Sacred Digital: Chuckk Gerwig

The Bible with new vibes you decide...

The Church of Jesus still suffers persecution worldwide in insane ways. We'll be exploring this and what Jesus meant when he uttered some words about being blessed when you suffer bloody persecution on His account. Get informed about current persecution at Voice of the Martyrs. Also in the quest for an historic understanding of what it has cost to follow Jesus - suggested readings = Jesus Freaks and Foxes Book of Martyrs.

Here's yet another reason why you NEED an iPhone for Christmas. The new iPhone 2.2 software allows you to go directly to the iTunes store and get free podcasts and listen to them instantly, directly on your iPhone. Better yet, if a ministry has a video podcast you can stream it on your iPhone instantly and watch it without any download time.

To get to the Elevation podcasts on your iPhone (or computer) turn on iTunes app and search for "Elevation Santa Cruz" or search for "Chuckk Gerwig". Thanks to the wonderful Melissa Boose, every week's Elevation audio podcast is now up on iTunes by Wednesday at 5:00pm, you can totally depend on it.

Also in the news: if you're local pick up a copy of the local alternative rag The METRO, we're running some less conventional ads in there every other week to make Elevation visible to the unchurched, unconvinced, unJesus-loving Santa Cruzers that we pulse for. This week's ad has a less than nice-clean-white-Rockwell-holiday-cheerly alternative Christmas vibe: Christmas sux for sooo many people.

I'm really blessed to work with a core team of really creative people, thank you Jesus! We gather in rooms with regularity to scheme visuals, audibles, web-ibes, teach-ibles, interact-ibles, stupid-ibles and such. But what if we were 10 times our size as a creative crew? What if there were potentially hundreds of people brainstorming on a concept? We can be. Enter "FaceStorming".

I tried out an idea I had this week that I'll call FaceStorming. I used my status update on Facebook to ask a question I had for input of creative ideas for this Sunday's message. Within an hour about 10 people had responded with some great stuff and even more ideas came in through F-book and email later in the day. So here's the idea, if you are brainstorming say, movie clips for a topic, series title ideas, books to study for a series, songs or lyrics that speak about a subject etc etc why not ask on your status update and let the larger cyber community around you lend their hearts and minds. We're smarter together than you or I are in isolation.

My dear friend, ministry partner and administrative assistant; the amazing Melissa Boose was rushed to the hospital Sunday with seizures, she is stable but still at Kaiser. Mel has Lupus, she is experiencing kidney problems ( that will now require dialysis) and may have swelling in her brain that might be the cause of the seizures. Would you pray with me that the doctors will quickly and rightly diagnose the issues and that she will be returned to health quickly. Will you pray that the treatments she needs will not make her sicker and miserable::and pray for her hub Randy and son Andrew as they go through this thing.

AND

Tim Strouss my buddy and x-intern will go in for surgery today sometime around or after 2:00pm This is the second brainstem surgery for Tim , the bleeding in his brain is back and worse than last time. I just spoke with Jeni, Tim's mom and she said his symptoms have been pretty bad the last few days. Will you take time to pray for Tim today. I'm praying these things:::that he will survive and thrive after the surgery and be back to his old self:: that the surgery will fix the problem once and for all and there will be no recurrence::that he will be able to live on his own again, ( and drive and work) & walk without a limp, no more slurring, no more double vision::that there will be no damage to his brain during the surgery, no mental handicaps will result from the surgury::that his parents and family will be comforted and brought closer to Jesus through this::that he will thrive and give God glory

I got a kick out of this, it's a great idea. Pastor Ed Young's married couples have been given a 7 day sex challenge from the pulpit... I'm thinking we need to borrow this idea when we do a series on sex and marriage. Read all about it in the New York Times

On the iPod: David Bowie - Heroes

Prayer request update: I just left the hospital- Mel is recovering and should be home Friday, keep praying for a full recovery and for God to heal her of Lupus. Tim is in recovery, it was not a bleed as hoped, it was a regrowth of the original problem on his brain stem. If they wouldn't have gotten in quick it would have been fatal. Doctors say he will likely recover fully but he has at least 6 months of very serious rehab to get there, keep praying!

It has become a tradition now, at Christmas I dress as Santa and take pictures with people at the Santa Cruz Lighthouse and Surfing Museum. It's pretty fun actually. Here is the EVIDENCE. Merry Christmas to all. -C

An old old Tv show used to say "you got some splainin' to do Lucy". After the bad behavior of so many Christians and Christian leaders and some hard questions about God a postmodern world says... you got some splainin' to do Church. Our next Elevation series is titled "WHAT THE??? - Four Questions about Christians and their God". It's less an apologetic and more and exploration of what can be known about Hypocrisy, Evil, Suffering and the divinity claims of Jesus. Here we go!