Hanging a line array at the New Palm Valley Church
No, I’m not talking about the Houck family coming home. Sorry. God still has us out on the road, and we love it. My title today is for Palm Valley Church in Goodyear, AZ. Planted nine and a half years ago by Pastor Greg Rohlinger and his wife, Palm Valley will finally “Come Home” to their first permanent facility since the church was started in the Pastor’s living room. We attended their final service a week ago as they wrapped up at the venue that they have literally built within a high school for the past 6 years. First they were just in the gym. As they grew, they shifted to the auditorium. Now, they have become one of the foremost “portable church” experts in the nation, as they set up and tear down church facilities for 2700 adults and 1000 children over 5 services… EVERY SATURDAY AND SUNDAY!!!
That’s right. Every week their amazing team of volunteers empties, assembles, uses, disassembles and reloads the contents of not one but NINE not trailers but SHIPPING CONTAINERS full of computers, big screens, staging, lighting, backdrops, nursery equipment, and more. But the week after Memorial Day, the load ins will be no more. That is when they will open their new 44,ooo square foot facility that they re-purposed from a furniture store!
We spent a day helping put some of the final touches into the building, including hanging the line array speakers for the new main sanctuary that will seat 1000 people in what will now be only 3 services.
The building, however, is not their focus. Their community is. That is WHY they have grown. Not growth for growth, but growth as a result of effective and focused outreach through serving. Based on how well this congregation has pulled together and reached out into their community in the past, I have a feeling that a 4th, and maybe even a 5th service won’t be far off in the future. Way to go Palm Valley. Thank you for teaching the value of serving, and doing it with excellence. (see a few more pics on Flickr)
This post is the fifth in a series of entries on our journeys through California during April and May of 2010…
Back in January of 2009, we were looking for somewhere to do a little work in exchange for somewhere to park the RV for a few weeks while we began work on a book. Today, almost a year and a half later, that book proof was shipped to the same place it began, and we are back where we started – geographically speaking.
Those of you who have been following for a while may remember the Chicken Coup project from 2009 in Lake Elsinore. The location is called Rancho De La Paz, or “the ranch of peace”. It is a re-entry point for YWAM missionaries and a retreat for pastors and full time ministers that need a little “down time.” Run by the Caruso family, the ranch has a few llamas, a dog, a cat, a bunch of chickens, and some ducks. The farm animals give people from the city something to look at that calms them, while giving rural missionaries something “familiar” as they handle re-entry into American society.
Last year we built the foundation for a new chicken coup. This year, we dug some holes for some trees, but we also got to paint the trim on the chicken coup. I finished with a full day driving a John Deere 210 Loader moving over 30 loads of horse manure… (view the full Lake Elsinore photo set on Flickr)
But back to my thought…
While we were painting, I thought about the fact that even though we weren’t there, the progress on the ranch continued. Multiple other volunteers had helped with construction projects, repainted fences, patched holes and did countless other things. Then we got to return and play a part again.
It makes me remember how I came back to my relationship with Jesus 10 years ago. Several people along the way, each doing their small or large part. Some laid a foundation. Some built on it. Others have helped dress up the project along the way. Every one of them played a critical part.
Thank you for everyone who has done a little work on ME. My life today is the fruit of YOUR labor.
Blessings from California, and now… On to Arizona!
This is the fourth entry in California Wrap Up, a series of blogs highlighting our travel through California in April and May of 2010.
Following our time in Simi Valley with New Heart Church, we headed south of Los Angeles and through the fun of LA traffic to one of the kids favorite overnight camping spots: Oceanside, CA. Specifically, they love Oceanside Harbor. It is a parking lot with no RV hookups and the spaces are super tight together, but it excels in the areas that are critical to the kids: playgrounds and wildlife! They have a great little play area right on the sandy beach, its only about 100 yds to the waves, and there are almost always a few sealions swimming around in the harbor to watch. We’ve been there about 4 or 5 times and every time there is a sea lion on the docks.
Just down the road from Oceanside is the city of Vista, CA. One of the last times we were in Oceanside, our local friends mentioned a recovery ministry named Green Oak Ranch in Vista, so we decided this time to contact them. They agreed to let us visit and just hang out as guest to see what they were doing, so we headed to Green Oak for 3 days before attending a weekend service at Vista Assembly, where we had visited during Easter of 2009. (Remember the Tim LaHaye assignment?)
Green Oak was amazing. They have on site facilities for their resident recovery program including a full cafeteria, dorms, a chapel, and classrooms. They also have a over 100 acres of land that they also use for a retreat center, inclusive of a nature center, animal reserve with Llamas, goats, ducks, emu, a couple horses, a pair of donkeys, a bobcat, a longhorn, and a few owls. They have a full reptile center, a pool, and retreat cabins. Its quite a place. Most importantly, you can sense the presence of God in those who spend their days there. It is a place where lives are transforming and hope is being found. It is awesome, and we are blessed to have experienced it.
Today is 5/25. At 5 am our 5th family member woke Amy and I up to usher in Dillon’s 5th birthday. He was woken up by, you guessed it, his 5 yr old sister. We proceeded to drive 5 miles to Costco where we got fuel so we could start the generator (oops… poor fuel management on Dad’s part), stopped to see the cool race car in the photo at left, and then we made our birthday breakfast tradition happy face pancakes with 5 slices of banana for a smile… (see the photos on Flickr)
I sense a theme birthday like no other coming on…
In all reality, tonight in Chandler, AZ at 6pm (ok the theme is broken!) we will meet up with a handful of freinds at Chick-Fil-a for a “birthday party” for Dillon, complete with cake and ice cream, and then we will enter our 2 week window with 2 children at 5 yrs of age. Kinda wacky, but thats just how it goes when you go by the name “Share5!”
Back in December of 2008 we made a visit to our friend Marc Greene from Outreach Media in Oceanside, CA. During a lunch where we shared with him the 5 character traits behind Share5, he commented that we should share the concept more broadly by writing a book on it. I guess you could say he more than commented. He persuaded. He bribed. (He may have even DARED us a little bit…)
Bottom line was, when he made the comment at lunch that day, it just sat right with me. It registered in my spirit as a “Yes”. That week, we set out to figure out the process of writing a book.
God was, as always, faithful. We looked for a place to park for a little while to write while serving, and unbeknown to us, the woman whose home we were parked at also did writing clinics. She is a published author and was able to help me put some of the first concepts into the first words until they became the first chapters. God continued to provide both the insight for the writing and the resources for the tour, and just over a year later, we completed a manuscript and a series of accompanying case studies for what we would soon call “Share Well With Others – Creating a Life that Reflects the Character of Christ.”
This week, full circle and back in the very same parking spot that the book began in, we received the proof copy from our printer. As the ink dries on the first print run, we look forward to sharing it with you in the next weeks, and thank God for His amazing faithfulness!
See our first book as we open the package containing the very first printed copy. Public copies will be available June 1, 2010, so visit our site at http://share5.org/sharewell to order your copy today!
This is part 3 in our California Wrap-up series, highlighting our April and May travels in the state of California…
Mother’s Day weekend brought us an opportunity to share with the folks from New Heart Foursquare Church in Simi Valley (the sermon was Episode 1 of the new Share Well Podcast if you missed it!), but the preceding two weeks allowed us a little time to both relax, regroup, adjust to being a family of five in the RV, and possibly the most fun you can have with a sledgehammer, DO SOME DEMOLITION!!!
New Heart is in the middle of a sanctuary remodel, and they still had some wrap up demolition to do, so we all put on the work gloves and did everything from tearing out a wall to pulling staples from the stage where carpet had been removed. We were also allowed to throw out a few ideas for how the interior could possibly look and talk with those doing the design work to give them some new concepts to play with.
Pastor Paul Kuzma has been a great support and friend since we met a little over a year ago, and both he and his congregation continue to blow us away with their generosity. He even ran a 100′ cable over his fence from his house for us to have cable TV! Their staff and members are a blessing, and we’ll look forward to returning and seeing the finished project in the future!
Thanks to some new friends from The Rock Church in Anahiem, Ca where we visited immediately after the Catalyst Conference, we were blessed to be able to visit another Anaheim local, Mickey Mouse. (Pastors Todd and Erin Funk had several of their amazing interns at Catalyst serving a lunch, and we “happened” to connect with them while out taking a short walk around the Mariner’s Campus.) Combined with the two free tickets that we had from Disney’s Give a Day Get a Day campaign (remember the Linus Project Blankets?), two free Disney passes from a church member at the rock combined with some quick phone calls from Rock staff members equaled a FREE DAY AT DISNEY for the Houck family! Thank you all, and you can see the Disney photos on our Flickr feed!
If you are ever in the Anahiem area and need a great place to connect with an AWESOME children’s ministry facility, be sure to check out The Rock, only a few minutes from Walt Disney World!
It had been a little over a year since we last visited Southern California, so the months of April and May have felt a little like a reunion. In the next few posts, we’ll be bringing you a few of the highlights!
Our first time to stop at Moorepark, Grace Harvest was hosting Pastor Emmanuel Sackey, our partner and Pastor from Somanya, Ghana, Africa. We haven’t seen Pastor Sackey in over a year, so it was great to reconnect and have time to refresh vision with him! Watch for some exciting things coming soon connected to Pastor Sackey, Share5, and Revival Harvest Ministries.
Catalyst West Coast II – Irvine, CA
Back for it’s second year at Mariner’s Church in Irvine, CA, the crew of Catalyst West put on another great conference. Amy spent a good portion of her time with the Land Of a Thousand Hills Coffee crew, and I volunteered with the Catalyst team in the resource store. The kids? Well, they were doing one of their favorite things… encouraging people to Drink Coffee Do Good.
We don’t know just yet at what frequency we will be making these podcasts available, but we know that we will be starting to share more content through this format, so we hope you enjoy it and will provide us with your feedback!
This episode of the Share Well Podcast is a message from Chad Houck preached at New Heart Foursquare Church in Simi Valley on Mother’s Day, 2010. The subject was the 23rd Psalm, focusing in on how important it is for us to remember the moments in our lives where God has truely made Himself real to us. We hope you enjoy listening!
The following is a portion of a full blog entry recently written as part of my regular contribution over at GivMusic.com. To see the full article, click here!
Beyond the Bulletproof Glass
May 10, 2010
I was recently reading a blog post from a gentleman named Lee Bezotte. He was describing an experience that he recently had (with his six year old son in tow) that regretfully is both symbolic of a growing tendency in our society and an unfortunate consequence of our own insecurities combined with a slightly skewed view of reality.
In his post, he mentioned visiting a handful of churches in his community on a weekday with the intent of inviting the pastors and staff to a workshop on social media. Stepping out of the social web space and into the physical world, he was shocked at how inaccessible these churches really were. Some were locked down and empty mid-week, with nary a person to be found. The most poignant, however, was the church that had grown so large, so popular, and possibly so controversial in its community that the staff “greeted” them… from behind a wall of bulletproof glass. …read more
Mother’s Day weekend brought us an opportunity to share with the folks from 
The All New Share Well Podcast is here!
Share Well Podcast at iTunes
