last january i went with a small team from @calvaryhanford to do some work in lima, peru and iquique, chile.

we’ve had a relationship with our friends in peru for many years, so it was great to see them again. because of our bond in the Lord, it feels like a home away from home.

but iquique was new. we hadn’t been there, nor had we met the people. we’d only communicated over email. and by ‘we’ i mean the one guy who speaks spanish emailed over and would translate the responses from the pastor.

before the trip, one of my travel companions had found this video and sent it around. it was the very group of people that we were about to meet and spend a few days with.

i remember it being very interesting to watch the video and try to figure out who was who.

now, it’s even more interesting to look back and know these people and remember that we spent some wonderful time of ministry and fellowship together, especially over meals like this one.

i had forgotten about this little film for many months until i accidentally came across it again today.

i’m excited to go back to iquique again at some point in the future. and, hopefully, we’ll rock a meal or two just like this one.

Missionaries in training with Gospel for Asia have spoken of the “privilege” they felt in suffering for Christ after being attacked on their Bible college campus in Mumbai, India, earlier in the month.

Seven students were seriously injured in the attack by suspected anti-Christian extremists on May 9.

They were preparing the evening meal when attackers armed with wooden sticks, iron rods and fluorescent light tubes stormed onto the campus, beating them and vandalizing the buildings.

The students tried to speak to the assailants and find out why they were attacking them but got no answer.

Hemanti Kashyap was injured when the attackers hit him in the stomach with an iron rod. He said the incident had given him the chance to live out the difficult lessons he had learned in Bible college.

“Through this situation I learned what the Bible means when it says, “Blessed are those who suffer for Christ,” he said. “This opposition was the test of my faith to march forward and to share the Gospel. They hit my stomach with an iron rod and I was injured, but I am grateful to the Lord Jesus who kept me safe to be a witness for Him.”

Sunil Pattanayap recalls the moment the attack began: “For a moment I was shocked about why this was happening to me. Then I understood that the time had come for me to glorify His name,” he said.

“It was my privilege to suffer for Christ and I am happy today because I can testify that God protected me and brought me safe from death to proclaim His Word and stand as a living testimony for Christ with a strong faith.

Three of the injured students are still recovering in hospital. Beedram Sena had to undergo surgery on his broken leg, while Sudershan Yadavan required surgery to repair his broken kneecap. Sunil Reedy needed extensive dental surgery to replace teeth that were knocked out by the attackers.

{Charles Boyd // Christian Today Reporter}

read the article here

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it’s monday.

right now the sanctuary is empty. the stage and rooms are in the ‘need to get cleaned up’ portion of the week. yesterday is gone and it’s time to move forward with what we heard and learned from the Lord.

a lot of times church offices take monday off. that’s totally fine, but i’m glad that we come in the day after sunday to get things started for the next week.

before my next monday, we’ll have a wednesday morning men’s group, a wednesday evening service, a friday evening worship rehearsal, a saturday morning men’s conference, a saturday evening prayer meeting and 2 sunday morning sevices. people will come and go, receive ministry, provide service, worship the Lord, help others, prepare their hearts and prepare their minds.

so while the sanctuary is empty right now, i know that each day between now and my next monday will be full of business and interaction between me and people and the Lord.

mondays are wonderful. they’re the next beginning of a fresh assault of light into darkness.

time to get busy.

blessings.

right now i’m headed over to a funeral.

the good news is that as stanley left this world he was immediately in the presence of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

so it’s time to celebrate!

the question for you is this: are you ready to die today?

if yes, the next question is: how many funerals have you been to?

it’s tuesday.

today’s positive post is for a bunch of people, the majority of whom it would take too long to introduce you to.

here’s the thing, i got sick last week. really sick. and, for the first time in a long time, i wasn’t able to go to church.

as far as my job goes, sunday is a bad day to be out sick. there’s a number of different things that need doing and i do some of those things.

last sunday (and throughout the week) people came out of the woodwork to help out and fill the gap on very short notice.

lots of people did lots of things that they aren’t super familiar with, but they did it with humble hearts.

because of them, i was able to rest and get better over the course of the last 9 days.

so thanks to everyone who took on some extra responsibility on my behalf. i really do appreciate it.

be positive!

we have 3 separate worship teams @calvaryhanford. since last summer i’ve been leading 2 of those teams while some of the volunteers moved to different areas of ministry and others just…well…moved to different cities.

now i’m excited to transition out of leading 1 of them and moving into a support role on the team.

today i’m working on something that’s new for me…what i’m calling a ‘transition set.’ for the members of this team, this will be the 3rd leader in the last year.

each worship leader is a different to work with and follow and the folks on the team have been champs, rolling with my leadership style, which was a lot different than the leader they had been used to. now, they’re going to have leader #3 and i want that transition to be as smooth as possible, not only for their sake, but also for the sake of our congregation, who comes on sunday to worship God.

so, this week, some of the songs will be ‘gene’ songs and some will be songs for zach, the good fellow that is rolling into the leadership position on team 3.

i’m enjoying the learning curve.

anyone done this sort of transition before? i’d love some words of wisdom.

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there aren’t enough silent movies anymore.

here’s one:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n3ASzTQCzc&feature=related[/youtube]

anyone else ever fallen down on stage?

i think it’s important for Christians to be known not for what we’re against, but what we’re for.

we’re for forgiveness.

we’re for love.

we’re for transformation.

we’re for abundant life.

we’re for Jesus Christ.

that is one of the reasons why each year our church has what we call Triple H, or (get ready for an 70′s throwback) the Harvest Hallelujah Happening.

the point is to offer an evening of food, games, fellowship and candy, candy, candy, all free of charge to the several hundred people that come.

we host it annually on the sunday evening before halloween. then, on the 31st, our people can choose how they’re going to represent Christ. this year we provided a lot of tracts for people to hand out with their candy (should they desire to).

HHH is always a ludicrous amount of fun. we have a bunch of inflatables (like jousting, sumo suits, velcro-walls, sports challenges, etc), a midway of throwing games for litluns, chili, pie and salsa cookoffs, pumpkin carving contests (where everyone wins a ribbon) and all sorts of other stuff.

the whole thing is staffed by volunteers, aside from the couple of us that work here.

we just love it.

to us, it’s a great way to demonstrate what we’re for, instead of spending a lot of time and energy broadcasting that we’re ‘against’ some of the issues surrounding halloween.

here are a few pictures from this year’s HHH. click them to enlarge.

for more, visit the gallery.

blessings!

i personally put a high priority on seamlessness when i’m leading worship. i don’t like big breaks between every song. when that happens, i generally feel like instead of 1 worship set you have 6 or 7 three-minute worship sets that don’t really get you from point A to point B spiritually.

does that make sense?

so, in my effort to create seamlessness, i often end up blending songs together that compliment each other either in melody or tempo or theme.

lately one of the blends i’ve drawn on is a mix of Chris Tomlin’s Not To Us & Phil Wickham’s There Is No One Like You God (not sure if that’s the title…i heard him play it once on a maranatha chapel webcast).

i’ve really enjoyed how these songs marry up. however, i decided it’s about time to retire that particular blend, or at least give it a long vacation.

last night i did our opening song for our evening service. the plan was to play There Is No One Like You God sans Not To Us.

after the countdown and my traditional ‘let’s stand and prepare our hearts with a song,’ i started strumming.

immediately after i started strumming i started an opening prayer for our service.

about 4 seconds after i started praying, i thought to myself, ‘…wait…which song am i strumming?‘

that doesn’t happen very much, but for some reason i had a few moments last night where the blend had assimilated both of the individual songs in my brain.

i don’t think it was noticeable because by ‘amen’ i had nailed down what i was doing.

of course, about 2 seconds after ‘amen’ i realized that i was a good 20 bpm slower than i usually do the song. and in that moment i decided that perhaps more care needs to be taken when trying to play a song apart from one of my medleys…

all in all, i think call to worship went fine. as usual, the lesson for me was: prepare more, even if i’m preparing for fluid ‘spontaneity.’

do you like worship sets to be seamless or do you prefer distinct songs?

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[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/2282477[/vimeo]

blog.greglaurie.com