Mothers

New Service Times Start This Week  8:45 | 10am | 11:15am

This week we are excited to launch the start of a third service.  Each service is unique in its own way and offers a variety of programs and classes for youth and childrens ministry.

Every Sunday we are dedicated to providing you with an electric worship service where you will learn how the Bible and God directly apply to your life and the circumstances you are dealing with today.

Before you choose a service check the Youth and Children’s pages on the website to be sure which services offer age appropriate programs for your children

This Sunday is MOTHERS DAY and we are selling roses FOR $5 in the Quad area outside to help support the Lake Elsinore Pregnancy center.  Every dollar that we raise will go straight to the center.  So pick up a rose for your wife or mother to help support the decision to encourage life!

I look forward to meeting you and your family at one of the three services beginning this Sunday!

Building Update II

Building Update No. 2

Well here it is and the reason that you should check often to read the blog.  Jeremy and I along with a few others will be meeting with the sellers of the property that we have been looking at and praying over for a number of months.  We will be discussing terms and price and every possibility under the sun in order for us to get into a permanant location.

What do we need from tides?  Prayer!  And lots of it.  Prayer that the Holy Spirit would be present and working through us.  Prayer that we would find favor in the eyes of the seller so that we could find some common ground in our terms that we present.  Prayer that we would have an impact for the Lord even in the war room of negotiation and prayer that everyone would come out a winner.

 Thank you for all of your prayer support and continued financial support as we move forward with expectant hearts to find our home!   Check back next week for another update.  Pastor Bryan

New Service Times This Week

New Service Times This Week  April 20th 8:45 | 10am | 11:15

We are looking forward to Mothers day this year when we will permanantly launch three services on sunday mornings!  What a great challenge for us as a church and what a great opportunity we have to meet the needs of a growing community.

On a separate note pray for us this next week as we get out and knock the golf ball around at our third annual Hackfest Golf Marathon on monday the 21st of April.   About 25 golfers from our church will risk heat exaustion, sun burns and personal embarrasment to raise dollars for our church and our building project so that we can take the next step toward a permanant facility.   Should be exciting, we will put all of the photos on the website next week so check back.

 Also please pray for us as we meet with the sellers of the buildings next week.    I can not contain my excitement as I think about the possibilities that are in store for us as a church.  I will update you on this meeting in exactly one week.  Thanks for being patient and faithful in your giving to this project!

I look forward to this week as we continue our study called Fearless.  This week we will address the Fear of Losing Control.  Don’t miss a single one of the three remaining weeks!   

Marry and Bury

A lot of people ask me what’s going on and I don’t always have the time honestly to stop and enjoy a cup of coffee and  conversation even though I want to.  I have found that blogging really helps me to connect with a lot more folks and I really enjoy it too!  So here’s what’s going on…

I bought a new (marrying and burying) suit last week.  Some of the things that Pastors are known for doing is weddings and funerals.  That is something that I have been doing a lot more of lately.   This Saturday I have one more wedding for a former student and then I can breathe.  Sometimes in the ministry like anything else things happen in seasons.  We are also in a season of growth. We introduced a third service on the 16th and had five services for Easter on the 23rd.  I love it!  This is what we moved to Elsinore to do!  The Ride Of Your Life is the name of our building campaign and we are living it everyday!  More to come on that by the way real soon.  Tune in next week!

Last week we launched a brand new 6 week series called Fearless.  I said on Sunday that Fear is the enemies Faith.  We discussed the Fear of Rejection and my inbox was full of positive response from folks who are being lied to by the enemy.  Let’s not let him win!  This week we will address the Fear of Failure.  Challenge yourself to come over the next several weeks I am confident that your life will be better because you did!

That’s what’s going on.  I mean there’s more but I don’t want to bore you with my toe fungus and oh we register Caeden for kindergarten tomorrow.  I will cry the whole way… I beg him every day not to grow up!  He promises that he will still love me and kiss me when he is a teenager but I have seen some of your teenagers and here comes FEAR (I’m in the fetile position now)!  That should be a topic in our study, Fear of teenagers.  Sorry.  See what happens when I get off the chain.

God Bless all 3 of you that read this (lol) and I hope to see you at a Sunday morning at tides soon!

Easter Weekend!

 SERVICE TIMES THIS WEEK: 9:00am and 10:45am Don’t forget!

What an amazing weekend we had as a church!  We had over 900 people in attendance over 5 services including Good Friday!!  That is a new record for weekend attendance at tides church.

Good Friday was full of creative elements and powerful worship.  Easter was packed with excitement and tons of new people from the commumity and all over the city.  Several people prayed to receive Christ for the first time and many others made recommitments to make a fresh start.  No matter how you look at it Easter ‘08 was definatley our best Easter weekend ever!

On another note on monday I took a PMS (post ministry syndrome) day.  I slept in and hung out with my kids til the afternoon and then spent some time with my good friend Chad Ormsby planning his wifes celebration of life service.  Gwyn, Chads wife lost her 7 year struggle with ALS (Lou Gerig’s disease) this past week.  Gwyn was an amazing woman who battled like no other to hang on as long as possible for her husband and two little girls Kathryn (8) and Madison (4).  She will always be remembered by me as one of the bravest and strongest people I have ever met.

Tomorrow I will spend a lot of time working on our new series coming up called Fearless which I am really excited about.  We will be addressing the area of Fear.  I have been asked by many of you to tackle this tough subject for a while now so here we go this should be an amazing ride!  Pray for me though I have a busy week ahead with two weddings and two rehearsal dinners planned for the end of the week.  This will be back to back crazy weekends but it’s woth it.  There is nothing like watching the lives of men and women being impacted right before your very eyes.  Have a great week yourselves and we’ll see you Sunday for the start of FEARLESS!

Easter Week

WEEKEND SERVICE TIMES::  
GOOD FRIDAY @ 7PM 
EASTER SERVICES:: SATURDAY AT 6PM AND SUNDAY @ 8:45, 10:00 and 11:15AM

Well this is the long awaited week for many pastors and churches.   It’s Easter week.  Lot’s of planning and anticipation for the big day.  We have a great weekend in store for those attending starting with Good Friday and ending with Sunday’s a coming!  But there is a lot of preparation that goes into everything.  Countless meetings from creative meeting to staff meetings to tech. and set design meetings.  So many meetings enough to make your head spin.  I have already started my message today because believe it or not it is harder to preach a 30 minute message then it is to preach a 45 minute message.  I will preach the same message 4 times that will inevitably be way different in the last service then the first one and I have to find a new way to give all of the Creesters a hard time again this year.   Then I have to go shopping to find that one Easter shirt that my wife won’t be embarrased to be seen with me in. 
If you have never been to our Good Friday service you are really missing out.  I would love to spoil the surprise but it would kill all of the hard work that has gone into it.   For Easter Sunday make sure you decide ahead of time which one of the four services to attend and get there early otherwise you might not find a seat.  We are going to have the service inside this year because we have almost been rained out two years and running.  Plus you can’t do any of the media stuff outside and that is one of the things we do best here.  So have a great week anticipating the weekend and I will plan to see you at a service this Friday and Saturday or Sunday.

Mugg-A-Friend

NEW SERVICE TIMES THIS WEEK!  8:45, 10:00 and 11:15am

This Sunday March 16th is Mugg-a-friend Sunday.  We have been building up to it now for four weeks and it’s finally here!  What it is, is an opportunity for tides people to walk across the room and invite their friends, family, co-workers and anyone obviously who “Live Here n’ Play Here to Worship Here“.  We want people to test the spiritual waters of a new church, kick the proverbial tires of a new car, you know live a little experiment with something  new.               
What better time than this week when we kick off our brand NEW 3rd Service.    We are trying something new in order to make room for a growing church to expand even further.  The new service times for this week and next week only are 8:45am, 10:00am and 11:15am.  We also have a powerful Good Friday service on the 21st that starts at 7:00pm and a special Saturday night service on Easter weekend that starts at 6:00pm.  So whether you are an early morning attender or get up late like I normally would you should find a service that’s perfect for you.  Every person that comes will get a free gift from us at tides to take home and enjoy for years to come. 
The service is about an hour and is guaranteed to be rockin.  The message is relevant and everyone is friendly so find someone to come with you and hurry down to tides this Sunday where you are guaranteed to get mugged.

Time Away

Our ship has finally come in!  After 7 days at sea we are walking on solid ground again.  It is so strange because it still feels like everything is moving underneath me.  I keep waiting for the cruise director to get on the loud speaker to tell me what my options are for the day.   The only problem with her was that she would come on so early, usually around 11am in the morning.  

The best part of our trip by far was being together with my mom on her 60th birthday.  It was an experience that I know none of us will soon forget.  Ok, so I won’t forget those all inclusive meals with appetizers a main course and dessert at the end.   Looks like Deb is going to have to work a little harder around the house…. Just kidding Deb!

It was a well needed spiritual break as well, one where I was able to spend some much needed time with our God in some very solitary peaceful places.  What amazing times of intimacy I was able to have in the middle of the ocean in the wee hours of the night.  It was a time where nothing but stars are visible as far as the eye could see.  I was amazed with wonder but filled with fear at the same time.  I remember thinking if someone pushed me over I would never be heard from or seen again.  Then to think about how lonely I would feel out there in the darkness all alone.

I was instantly filled with the idea that this is what being separated from God for eternity must feel like.  Because of that I had some great walk across the room experiences with literally 20 to 30+ people that turned into conversations about Christ.

I love it when God gives us “Ah-Ha” moments like that that just seem to hit us like a ton of bricks.  Of course I had plenty of moments where my brain was just mush but not until the end of the trip.  It seems like it usually takes me about 4-5 days to shut off and by the time I do it seems like the vacation is over. 

I am so looking forward to hitting the ground running this week we have a few big sundays in store this month with a lot of planning involved.  I hope you are all excited and taking opportunities to walk across the room this week!

“Live Here, Play Here, Worship Here”

I am so excited about our new series empowering people to “Live Here, Play Here and Worship Here”.  Mugg a Friend Sunday is coming up as well along with the debut of our third service.

I had fun this past week challenging people to walk across the room to the Zone of The Unknown in order to make significant conversations with folks that are outside of their circle of comfort.   It really is fun listening to the Spirits prompting because you never know who you will meet and who will respond to your invitation to come to tides church.

It is true that people are longing for relationship and what better way to administer the love of Christ then by fulfilling the single greatest need that anyone has which is relationship.  It goes back to the fish and the loaves doesn’t it?  The disciples were able to fill their physical hunger so that they were prepared to be filled spiritually.  In the same way if we can make those significant relationships humanly we can then introduce them to Christ which is the single greatest relationship we can have.

I really want to hear about your experiences out there as you walk across the room this week.  Will you take a few minutes and write a comment below and then post it right here on the site.  I want to see just how much God is working through you and me as we Live Here, Play here and Worship Here!

So what are you waiting for POST IT!

Off To Texas

Jeremy and I are heading out to one of the most inovative church conferences in the nation.  Two years ago I had the opportunity to speak at this conference to over 6,000 pastors from all over the world.  It’s called C3.  You can see where we are by clicking on creativepastors.com.

We are looking forward to a great time away together focusing on tides church and our valley.  We will also get a few ACD Days in.  This is a new phrase that we have come up with that means Anti Church Days.  Sometimes you need a few of those days to keep your sanity.

Running a growing church has it’s tolls from time to time so you need to know how to work hard and play hard.  I will update you on my take aways from the conference day to day while I am gone so check back often for the life changing updates.

Better go we fly out in 2 hours!  Texas meets California, be afraid Texas be very afraid!!!!