The Elevate Rundown 11-8-06

Here is how Elevate went down last night, November 8th.

Worship Set:
Take It All
Salvation Is Here
How Great Is Our God
Jesus Lover of My Soul

Message:
This is the last message of the Unquenchable Series. This message was about choosing to focus on God or Focus on our problems. Having a heart of worship keeps our focus on God. A heart that has a "must" desire is one that draws God's attention and brings Him on the scene.

Sermon Title - I Must Worship

Sermon Scripture - John 4:23-24 ...worshipers must worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.

Big Idea - Worshipers who “must” worship God bring God into focus as they respond to God’s reality thus magnifying Him above their problems.

Two ways to Magnify God:
1. Focus on God - Worship in Spirit
2. Respond To God - Worship in Truth

Statistics:
Total Attendance-45, Total Teens-39

Service Notes:
This is the completition of this series...the night was full of little things...little problems...which was perfect for the team cause it was what the message was all about...it pointed out that we had the choice of two things, either focus on the problem or focus on God. We chose God. And the service went great. Be on the lookout for the third podcast coming this weekend...

Stalk Wars

Nope that's not a mispell...I wrote it...STALK WARS...Apparently I'm now being stalked...Do a guy a favor and what happens? I thought this guy was feeling a little lonely so I would send him a little email to pep up his spirits and now...STALKED...

What's will I do? Erik Bramlet, Eric's Eddyfications, from Community Christian Church, has put the word out on me...where can I hide...it's not like I can just stop writing my blog and crawl back into a hole in life. I could change my whole blog and...aghhh...the thoughts....

Maybe I can call the CIA or the Secret Service...I have a few friends in low places that I still know. They might even drive all the way up to Naperville, Illinios, if the price is right. What's a guy to do???????????

I got it...retaliation....everyone, if you are reading this...if there is a single breath in your living soul, you need to go to Eric's Eddyfications and leave a comment on his blog's...tell him I sent ya...Tell Him THE WAR is on.

The Stalk War Begins

Eight Things That Excite Me

There are a lot of things that excite me that probably don't excite others and vice versa...

For example, when people come up and ask me if I watched the latest pro football game on the weekend. Usually I tell them, "nope, I don't watch pro football." In fact, I haven't watched the Superbowl in the last 3 or 4 years. (Whole Janet Jackson thing...missed it.) Now don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-pro football, they are a bunch of overpaid jocks kinda guy...oh no...I think they deserve every bit of the salaries they get. In fact, they should probably get paid more. It just I enjoy the college game a little more. The atmoshere at those games is a little different. Ever since I played ball in college, I can relate to the thrill of the rivalry of the college game. On top of that, college football has been marketed very well over the past few years and although the play on the field is not at the professional level, the excitement is definitely there.

So what does excite Jason Curlee...well here goes

8. A big stack of ribs from Smitty's in Lockhart, TX. I know it's debatable, but I stop there every time I go through.

7. When the Longhorn's win. (They still have a good shot at a national championship. It would be really cool though to win the Rose Bowl three times in a row.)

6. Reading a great book on leadership, church growth, business, etc...and learning that one concept that is going to take myself or my organization to a higher level.

5. Getting our Elevate Service out in a podcast. (My wife was so bored when I was telling her about how we did it.) Here is the latest.

4. Seeing our team at Elevate pull off a great service.

3. When my children succeed in whatever they are doing. I want them to be the best.

2. Of course I couldn't write this post without saying my wife excites me...even after almost 15 years of marriage she is the one I look forward to seeing everyday.

And the number one reason....(drum roll)

1. When I see God change people's lives. I love the fact that God uses me in all my imperfections to do something great for Him. I know you're probably saying this just cause you are a Pastor and you're supposed to say that. But I do what I do for this very reason. Not for the pay..(although more would be nice) but for the thrill of seeing people move forward in their lives.


What are the things that excite you? Leave me a comment I want to hear what some of yours are.

I Must Worship 3

Make God Bigger Than Your Problems...that's what tomorrow's message is shaping up to be about. When we have an attitude of worship...an attitude that says "I Must Worship" then we begin to magnify God, giving us a new perspective on our situation.

This is a perspective with God in front of our problems. Whenever you look at something, whatever is closest to you is bigger in perspective. So begin to frame God through worship, through having an unquenchable spirit of worship that will never die.

I Must Worship 2

So how can I develop an attitude of worship...an attitude that says, "I Must"? Can I even develop it?

I have heard everything...even probably tried it all at one time or another.

When we are born, we are born with this longing for something more. Something that we fill with people and things. As we choose God we finally bring our life to a focusing point. A point is now filled with the ultimate reality of eternity.

But can I develop or stir up that passion for God? Paul wrote Timothy and said, "stir up the gift that is in you." Jesus speaking to the Church in Revelation said, "return to our first love."

An attitude that says "I must" is Unquenchable. It is an attitude that can't be put out. An attitude that can't be doused no matter who many waves crash into it in life.

Jesus said it best there in John 4:24 when he said that "Worshipers 'must' worship the Father in spirit and in truth." Two very important components. This Wednesday at Elevate and on our next podcast we will be talking about these two components of an attitude that says "I Must Worship".

Staying on Focus

Here's a quote from GSDM's Roy Spence:

"The 'invisible' decisions that you make to stay on purpose can be ten times more important than your visible decisions. Nothing is more difficult than saying no to an attractive opportunity. And nothing's more important."

Great Quote

Life and ministry are so much about staying on focus. And our most important values will drive the "invisible" decisions we make. What are your values? The values that will bring success in your life. These values will bring us to the focus we need to stay on purpose..

I Must Worship

As I sit here meditating on this weeks message, (we conclude our Unquenchable series this week) I am thinking about the last portion of our series scripture.

John 4:23-24 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.

Our first message was "True Worship Never Dies." Last weeks message was "Who God Seeks." This weeks message is "I Must Worship." The last part highlighted above is what we are going to focus on this week.

This set of scriptures has always been one of my favorites cause I have felt one of the things that has always defined who I am was worship. That is I always felt I have worshiped God wholeheartedly. If you were to go through my music you would see that 90% is praise and worship music. My favorite songs in church are songs that include "You" in them.

Now when we started this series my original thought was that I would teach them about "worship." I was going to focus on the kind of singing kind of worship, teaching our teens to push in to a deeper level in their worship during our service.

Of course you know God...He always has a way of teaching what He wants to teach. This series has focused more on "giving our whole lives to God." So this week I sense God is saying that a person who worships has an attitude that says "I must worship." I must have a total and passionate devotion to God. An attitude that starts deep inside that sometimes I can't even understand.

When that attitude is present then God becomes bigger than our problems and our problems kind of disappear under the magnitude of His presence.

Read more on Elevate here.

Elevate Podcast #2

Here it is...Podcast #2 for Elevate Student Ministries. This week Juno Garcia and I talk about the service and we have the second message for our Unquenchable Series entitled "Who God Seeks". Check out The Elevate Rundown 11-1-06 for sermon message details.

To read all the posts on Elevate click here.

Download the MP3 directly here.

Listen online here.

Sexual Sins In Ministry

Mark Driscoll, of Mars Hill Church, had a great post today that I thought is great advice to any level pastor in ministry. Here are a just a few excerpts:

• The only way to stay away from sin is to stay close to Jesus. Colossians says that we are prone to making a lot of rules but that if we don’t deal with the issues in our heart, we are fooling ourselves; holiness cannot be obtained by the sheer force of white-knuckled will power. More than anyone, a Christian leader needs time with Jesus in repentance, for their own soul and not just to make them a better leader or teacher. Death comes to every Christian leader who goes to Jesus and Scripture for purely functional and not relational purposes.
• Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives...It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either.
• Every pastor needs a pastor. Too often the pastor is seen as a sort of little God and his wife as some glorified First Lady. Every pastor needs a pastor with whom he can regularly have accountability and the confession of sin. Every pastor’s wife also needs a godly woman chosen for her maturity and trustworthiness.
• Pastors have the right to protect their own home. This means that if someone keeps dropping by unannounced and is unwelcome, or a flirtatious woman shows up to a Bible study at the pastor’s home, the pastor and his family have the right to request that they never return. The pastor’s home simply cannot be viewed as yet another piece of church property that is accessible to anyone who desires it. Rather, the pastor’s home must be a safe place for the pastor and his family without the wrong people rudely calling and dropping by.
• Pastors need to protect their email and have it screened for accountability. For me, this means that no email but an email from one of our pastors comes directly to me. This also means that I leave my email account open at home and my wife regularly checks it to get schedule information, etc., because I have nothing to hide. I also do not have a secondary email account from which to build a secret identity.
• Pastors must not travel alone; the anonymity and fatigue of the road is too great a temptation for many men. A pastor should take his wife, an older child, an assistant, or fellow leader with him. If this cannot be afforded then travel should not be undertaken.
• Lastly, the big issue is a love and fear of God. Only a man really knows his heart and whether or not he loves and fears God above all else. Without this a man will fail to live for God’s glory, and it is only a matter of time.

Doing A 5th Quarter

Our latest 5th quarter is tonight for our youth ministry Elevate...for those that have never done one and are interested in what we do, the format is pretty simple. There are many ways to do it, here is ours:

We give out free food (tonight we are doing sausage in bbq sauce & pizza and giving out free lemonade), turn on all our video games and Playstations (If you don't have any buy a couple.), and we have a concert (we are having a rap group called Jabez Entertainment come...they are great). Then we open up our coffee shop and sell coffee/drinks...

We do all this from 10-12 and it has gone great...

On purpose I don't try to make it so in your face Christian...I am just trying to get kids in to our facility and see Church from a different light.

Oh yeah...we promote, promote, promote...church bulletin, our youth bulletin, announcements and lots & lots of flyers.

For other youth ministry ideas check out my other blogs on Youth Ministry.