

Mix a little religious legalism and a little 21st century technology and you will find new problems... Legalism is not a problem facing only Christians, our human nature is to make rules and laws that encumber the pure knowledge of God with the philosophies and traditions of this world. With legalism comes bondage and complexity whether you are a follower of Jesus, Muhammad or the Easter Bunny.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. - Colossians 2:8 - (from New International Version)

A meditation: What are the freedom robbing, life complicating extraBiblical rules, traditions and encumbrances that I bow to?

Further Directions:
1. Place extraBiblical legalistic laws in escape hatch
2. Push button marked " Jettison"

Fight For Kisses ~ Advertising as Entertainment

Elevation watchers note this: we have changed the date for the first official Test Drive evening from October 31 to November 11th. This will give us some time to get things set and recover from continuing computer meltdowns.

Good things are worth waiting for!

On the iPod: "Hail To The Thief" (Radiohead)

Some of you may be wondering what I'm spending my time doing these days and what I'm doing to get us launched for Elevation well...beyond working full time day and night to fix computer and technology issues from Hell... Click below to find out.

Elevation is a part of Santa Cruz Bible Church so we will share a common mission statement. Luckily, we just wrote a new one and the old one (something about "to infinity and beyond") is history.

The New Mission Statement for SCBC and Elevation will be:

Love God, Love Others, Serve the World*
Copyright : Jesus of Nazareth, Used By Permission, All Rights Reserved
See -*Matthew 22:37-40

Writing this down was the easy part now we must all do it and do it well!

This is a nice surprise from Led Zeppelin!

We are finally getting some real TRACTION at elevation!

We have killed most all of the computer / server gremlins (die cyber-scum!) - we have finalized my switch from PC back to Mac, we are finalizing the cleanup on the logo - we have a database set up - we got the first mailing out -we have some cool video being filmed for the first TestDrive service (Nov. 11) -we have national ads out to find God's BEST Worship Arts Pastor (we've had 27 responses so far) - We've visited 6 great churches to humbly listen, watch, worship and learn. Traction!

Traction = forward movement, momentum will develop until we reach full escape velocity.

HEY!!! - if you didn't receive an elevation email flyer from us (check your junk folder first) then email me with your email address if you want to get our fun monthly mailer.

GABBA GABBA HEY!!! - some Ministries are a PC, some are a Mac. To understand this concept better click the link in the last sentance. Elevation is in the Mac genus. We need a few more Macs: are you in the upgrade mode? If you have a good working Mac, recent enough to run osX Tiger and you'd like to donate it to elevation shoot me an email. Yep you can write it off your taxes too! ...Good reason to talk yourself into that shiny new Macbook Pro or Mac Pro!

On the iPod: "Absolute Garbage" (Garbage)

This last week was great. Andrea and I drove down to Southern California to visit churches, friends and family. We had the real privilege of visiting our last church and dropping into see some of our old students lead the evening service for their first time. We ended up staying up late afterwards hanging out with everyone, priceless. The next morning we went big-time church visiting.

We visited Rock Harbor in Costa Mesa for one of the best worship services I've ever attended - great message, powerful worship, nice atmosphere. We then went to the Sharp Club for another RH service. We hit the Grove and Farmer's Market in between services. We finally stopped in at Erin McManus' Mosaic at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles before munching a killer Korean BBQ dinner in Korea Town.

Visiting churches with a teachable heart is helpful in the process of discerning what kind of expression you'd like to engineer.

On the iPod -"Reggatta de Blanc [Digipak]" (The Police)

Official Disclaimer: I'm not a big Willow Creek "seeker sensitive" program guy (but God has certainly used them in great ways).

Check these videos out though, Willow is evaluating their effectiveness, look what they have found. Maybe we can all benefit from evaluating the program-centric mindset.

On the iPod: "Mute Math" (Mute Math)

Dan Kimball's father passed away last week, keep Dan and his family in your prayers! Josh and Dan asked me to fill in preaching at Vintage Faith Church yesterday as Dan tended to his father's funeral. It was a blessing and a privilege.

God is doing great things at VFC. My buddy the anointed and wildly good looking Josh Fox led worship - it was really passionate and exciting. The room was packed to overflowing with people in their 20's and early 30's and God's presence and pleasure was obvious. It is always encouraging to preach into the lives of really receptive young people. I can't wait to get going with Elevation gatherings, it really energized me to to be at VFC.

Keep November 11th open for our Elevation TestDrive 6:30-8pm in the Santa Cruz Bible Church Student Center -we're getting a bunch of the long overdue very very cool lighting fixes done, we're putting in 3 more video projectors and FINALLY turning the Student Center into a non distracting and well designed space for people to meet with God. Charge!

On the iPod: "Pink Floyd - Pulse" (David Mallet)