GCTV Campus Merger: From the Westside Worshipper’s Perspective

Now, I know that I have been a bad little blogger lately and haven’t posted much material but tonight definitely warrants a new entry. I feel like I have a message and a perspective on the future of GenesisChurch.TV that can help others as we make this transition.

It was announced tonight that GenesisChurch.TV’s two campuses, West and Midtown, will be merging into a single location at our Blountstown Hwy facility in just 24 short days. February 1, 2009 will be opening day for the new, combined super-church with an overabundance of volunteers, equipment, and passion for God. This does present some challenges as well as many benefits.

We will be one church… just as we have been since we embarked upon the multi-site merger of GCTV and Encounter Community Church back in June 2008. We will be led by the same Spirit-filled staff that has been in place all along and all of the leaders from both campuses will retain leadership roles as we prepare for God to blow the roof off this thing immediately. With the regrettable but God-led departure of a man that I admire greatly, Pastor Phil Harris, and the leadership surplus that this merger creates, there will have to be some changes to our infrastructure but this should not be interpreted as any leader or volunteer, from either campus, “getting the boot”.

If you’d talked to me a couple of days ago, I may not have been as confident. I confess to an initial feeling of demotion and dejection when I learned that the Lead Worshipper position for our one church would be entrusted to the capable hands of Pastor Jerad Collier, formerly of GCTV Midtown. Many of you know that I’ve poured myself into faithful service at Words of Life / Encounter / GCTV West on Blountstown Hwy for nearly a year and a half now. When I accepted the opportunity to work with Pastor Ben Liles in August of 2007, I felt called to minister to these people… to develop and serve this branch of the body of Christ. And even as I catch my breath and rehydrate for this next leg of the race, I do not sense that that call is lifted.

If you comprehend anything that I convey herein, get this:

Whatever God’s purpose for me is in this change, I am willing to be used. I am not required, in any way, to stay at GenesisChurch.TV, to appreciate the unsolicited relief from my post, or to continue to invest my time, talent, and treasure into this ministry… but, my God, I want to!

If I could just express to you the excitement and anticipation that I feel for the very near future of GenesisChurch.TV, I know you’d agree that this is a God thing. I wanted to feel hurt… I wanted to feel second-rate and I’d understand completely if those same feelings seemed appealing to some of you in this time of transition… but I cannot feel anything but blessed and highly favored by the grace and miraculous love of God as I watch His plan… not Pastor Brian’s or Pastor Ben’s or the DLT’s… God’s plan… unfold. We are living in a divine moment in which God is about to take a body of believers who were struck a financial death-blow just a short time ago and restore them to a place beyond their grandest vision.

GenesisChurch.TV will survive and thrive. GenesisChurch.TV will continue to be a positive force in this city of broken people that accurately teaches and enacts the community and compassion of Christ and the early church. GenesisChurch.TV will soon become everything that God has destined it to be at this moment in time… and I just can’t help wanting to be a part… any part… of that.

This merger will generate fresh excitement and relationships among the membership of both former campuses, develop a more stable financial base for GenesisChurch.TV, protect the jobs of the existing paid staff members, enhance the quality of worship experiences and ministry programs at GCTV through a leadership and equipment surplus, and fulfill several prophecies concerning this church and this location. It’s synergy and it’s holy obedience and it’s responsible stewardship and it’s a truly faith-filled step toward the mission and vision that God has for us here in Tallahassee. Make no mistake… We are in His will.

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I love you all…

To my former Westees, it has been an honor to be your chief leader in the pursuit of honest musical worship from week to week and I appreciate your trust in me, a young, crazy-haired Christ-follower, to competently guide you to the very throne of God. It is with great care and confidence that I am now humbly handing over that responsibility to my friend, Pastor Jerad. I will still be a constant, integral component of the team of true worshippers that passionately lead you from the stage on Sundays and all of my former team members will have the opportunity to continue be a part of our Worship Arts Department. Let any defense or resistence in your hearts on my behalf be laid to rest with the understanding that I am thrilled about the possibilities that this merge creates and look forward to carving out my new role at GCTV in typical, customized Arron fashion.

To the former Midtown crew with whom I am acquainted through Diverge and such and to the great staff with whom I work during the week only to separate on Sundays, I cannot wait to worship with you all! There are so many great people that I look forward to getting to know even better as I work with and continue or begin to lead the members of this previously segregated congregation of GenesisChurch.TV. Together we will welcome, minister to, disciple, and enlist hundreds and thousands of new Tallahasseeans at GCTV.

Above all, I challenge the members of both former campuses to immediately begin ridding yourselves of that exclusive identity. No longer are we in a season of separation, but of oneness. No good will come of clinging to cliques, refusing the unfamiliar, and resisting this merge. Change is a core value at GenesisChurch.TV and I believe in your ability and willingness to make this happen without incident.

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Finally, from a guy who knows well the anointing, talent, charisma, commitment, and knowledge that worship leadership takes, I ask that you show up on day one fully prepared to seek God under Pastor Jerad’s guidance. Prepare your hearts to receive and to give as Pastor Brian, kicks off a series about Christ-like compassion for others called “Love, the Movement”. May we mature and assert a greater interest in being Christ’s helping hand to our community through this challenging series.

Come with an agenda… I am expecting miracles of healing, deliverance, salvation, redemption, restoration, and spiritual gifting. I am believing in my God, who is mighty to save, for the complete physical healing of Pastors Brian and Scott Hunter and for all those in our body who need His touch in their own health. I am confident that, just as was the case with the early church, we will grow exponentially as the unchurched in our city come to find out what all the fuss is about and leave changed forever. I am certain, based on the promises of God, that our faithful obedience to His direction will not go unrewarded. Get ready… this is the Kingdom come down… This is God-life.

Sincerely,

Arron Archer

ReDiscover: “Somebody’s Baby”

A while back, I posted a “ReDiscover” entry about one of my favorite artists, Jon Foreman. Since then, I’ve listened to his “seasonal” EPs (“Fall”, “Winter”, “Spring”, and “Summer”) quite a lot. That’s why it took me by complete surprise when I noticed a song from the Winter EP for the first time the other day. I’ve become a big fan of the song “Somebody’s Baby”.

Even at face value, “Somebody’s Baby” is an emotional piece. Foreman, as always, weaves his lyrics and music together masterfully in this tale of a homeless woman’s struggles. It puts the dark, dirty reality of our world right out in the open before us, the Church, and should remind us of our mission in this world. We are not commissioned to simply tell others about Jesus and reject and judge those who fall short of our standard. Talking a good line doesn’t change the world.

“Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this:

Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight,

and guard against corruption from the godless world.”

James 1:27, “The Message” Bible

Beyond that, the chorus speaks a profound word about a person’s worth. No matter who you are, what you do, where you come from, what you’ve been through, or who has written you off; God still loves you. When not one soul on Earth cares for you, God does. This unconditional love for the lost world should be and must be the heart of the Church. Christ-like compassion operates independent of blame and in perfect unity with unending grace.

Listen to Jon Foreman’s “Somebody’s Baby” below

and let your heart be prepared by God to do His will.

Cultivate true religion in your life… Care.

“Carnival” Series @ GenesisChurch.TV West

Check it out! GCTV West is in an awesome new series about parenting and family for the next few weeks. “Carnival” kicked off a couple of days ago with a great live teaching by Campus Pastor Ben Liles. But don’t worry… Even if you missed out on that one, we’d love to have you join us for the rest of them! This week will be a video sermon by Lead Pastor Brian Hunter projected on three huge screens. Executive Pastor of Families Phil Harris will finish out the last two weeks of the series – a treat that I’m personally looking forward to – so don’t miss a minute! As always there will be live music/worship, child care provided, and a face-to-face sermon wrap-up by our own Pastor Ben. See you there!

Sundays @ 11:01am --- 862 Blountstown Hwy., Tallahassee, FL.

Peasant Princess

Check out this awesome series on Song of Songs/Solomon from Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church! Jackie and I are watching it together and, judging by the two episodes that I’ve seen already, it is a great resource for anyone who is married, single, planning to get married, planning to be single… – Basically, I think that anyone who has an interest in God and his design for humankind should hear the sound doctrine on a very controversial part of the Word of God that is set forth in this series. Driscoll is an entertaining and challenging speaker and your life will be improved if you’ll just take the time to hear what he has to say. Let me know what you think via the comment feature on this blog! Enjoy…

www.peasantprincess.com

P.S.- If you have a spouse or significant other, I highly recommend viewing together. It could… no… It will change the way you view your relationship and it will force you to look at some issues that you’ve probably never felt comfortable thinking about before. For God and love’s sake… Just do it!

Catching Up: 11/25/08

Hey gang,

I know that I’ve posted only once in a very long while and I have oh so much to share of late… so, without further ado, here’s what’s been going on in my world lately…

Love and Such

Believe it or not, I have, in the last several weeks, found the L word. That’s right… love. I’m certain that it is to be discounted and doubted by some and understood and hailed by others but I’m not particularly focused on outside opinions anyway. We weren’t looking for it but it is real. It brings with it complications for both our lives but creates, in itself, the drive to make it work, whatever the sacrifice. I can’t believe that after all of my senseless distress over my failure to find “like”, God has given me the chance to love and be loved by a beautiful, smart, funny, devoted, Christ-focused, supportive, giving, exciting woman. There has, of course, been much discussion of the M word… but just sit on the edge of your seat for a while. – I’ll keep you posted.

Trust me, though… A relationship of this nature is not without challenges. I can’t imagine what this experience would be like if we were not both committed to making our relationship be reflective God’s design. Even so, as we desire to draw closer and closer together, it becomes imperative that we draw closer and closer to God. We are unified and resolute in our unwillingness to let this great gift become something to trip over. Pray with and for us as God unfolds his crazy plan for our future.

Church and Music

GCTV West publicly launches on February 1, 2009! Things have been steadily increasing at the new campus of GenesisChurch.TV. Attendance is rising, relationships are skyrocketing, service teams are improving, experience and video quality is being enhanced week by week, etc… We’re on the up-swing to a great new year and the chance to establish ourselves with the sole motive of reaching people for Christ and demonstrating His brand of compassion and community with them. As before, we are still meeting weekly at 862 Blountstown Hwy. in Tallahassee, FL and would love to have any and all come check it out.

As for the Worship Arts Department at West, things are developing gradually. As frustrating as it is to see the great potential in a team and in a ministry and still constantly struggle to extract it, I love what I do. Like any band (no, church bands are not exempt), we have our internal issues. The incredible thing about having a foundational purpose of leading our listeners into a place of intimate worship of God is that, no matter how personalities clash, sound equipment misbehaves, or rehearsals fail to go as planned; when the lights go down, it’s not about us. Our day-to-day efforts are intended to make the music as high-quality as possible but when the countdown hits double oh’s, chords and counter-melodies become secondary. We are created to worship and exalting God with unabashed liberty always takes over when I feel like going under.

Some of the same things could be said for my student band in Diverge Student Ministries. DSMworship has really taken off and I am extremely proud of them. The music sounds better and better each week and I think that some of them are finally beginning to see what we do for what it really is… worship leadership. Nothing humbles and motivates me more than the realization of this opportunity to teach the rising generation what it is to worship and to develop them into the leaders that the Christian church will desperately need in the future. Pray for wisdom, innovation, patience, and effectiveness for me. I know that I’ll need it.

School

I graduate next April! With Thanksgiving only a couple of days away, I can really see the light at the end of the tunnel for this semester. Things are all set to carry my feet across that stage and I am both excited and nervous (like every other college graduate in history) to face the “real world” very soon. And as I’ve said before, there may well be more education around the next curve… but let me finish this stretch of the road and revel in my accomplishments first.

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Whether I know you or not, I love you and pray that something in your life, this week, reveals that God is right in the middle of everything that you’re juggling. May the Lord bless and keep you. May His face shine upon you and be gracious to give you peace. Amen.

To Write Love On Her Arms

The rising generation is filled with angst and depression, cutting and suicide, loneliness and the search for a way out. Everyday, people all over the world reach the conclusion that life is simply not worth living and, because of this mindset, they end it. Yesterday was a call to arms. Yesterday was a day to show our support for those who are struggling with these issues. Yesterday was a day to identify with a movement of compassion that is injecting fading hearts with hope and finally removing the blades from arms scarred by desperation. Yesterday was To Write Love On Her Arms Day.

If you don’t know about the movement, check out twloha.com.

The notion that the simple act of writing the word “love” on your arm could change the course of someone’s life… That by answering when someone asks what it means, you could share a message of concern and understanding that gives them the will to keep breathing… That this could make a difference was more than I could pass up. And though I may never know what impact my support for this cause has, I know that facing the ugly truth, unabashedly standing with those who struggle with these issues, and speaking hope, life, and freedom into their various situations is a perfect example of being Christ to the world.

Love is the movement.

Not music or sermons or knowledge or t-shirts or websites. Not marker-stained arms or celebrities or brochures or fund-raisers or rehabilitation programs. Nothing that we do… Nothing that we infuse into the problem will ever fix anything if it is not truly based in love… – Christ-love for the broken.

LOVE IS THE MOVEMENT

Poetic: Save Us From Ourselves

We keep smiling

We keep talking

We keep doing

But our eyes betray us

Torn hearts and over-confident minds shine through

We say we want Your hand to guide us

But our actions prove the opposite is true

Words sting

Words heal

Words fade

And the ear that heard and the heart that stirred at first are shut down

Blood-stained knees leave the ground

Tear-stained eyes dry up

Evil hands clench fists tight

Our endless efforts have never been enough

Our wrong machine has never yielded right

Our dark machine has never yielded light

Our search for day has found us here tonight

And we hate it

We scratch and bite, scream and fight

With all our might we try

But ours to solve has never been this plight

Shut up

Pride pretends it’s ours to do

We’ve been told, we’ve seen ourselves, we knew

Shut up

We couldn’t fail, we couldn’t fall

We’ve said it, seen it, done it all

If not for virtue, why the call… why this life?

Why anything…

Speak

Speak now

Speak and we will not

Too long, we’ve said our peace and found none

Too long, we’ve employed our stupidity in search of wisdom

Too long, we’ve tried to clean ourselves…

The bar of mud we use stains us deeper

What have we to help ourselves?

We search for life in hearts devoid of You

We mend destruction with bombs and fire

We heal disease with infection and rot

We bathe our youth in septic mire

We feel so sane but clearly we are not…

We’re not even close

Everything we try lands us farther from You

Deeper in the sink hole

Closer to the moth’s flame

Closer to an end that You never designed for us

Reliance is imperative now

Another step could find no ground

Another scream could find no sound

Another stroke could find us drowned

We are dying by our own hands because we are living by our own strength

Save us from ourselves…

“The Elusive Fresh”: Addendum

As a word of caution to follow up the post, “The Elusive Fresh”, remember that familiarity is dangerous. Look no farther than yours truly to find a bounty of stories of complacency, irrelevance, and routine leading to carelessness and sin. As much as you may want to live every day as a Christ-follower, failure to “keep it real” will find you running full-speed away from Him by your flawed human thoughts and behaviors. I believe that You love God. I believe that you have the best intentions. I absolutely believe that you try mightily to avoid those same sins that you always seem to come back to wallow in. Stop reading my diary.

The point is that what you say you want is diametrically opposed to what you tend to do. I get it. Several of my previous blog posts mention closing that chasm between your heart (desire) and your hand (actions). But it recently occurred to me that, on occasion, I find my desires no closer to God than the behaviors that are later despised. Constantly evaluating your heart and keeping your relationship with God in top shape is the only way that I know to stop this destructive cycle. And trust me… a routine, familiar, stale sense of who He is and what He wants from you is not the best place to start.

Don’t endanger your faith and your future by carelessly telling yourself that everything is alright. The repetitive failures and falls will damage your soul. Find a fresh sense of God and his Word right now so that your life will reflect His activeness inside you. If you comprehend anything that I say herein, get this…

Outside-in changes are pointless…

True life-altering change comes from the inside out.

Therefore, those external changes that we value and worry about so much will only sincerely happen in proportion to the development of that internal communion with Christ that is strengthened by understanding Him and seeing Him as relevant to your everyday life. Talking to Him, worshiping Him, and celebrating His love with a fresh concept of Him will draw you, your desires, and your actions (in that order) closer to Him. Stay current, see real heart change, and effect real behavior alteration by denouncing the familiar and making everything intentional.

The Elusive Fresh

I’ve been thinking today about the difficulty of not falling into the familiar.

I remember finding a sort of new perspective on all things church and Christ a few months ago. I made a conscious effort to root out the religious jargon that had come to really mean nothing to me when I said it. The switch to the missional church model when I teamed up with Pastor Ben Liles just over a year ago also gave me a fresh look at everything that I’d known, believed, and lived for so long. Our Message is extraordinary, our God is amazing, and our purpose is exciting… none of which really seem to fit in with the word “routine”, as far as I can tell.

Due to an insightful Bible study with some friends from an Intervarsity Christian Fellowship small group, I cut out all of my childhood introductory “dear-heavenly-father”s and replaced them with something that, at the time, had so much more meaning to me… “Sovereign God”. I wanted to acknowledge in my prayers that my God is one who is in complete control of everything that happens in this world. Even when I can’t make heads or tails of the tangles and tears that we constantly come up against, it’s elementary for Him. But the danger, and, confessedly indeed, the reality, is that any attempt to simply alter the jargon eventually becomes ubiquitous in its own right.

I admit that I have found it increasingly difficult to “feel” God in my day-to-day lately. If you can’t identify with the feeling, I am glad for you, but it is like I’m just running on the faith and hope inside me… like I’m being depleted and not refilled. Conversation with a few friends suggests that I am not alone in this struggle and I feel confident that it is directly related to contrary forces sensing what is just around the corner for our church and this city. But I feel routine… I feel stale… I feel bogged down in a rut.

When I began to pray earlier, I uttered the words “Sovereign God” and breezed right on into whatever it was I had on my mind. Suddenly, I noticed this and stopped myself. Epiphany struck the chord that the words on my lips have no significance at all if they begin at my mouth. As I explained, this God-title at the outset of a prayer can be tremendously effective in reminding us what an amazing, perfect God we are entreating and worshiping… but it can also be an empty vocalization.

It’s like saying “we worship You in Spirit and truth” when you’re not even sure what that means. Sure, it’s concise and it has been said by billions of people around the world but if it affects you more to say “we worship You from the deepest part of ourselves and with total sincerity”, adjustment, I think, is well warranted. That’s one reason that I love the Message translation of the Bible and why I try to break scriptures and songs down line by line when I cite them here. I want to say what I mean and mean what I say when I am conversing with my God. I want to be real and transparent, not so that He can see me – He sees me completely already -, but so that I can see what He wants to do in and through me. When I am stripped naked of my social roles, acted attitudes, religious rituals, etc… I am utterly vulnerable to His touch… completely sensitive to what He sees in me.

At GenesisChurch.TV, we have a core value of change. Today, I recognize just how important this is. No matter how edgy our terminology is, no matter how craftily we market our fresh ideas about church and God, they have the potential to become just as familiar and useless as whatever we traded in for them. It takes consciousness to remain fresh. It takes listening to your own words to recognize whether you still understand and mean them or not. It takes constant effort to not fall into the familiar.

In Passing: DSMworship

Hey guys,

I thought some of you may be interested to know that the student worship band (temporarily operating under the name, “DSMworship”) that I’ve been working with for Diverge Student Ministries makes their debut next Tuesday night at Diverge: LiVE. It’s been a deliberate process to make sure everything and everyone was in the right place, but I think that we have got it now. Strangely enough, I think that I’ve missed the challenges and dynamics of working with a band of teenagers and am glad to be back in a position to lead a great group of students and develop their talents.

We rehearsed tonight before Diverge and, I have to say, the sound is pretty solid. I’ve expressed in previous posts that I have really missed having the PrizeFight gang from Perry but, if as much effort and passion is applied to this new project as was to PrizeFight, this could definitely become an entity of similar quality. Keep an ear out… You may be surprised by what you hear.

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(and it was all here all along)