Hooked on NC3

Or maybe I should say Hooked at NC3. Our weekend service did not have to be canceled as we originally heard that it might. Instead we were able to kick off our new series, "Hooked."

I'm pretty excited about this series because it marks the beginning of our "official/unofficial" partnership with Community Christian Church in Naperville. Official because we've definitely decided to become a part of the NewThing Network. Unofficial because all of the paperwork and such hasn't been done yet so in the mean time, for the next couple of weeks, we're just gonna rip them off! =)

The day went very well. 276 in attendence... a good even spread between both services.

The band was really on! God has really blessed the NC3 family with some serious talent and I want everyone to know that the musicians who play on Sunday mornings totally have hearts to serve. No prima donnas to be found...just a bunch of people who love God and love being used.

I really enjoyed the combination of Mighty To Save/You Never Let Go at the end. Good job, NC3 band!

The Great Morris Flood of 07

Alright, maybe not the great flood, but I did hear that down by the hospital some cars were flooded. Also, a nursing home in the area had to be evacuated. There's a possibility that our weekend service will be canceled (or transmogrified) due to evacuees being housed at White Oak Elementary where we meet.

The Reeves household had all of the excitement we could stand and then some. Thursday night, we arrive home to a partially flooded basement. Water (that we attributed to an overfilled blow-up swimming pool) had flooded one of our basement window wells and seeped into the basement. About a half inch of water over about 1/3 of our unfinished basement. Crappy, but not the end of the world.

In about 2 hours, I had cleaned up most of the mess and had turned my attention to drying the indoor-outdoor carpet that we put down there, but that's when the action started.

"The floodgates of heaven" were opened and the aforementioned window well proceeded to fill to a height of about 14 inches and stream into the basement. This time about 3/4 of the basement had a little less than an inch... including our storage area.

Not fun! With a couple of shop vacs, a submersible pump, a five gallon bucket, lots of towels, and the much appreciated help of a very good friend (who we pulled out of bed at midnight to join the effort), we battled the flood, finally coming out on top about 2:30 in the A.M. Carpets all rolled up to be pitched... submersible pump suspended in the window well to keep more water from coming in... lots of disgusting towels piled up to act as a levee of sorts keeping water contained in the area of the sump... fans blowing the cement dry, we headed for bed.

So Friday morning, my son and I went sump pump shopping and then I started digging into the defective window well. It turns out that there was effectively no drain at the bottom. It was filled completely to the bottom of the window with clay. I started digging (no room for a shovel--I used a big kitchen spoon and a burger flipper) and dug down about 18 inches before I found the top of the plastic drain tile (pipe) that should have been collecting the water that came into the well. I ended up digging down about 8 more inches and installing my new sump pump into the window well, in case the same happened again.

Another friend who knows ever so much more about all things than I, came over and we attacked the drain tile. Not only was it buried but it was completely filled (probably down to the footing) with clay. We dug out as much as we could and then playing dentist with it... flooding with water via a water hose duct taped to a long probe, and then sucking out the muck with a shop vac. Two hours later, the drain would actually handle a little bit of the water. Hallelujah!


Pretty much all day Friday I worked with a crazed urgency to beat the thunderstorms that were supposed to be headed our way. I got a lot done--probably a lot quicker than I would have otherwise--but the storms never came. Thanks, God!

So unless we get more surprises today (Saturday) the Great Morris Flood of 07 seems to be over for the Reeves family.

Starting Kindergarten

Today my daughter Katy started Kindergarten. Wow... That's about all I can say.

Here she is pictured with a few of her classmates. The two on the left, she knows from church. The girl on the right is actually our neighbor, it seems.

I'd like to post a better pic, but for some reason, everytime she saw the camera today, she smiled this weird fake smile with her lips pulled down over her teeth.

School is gonna be fun!

The Six Degrees of a Conversation

So a few days ago, one of my most-read blogs, scotthodge.org posted a few random links including a link to a blog on his radar, davidfoster.tv. David Foster's blog contained a list he called "What I mean when I use the word "emerging." I liked the list.

Following was a comment by Travis Mitchell, which indicated that he respectfully disagreed with Foster's list, and invited readers to visit his blog for a rebuttal. I went for a peek.

I left a comment of my own following Travis' post and since then have been a part of a wonderful conversation about the emergent movement as well as how we each view why we do what we do.

Check out the above links for the story, I suppose. Soon I'll be posting about "The Forgotten Ways" by Alan Hirsch, but I've got a bit more reading and contemplating to do first.

Changes

I haven't blogged for a while now. We came back from vacation almost two weeks ago and had very big surprises waiting for us.

One of our pastors resigned. This is a pretty big deal when there are only 4 of us on staff, not counting the administrative folks. Going from 4 t0 3 certainly changes the atmosphere around the office. It has also made for some unpleasant discussions, situations, etc.

I consider myself a person who deals well with change, even thrives on it. I think that is more often the case when I'm the change agent. I wonder if anyone likes unexpected, unwelcome changes.

This is a good reminder that "our church" is much bigger than those who meet at White Oak Elementary on Sundays..."our church" is really God's church that we occasionally misappropriate...that is we get confused over the ownership.

Seth Godin blogged about the need for an organization to be clear about its opposites, i.e. who's the enemy. Most time we act like other ministries are the enemy. That stinks. But we start thinking like theres a limited customer base, y'know. If church A has a successful VBS or whatever, and people start attending there instead of our church, then they are "sheep stealers" and our bottom line is affected. We lose precious resources...talent and money.

The enemy is not other churches. The enemy is not the world.

Vacation Part 4

(UPDATED WITH PICS - 8.21.07)
So besides going to churches, what does the Reeves family do for fun? I'm so glad you asked!

Monday -- Into Portland for the Children's Museum. Basically for 6 hours we followed our kids around as they said, "Mom, look at this!" The museum was very cool...especially the water works area. You go in a room and there are about 20 stations where you get to do something with water. Rubber duck maze construction, pvc pipe fountain construction, all kinds of stuff. The rub: there were eight a/c vents in a not terribly large room full of semi-wet children and parents. Obviously they didn't want you to stay in there very long. Overall...A+

Tuesday -- We took 8 hours to make a three hour drive through the Columbia River Gorge (think Lewis and Clark) over to Hood River (windsurfing capital of the world, it seems) and down past Mt. Hood to the Timberline Lodge. We thought Timberline was our big destination, but when we got there, we used the bathroom, looked around for about 10 minutes and then jumped back in the car. On the way to Mt. Hood, though, we stopped at a fruit farm and bought the most ridiculously delicious cherries I've ever eaten. We bought a pound...ate them on site and went back and bought two more pounds. Awesome! Draper Farm, you rule! Overall...A+

Wednesday -- We couldn't get this close to the Pacific Ocean and not at least see it. Tricia wasn't thrilled with the idea of a 2 hour drive to a beach where it was too cold to swim, but then I read about the Seaside Aquarium which contained a marine life petting zoo and the opportunity to feed Harbor Seals. This was reason enough to make the trip. Seaside, Oregon is a cool little touristy town...lots to see and do. We parked on the street and had one of the best meals of the entire trip at Dundee's Seaside Cafe. Pacific beaches are huge! The water was cold, but the sun was warm and the kids swam and had a blast. We spent time in a little old arcade, kinda like Chuck E Cheese without the crappy pizza. The aquarium...well its a good thing that everything else was great, because the aquarium was one room. Interesting, but we were only there about 20 minutes. Still, Overall... A+

Thursday -- Thursday was recoup day. Tricia and the kids went to a little nearby park with a playground and wading pool, I went and ran some errands and picked myself up a little rarely experienced treat that I'm enjoying right now as I type. Today was a rest day to prepare for the craziness of flying back to Chicago.

I'm very divided emotionally. I miss all my peeps...the band, the staff, the planning team and the only other normal people that we know. But I have really enjoyed the Pacific Northwest. Portland is a great town, even if I didn't get to meet Donald Miller. I could really see living here. But then I have to remember that I'm here during the very short period of great weather that they get.

So Chi-town, here we come, but Portland, you haven't seen the last of the Reeves family. Huge thanks to the Lambka's for inviting us to come and letting me wakeboard.

Peace!

Vacation Part 3

As I write this, I realize I haven't posted any pictures. I will do this.

Saturday night went off without a hitch. We attended Living Hope Church at their main campus. All in all, I'm very glad we went. The worship style was very much what I prefer...that is an edgy, guitar driven sound. There was one thing about the worship band that bugged me, but it is far too trivial for me to blog about. I realize that I am often guilty of picking things too death. Good church...needs more greeters. We were checking in our kids and the greeter took us to the wrong place. Oops! Parents are the pickiest, man. First impressions count for a lot!!

Sunday morning arrives and the plan is to attend Imago Dei Community (note the foreshadowing). We drive about 30 minutes to Franklin High School in downtown Portland only to find the doors locked. Now realize that I had checked and rechecked service times, meeting location both Saturday night and Sunday morning. The only people at the school besides Tricia and I and our kids were the 60+ visitors who showed up only to be as disappointed as we were. There was no sign...there were no instructions... no one had a clue. We stood around talking to some of the visitors for a while, and then about 9:30 (service was supposed to be at 9) a guy comes with a stack of flyers for Imago Dei's second annual BBQ and Baptism that's being held at a nearby State Park.

Remember, I'd checked and rechecked the website, just to avoid stuff like. Very frustrating. Because of the time and the way we were dressed, we opted not to try and make the BBQ. Instead we bumped up the next church.

With the change of plans, we now had time to attend the 10:30 service at Southlake. By far the friendlier and best laid out facility of the two we actually attended, Southlake reminded us a ton of Willow Creek. Now, to me that's a great complement in almost every way.

We liked the building so much, we want to bring our building team to see it. Magnificent and doable..

The worship service itself missed the mark with me a little. It was very well done, but it just wasn't the style that I prefer. I'm only talking about style, here...not wrong or right. It reminded me of Willow Creek of a few years ago. The songs weren't dated, they just seemed very performance oriented--probably very seeker friendly. Kinda the Darlene Zschech style...very polished and enthusiastic.

Pastor Kip was an outstanding speaker and the worship leader was very good and very personable and connected well, I believe, with their intended audience. Very much a great experience and if we find ourselves in the area again, we'd visit again gladly.

So there you have it... the three church plan that fell down to two. Still, a great and insightful weekend worshiping God with my family and with a bunch of very commited followers of Jesus Christ.

Vacation Part 2

Here's the story of our church hopping this past weekend...

My plan was simple: find the three coolest churches in Portland, Oregon and through the miracle of modern multiple services, go to all three of them in one weekend.

Problem #1: How do you find out the three coolest churches in Portland? (BTW, cool is not actually a measurable with which I try to judge churches...it's just a lot easier than talking about buzz factor, worship style, leadership structure, use of arts, etc.) I actually googled "cool churches in Portland" but didn't come up with much. So here is the selection process, after all, I only had one weekend in Portland, so I had to choose wisely.

The one church I knew I wanted to check out was Imago Dei. I finally picked up "Blue Like Jazz," and Miller makes such mention of his church, Imago Dei, that I a) wanted to check out the church and b) wanted to track down Donald Miller and have him sign the copy of his book that I'm reading. I'm not really into having famous people sign things, but the book belongs to my friend 3pete and I thought he'd appreciate it. So church number 1 is Imago Dei - Portland.

The very cool couple that were kind enough to invite us to live in their house this week, spoke often of their church, Southlake Church. They both said it was well-known for its music and worship services, so I thought it sounded like a safe bet...plus it's close to Lake Oswego (West Linn) and it offered a 12 pm Sunday service which helped immensely with the 3 church plan. So Southlake Church is church # 2.

The third church was harder. I didn't really find anything for a while...New Hope Church almost got the vote because its huge and we passed it several times on I-205 driving around town. But then I remembered that one of the bloggers that I follow had a list of "churches on my radar." After going to a few wrong sites, I found it was Tony Morgan's. I checked his list for a church in Portland but there wasn't one, but there was one in Vancouver, Washington...just across the river/state line. Living Hope Church. Didn't know much about it but it was multisite and had a solid website and had three services on Saturday. This also fit well into the three church plan.

So the plan was... Step 1: Go to LHC in Vancouver on Saturday night--it was 45 min away, but we picked a 7 pm service and let the kids sleep on the way back. Step 2: Go to the 9 am Sunday service at Imago Dei--20 minutes away in downtown Portland. Step 3: Stop somewhere for brunchish type snacks to fend off hunger pains for the li'l ones. Step 4: Go to the 12 pm Sunday service at Southlake Church--a great option as it's only 8 minutes from the house where we're staying.

So this was the plan. I'm trying to set a good example for post length for my good friend (you know who you are) so I'll continue this in Part 3.