mike goldsworthy

Thought I’d share a few photos that were passed on to me from Parkcrest at the Beach and the baptisms from last Sunday

I already can’t wait til next year!

Yesterday was our Parkcrest at the Beach. Our annual event when our church all comes together at the beach to hang out, play games and to cap off our time together with people getting baptized at the beach.

It’s a very cool experience to see almost 80 people publicly declare their faith in Jesus by getting baptized there.

One very cool story from yesterday that I want to make sure gets told…

A woman was at the other side of the bridge from the beach where we were at and heard the worship music (probably a quarter of a mile away or more). She came over and waded down into the water to our Children’s Pastor, Lacey. She told Lacey, “I heard the music and came over. I’ve been away from the Lord for several years and I know I need to come back. Will you baptize me?”

She was one of several people who were there, but didn’t come planning on getting baptized and then just came down in their street clothes and got baptized on the spot.

Parkcrest – we are a part of something special! Not everyone gets to experience incredible moves of God like this.

[warning...kind of gross picture below...don't say I didn't warn you]

Yesterday, I was helping – actually helping might be too strong of a word since I hadn’t even really done anything yet – but, I was helping to move some concrete pieces into a dumpster at one of our Elder’s houses.

As I took my first full wheelbarrow up the ramp into the dumpster, I failed to notice that there was a large metal bar running the length of the dumpster, which just happened to be the height of my forehead. Part of why I failed to notice it is that I was concentrating on gaining enough speed to get up the ramp and was therefore running with the wheelbarrow straight towards it. After it knocked me and all the concrete that I was carrying over, I got up and did the manly thing…pretended like it was no big deal.

Until I looked at my shin and saw a gash that ran almost to my bone.

So, yesterday, for the first time in my almost 32 years, I got my first set of stitches.

What’s your best story of getting stitches?

A few random things this monday morning…

• We’re taking off this week to spend a few days in Yosemite. I’ve never actually stayed in the park, I’ve only driven through it. We were stoked to find a couple of available nights really late in the reservation game.
• I love that there’s some interest in doing the Leadership Learning Community. I’ll connect with those of you who signed up next week. If you’re still interested, you can still let me know. We’ll try to solidify dates and the group within the next few weeks
• We’ve got some really exciting things happening in the Fall that I can’t quite talk about yet, but it’s pretty much consuming my life right now
• I’m excited to get to spend the day with our high schoolers at CIY on Friday. Definitely one of the things I miss the most about youth ministry is getting to do trips like that
• If you’re a church leader and need help with finances – whether it’s raising money or just day to day operations, connect with Casey Graham. He’s been really helpful with me and our team lately
• Even if you don’t connect with Casey…this seminar is definitely worth a listen. Really helpful, practical tips for church leaders.

At the encouragement of a few people, I’ve been thinking about starting a short-term Leadership Learning Community.

I’m thinking of a 6 month commitment with a 1-day midweek gathering each month. We would read books together, engage in some interactive learning experiences, share life and challenge one another. The hope would be that at the end of 6 months that we would have learned from one another, increased out leadership capacity and grown in our understanding of ourselves and our personal leadership.

It would be open to anyone who’s a part of Parkcrest (but we would limit the size of the group), and would also include a small monthly cost that would be for covering expenses.

I’m trying to gauge interest to see if this is something worth pursuing to begin in the Fall…possibly sometime in October.

If it at all sounds interesting, fill out this form to let me know

Tonight, I recorded Allison reading books before bed to the kids. It’s something we do every night, and so it’s always seemed like something pointless for me to record – it’s ordinary.

Most of what we usually get video of is the big stuff – the kids first steps, something funny they did, a memorable moment or experience. We get the camera out for the things that are out of the ordinary.

But tonight as Allison was reading to the kids, I thought, I want to remember this…the ordinary.

Too often I miss the beauty and the significance of the everyday and the ordinary because I’m too busy looking and waiting for the things that are out of the ordinary.

This past weekend, we had a powerful and moving service as we talked on God’s ability to heal and trusting in his goodness and faithfulness even when he doesn’t heal. We then had a time where leaders in our various campuses and venues anointed people with oil and prayed for physical healing. From what I’m hearing, there was probably a couple hundred people who came up for prayer for some sort of healing.

It was one of those really powerful weekends. But one of the things that you need to know is that the origins of it weren’t mine.

Once a year, a small group of us get away for a couple of days to pray and plan out 1 years worth of message topics. I come with a lot of ideas, but so does everyone else. After processing everyone’s ideas we work through figuring out what we feel like God has stirred in us to talk about and lead the church through for the coming year.

This last series was someone else’s idea. And honestly, I wasn’t that excited about it originally. We did it because enough other people felt like it was right that I was willing to trust them. It’s really turned out to be one of our more powerful series this year, and it never would have happened if I had to be the one with all of the ideas.

I wonder how often leaders miss out on some of the best ideas because we can’t trust other people to have them and we don’t create a context for them to be given a voice.

Wanted to pass on this great free resource to you if you use gmail or Google Apps. It’s called Syphir, and is essentially server side rules for gmail. I have all of my email accounts (including all of our Parkcrest email accounts) running through Google Apps. so for me this has been huge.

Here’s what it does – you can set up rules that before you even get an email in your inbox, it’s already done all kinds of things with it. Let me give you an example…

I have a terrible habit of occasionally checking my email on Thursdays, which is my day off. If I have some down time, I end up just checking it really quick to see if there’s anything I need to respond to. It’s really not helpful for me and takes me away from having a day off. So, I set a rule that any email that comes in on Thursday is delayed until Friday morning. Even if I check it, I won’t get it.

I have another rule that they call “Black Magic”, which essentially figures out how important an email is and how likely I’ll need to reply to it, and categorizes it based on that. Don’t ask me how it knows (I’m guessing it’s black magic…), but it’s pretty accurate.

And there’s all kinds of other things you can do with it too.

It’s free and it works well.

So, if you’re using gmail or Google Apps, Syphir might be worth giving a try