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Happy New Year...almost!
I've added a few friends to my Facebook profile recently. If you read this blog, have Facebook and haven't added me as a friend yet, now is the time! Just click here and you will go to my page. If you don't have a Facebook account it's a good time to sign up...it is a great way to communicate.
Also, if you attend Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, or just want more information about the church, join the Bel Air Pres Facebook group by clicking here.
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The last few days have been wonderful, the Singley Family has enjoyed some great and unusual times. In order, starting on Christmas Eve...
This is our first Christmas in Los Angeles, so the warm weather was quite a nice surprise. On Christmas Eve the family took a hike through some of the hills in our neighborhood. The kids were amazingly apt considering we climbed over 400 vertical feet in less than a mile. We wound our way up the trails in the desert hills and enjoyed a nice stick/sword fight at the top overlooking the Conejo Valley It was breathtaking in a number of ways, mostly the climbing I would imagine.
That night we went to the 5pm Christmas Eve service at Bel Air Presbyterian Church. TJ, Kim and the rest of the band did a beautiful job of fusing worship songs and traditional Christmas carols. The place was absolutely packed, standing room only. A very nice surprise for us was being able to light the advent candles as a family! 
A couple of things came up for the family that was going to do it, so as I walked into the sanctuary before service to make sure everything was okay Renae approached me and asked if my family would be willing. Of course! What a great honor. Nick and Maddie said a couple of lines about lighting the candles, they did a great job. We finished off the service by dropping the house lights and singing "Silent Night" to candlelight. It was beautiful...and it felt like Christmas. It was great to be in our new church home.
Christmas day was great! The kids actually slept in pretty late, and so we had a nice breakfast and then opened our gifts. Hey iPod folks...I got my wife a pink Zune. :) The kids and adults all had a great time, and we ended up playing many family games including classics like Clue. Do you remember that game? It's a lot of fun...sometimes the oldies are the goodies.
Since Jen had been cooking meals every night for a while we decided to take a break from healthy home cooking and go for some unhealthy fast food...off to In-N-Out I went with Nick and my father-in-law. Unfortunately for us they were closed, no Double Double for me! So we go to plan B...Chinese Food! They are open 24/7 so it's a sure thing.
We arrived at a place in Augora Hills that wasn't too crowded...yet. There was only one other family waiting in the lobby. That family made me smile. Why? Well, normally I don't even blink at celebrities in town because they are everywhere and I like to give them their privacy. They are people too. But this was a special celebrity, one who's name has graced this blog many times. Yes, we were waiting on Chinese food with none other than Dwight K. Schrute. Shortly after we got there, every person in Augora Hills was trying to get in...I guess they figured out it was the only place that was open.
So friends, it has been a good great Christmas. Wherever you are, faithful reader, I wish you and yours all of God's grace and peace into the New Year. I will leave you with the script from Christmas Eve as a reminder of why we believe what we do.
Matt: Why do we light these candles?
Nick: We are preparing for the coming of Christ in our lives.[Light the first candle]
Maddie: We light the first candle, reminding us of God's promise of peace on earth.[Light the second candle]
Jen: We light the second candle, reminding us that we are to dispel the darkness of sickness, poverty, injustice and suffering all around us.[Light the third candle]
Nick: We light the third candle, reminding us to be constant and patient in our relationships and in our living.
[Light the fourth candle]
Matt: We light the fourth candle, reminding us that the way of following Jesus is the way of righteousness, trust and faithfulness.
Jen: God, we have watched for your coming with longing and with expectation, with patience and with hope. Now, as the prophets promised so long ago, you have come to us once again; and with the shepherds, we are filled with wonder and amazement.
[Light the white Christ candle]
Matt: Lord, you come as a tiny, fragile baby; yet we know that you are God, and you are with us. May the flame of this candle remind us that you are the light of the world and that if we follow you, we will never walk in darkness, but will have the true light of life.All: Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen.
No matter where you are in the country I'm sure you remember the news of the California wildfires a couple of months ago. One of the biggest stories to come out of all of it was the total loss of Malibu Presbyterian Church.
Now, weeks later, they continue to rebuild and find hope in what lies ahead. They have written a very good article called "One Sunday Morning-Fire Update". What a tale! God is visible in all that they do. I'm thankful for my brothers and sisters at Malibu Pres.
Today our entire staff went to Fogo de Chao for our annual staff Christmas party. Aside from riding the bus, it was a great time! Okay, ,the bus was actually a nice time to talk to people, I just get sick when I ride them.
Fogo is a Brazilian restaurant that serves up endless amounts of beef, pork, lamb and chicken. You get a little coaster at your plate, one side is green and the other is red. If you have the red side up the servers leave you alone...but if you put the green side up watch out! A hailstorm of meat is heading your way. Server after server comes to your plate and gives you a slice of lamb chop, a piece of bacon-wrapped chicken or a choice cut of Pichana (a Brazilian specialty). As you can imagine, you can only get so far into the meal before the meat sweats take over.
After our meal we had a lot of fun with a white elephant gift exchange. Some of the more popular items were a rubber taco, a deck of Pastor Mark Brewer playing cards and a stuffed cat. There were a lot of laughs, and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves.
All in all, it's a great tradition and I was glad to be a part of it for my first year here at Bel Air Presbyterian Church. The staff that I am working with...they are amazing people.
So...has your workplace done anything cool for you this year?
It's 10 o'clock at night and I'm still at Bel Air Pres Church. It's late, I will go home soon...but I had to type this out while it was fresh in my memory.
Tonight we had our monthly Session meeting (for you non-Presbyterians that is a meeting of our elders and pastors, the governing body of the church) and did our regular business. Then we all went to the sanctuary and spent the next hour together is such an amazing way.
The sanctuary if fully decorated for Christmas, so we were surrounded by beautiful lights, trees and decorations. All of the house lights were off, and the only other source of light besides the decorations were a couple of dozen candles up on the platform. Mark and Roger prepared communion for us, and one at a time each of us would go up front, take the elements and then share with the group what our prayer for this Christmas time was. After a few would share, one of our elders would play the piano and we would sing a verse or two of a Christmas carol. This went on for quite a while...it was beautiful, it was incredibly touching and it was peaceful.
I know that many of my readers are not followers of Christ, so to you, reading about taking bread and juice and talking about what we hope for may seem a little silly. I wish you understood the hope that lies inside of me, because it wasn't silly, it was amazing.
Thank you God, for grace and peace.
The shootings in Colorado are tragic and horrible. Yesterday at Bel Air Pres I had to deal with a security issue as well, but fortunately it resolved without any violence.
For a variety of reasons our church tends to attract a few people that do not always have good intentions. Yesterday a man approached many single women after our 11am service and within seconds was asking them for a date, for their phone number and was talking about a lot of personal stuff. Our official term for this is a "person of interest" but often that language is too soft-spoken for the creeps of the world. Our church is a safe environment for anybody to come and worship God, and when these predators come up here we deal with them swiftly. I escorted him off of the campus after a brief and colorful conversation.
I was not alone, I had two of our security professionals with me. At the time I was unaware of the shootings in Colorado, but I did start to wonder about the sad state of affairs that the church in today's world is in by the need of professional security staff.
What do you think? Should churches have professional security personnel or not? Should we be proactive or reactive?
Today is my anniversary, I have been married to Jenni for 11 years. Yes, it's also Pearl Harbor Day. And if you are unaware, it's Spouse 2.0 Day. Back to the post...
I'm blessed to have been married to Jen for this long, and she is an incredibly patient woman to put up with me for more than a decade. We have been through some crazy adventures together, most recently packing up our family and moving to Los Angeles. She is a good person, a great mom and a loving wife.
Craig Groeshel recently posted 40 lessons that he has learned in his 40 years on this planet. In the same spirit I submit for your approval eleven things that I have learned in eleven years of marriage:
Of course there are many more, but that would defeat the purpose of 11 in 11. Add some pearls of your own if you would like...
A few weeks ago the fine folks over at Swerve sent me a note letting me know that they added me to their blog roll. I went to check it out and saw that it was rotating. Every time you load the page it's a different list. I love that! Why? I know so many bloggers (and I get so many requests to link to them) that I finally just gave up and pulled off my blogroll until I could figure out a better system. When I saw the Swerve blogroll I felt inspired.
Being the geek-in-disguise that I am, I looked around for various javascripts and found a few to my liking. I tweaked them and pulled them together, and now you have what you see in the column to the right...a rotating blog roll! Yes, it really changes, just refresh the page.
So how did the lucky people over there get on my list? Just a few criteria: they had to have commented on this blog before *or* I have to really, really like their blog, and they have to post regularly. Once a month doesn't cut it.
I have three categories right now, I will add a fourth soon (probably "business"). Want to be included on the blog roll and aren't already? Leave a comment on this post or another.
Oh...and if you want to know how to do a rotating blog roll on YOUR blog, leave a comment and if there is enough interest I'll post a down and dirty tutorial, including the code...you would be surprised at how simple it is.
For me the decision is easy, we will be closed on Christmas. We don't have to deal with diversity a whole lot in terms of religious views as we are a Christian church and a Christ following staff. When December 25th rolls around, we will be closed.
Penelope Trunk, author of the very popular Brazen Careerist blog (to which I subscribe), has posted quite a rant today. She is angry that Christians impose their religious beliefs on others and shut down the country on Christmas day. She lays out her case in five clear points.
No matter your religious bent this is a good read. The comments are lighting up with a lot of passion, I'm sure this one will hit 100 comments before the day is out. Give it a read and comment. You should also subscribe to Penelope's blog, she has some great articles.
**UPDATE: Penelope herself dropped in to my little corner of the blogging world and left a note in the comments. What a nice thing to do! Glad to have her here.**
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