Sunday Evening LPC Talk Soup

What a great Easter Evening service down in the keys! I got home this morning from a quick spin around Cuba with stops in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Ocho Rios Jamaica, and thanks to my dad had a stress free trip home from the port. This evening, Trav gave the first message in the rebel series and focused on Peter. He was a tough guy with a special constitution. I thoroughly enjoyed Trav’s sermon; it may have been the best he’s ever presented. The PK campus looks great too! Also, Tom’s testimony was great. After service, we hung out and had dinner together. Pizza, casseroles, pasta, potato salad, chips, beans and rice, and other stuff tasted delish! I was so happy to be at church tonight in a near full capacity service, and I only wish I could have been at the theater this morning.

Sunday Life Pointe Talk Soup

It’s Sunday afternoon, and that means it’s time for the Life Pointe Talk Soup (intro stolen from Chris Day).

• Pastor Travis, Jesse and Alex Santoyo, and Matt Izaguirre came home from Cambodia/Tennessee this week, and made their return to Life Pointe Church this weekend starting yesterday at the baptism/picnic.
• We saw 6 baptized at the Homestead Bayfront Park yesterday afternoon in the chilly wind and rain.  The sun came out for the picnic, though, but so did the “noseeums”.
• This morning I got to the theater and could not find the Roland keyboard; Zech had turned off his phone last night so he didn’t get the message that the keyboard needed to be retrieved from Plantation Key.
• I used Jesse’s famous Saturn Project Casio Privia instead.  I had to run to my house to get the extra keyboard stand.
• Music rocked this morning.  Jesse was on the rhythm guitar and lead vocals, Josiah played electric guitar lead, Matt was on the bass, Alex “The Beat Machine” was on the drums, I played keys and back up vox, Julie sang back up as well.
• We sang “Pride (In the Name of Love)”, “Your Grace is Enough”, and my favorite “Your Love is Amazing”.  For communion we sang “Beautiful”.
• The message was another installment of the New Testament Challenge, the Challenge of Obedience.
• Trav showed pictures and recounted his experience in Cambodia, including his (along with Matt and Alex’s) encounter with a pinoy (a rotten boiled egg), a balut (a fully developed duck fetus in the egg), a beetle, and crickets for dinner.  NASTY.
• He also shared what the Anthems for a Broken World project has been and will continue accomplishing through their combined efforts with the People for Care and Learning in the impoverished dumps of Cambodia.
• Jesse, Alex, and the Saturn Project laid it all on the line for the cause of Christ, giving 10 years of song writing and musical efforts to help bring clean drinking water and a real home to hundreds of the most impoverished people in the world.  God will bless them for their sacrifice!  I am proud to call them friends.
• I bought two of the Anthems CD’s and I will give one as a gift.  Also, I am doing everything I can to encourage other people to buy the album and help save someone’s life and soul.  You can find out more by visiting The Saturn Project’s website, and you can purchase this amazing music there as well.

Sunday Life Pointe Talk Soup

• This will be a short Sunday Talk Soup post.
• This morning we had two speakers continuing the New Testament challenge.
• Mark Similey spoke in the 9:00 AM service, and my dad JT spoke in the 10:30 AM service.
• The topic was forgiveness.  Forgiven people forgive people.
• Jesus said 7 times was not enough, but 7 times 70, that’s 490 times.
• Among the Thirsty led worship.  They did an amazing job.  It was the best guest band praise and worship I have heard at LPC.
• The best thing about their worship set was the way they really led LPC in corporate worship.  The music was awesome, but their attitude of worship was even better.
• All four of the band members had a heart for God, and it shined through not only in worship, but after the service while they were breaking down.
• I will see some of you guys tonight at Plantation Key for the evening service.  TTFN! (Ta Ta For Now)

Give God Your Best

I have work clothes, clothes that I wear around the house for house or yard work, clothes for the beach, painting clothes, clothes that I wear to the game, clothes for when I go out, when I go fishing, for weddings and funerals, cool weather clothes (I don’t have any cold weather clothes right now), but I don’t really have a set clothes that I wear for God. I have never worn shorts to Sunday service (you can be sure that most people don’t want to see my hairy legs on Sunday anyway). God does not care if I am in shorts. He sees me when I am naked anyway. I don’t need to dress up to see God. God is everywhere, even when I hide from him or when I sin and reject him. I don’t go to a building where God lives (church) so I can dress up and impress Him. He sees me when my hair is messed up, when my face is unshaven, and when I smell bad. When I dress up, shave, cut my hair, and take a shower, I do it for people. That’s OK. There is nothing wrong with dressing up to go to “church”, but it isn’t God that cares. Man cares, and sometimes it’s for good reason. Does He accept my gift of dressing up for church on Sunday? Probably He does, because he sees my heart and why I am doing it. Does he accept my gift out of obligation? I don’t know; we are instructed to give cheerfully. That does not include telling other people how they should dress as a way to please God. That is the wrong attitude and I don’t think God is pleased. It could easily be seen as legalism.

I think this whole idea of giving God your best when it comes to clothes could be a misunderstanding of who God is. The more that I have grown in the Lord, the less surface thinking I have about Him. I hope the clothes that God sees on me are the robes of righteousness that only He can dress me in (Isaiah 61:10). If I am trying to dress for God, am I not discounting what Jesus did on the cross? Does God look at me like a father laughing at his little boy who so wants to impress him that he misses the whole point? Probably, but I know he still loves me. As a little boy, my efforts are surface, but as I grow I need to stop trying to impress God and just obey him, love him, love my brothers and sister, tell people about Jesus not only with my mouth but also with my life, and live my life in a way that honors him. All the other junk is filthy rags. The clothes that I wear when I “give God my best” is nothing but filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).

Sunday Life Pointe Talk Soup

• My Talk Soup posts are typically focused on the musical portion of our corporate worship service.
• This morning’s music was as good as it has ever been, in my opinion.
• Joe and Jesse led worship this morning, Julie, Reina, and Curtis (a new addition) sang back up.
• Josiah played the electric twanger, Jesse played rhythm on the acoustic, Matt played bass, Alex totally kicked tail on the drums, and I played the Roland FP2 keyboard.
• We opened with Point of Difference, next was Friend of God, then Holy is the Lord.  For communion and after the message, we sang a new song, Beautiful by Phil Wickham.
• Mike spoke on perseverance in the 9 AM service.  He did a great job.
• In the 10:30 service we had Fred Garmond as a guest speaker.  He helped explain the Anthems project and what will be accomplished in Cambodia.
• His testimony was memorable.  I loved the way he spoke of himself in the third person.  Since it was my first time hearing the testimony, I didn’t really know who he was talking about at first.  Then as he started talking about the young man in the testimony being the first to get a Masters of Divinity from the COG Theological Seminary, and then a Doctorate from Regent University, I was able to put 2 and 2 together.

For another perspective on LPC and the Sunday happenings, be sure to visit the other LPC bloggers:

Ritz

Chris’ Sunday Morning Tossed Salad

Pastor Trav

Kelly

maybe even Jesse.

Sunday Life Pointe Talk Soup

• This morning was week 2 of the New Testament Challenge.
• I guess I set my alarm wrong because it did not go off this morning at 6 AM.  I woke up at 6:50 needing to be at the church theater by 7:00.  I rushed and got there by 7:20 on the nose.
• We changed up our worship set this morning because Diego was sick and the plans were for Reina to lead this morning.  Jesse took over instead.
• July sang back up, Alex was the beat machine and did an excellent job as usual.  Matt played bass, Jesse on the rhythm, Josiah played rhythm and lead, and I played the keys.  It was nice to have the Roland FP2 back this 
• We sang Always Greater, I Could Sing of Your Love Forever and Better Days with Healer for the communion led by Julie.  Honestly, the music sounded great this morning.  For “halftime”, Alex kicked a seriously funky beat and Matt played a bassline that Alex wrote.  They drew an ovation for their efforts.  One family was heard saying “the music was jamming!” as they exited the theater.
• Travis had some great nuggets of wisdom this morning as he spoke about the difference between judgment and being judgmental.  Remember that the same manner you judge others, you will be held to that standard.
• His story about road rage was classic.  He also had some corny lines about Ah-nold in The Terminator.  He wondered why he always wanted to be Bach and not Beethoven “I’ll Be Back”.

For another perspective on this morning at LPC, be sure to visit:

Ritz, Trav, Mike, Jesse, or Kelly.

Sunday Life Pointe Talk Soup

• What a great day at the theater as Life Pointe came together to corporately worship and be with each other.
• Luckily, we had plenty of extra people at work this morning, so I was able to go home without any penalty.  I know there were several who wanted to go to set up their Super Bowl parties, but this is only the second time I have gone home.
• As for our corporate gathering, we had a great time in both the 9:00 and 10:30 services.
• Travis kicked off the New Testament Challenge series, which will run through March 22.  The mission is to read through the New Testament in the next 60 days while we study what Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul and Peter had to say about the revolutionary man who is God, Jesus.
• In music, Jesse led one song (Say So) and played rhythm guitar for his tune and lead for the rest, and Matt on the rhythm guitar led “Grace Like Rain” and for communion “Come Thou Fount/Amazing Grace”, and “Nothing but the Blood”.  Alex was on the drums, I played keys, and Bill played bass.  On back up was Julie and Reina.
• Come Thou Fount was so cool, and you could feel God’s presence as people really expressed their worship.  It was pretty cool to take a hymn and put a modern feel to it.  The percussion was solid and Matt did an awesome job singing and leading.
• For “Meet and Greet”, Jesse and Matt sang DMB’s Maker with Alex kickin it on the drums.
• It was sweet just letting loose and jamming after church with Alex on the drums, Matt on the bass, and I was playing with the keys.  Matt and Alex rocked, but I thought Alex showed off a little (he’s good enough).  Then Jesse started playing some Latin thing on the piano, Matt and Alex jumped in and it was pretty cool.

For another perspective on Life Pointe’s Sunday morning at the theater, be sure to visit Trav, Chris, Ritz, Kelly and maybe even Jesse.

Sunday Life Pointe Talk Soup

• We had a great time this morning at the theater in pier 2, as Life Pointe came together to worship corporately.
• The music was led by Reina and Mike.  They both did an excellent job.
• Alex was on drums, I played Jesse‘s keyboard, Josiah played rhythm on the acoustic guitar, Bill played lead on his Fender, and Matt laid down the bass line.  Julie and Joseph sang back up vocals.
• For our music set, we sang “I Am Free”, “Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble”, and for communion we sang “Heart of Worship”.
• Trav spoke about Dwight L Moody in the ongoing “Dead White Men” series.  It was really cool to hear what an awesome work God did through a humble man with no formal education and no major expectations.
• At the close of service, Alex and Matt totally rocked the house as the jammed to some fusion/rock/jazz/funk riff that they created.

For different views and perspectives on Sunday at Life Pointe, be sure to visit Chris, Trav, Ritz and Kelly for their Sunday wrap.  I will be heading down to Plantation Key tonight and will follow that up with some fishing at Channel 5.  See you tonight!

This Historic Day – My Silly Perspective

While at Lee University, for one year I played bass guitar and attended Mount Eagle Missionary Baptist in Tennessee.  I know what it’s like to be the only one in church different from everyone else, because Mount Eagle was a small black American congregation.  I was the only Caucasian in the congregation of about 100.  When we had the singing fellowship with the other churches of the area, I was still the only Caucasian in the congregation of about 250.  I know just a little about what it must feel like for a person to attend a church and then to be the only one of a particular color or race in the congregation.  While the people were extremely friendly and hospitable, and while the wonderful people at Mount Eagle did everything possible to make me feel welcome as a part of their family, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was an outsider.  It was as much or more my doing/feeling than anything they could have done to make me feel different.  Even with those experiences, I understand that I can never know exactly what it feels like to be a black man living in a white area.  I struggle with my preconceived notions of what other people should be doing, thinking, and feeling.  But when I think back to my short time at Mount Eagle, it tempers those prejudices with a little perspective.  Try to imagine what it’s like to live in a world that looks different than you.  Hey, you may not need to imagine it.  Maybe that is you.  Today is a pretty good day to reflect on that as we welcome a new leader, the first black man to serve in the office of POTUS.  Let’s enjoy this history we are making, and put aside our political fight for another time.

Sunday Life Pointe Talk Soup

This one will be short since I am a little lazy today.

• At 7:02 AM when I made it to the theater, there was already plenty of action in Pier 2.  Zech, Josiah, Ritz, Jesse, and Alex were there tooling around and setting up.
• I am off caffeine for a while, so I had to fuel myself on decaf.  I didn’t really notice the difference today.
• With the new holiday schedule, we have two services.  One is at 9:00 AM, and the second at 10:30 AM.
• The music in the first service was a little off from a technical and aesthetic standpoint.  It’s cool how God can move in spite of our lack.
• Mike was on the drums in the 9:00 and sang back up in the 10:30, Alex drummed in the 10:30, Jesse played the guitar in the second service only.  Josiah did an excellent job on the electric in both services, I played keys, Reina was on lead vocals, and Julie and I covered the back up vocals.
• We sang “Every Day”, “We Are Hungry”, “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”, and Julie led “Shout to the Lord” for communion.
• In the service, Travis went into details of LPC’s plan to raise $500,000 for global missions including a project in Cambodia through “Anthems for a Broken World”, an album by The Saturn Project.  There is a possibility of $20,000 in matching funds to be donated for the project.
• The albums will be sold in bundles at churches, schools, and organizations and 100% of the proceeds will go to global missions.

For another perspective on the goings on at Life Pointe throughout the day, be sure to visit our many capable LPC bloggers.  As of now, only Chris has posted his Sunday Morning Tossed Salad.