The Sixth Row...Seriously!

Last night I had the awesome priveledge of going to the Pistons game. I went with Todd, Shinn and Scott. It was sweet to be close enough to see the man child up front and personal. That man child, yes, you know it, it's Lebron James. He was on fire and then the Pistons D clamped down and then he hurt his ankle.

Anyways, the game rocked.

I hate FANS!

Alright, alright...I don't hate all fans. I admit, I do enjoy a good fan every once and awhile. BUT, and I mean but...the fan I hate the most is in my own bedroom. Yes, sports fans, that's right. See, here's the story, my wonderful wife only can fall asleep at night with a fan on. Yes, you read that right. A fan. Dead of winter. Yes, a fan. Summer, yes, fall, yes, spring, yes. Every night of our almost 9 year marriage, a fan.

Thankfully it's not as big as the picture.

What a Great LOOK...

I am standing in line at McDonald's, yes the great family resturant. Actually, the McDonald's at Lee Road/23 is so nice it's crazy. There are flat screens everywhere and table decorations...yeah...nice.

Anyways, I am ordering for my family of 5 and I hear myself say...

Can I have a Boy Toy with that? The cashier was a teenage girl and she started crackin up, so did her manager and so did an older lady next to me. Actually, she sort of gave me a weird look when I said "boy toy", huh, I do have an affect on people, if you know what I mean, wink?

Lex + Lana = Throw up in my mouth

What the heck! What is wrong is Lana? Why won't Clark just tell Lana? Why do I love Chloe and when did that start? Why am I starting to like Lionel? Why does it hurt when I think of Jonathan Kent?

I want Pete back!

I LOVE SMALLVILLE! I HATE SMALLVILLE!

Where the heck is glass girl...

Why couldn't glass girl be in the Luthor mansion? I am throwing up...What the Heck is happening with my beloved Smallville.

So, I work in a...

It's crazy, I know, but our church offices are in a recreation center type building. It is a work out place, they have 2 gyms, and a pool. It's wild, oh yes, the wild times roll.

But, my family is coming up as I type to go swimming. You want to talk about crazy fun, actually, I think...

The definition of crazy fun is: Swimming with the Raitz family! OH YES.

So Very Excited and Stressed

Tomorrow is our first Jr. High Worker Training Day, Yeah! I am both very excited and very stressed out. I know I shouldn't be stressed out, but I am stressed out over my presentation. I am doing a presentation called..."Do you Speak at Students or Do you Speak With Students"? It's something I have been working on for about 4 years and I am always making changes and re-tooling it. So, it will be fun to present. This last weekend at Battle Cry actually helped cement a lot of my material this talk, so it was good I got to attend.

I also can't wait to hang out with Scott and show him my hood. I have hung out with him a couple of times at Willow and when he interviewed me about 4 years, I got to see the Rubin crib. Yes, that's right, he interviewed me for their worship posistion for the Jr. high, yeah, that didn't work out. I also get to take Scott tomorrow night to a Pistons Game and better yet, Lebron is in the house. Boy, am I ghetto today.

I am also pretty geeked about our turn out. I was hoping for at least 20 and it looks like we are going to make it. We also have some cool friends coming from some area churches and even our friends over at Mars Hill in Grandville are coming, so that will be fun.

I am thankful for Mark Butler over at Calvary for hosting this, what a huge blessing. Alright, lot's more to do! Peace Out, Fo Shizzle

Battle Cry Night # 1

Some quick observations about the first night at Battle Cry...

1. Ford Field is amazing! Our tickets were on the floor so we actually got to be on the turf. The first thing I did was to sprint (or at least for me a fast walk) through the end zone, I leaped into the air and pretended to catch a touchdown pass. I dove and all and then I did turf angels for awhile.

2. The Pastor of DWO did the opening prayer, and told everybody to raise their fist in the air. He told us that's the battle prayer position. He prayed with incredible passion, crazy passion. I thought Christ was going to come back, it was a very powerful moment.

3. Delerious led worship. I haven't heard them for a long time and it was different. Different good, but very different. Then I saw the Worship Couple. You know the kind, the girl has her hands raised high, and the guy has his fingers, hands and arms wrapped around her. I wonder who he was worshipping?

4. Stage…Freakin sweet, back wall was a video wall and it was sweet. They had a bunch of lcd screens and subs everywhere.
Lots and lots of speakers, the rigging for the stage was sweet. I notice that kind of stuff, I am weird like that. They always do a great job with the set and production, it was huge. It was so loud that I had to leave during a couple of moments.

5. Interesting moment at the end of the night. Ron explained that you don't receive Christ as your savior, but you die to your old self and surrender your entire life to him. So, he asked students to express their desire to die to their old self by shouting out "I want the cross." So it was quiet for a little bit, then all of sudden kids just starting screaming all over the place. It was wild.

6. I asked my kids what they remembered from Ron's hour and half talk laced through drama's, videos, and dance routines. One girl said, I really don't remembered anything because he was so boring. Another one said he said the same thing over and over. His talk that night was on the prodigal son and his premise was that in order for you to start a Battle Cry, you must get out of the Pig Pen. They had people slopping around in a pig pen to illustrate the point. He did say one thing that intrigued me about that story. He said the father was willing to open his arms to his son until his son got out of the pig pen and left his old ways. Huh, interesting.

7. Ron also told the kids who screamed and got on their knees that he was proud of them for taking a stand and for being committed.

A wild Lunch

So Shinn and I were sitting at lunch last week and we looked over at the table across from us and we both just about lost it. You know, one of those moments where you about pee your pants. Yes it was a wild lunch. There were two older gentlemen sitting at lunch dividing up their SEASON TICKETS TO THE TIGERS!!!

I couldn't even believe it, to see that whole pack of tickets just sitting there. We started to stare and they got a little worried. I am ashamed to say that we even sized them up, and I know we could of taken them. But, we didn't.

Maybe someday we thought, maybe someday we could be those two old guys dividing up our tickets. Maybe

I struggle with Mt. 18

So, I have a friend who I offended. Actually, I think he is closer than a friend, more like a little brother. I guess I offended him when I didn't accept him as a friend on MySpace. Look, I have already posted about how much I hate MySpace, just a personal opinion. And I won't get into details, but I didn't accept him.

So, Mt.18 talks about confronting someone when you have a problem with them, but is it also for the reverse? I actually found out through his myspace that he had a problem with me. So, am I to confront him and say, hey, I hear you have a problem with me. Even when the resonsibility is his? All the leadership stuff I have read says, a leader is the one who always goes the extra mile. I am struggling daily to be the leader I know God wants me to be, but I called him anyway to try and work it out. So, I do feel bad for offending him, because I love him and believe in him. Some of the stuff he wrote on his myspace really got me thinking and hopefully he will give me permission to post it on my blog because I spent a great amount of time last night praying and thinking about what he said. So, I guess my struggle is, it's not easy to go the extra mile and it's not easy to confront each other, because it's darn hard, but I guess we need to suck it up and just do it. Even though, I don't like to. I admit that straight up.

Zach..Our PKUer

This is my buddy boy, Zachary James. He is daddy's boy though and through. He cuddles with me every chance he gets, follows me around, and is full of life. Zach has a metabolic disease called PKU. Basically, he can't and won't ever be able to eat normal amounts of protein. So, that means he is on a super regulated diet. We literally count and weigh everything that goes into his mouth, it's wild.

Anyway, PKU is a seldom known about disease and the families of PKU kids in MI are trying to raise awareness and money for research. My wife has an excellent post on her blog and you can check it out

Here

.

So Many Thoughts

Wow, I don't even know where to begin...lots of posts coming

Where it all begins

BATTLE CRY begins with this crisis, Ron Luce says that in less than five years, there will only be 4% teenage evangelical Christians. 4% that believe in God. Well, I gots to go, more blogging later.

Battle Cry News...Day 1

Ladies and Gentlemen, what I am about to do in these next 12 or so posts is open you, yes you, up to the world of BATTLE CRY.

I am going to report on the happenings, the events, the moments, the star studded moments, of the BATTLE CRY event. I will do everything I can to not make fun, make light, make sillies...Anything I see or hear at battle, in order for you to get the whole view of this fine Acquire the Fire BATTLE CRY event.

I am sitting here this morning, waiting for my guys to finish up their showers, and then we are going to head down, back into the fiercest city of God's green earth, DETROIT. I even had one of my kids, after finding out I grew up in this fine city, ask me if I had ever been shot. "Oh yeah, once, when me and "Rabbit", aka...EM, if you know what I am talking about, got all shot up". Misconceptions are a flying from these fun kids from Livingston county.

All right, I am ready. I snuck my laptop into Ford Field last night, in hoops of finding a wi-fi signal, but to no avail. So, I will keep notes and then keep you posted.

24, Scratch that, Make it 34

Friends of the Blog World, yesterday, April 7, 2006 will do down in infamy. Yes, indeed, the "Life is Electric" blog registered 34 hits a day, and 235 visits last week. Yes, I am a DORK. But it was big for our operation, there will bonus's, a company party, we may take the comany yacht out on the Detroit River, do some celebrating.

PS...I just checked Marko's, he gets an astounding almost 500, a day. Yeah, wow. Then I checked "Your Mom's", she blew us all out of the water. Ha

Battle Cry

It has started and there is no wi fi, man.

4 hours till Battle Cry

Those of you who know me, know I have vowed no never attend an Acuire the Fire event again. Oops, well, my new church had told the kids we would go, so, Jason is going. I will enjoy the event itself. I am an event guy, so it will fun figuring out all the production and staging and programming and what not.

It will fun just hanging out with a couple of kids from my youth group (THAT IS FOR DAVE KURT!)

I love these guys

I have known these guys for a long time. My brother James, I have known for 25 years, well his whole life. And Jason, to the left in the picture, I have known for 20 years. These are a lot of fun.

My prayer for them is that they would realize how much potential they have for reaching people and they would unleash it. I mean, in my humble opinion, that James would be a tremendous youth pastor or college pastor, or creative arts pastor. Anyways, these guys are great.

Got in some trouble over this..

Last month I showed this Jesus video up at SpringHill Camp and I ended up getting a little flak for it. You can find it over at www.vintage21.com. Basically they are old Jesus videos filmed in the 70's that they dubbed a fake voice in for Jesus. I got a couple of emails from some folks that thought that they mocked Jesus. Well, that wasn't what we were going for, I was using one of them to illustrate some misconceptions we have about sin.

Anywho, we used them as well at our youth workers lunch and then I have used a couple of them at Elevate, I think they are funny.

Crazy Church

I had lunch with a very cool youth pastor yesterday from a church that is building a student ministry center. It was fun, Jason Shinn came with me and he drove, for some reason he doesn't trust my driving. We met Jacob in his new student center and wow! It's a flippin 3 million dollar building that's attached to their current church building. It's stinkin incredible. A 500 seat auditorium, a 30 foot climbing wall, cafe, 2 basketball cages, vdo games everywhere and a church that invests in its students.

Anyways, we had a blast. Jacob had asked if we could do lunch, because for some reason he heard I was the guy to talk to about doing big events, well I don't know about that. But it was fun, I sometimes take for granted all the information that's floating around in my head and it's cool to be able to download it to someone who wants to learn about hosting events.

Oh yeah, another one

Outreach Night, or Outreach event. Another phrase I am struggling with.

The first Outreach Event

So, I think this is a picture from our first "outreach event". We did the good old fashioned lock-in and it was old fashion, I will tell you that. If I remember right, I had a 101 fever and I was sick as a dog. We planned for something like 20 kids and 80 showed up and within the first 20 minutes we had a fight and a broken door. Yeah, not a wood door, but one of those full glass doors.

No programming, no real plan and I might have them sing Pharoh, Pharoh. Yeah, you know it, lame. I think I may have preached the gospel and students raised their hands to accept Christ.

I just used two phrases that are giving me a lot of thinking time lately..."Preached the gospel" and "Raised their hands".

I don't know even know where to begin. For some reason, every time I hear the word Preach, I just shutter. It's like someone is running their fingernails on a black board. I don't know if I think down deep that the American Church and American pastors have taken this word to give them liberty to speak at people and tell them how to respond to the gospel, I don't know.

Then, their is the whole raise your hand deal, I don't even have time. I know there is a great post about this on Marko's website, but I am too tired to link it here.

Anyways, the night was successful on a couple of fronts. Students were loved, the associate pastor had to get out of bed to fix the door, we ate a crazy amount of ice cream and I think it was the first time I held my wife's hand (that was before we were even dating). Yeah, you got it, she was one of my adult leaders. YOU KNOW IT!