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98% excited or 98% scared?


98% excited or 98% scared from Robert Terrell on Vimeo.
tapestry had it’s second and last “preview” worship gathering last night. the only thing left now is the real deal. last night was great and hard at the same time. mike penza’s brother ended up passing away this week. we all hurt for mike and he’s family. we were also missing casey but for much more pleasant reasons (he had to go see his woman). while worship was great i wish the whole tapestry family could have been there and most importantly not in pain.

the next step is a matter of mapping everything out for the actual launch this coming sunday. i’m extremely excited and scared at the same time. over on facebook one of my friends suggested the scene from armageddon where owen wilson’s character is strapped into the shuttle. he’s “98% excited and 2% scared or is it 98% scared and 2% excited?” it pretty much sums up how i feel right now.

the new memberSIDE NOTE – we have a new member of the terrell family. after a lot of searching pam found a cat that she feel in love with. she found him through the purbred cat rescue. he’s a 5 year old himalayan and his name is mr. darcy. though i am not the biggest fan of cats in general, i will admit that i like this guy.

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pray for the penzas

some of you know and love mike penza. some of you don’t know him yet but if you did you would love him. mike’s brother dave has been struggling with cancer for four years. dave is a college student and he has gone through more struggle than most of us ever will. mike texted yesterday saying that he’s brother wasn’t doing well and asking for prayer. dave has now gone into respiratory shock and the doctors are saying there is a chance that he will not make it through the night.

please join me in praying for my friend’s brother and the whole penza family.

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simulacra and simulation

i like candles in worship. nothing blatantly spiritual about them, they just help me to get into the right mindset. washington elementary school now has a no open flame policy and therefore regular candles are a “no no.” the issue i now face is whether flameless candles are just completely cheesy or not. i feel pretty lame putting out flameless candles just as a mood setter but at the same time i really do like candles in worship gatherings. of course, flameless candles are merely a simulation of the real thing and therefore it could be argued  that they aren’t really going to serve the same purpose anyhow. i no for most of you this is probably not a big deal, but it’s twisting my brain in knots. any thoughts?

SIDE NOTE – here’s the itunes address for our podcast once it begins. obviously it won’t begin until our gatherings do (september 14).

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september tapestry prayer email

here’s the monthly prayer email i send out to those who are praying on behalf of tapestry. if you do not receive this email and would like to please message me and i will add you to the list.

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setup preview

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FIRST let me say that i am praying for and thinking about all my friends and family that live in the path of hurricane gustav. if you haven’t evacuated yet and would like to you are welcome to come to our home. wisconsin is wonderful right now and well worth the visit (even if it is just for the purpose of running away from a hurricane). i remember what katrina was like, so i’ll be praying for you based on my memory of my feelings and thoughts were.

second i’ll talk about tapestry. tonight was our set up preview. we spent the evening trying to figure out how to hook stuff up and where to put it. it involved a lot of trial and error. my real worry was that we wouldn’t be able to put everything up or take it down in the time we had hoped for. our goal is to be set up by 5:15 p.m. each sunday so we can concentrate on people and people only once the gathering start to happen. everything went wonderfully. we set everything up, had it looking decent (we’re still not completely there yet), meet and talked about the example of the levites, and then tore everything down. we had more than enough time. i was incredibly nervous before we started tonight and i was pumped after we finished. it’s going to happen and people are going to be drawn to GOD.

i spent a little bit of time talking with our launch team about the biblical example of levites. this hebrew tribe acted as the “human camels” (jacob’s term) for all the items and equipment involved in GOD’s tabernacle. the levites did all the heavy lifting and hard work so that others could worship. i love what deuteronomy 10:8-9 says concerning them:

at that time the LORD set apart the tribe of levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today.  That is why the levites have no share or inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as the LORD your GOD told them.)

Levite_edited-1“the LORD is their inheritance!” wow! we spent a little bit of time talking about the fact that as a nomadic church and we have much in common with the tabernacle. for better or worse the launch team members are the levites of tapestry. we will carry and setup everything, while others just arrive and worship. in the midst of all the work GOD is out inheritance. it’s all fun and games right now but 6 months from now i’m going to have to remember that GOD is my inheritance when i no longer want to set stuff up just to take it down in three hours. remember folks, i’m old.

anyway i gave everyone a t-shirt tonight with the hebrew letters for “levite” on them. i just want us all to remember what we are doing and why we are doing it. 

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the final ad

here’s the produced version of the radio ad i mentioned in my previous ad post. it will begin playing labor day.

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f.a.q.’s

i’m continually updating tapestry’s website. at the moment i am working on making the f.a.q.’s better. i made myself laugh today by the answer to the question “what do i need to wear to tapestry?” here’s the answer

Clothes! You must wear clothes to everything that Tapestry does. We’re pretty strict about that.

What type of clothes you wear are completely up to you. We are all pretty casual in our clothing selections. Yet truthfully, as long as you are wearing clothes, casual or formal, you’ll get along fine.

adam and i have been sitting in the “man cave” thinking of adding some photo examples to get the point further across. the photos would be a punk rocker with the statement “ok” beside him/her. then we would add a person in formal attire and say “ok”. finally we would add a photo of adam or eve with fig leaves and say “pushing the limits”. the mental images made us laugh.

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radio ad transcript

for those of you who are interested i’m putting up the initial script for our radio ad that will run on wifc & the valley. here’s the rough draft

[MX:  ROCK!!!!]

[SFX:  BIG ENGINE REV]

MONSTER TRUCK ANCR:  SUNDAY!  SUNDAY!  SUNDAY!  You’re gonna be BORED!  BORED!  BORED!  You’re gonna hear PREACHING and LECTURING!  You’re gonna sing the same tired hymns you’ve singing since you were 5 YEARS OLD!  You’re going to STRUGGLE to stay AWAKE the entire time!  OH YEAH!  Church is gonna be AWESOME!

[SFX:  BIG explosion]

[END MX AND SFX]

ROBERT:  Or, maybe you could try a church that’s a little less, you know, church-y.

[MX:  CURRENT POP]

ROBERT:  A church like Tapestry Church in Stevens Point.  At Tapestry, we believe that faith is about Jesus, not a building or old traditions.  You’ll find someone talking with you, instead of at you.  Who knows?  You may even find that you like coming to church again.  Hi, I’m Robert Terrell the pastor of Tapestry.  If you’re feeling disconnected from your faith, see if Tapestry Church can re-connect you.  Join us for Tapestry’s first service at 6 the evening of Sunday, September 14th at Washington Elementary School in Stevens Point.  To learn more about Tapestry Church, visit us online at S-P-tapestry-dot-org.

the idea of the monster truck commercial makes me laugh.

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it’s a first for me

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i’m 40 yeaqrs old and i have been hooked by fishing lures quite a few times BUT i have never been hooked to the point that i had to push the barb all the way through my skin and cut it off to remove the hook until today. the above photo is what my left thumb looked like after i had removed the hook (for some reason i didn’t think to take a photo of the hook still stuck in my finger). it was my own stupid fault too.

adam and i had been fishing a total of 20 minutes and had already caught six good fish. then we each hooked one at the same time. adam’s was hooked pretty deep so he asked me to see if i could unhook it for him. in order to do this i brought my fish in and laid it in the bottom of the boat. BIG MISTAKE. you never do that because then you have a two pound fish with a hook in its mouth that now has something to push against for a jump that can hook you. i knew this but i did it anyway. STUPID!

anyhow, if it ever happens to you here’s a link on how to remove the hook. basically push the hook’s bend until it punctures through your skin, cut the barb off, and remove the hook. it hurts a little but it’s really not that bad.

the worst part of the whole thing was that it took me 20 minutes to remove the hook and bandage my thumb. this ate up the little fishing time we had for the afternoon. by the time i was bandaged we only had 15 minutes left to paddle back to our spot and fish some more. adam and i both thought it was too much effort for too little reward and thus headed home. having started off with 8 decent smallmouth in 20 minutes (including the time it took to paddle to our spot) meant it was probably going to be a great day.

just thinking about the wasted fishing irks me.