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But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not worthy even to be his slave and carry his sandals. Matthew 3:11

That’s John the Baptist, who in reality was a preacher. He was preparing the way for Christ to come, encouraging people to confess their sins and be baptized. He had quite a following and was creating quite a buzz, so much so that the religious leaders of the day were coming to see what He was all about. Yet in the statement above it would seem like he keeps a good perspective and stays humble.

I wonder how many of us pastors, leaders, or anyone who claims to be a Christian for that matter have lost that sense that we are “not worthy to even be his slave and carry his sandals”? Imagine being the leader of a large successful church, or ministry; or being in the Christian music & worship scene, or being a best selling author…

How tough must it be to remain humble in a world that is constantly looking for the “next best thing”. We idolize our leaders, read their books, build entire ministries based on their successes. We play their songs, go to their concerts, buy their CD’s, and wear their t-shirts. Now I am not one of those who takes the pessimistic view and says that this is awful and we shouldn’t respect successful leaders and learn from them, or even model after them – I am just saying that it is a vicious cycle that we are all a part of that breeds pride – and that is the ugliest word ever.

So the challenge is to stay humble, don’t let pride creep into your life. Pray for leaders, pray for your pastor(s). And most importantly, remember that God is in control and he will always humble the proud and make his name greater than any other name. Remember that the most mundane, insignificant task we do for God is a privilege!

Here’s a really interesting article on the new space telescope set to go up in 2013. Over the past couple years, I have enjoyed visiting the Hubble site and checking out all the high-res images of it’s deep space photos – they are pretty impressive. Looks like this new telescope may allows us to look even deeper into space and get a closer view of some of these incredible stars & galaxies that are billions of miles away.

Well, we did it. 4 acoustic guitars, a mandolin, bass & drums, plus 3-part harmony. It was an acoustic week to remember – I think it was like bluegrass-acoustic-power-speed metal. It was Eagles reunion at Life Church minus the Eagles. As soon as we broke into “I saw the Light”, people were stoked, clapping, singing & dancing – there is something about this music that makes you smile. As Karl so beautifully put it, “I was getting sad when we were playing ‘I’ll Fly Away’ during second service because I knew it would be the last time we would be playing it”. It was a blast, so much fun, and so much work, but totally worth it to share the joy that God has put in our hearts through music. It was a good day. Thanks to Rob, Eric, Gene, Rich, Karl, & Jen for their talent and great attitudes! Here is the set list:

I’ve Always Loved You – Third Day
I Saw the Light – Hank Williams
Not to Us – Chris Tomlin
Everlasting God – Brenton Brown
We Exalt Thee – Pete Sanchez
I Love You Lord – Laurie Klein
I’ll Fly Away – Albert E Brumley

Here’s a great site for all you graphic designers – free vector art (we all know how hard it is to get your hands on that!). Vecteezy.com is a new sister site of Brusheezy.com – a free Photoshop Brush site, there’s another tip. Have fun designing!

This from the worship blog – If you have an extra hour and twenty minutes, watch this interesting video. It is a forum hosted by www.webevangelism.com on an interesting discussion about myspace and how Christians should approach the situation. It is especially interesting for parents of teenagers, which I am so glad I am not, yet.

Check it out here (btw – it didn’t work in FireFox, I had to resort to IE).