Archives for December 2009

I have not been to the Christmas Eve program at Journey yet. But we had one service tonight. It was the eve eve service 🙂 at 7pm. I took the day off after some stuff this morning and went to see Christmas lights with my kids and our neighbors. But based on the stuff I have heard and know, here’s my top 5 reasons why I’m looking forward to taking my family and joining some friends at the 4pm service:

1. SWEET MUSIC BY SOME YOUNG ADULTS I WORK WITH.

I texted a high school student of mine who I heard was there and said, “Bro, how was the eve eve service?”

Here is the reply: “It was so good! Adam S and Michael C both had solo songs and did amazing! Lots of former Encounter studs (Tyler, Andrew, Kaley) were involved. Perfect message too!”

2. I NEED ME SOME HOPE.

I know my friend Ed has spent weeks praying for and crafting this message with the leading of the Holy Spirit and I know it’s on the subject of Hope. I KNOW I NEED SOME HOPE. I’m going with an open heart.

3. CUZ ROD IS IN A U2/GAP SPONSORED RED COMMERCIAL.

Check out this pic. Our service host “Rod” looks awesome here. If I were him, I’d break out in any U2 song I could and pitch some red products. I bet he’s wearing a “red” logo shirt under his cool coat. Our Tech team did miracles with him. 🙂

4. EMMANUEL.

God came to be with me, I want to do life with Jesus. I need to do life with Jesus. My experience as of late has reminded me it is TOTALLY POSSIBLE to live life near Jesus, but not do life with Jesus. I’m going to this service to give my life to doing life with Jesus. I’m all in. If Jesus doesn’t leave that service WITH ME, then I might be there for the 6pm, my own personal 8pm, and 10pm services too until we can walk out the door together. Life without Jesus sucks.

5. DONUTS.

Come on people. I have no idea where the nearest Krispy Kreme is, but holiday colored donuts are flowing like water in the parking lot I hear. My kids are going to ruin their dinner with a donut that melts in your mouth and was trucked there by fed ex or something straight from Atlanta, GA… or maybe Chula Vista… but I’ll be clogging an artery on my way out with Jesus too 🙂

SEE YOU THERE. 2, 4 OR 6PM on DEC 24th. 8363 CENTER DRIVE IN LA MESA, CA. YOU SHOULD COME, FOR THESE 5 REASONS AND 3 MORE YOU CAN MAKE UP 🙂

Seth is a high school student in Encounter and he spent the summer working at Sea World. As a job perk, he gets ticket vouchers and several weeks ago, he offered them to me for my family to be able to go. I confessed that we had season passes given to us already, but that I would take some friends if that was ok. He said, “Sure sounds great. Have fun.”

So we invited the Bower clan to drive down and do some life with us. They said yes and jumped in their car and met us there today. That took 4 tickets. We gave one to grandpa since grandma already had a pass. That left us with two more that we pitched to Ian and Stina and that made for 14 of us on a Sea World trek this afternoon/tonight.

We go every year in December cuz the Christmas shows are fun, funny, and inspirational. Seriously, the shamu show is like going to church. It’s amazing. If you have not seen it, it’s worth the price of admission all by itself.

Here’s some fun pics we snapped along the way. (click em for a closer view)

THANKS SETH- (notice the sign language 🙂

Always amazes me what they can teach animals to do:

TJ and I

Well, it’s been quite the week and I’ve been trying to post this for days, but I finally have found the time to make it happen.  

On Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 3:30pm in the afternoon, Becky and Billy officially and irrevocably became part of the Berrytribe.   When we returned from Uganda in February of this year, they had a visa to get into the U.S., were issued a residency card good for 10 years, and were ours under an “irrevocable guardianship” from the Ugandan Government.

However, the deal was not done done until we signed the final papers on this end and on Thursday we went from guardians to officially Mom and Dad.   They both will now be issued US birth certificates and have citizenship both here and in Uganda.  So cool.

Billy’s new birth certificate will read:  Billy Isaac Lochoro Berry
Becky’s new certificate will read: Becky Joy Ilukol Berry.

Here’s a pic of us in front of the Courthouse in Kampala, Uganda 11 months ago.

Here’s the signing of the official docs here in the US.

Here’s the pic of the official Berrytribe and the Judge declaring it so!!!

I know lots of blue collar workers. I know landscapers, contractors, cabinet makers, electricians, plumbers, truck drivers, tile layers, mechanics, etc. Lots of my friends and several of my volunteers are blue collar people. I’ve got my hands dirty a grip of times with them, done some life with them, and learned a few skills myself from them.

On a grander scale I personally think they are the back bone of much of our country. I also think that in terms of their specific skill set, they are the most under utilized group in the non-profit sector.

I now want to tell you about a friend of mine who is also a volunteer in our ministry. His name is Jason Janik. He essentially runs a business that his mom owns called “Top Notch Manufacturing Inc” and loves to play paintball and hit sling shot carrying high school students in the desert who aren’t looking too 🙂

I could tell you so much I appreciate about Jason in his pursuit of students as a small group leader, his servants heart, his passion to be a good husband and dad, and so much more…. but lately, he has chosen to use his professional skill set to change our ministry. All on his own, without being asked or even a hint from me, he’s initiated, finished, and delivered on two ideas he had.

#1. A CUSTOM WIND SHIELD FOR OUR CHURCH BBQ.

• Jason saw that in the desert, the wind would pick up and it would blow out the flames in our BBQ, making cooking a seriously annoying task. We tried duct taping tin foil around it one year to keep the wind out, and Jason said to himself, “enough of that, I can fix it.” So he did. Even though a schedule conflict kept him from going to the desert with us this last fall, he delivered on his idea before we left and it was a life saver. It even collapses on top of the BBQ to make it better and cleaner for transporting it. (Below is Matt, cooking on it. Who incidentally, along the same lines, is in charge of our facilities team and noticed the wheels on this BBQ were dumb and on his own, added massive ones to it which make moving it about a billion times better. Man I love get-it-done people.)

• Jason’s business has a “waterjet”. Which is essentially a very expensive metal cutting tool that uses extreme water pressure to do the work of cutting a computer generated image out of just about any piece of material, up to like 6″ thick. So, Jason gets this idea that he could use it to make ornaments for our high school group. He rips the logo off our website, re-creates it on his computer, orders the materials, cuts the ornament, shoots me a sample, and says, “Hey, what do you think?” I told him he was a genius and he donated 140 of them for our christmas party and we gave them away as gifts as students left.

Jason. You are the man. My hat is off to you, my very talented, very much appreciated, and very hard working blue collar job man. Thank you for blessing the Kingdom of God with vision, initiative, and your mad professional skills and tools.

PS. If you want hire him to do something like this for your church or business, you should contact him.

One of my greatest joys as a youth pastor is watching kids laugh. I know it’s supposed to be watching them repent, or ditch a bad habit, or learn something new about God… and those are great, but I think when they laugh would be in that list for me too.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,

• Twelve gods a-greeking
• Eleven sculptors sculpting
• Ten roman columns
• Nine lions feasting
• Eight 
Caesar salads
• Seven gladiators fighting
• Six abs a-packing
• Five naked runners
• Four big head-wreaths
• Three coliseums
• Two chariots racing
• and a toga for this fine partee. 



I posted some pics on facebook, but here’s some for the bloggin world, starting with the set up, and then a few from our night.