Prayer for the Day After Christmas

This post from Scotty Smith is so so good.

A Prayer for the Day After Christmas

Following Jesus in 2012

“The cross redefines life in terms of giving, not taking; self-sacrifice, not self-protection; going to the back, not getting to the front."

 
Tullian Tchividjian (Grandson of Billy Graham)

New Community Outreach Center at Saddleback Church Opened Today

Saddleback Church opened a brand new Community Outreach Center (P.E.A.C.E. Center) today on their Lake Forest campus.  It will house free and low cost medical care, legal counsel and a food bank among other things.  At Calvary Church Santa Ana, we are praying and preparing to open something very similar in the coming years in what we call the "Reach Center".  We currently own a 2 story medical building as a Church that we hope to one day transform into 10 Kingdom focused outreach suites.  It is exciting to see Saddleback's example as we pray and plan for our own building.

Here is a quick video from the OC Register on the PEACE Center opening:
 

A Great Site for Church Creative Types

That's right, I mean you Aaron Lemen, Trevor Behrns and Tim McMahon...
Creation Swap is a really great site for as their tagline states, "give, take, buy, sell Church media.
I met Matt Gruber the founder of Creation Swap this past Sunday at Calvary Church..
He is a great guy with a great heart and vision for the Church.

Check out Creation Swap here.

A Great Post on Singleness

My cousin Nathan has some great thoughts on singleness...

http://natemilnik.com/blog/married-people-are-too-big-to-fail/

Good Neighborhood Engagement Ideas

As the Local Outreach Pastor at Calvary Church, I am constantly looking for creative ways to encourage our people to engage their neighbors.  I recently came across a great secular website that has lots of creative ways to engage neighborhoods in conversation...As Christians on Gospel mission some of these ideas could be adapted to create some really interesting Gospel centered conversations with people in our communities.

Check out the website

 http://civiccenter.cc/


Here is one neighborhood engagement idea from the site...

What They Found at the Bottom of Echo Park Lake

{Public Disclaimer}: Today's entry has nothing to do with Pastoring or Orange County, but I have been really behind on posting lately, so it's time to simply begin the discipline of writing and posting to get me going again...

During my last year in college in 1998, I interned for the Los Angeles Dodgers up in LA, above the Echo Park neighborhood.  Each day, I would make the hour drive from La Mirada to Los Angeles and my exit would always take me past Echo Park Lake.  The Park at the time was in a really tough neighborhood and the Lake was the epicenter for a lot of shady activities, drug deals, etc (although it was used as a backdrop to some of the scenes from Michael Jackson's epic music video to "Thriller.").

Each day I would drive by and think to myself, I wonder what they would find if they ever drained that Lake? This question entertained me on a daily basis...

Well today, 13 years later, I finally got my wish as the Echo Park Lake was recently drained and the findings from the bottom of the Lake were made public.  Here are some of the treasures that were discovered...(taken from echoparknow.com)

Park Trash Cans – 20
Construction cones – 36
Shopping Carts – 7
Portable Stereos/Boombox – 3
Pay Telephone – 1
Skateboard – 6
Parking Enforcement Boot – 1
Toilet – 1
Glass bottles – Hundreds
Model Boat – 2
Frisbee – 20
Weapons (guns) – 2
Office Chair – 6
Miscellaneous toys, Trash, Debris – Hundreds


The pay telephone and the parking enforcement boot have to be my favorites.  I wonder what would possess someone to throw a office chair into a Lake?  Office Max said "no" to the return?