Sacred Digital: Chuckk Gerwig

Here is a letter our new elevation Worship Arts Director, Omar Spence wrote to his friends regarding his move into Area 51 / Elevation... feel his Kardia.

Dear friends and family, I am writing to let you all know what God is up to with me. I apologize in advance for the length of this letter, but those of you who know me know I am usually only long winded in person. Please understand the importance of this letter to me and my family and please forward this to anyone you feel may need to hear this or that can pray for me and my family. I have been "called" to a new adventure serving my Savior, Jesus Christ in full-time ministry with the church family at Santa Cruz Bible Church. For the last eight years the Lord has given my heart an incredible desire to use my musical gifts in His church to glorify His name (actually about 12 years if you consider "drumming" to be a musical gift...most do not!). What a tremendous journey it has been. Having been encouraged to live "the great adventure" by guys like Chip Ingram, Steve Clifford, Tom Randall, Tim Beverly, and being hounded (in love) by one of my best friends, Paul Sampson, who would not relent on telling me that this was something God had created me to do??? I thought he was flat out crazy! Anyone who has a similar background would think the same...how could God use me? My prayer is that this letter would be an encouragement to anyone struggling with that thought. All of us have been created by God and have been specifically gifted by Him to be used for His purposes. And yet all of us are sinners. Do not be afraid. Don't do what I did for so long, delaying God's will for me, out of fear of failure. God does not give us the spirit of fear. If by faith we take the opportunities in baby steps God promises to show up. He says, "come unto me like a child!" Fully dependent on Him!

Things really started to change for our family about two and a half years ago when we visited Calvary Chapel of Santa Cruz. I was so blessed. So many cool things about this church in it's simplicity just blew my mind. We were reminded of how deep and inexhaustible God's word is. To realize again the importance of the study of His word and that it is all there (OT & NT) for a reason! I fell in love with the Word of God again, but I realized that I was not exercising my gifts for God there, just being fed. I was concerned and began praying about this, I had forgotten what it was like to go to church and not serve God. It didn't feel right and I began to question whether or not this is where God had called us to serve. In a circumstantial situation only God could create, the worship pastor at Calvary was suddenly challenged to care for his father with Alzheimer's and immediately had to adjust his priorities and his commitment to leading worship to honor his earthly father. The opportunity to lead worship was presented to me, and that's when I really knew the Lord was definitely calling me to serve Him this way. It has been a blast to be in the center of God's will serving in the exact position in the body that I was designed for. Not that I did it all right, I failed regularly, but what a joy to see people affirm you in what God created you for. The recent turn of events this last couple of months and the decisions we have been faced with have been so hard for us as a family. Dave Johnston is not only one of the best communicators and teaching pastors I have ever been blessed to serve with but, he has discipled and absolutely surrounded himself with an entire team of "awesome" teachers. Whenever he couldn't preach (which was not very often) it seemed like any other pastor who stood up to teach was also a phenomenal teacher of the scriptures. Most of them have never been to seminary! (ouch) I have never felt so equally yoked with so many people in such a small church before (especially my pastor) and was content to serve there as long as the Lord would allow. (learned that line from Chip!) Pastor Dave has great vision, and I am learning that I love men who are visionary and have an agenda for God! I am fairly simple in my vision. Since accepting Christ as my Savior and watching Him transform my life, I love seeing people get saved. I long to be available to tell people about Jesus anywhere I am, or to be any part of any outreach designed to see people open up their hearts to God and believe Jesus died for their sins. One of the hardest things for me to do as a lead worshipper is sing a song after people have prayed the sinners paryer...I'm a mess. Since coming to Calvary a few years ago Pastor Dave has encouraged us to pray fervently for the lost in Santa Cruz County. That has been my passion for years.

More recently, God has placed a tremendous burden on my heart for real unity in the bible teaching churches in our area. Not just saying it with our lips, but living it by our works. We need to pray for each other, and reach out to one another when we are in times of need, and to really serve God as "one" church. Like the apostle Paul did when he traveled between churches, always unifying them, bringing gifts or money to a church in need from another church that was in abundance. It is crucial for the churches in Santa Cruz to be supportive of each other, not tearing each other down. Now I see God giving me a burden and a purpose! What an awesome season of growth for me!

In June of this year a very close friend of mine told me about a "missional" vision God had given Him for reaching out to Santa Cruz and truly seeing Santa Cruz as a mission field! (red flag # 1 = guy in Santa Cruz with a vision). I had never really thought of Santa Cruz in that way, I thought the mission field was in Mexico, Philippines, India, Africa, China...or somewhere far away. I just began praying for him, his family, and about how (maybe) I could somehow be a part of what he was up to, until months passed. Chuckk Gerwig if you don't know him, is a phenomenally crazy, guitar shredding, Harley riding, monster of a bible teacher like few men God has created. You can fill a website with what this dood has been up to , and he has, www.sacreddigital.com <http://www.sacreddigital.com/> . His visionary and missional thinking penetrated me, and caused me to look at what he was up to. I began meeting with him regularly to see what the progress of God's new ministry was. The Holy Spirit took over from there. God has been at every junction of this process, because frankly I wasn't interested in going anywhere. When I learned of Chuckk needing a full-time worship pastor to make this church service happen, I thought, "well God, it is on Sunday nights, so I could still serve at Calvary on Wednesday nights and Sunday morning then go to work full time with Chuckk and serve with him on Sunday evening?!!!" God was tugging on my heart but I avoided saying too much to anyone anything until I spent time with God and finally prayed and fasted. I felt God telling me to take the next step and actually applied for the position in October. This was the point when the reality that things might be changing came. I called Pastor Dave and let him know, and he was so supportive and loving. I got all the emotions, nervous, scared, doubtful of my calling, but I just kept pressing into God through His Word and through prayer. Throughout the scriptures God is so consistent, but for some reason we let our humanity to trick us into thinking that we should find a place, make it nice and comfortable, and serve God in a way that works out well for us. All of the scriptures reveal the exact opposite! How comfortable was it for Jesus, or for any of His followers in the Bible? When He told the disciples to go ye therefore unto all the nations and share the Good News, He knew they would be martyred. He absolutely did not mean for us to sit on our butts waiting for people to come to us, or to our church so we can "bless" them. People are going to hell not knowing that I am their neighbor, and I know the cure for sin, it's Jesus. I need to challenge myself daily, am I really doing all I can? We (the church) need to be all about getting outside the walls of the church, going into Matthews house (the world) and making relationships with people, showing them Gods loving-kindness so that they would see Christ living in us. To see people receive salvation. That is what Christ has called me to do, and no, I have not done it too well. I have friends that I am afraid to talk to sometimes, mainly because I don't want to say the wrong thing. But I beg God to help me, to teach me how to listen to His voice when He tells me to talk to someone, or reach out to someone, to love someone, or hug someone? Or maybe to go and serve him in another location that looks impossible, but might glorify Him more. All things are possible through Christ who strengthens me. Living for Jesus is sometimes hard, but it's way harder living without Him, trust me I tried it. When I am prayed up and prepared and it feels like God's Spirit is flowing through me, and we hit a home run, get it right on, and people are changed, and He is given the glory, there is nothing greater! I'm hooked!

I have a long way to go to be anything great for God, but He has opened a door for me to grow in the art of worshiping Him as a full-time lead worshiper at one of the greatest churches in Santa Cruz! To hopefully bring much fruit to His kingdom. This truly is the next step for me in "God's great adventure". I know again that peace that surpasses all understanding having been approved for this position, but the days ahead are going to be difficult, please remember me and my family in your prayers...and know I do not ask for this often, for my family yes, but not for me. I need your help.

love, your bro in Him...Omar

on the iPod:"Wintersong" (Sarah McLachlan)