snow day.

it’s friday. JMU is closed. it’s snowing. alot.

we went to kroger last night and loaded up on assorted frozen foods and soups, and we also bought pancake mix, sausage and eggs. we’re gonna be alright.

we woke up this morning at 10am, and took a haus trip to hardee’s for breakfast. it was the best way to start the day off; two sausage biscuits and a huge sweet tea. money.

back at the haus, we threw in the extended edition of lord of the rings: the two towers. that was awesome. and super long.

some ladies from uptown brought us cookies, and then some of the full house girls came over and chilled. we decided to hit paul street and see what was going up. we were immediately attacked by the dudes from the cottage and some other full house girls. so, we started an awesome fight, while the dudes at make out mountain just chilled on their back porch. then, we walked down to barbie dream mansion and unloaded on the front door for like 30 minutes while they were screaming at us through the glass. pretty rad. finally, we went to uptown and had a crucial battle, the girls were all up on the second floor balcony, and we were in the street. it was a solid 15 minute fight. we were going to turn around and start fighting the funkhouse, until kayla came out, wrapped in a blanket, and said that there were two people home and that they were about to watch high school musical. we figured we’d let them be.

back at the haus we relaxed until lester, jake and john got in town. they also brought hoon, the future treehaus pup. he’s the man, and he sings when jake or ben play the harmonica. awesome.

we’re goin back to paul street at midnight for some hangin. jenny spring said that the vdot crew came through with plows and ruined everything, but we’re still gonna give it a shot.

much love. stay warm.

-cg

DEEP!

(click on the photos to see full-size)

we started our new series, DEEP, last week and it was an amazing morning. the room was full of energy, and people. our building is usually packed at the beginning of the semester, but not this packed! things are really picking up here in Harrisonburg.

worship was awesome. we kicked it off with a throwback; lincoln brewster’s “majestic.” I remember hearing that song for the first time when I bought his live CD in high school, and it was our youth group’s favorite song for a few months after that.

then we rocked some “sweetest mystery” by eddie kirkland (amazing worship leader at north point community church in hotlanta), and I ended the first set by myself doing a little hymn medley made up of “before the throne of god above,” “the solid rock,” and “in christ alone.” of course, I kinda forgot the words a few times, but it was nothing major. haha

groove’s message was on point…again. we spent the morning looking at the life of Solomon, preparing us for what was to come as we sat down to dive into Proverbs.

unfortunately, due to a huge snow storm, we had to cancel church this morning. pretty lame. no fun.

BUT, we’re still amped about this new teaching series and can’t wait to dive into Proverbs and see what God has for us and our ministry here in Harrisonburg. keep praying for us, that we could continue to reach college students with the Good News of Jesus Christ. ohhhhh yeah.

momentum.

the new year has begun, and with the new year, comes a new semester and another amazing opportunity to watch God work.

and work He did. (do work, God)

With the students back in town, Sunday morning was incredible. Every aspect of the service was amazing; hospitality, technical stuff, the worship set, Groove’s message, the prayer time for Peru. Not only was the service great, but our little warehouse might have been more crowded than ever. A few months ago, we bought a set of wooden bleachers from some high school in Pennsylvania, and the bleachers were completely full on Sunday. People were sitting way back past the hospitality table, almost sitting literally at the door. The place was alive, and the Lord was preparing us for what He has for us this year. It was an amazing way to start the year, and we can’t wait to see people come to new life in Christ.

In the music world, things are great. We practiced on Saturday and wrote three new originals. But with all the goodness going down in our songwriting, we lost Chelsea to Liberty University…so now Chad Altenberger is trying to sing girl parts…and it’s just a little bit different. But, I will say, dudes are stepping up. Chad A and Briggs started singing more on Sunday and it was awesome! Having some dudes singing with me was rad, and I’m glad they’re doing it!

Network stuff is great. All our Aletheia Churches are up and running in 2010 and everyone is doing well and growing. I got to spend some time with a few people from Aletheia Richmond last night and I was thoroughly encouraged by them. I love where I am, who I’m with, and what we’re doing.

That’s it for now. Cool stories to come…Maybe

twenty ten

the new years is here.

there is a ton of stuff happening right now.

I don’t have time to explain it all right now.

but we finished making the drum cage.

so that’s awesome.

more to come

-cg

To friends.

I don’t usually struggle with self-doubt. All through high school I was surrounded by awesome people who were genuine, caring and fun. As I made the transition to college, things changed. The friendships that I had made became deeper. As we started growing up, we started being real with each other and started really cherishing our time together. This crew, “the VB crew,” as it’s becoming known as now, is incredibly close to my heart. Every time I hang out with these people, I love them that much more. I don’t know what’s different. It may be the fact that we have no other choice but to be intentional about spending time together. Maybe it’s because our friendships are founded on Christ. Maybe it’s because we’re getting older.

But whatever it may be, it is something special. It’s amazing to see how long it takes to start loving somebody. Take Sammy Stalcup for example, I hung out with this guy twice last summer and he immediately became one of my favorite people to be around. It wasn’t because we had spent a ton of time together, but it’s because the time that we had was well spent. We got to know each other, we learned about each other, and we began a friendship founded on Jesus. Sammy is just one example of this happening in the past few years. Some of my best friends now are people who I hardly knew two years ago. Then there are the dudes like Logan, Montgo and George. I have gotten to watch our friendships evolve into amazing, life-long relationships.

To my friends from home, the old ones and the new ones. To the crew who sits around the table focused on the cheese dip and chips. To the people struggling to get the fire started in the backyard. To the ping pong champions. To the ones eating at Boulevard, Dadas or…nah, that’s it. To the ones playing guitar and singing in the next room over. To the ones who always show up three hours later than they say they will (and the ones with funny nicknames and dumpster diving habits). To the ones talking about real life until the wee hours of the morning. To the ones who always make me laugh.

I love you guys.

When I came to college, I expected to have this all over again. I expected the same thing, but in Harrisonburg. I have made some awesome friends here, but something still feels different. As my time in college will be coming to a close soon, I’m seeing the future start to unfold itself. I’m seeing possibilities for life-long friendships. I’ve been trying to invest so much time and energy into some relationships but I’m feeling some pressure that I’m not used to. Is it self-doubt? Is it fear?

It’s a very strange place for me. Small feelings of rejection being piling up. Is any of it intentional? I don’t think so. I think I’m just realizing that people’s views are different. What one person sees for a friendship can be completely different than another person’s view. It’s definitely not the first time I’ve felt this, but I think it is just coming as a small shock to me right now. I’m so used to putting so much love and joy into friendships and assuming that they’re going to be long-lasting, that I forget that every relationship won’t be that way.

Regardless, I have some awesome friends here. I don’t even want to try to begin naming people that I have met at Aletheia that have poured into me with unconditional love. Aletheia Crew, you guys amaze me everytime I’m with you. Thank you for pushing me to learn how to be a leader, and thanks for your constant encouragement and support (even if I forget the words and spit on you occasionally during worship). Kate Sacra and Valerie Gibbs asked if I’d give them a shoutout in my next blog. There ya go!

Treehaus fellas. You guys don’t read this. You make fun of me for having a blog. And that’s why I love you.

technical difficulties

let’s get right to it.

All last week I was waiting for the weekend to come, knowing that I was going to spend some quality time with some of my favorite dudes on the planet. Montgo, Logan, Ryan, Sammy and Paul were all coming to spend the weekend in Harrisonburg (and two other awesome dudes named Aaron and Philip came with Paul…they’re the man). Not only that, but Montgo, Logan, Sammy and Brian Hrubik were going to lead worship with me at Aletheia on Sunday morning. So, I was REALLY looking forward to the set on Sunday morning.

We practiced for three hours on Saturday night, getting the songs together and getting tight as a band. Around 9pm, we headed over to Chili’s to get some dinner, and then went back to Treehaus for some amazing dude time. We all (9 of us) chilled on the big green couch and just talked for a while before falling alseep (some earlier than others).

We got to the church at 8:30am to start practicing on Sunday morning and we were really clicking. We had our technical meeting, and ran through the entire set again. We finished practice at 10am, when disaster struck. Our computer (the one that we run ALL our media from) decided to crash. We tried restarting it in every possible way, but we were getting nothing. This thing was done. (Please note: I have been advocating that we switch to Mac for quite some time now, haha).

So, at 10am we realize that we have no lyrics for songs, no videos, no sermon notes, no announcements, etc. We bust out a laptop and open up a Powerpoint presentation and I just start typing. And typing. And typing. After about 25 minutes of typing lyrics and making sure that the orders of the lyrics were right, we were ready to go. We found a way to hook the laptop up to our projector, and to have lyrics on the screens for people to see. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.

The whole morning was just a huge reminder that:

1. Satan is alive and working against us.
2. Satan is terrified of what we’re doing.
3. The church is not centered on production or a presentation, but a passion for glorifying Jesus Christ.

At Aletheia, we strive to do everything as best as we can. We spend time trying to make our worship backgrounds appealing, trying to incorporate interesting videos to use during transitions during the services and use videos to promote events occurring throughout the week at the church. The thing that was amazing about this past Sunday, was that we didn’t have any of that, and we didn’t need it. We don’t need it. Of course, it’s nice to have, but it’s doesn’t change the Gospel.

Looking back, I’m thankful for what happened on Sunday. It reminded all of us about what is important. It reminded all of us that Satan is at work and that he is going to try to mess us up. He is going to try to stress us out before we go on stage to lead worship. But thankfully, when that happens, the Lord will have put five of your best friends on stage with you to get you focused, excited, laughing and ready to worship.

two weeks

the past two weeks have been amazing. I haven’t gotten the chance to sit down and blog about what has been going on, but I’ll just throw out a few important things you should know.

-Aletheia last Sunday was one of the best services we’ve ever had, and we don’t know why. Groove said to me that he would say that it’s one of the top 5 services that he’d ever had in Harrisonburg. So, for all you who were there, thanks! (It was amazing (but seriously, we don’t know why!)

-I am no longer a Public Relations major because JMU let too many people into the program. If I want to graduate in time , I have to switch to General Communications and get a degree in that. But honestly, who cares…

-Last week’s Wednesday night service was awesome and Seth Adams brought the Word, son!

-Drove to Charlottesville on Friday night to spend time with friends there. Met up with Patrick Willis and then headed over to SEEK, a three-hour worship event put on by the on-campus ministries at UVA. My good friends Reed Bernick and Chelsea Henderson led worship for the event. There was one dude there that was screaming really loud the whole time and just singing “WWWAAAAAHHHHH!” completely off-pitch. It was awesome.

-Hung out with Reed, Patrick, Ryan Levis, Sammy the Stallion and Chelsea after SEEK and went to The White Spot and got “Gus Burgers.” They were money.

-Back to Hburg on Saturday morning. Mom, Dad, Meghan and Jayson get to the burg around 12:30pm.

-We get seated at Dave’s Taverna on the roof at 1:05pm (it was warm and sunny, awesome). Don’t get our drinks until 1:40pm (not awesome). Ask waiter what happened to our food, he says he is about to put it into the computer cause there was a problem with it earlier (not awesome). All the people on the roof start an uproar and start getting really mad about not having food around 2:15pm. Food comes out at 2:30pm and it’s all free since it took forever. We initially ordered two appetizers (awesome).

-Go to JMU Football game. My boy Dixon Wright plays an amazing game! Got to sit with Spencer and Casey. Dukes win 22-14 over Maine.

-Trip to Walmart for groceries…on the parents!

-Dinner at Outback. Need I say more?

-Sunday morning was amazing! It was completely packed, which is weird for it being this time of year. We’ve had between 450-500 people each week and we’re still growing. Dan got engaged, Chelsea turned 21.

-Sunday afternoon, first band practice for the future Wednesday night band. The guys are sounding good. They learned three songs, and continually rocked Philippians 2 with each other. Excited to see where this goes.

-Sunday night, Haus dinner at Franco’s. BBQ Chicken Pizza. Yup.

-Spoke at Campus Crusade at Bridgewater College on Monday night. Was really nervous. Spoke for 35 minutes on Psalm 51 about Repentance and Faith. It was realllly fun and I want to do it again.

and….that’s about it

spring break

treehaus. colorado. seeing Chick at frontier ranch. snowboarding. awesome.

birds of the sky

new song called “birds of the sky” should be getting rocked at Aletheia very soon. here’s a sneak peek (and yes, I played the drums…sorry about that).

this year hasn’t been so sure
I’ve watched my life go out my door

Father, is it really true?
will you do what you claim to?

I take two steps forward
You’re running to me with arms stretched wide
I take what you offer
You whisper to me that You always provide

poor and feeble, lost and torn
my soul is drying out
life uncertain with no reward
send Your flood to end this drought

will you do what you claim to, oh Lord?

I take two steps forward
You’re running to me with arms stretched wide
I take what you offer
You whisper to me that You always provide

I look at the birds of the sky
I look at the flowers of the field
how much more am I to You?
how much more?

I look at the birds of the sky
I look at the flowers of the field
how much more am I to You?
I’m so much more to You

thoughtful people

I wanted to take a minute to thank my family at Aletheia Church.

As I am growing in the Lord and being challenged way more than I ever have in leadership, I’ve began to see the importance of serving others just because. I’m seeing the importance of going completely out of your way to make things easier for other people. Even if it’s just being at practice early to get people’s stuff set up or taking dudes out to lunch just to let them know that they matter to me, I am learning that I feel the best when I am sacrificing and giving.

Everytime I’m at Aletheia, I am constantly encouraged. The thing that is amazing is that people make sure that it happens. The great people that I serve alongside go out of their way to encourage me and tell me they love me. But they don’t even always use words, because they don’t need to. Instead, they’ll make me hot tea on Sunday morning when they can tell my voice is rough, or they’ll calm my nerves before a service with a smile and a loving word.

I don’t feel excluded by them. Instead of thinking about themselves and their own agendas, they think about me. They think about others. And it’s something that is so unique to the people that I serve with at Aletheia Church.

You guys are amazing, thanks so much for your love and support. Because of you, I have the best job in the world.

-cg