Baptism and 1 year anniversary

A few weeks ago Norte celebrated it's first year of regular services. We had a cookout and Baptism at Bluff Park Beach in Long Beach. There was a fun game of soccer and some outreach as well. It was neat to hear some testimonies of a few people that have become a part of our church.

We do full immersion, so that means when we baptize, we get all the way in. It was special to have my wife Nicole assist me. The water was numbingly cold, but our hearts were warm.

We had our little cermony on the beach and had a few onlookers who must have thought we were crazy. Not crazy, just in love with Jesus.

What a blast we had!

Party!!!

So we had a party last weeked for Norte. it was really special for my family and I to be able to host a party for our new church family. it has been really neat to begin to call these people family, but we have made some great friends.
We are a wild bunch. We had dogs, burgers, and my new favorite,Bool kogi
(thats Korean BBQ). We also had a jumper (bounce House for you on the east coast), and a pinata (do i have to explain that one?) Nicole had so much fun that she had to sit down and ice her head. I guess she got into a game of dodgeball and did a header into a garbage bin. She's o.k.
it was also neat to be able to get some fringe church people to feel like part of the family. I have to say that this party served as a pick me up for me. I must admit, ministry is hard. it can be stressful waiting, hoping, and praying that the "baby" that you are nursing continues to grow and mature.
God has been so faithful in this whole thing. i do not understand why i get to do this. Why i have been entrusted with the care of these people, but i thank God for His power, His faithfulness and His patience with me.

My first wedding

Actually my first Bilingual wedding. As the pastor of a bilingual church i will be called on to marry some people. I will also have to officiate funerals and a quincenera ( the equivalent to a sweet sixteen) some day. I have never done a funeral, but like everything else i am sure I will have to some day.
Anyway...the wedding was nice. I did pretty well and it was actually kind of fun. I didn't charge the couple and i made them attend my church at least twice before i agreed to marry them. They did come to the church and said they really liked it. They are a neat couple that i hope continue to make our little church part of their sunday routine.

We have been here a whole year!

So....here are a few of the things that have happened.
- started a weekly service to reach spanish speakers.
- adjusted the service to a bilingual service.
- changed the hour of the service to 11:00am instead of 9:00am.
- added a guitar player to the worship team. Nicole and i were the only members.
- added a female back up singer to the team
- added a percussion player to the team. Nicole who played percussion stepped aside to play drums. Yes she has many talents.
- Began to use someone to do announcements
- church grows to 20. That is the current growth barrier we are trying to break. (Church planter lingo)
- had an outreach to the community that flopped. I did learn some valuable lessons through it though.
- had our grand opening at Easter. Our biggest sunday 25.
- had a joint outdoor service with "North". Norte gave away gifts to the community. We gained one family from that.
- I officiated the first of many bilingual weddings.
- was able to go away on vacation for two weeks and the church thrived through it.
- developed a norte support team.
- selected a point person for outreach and promotion.
- had someone accept Christ
- seen people grow in their faith
- seen people touched by God.

I am excited to see what else God will do through the faithful of Norte.

I hate this thought

I have read it and i have said it. I probably shouldn't say it out loud though.
It is inevitable, but some of the people that are helping me with this church plant will not be an active part of the church in a few years. I'm not talking visitors. I am talking about people invested in the mission. I hate to think of it.
I have been blessed to meet some really cool people that God has just brought to help out as we get started. Only God knows how long they will stay. These people may just stick around as the church grows and others may stay for a long time. I guess it helps to have experienced this in the past, but now that this is "my church." it brings a whole new meaning to it. I have actually been told by my wife to stop saying it because it involve someone that she has grown very fond of.
In the end God brings people into your path for an undetermined amount of time. How will you interact with them? How will you influence them? Our job is to love on them as long as we can.

Lesson # 40 When Life gives you lemons make burritos

Last month I worked really hard on a big event. I called it Dia de Familia. The idea was to invite the community to a one day event where they could do a craft, have some food, take a family picture, and of course i could meet them and try to convince them to check out the service the following day. Well on the day of the event it had rained an was threatening to rain again. I got a sick feeling in my stomach of the thought of all this work going to waste because no one showed. 

Guess what... no one showed.

So here i was trying to have a good attitude in spite of the fact that no one came to the "Big Event" that i put together. I was hiding it well, cause i was pretty upset. I was angry at God for the weather and the lack of response form the community. Not to mention i had spent over 400 dollars on food that was left over. What am i going to do with all this food?

After a few days and lots of prayer and conversation with God I felt a little better. I still felt like i had failed though. Then it hit me as i drove past the day-laborers on Paramount. I counted them 20, 30, 40...

At that moment God said feed them. I want you to feed them. So I started to talk about it and people were excited about it too. The next day we made 40 burritos and distributed them to these guys. 

The funny thing is I felt like i had just been through a test and somehow passed it. 

My pastor met with me a few days after the failed event and mentioned how positive i was. I then came clean and told him that i was just trying to be positive though i was very po'd. Can i say that? Anyway it was a few days later that God spoke to me about the day-laborers.

As i was giving the food away i felt that God had taught me a lesson. You see when i came out here God had said I want you to minister to hispanic people. That was why i came out here. He never said i want you to start and grow a large church. I guess i forgot that over the last few month.

So i am refocused again on the primary mission. Ministering to Hispanic people. If God wants to grow the church cool, but that will not happen at the expense of real ministry. 

Of course you can have both, but i just had to learn the lesson.

Lesson # 40 in church planting. Seek first the kingdom! Anything else is secondary.

Casa Hogar Belen

This week I was introduced to Casa Hogar Belen. Sadly in Tijuana mexico there are 100 or so orphanages that house the many orphaned children of Tijuana. As a church we will be taking a few trips a year to this orphanage. It was neat to be able to take a day trip and hang out with these kids. These kids range from 9 months to 19 years of age. Most of the kids were between 5 and 10. These children are also not adoptable. Since someone is alive in their family the government will not allow them to be adopted. So there they wait; till someone wants them or till they turn 18 and can leave. So sad.
We did a craft, played some soccer and had lunch together. I took this pic with my iphone at the lunch table. We got into a good discussion about what soccer team was the best. By far it was Chivas. Not MLS chivas for you american soccer fans, but the Chivas of Guadalajara Mexico.
Then we headed home. I don't like the trip back. Why? In order to re-enter the United States one has to cross the infamous border. It only took us a half hour but it is one of the saddest trips you will ever take. As you sit in your car you will pass all manner of people asking for money or selling trinkets. You might see a young girl juggling or an even younger boy singing his heart out in hopes that you will give him some change. Meanwhile u sit in your a.c. car and try to smile as your heart breaks.

Big Sunday

Well this past sunday we made a big stink. Actually we had a flood in the building and so we had to deal with the smell of mildew for the whole service. You got used to the smell after a while. Anyway the service was a little bigger than usual but still not as big as i would like to see. I guess that was fine because i am still trying to figure this whole bilingual thing out. It is really difficult for me anyway to decide how much of either language is too much. I tend to speak too much english at the service when i see english speakers in the service. Another part of the big service is having others participate on the worship team. This week we had a friend Amy who sang beautifully with me after only one spanish pronunciation class. We also had a teen who leads worship for the youth do a special song. It was sweet! I am hoping more than anything that the next big sunday doesn't "stink".

Are you sick of us yet?

For the next 9 weeks Light and Life North and Norte will be embarking on a full on publicity push of the spanish service. Every week we will try a different method to promote the Spanish Service. Two weeks ago i shared a little bit about this effort to the congregation by saying. "You are going to get sick of seeing me...." I hope that what we do in the following weeks not only gets Norte on people's brains but helps to promote the idea that this is a partnership with Light and Life North to reach the Spanish speaking community of Long Beach. My prayer is that the congregation of Light and Life North church not just know about this effort but embraces this effort to reach Spanish speakers in our city.

week six

So we are at week six for norte church. Things are starting to come together. We had our biggest sunday so far;10. It is cool to start to see some of the people that will be making up this church body. Four couples are bi-racial. By that i mean a hispanic and another race. I believe a big portion of our church will be composed of people that fit that description.

Worship was cool this week. It is soooo different when there are more than three people in the seats. I felt like i didn't have to try to encourage people to participate. That is good.

So the next few months we will be focusing on promoting two services that are coming up one in jan. and one in feb. and our new launch date; Easter sunday!

As far as preaching goes i am getting a little more comfortable every sunday preaching and praying in spanish. Because we are a bilingual church i try to do a lot of stuff in both languages. It is pretty interesting how that is working out. People are responding positively so i guess i am doing that well. As i get better at speaking off the page i feel like i get a better responce from people.

I started off my service this week with a disclaimer where i basically said please forgive me for my spanish which stinks. Isn't that a line from a movie? Anyway they just laughed with me... not at me, of course.

Well today it reached into the seventies so i won't be needing to shovel the driveway. Sorry i know back east you guys just had a terrible storm. Thanks for the pics.

Peace

getting in a groove

Well we are into week four of norte church. We are having a fun time doing ministry together Nicole and I. I do the worship leading and preaching and she takes care of the rest. She plays percussion, works on the program, Slide show presenaitions. If she spoke spanish i would have her preach too.

We are seeing a few people start to show up and few excited to be a part of it. At times i feel very inadequate as a preacher, but as one lady put it " your preaching...it's a good ice breaker". I think that she is giving me a compliment...i think.

So we are getting into a groove and i feel pretty good about what we are doing so far. I am pleased to be able to make changes and tweaks to what we are doing as we do it. By january we shold havea good idea of what the service will usually look like.

Well in a few weeks we will have our "big launch" I am hopng to have a cool singer, band or something for that sunday. I know this is crazy, but i am half thinking of having george lopez there. No way he would come.

Since he is my inspiration. Well not really my inspiration, but God spoke through him. You know the story ....don't you?

Los

Ramona park study

I started an informal BibLe study at a park in a rough part of Long beach. I am tagging along with a guy, Calvin , as he runs a weekly program for young kids at this and several other locations. While the kids go to Calvin i have an informal study with the parents, mostly moms. The community around the park is Hispanic and poor. This park is in a rough area as i said and a you will read about now.
The other day as we were getting ready to start the program four teens were walking directly in front of the stage when a cop car came out of nowhere. They were quickly pinned against the car with their hands on the hood. The teens were obviously being questioned for something that they were suspected of doing.
Calvin who was running his program along with music was asked to turn it down. Calvin kept running the game with this going on ten feet from the little kids. I tried to keep doing my study, but it was kind of pointless with the distraction that was going on...kind of distracting. I was saddened and commented to the parents how hard it must be to live there. They agreed. It was for me a reminder of why i am here.
I once read a book by a pastor who wrote that he was saddened when he met a young couple who were pastors who had decided to move out of the city because "God would never want us to have our kids grow up in that kind of environment."
That is one of the reasons that i am here. I heard God saying to me right then just as clear as the day i read it..."Who will go to the city for me?" Who will go to the hurting places for me?" While i was sitting there, while all this was going on, i was reminded of that story.

Soft launch

This is a term used in church planting circles for starting your church without a big splash. The idea here is to just start and eventually have a big promotional launch at a future date. Our official launch date is October 21st. We will do one service at 9:00am. As for the big launch date. It looks like december 24th will be our "Big Splash". I am working on a sweet promo to get into people's hands to let them know about the service.

and the winner is....plan B

Well it has been a few months since the cueva's have been in long beach and I am sure you were beginning to wonder what has been going on the church side of things. Because of some city red tape (you know how that goes) we can't use the building that we thought we would use. So...plan b. What is plan b?

Plan b is way different than i had imagined. We are going to do the whole thing in spanish. And i am going to preach. Ya that's right. i am preaching. I didn't plan on it, but that is what is unfolding for us. I have a lot of organizing and praying to do to do this right. Please keep us in your prayers as we begin this service. It looks like we are starting sometime in october.

please pray for us!

Who: The spanish service
what: A service to reach spanish speakers
where: the church ministry center (youth worship there)
when: october!

Los Angeles... A.K.A...

El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula," ("The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on the River Porciúncula").

Yes this is our home now. We live in Los Angeles county. On the south end of it actually, in a town called Long Beach.
Yes! Thats snow in them hills!

Home again

Living in California again is wierd. I am kinda remembering things that i had forgotten. Smells, sights its all coming back to me. A lot is the same. It really hasn't changed a lot in the past 12 or so years since i have been gone.
One of the things that has changed so much is the amount of hispanics around. Now don't get me wrong there have always been hispanics in claifornia, but not like this. Now i have been to a bunch of the local stores and malls and it is so strange.

At the local mall the other day. I could have sworn i was in mexico. I'm serious. I'm not complaining, just observing. The bigger stores have signs in english and spanish. Cashiers speak both lanuages and you can hear spanish being spoken all over the place.

Yes i know there are sections of cities that are like this. Cultural groups that live predomonatly in a city block and have opened stores in that area. Imgine that x 10.

I know the percenage of hispanics is suppossed to be 40 percentor so, but i feel like its a lot more like 60 percent. Really.
I see how very quickly (and studies show this) hispanics are going to outnumber the non hispanic in the cities of Los Angeles County. Not to mention the other cities in California.

Now here is the problem. Who is reaching these people? Are ministries really making an effort to reach out to these people? I do see some efforts, but not nearly enough. I see alot of little storefront churches and churches that are reaching churched hispanics. What i have not seen are churches that are reaching unchurched hispanics.

For a pastor trying to reach these people this is all good news. I will always have work. But for the non hispanic minded church, the numbers are shrinking not growing.


Pray that God would begin to put a burden on the hearts of pastors to reach the hispanic population around them.
Pray that God would bring spanish speaking pastors and lay people to this area to help with this effort.
Pray that God would speak into the lives of these people and they would repond to the message of hope that Jesus has to offer.

Paz
Los

one month to go

In another month i will be knee deep into the next phase of my life. I have somehow convinced my trusting wife to move three thousand or so miles away from her hometown to my hometown. My hometown is sooo much different than hers. This move will be not only to a different state, but to a different country. Yes, i mean it. My children are convinced that everyone in California speaks spanish. I agree it seems that way.
I am really starting to get excited about what it will be like to live in sunny california again. Not just because of the great weather, but for the reason why we are moving in the first place. I want spanish speakng people to know that God loves them. I want to be a part of that. God has called me to be a missionary to these people. People like me. Too many people think that you have to leave the country to be a missionary, but I think that wherever you are, that is your mission field. Do you know someone who doesn't know that God loves them? What are you waiting for, tell them. Better yet; show them. And If they don't speak english send them to me!

embracing uncertainty

This past sunday I preached a sermon by that title (embracing uncertainty). I thought that it went well. I basically was speaking out of the experience of the past years of ministry. I have in a few places in ministry been moved by God to do something that required a lot of boldness and this move to Long beach is pretty bold.
I said in my sermon that I should be at least a little concerned that my house hasn't sold yet (2 months on the market) and i don't know where we will live or where the kids will go to school. But strangely enough I ain't. I guess i either have a lot of confidence in myself or in God. I hope it is the latter. Today was a great day here is Syracuse mid.60's. Great running weather. I just ran 5 miles. Peace.

What have i gotten myself into?

I guess I want to have a place to share my thoughts as i attempt to start a spanish venue. I have a lot of work ahead of me since I have no clue what i am doing. Well that never stopped me before. Anyway I am two or three months away from starting this venue so i have some time to start getting ready. What does that entail: getting used to speaking and thinking in spanish again. Spanish is my first language, but like anything if you stop doing it you get rusty. Call me rusty. So i am doing a lot of reading and watching anything in spanish on t.v. Tha's tough in Liverpool New york though. I also need to start thinking about what this venue will look like and feel like. I really have no clue what lies before me, but i know the one that does so i am not worried, just anxious. Not bad anxious, like the bible says not to be, just a little bit. So many questions? Who? What? where? When? That type of thing.