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!