Jay McKenney

Blog Hiatus/10 things I'm lovin

This is the longest break from blogging I have had since I started.   In my life its been like a perfect storm of events for that to happen.   I need to ease back into regular blogging.  I'll start with an easy entry, 10 things I'm lovin right now.

*Dark Knight.  Its official.  Favorite movie of all time, dethroning Braveheart.  I could write about that easily as long as Matt Singleys post about the new iphone but for now just know its my favorite movie.

*Nutella. Spreadable chocolate hazelnut butter.   It's like eating the best part of a hot chocolate chip cookie anytime you want, (the melted chocalote chips) on anything you want.  I did not purchase this, Allison did, so when I eat it the calories don't count.

*My new phone the Verizon HTC 6800.  Its not the iphone, but its pretty awesome.

*The song Healer by the Planet Shakers. Rockin my world even as I write this.

*Sunshine.  This has been a great summer for it.  I love it.  I love the fall and rain too, but more so as a contrast and not as the norm.

*Watching the new show Wipeout with the fam.  Its repetive and silly but I can't seem to look away and I laugh hard each time.

*Playing make believe stuff with Macy.  Hearing her imagination for life and situations is SO ENTERTAINING.

*The way my wife Allison is raising our daughters.  I could simply not ask to be married to a better mother for our kids.

*The fact that I have been fishing twice in the last couple of weeks, which has increased my fishing output this year by 200%.

*That my youngest daughter Ava is about to turn 1.  This would make my wife's ten things she's hating list because she doesn't want Ava to grow older. 

finally home

This picture was taken this week at Black Butte.  It was one of those times where the sky looked so incredible, that if someone would have painted it, I would have said the painting looked cheezy and fake. 

I had a good week away.  It was good family time for sure.

But the week was about more than family for me.

Right now I am craving for life to be about more than me, my world, my kingdom.

I want to break the routine, the mundane, the same ole same ole, and tap into some God stuff.

I am dying to live life on the edge, out where its not safe, out where adventure happens, where God is alive and well and moving.

I met with Jim Gurney who lives in Sisters, who God used to shape my life many many years ago.

We talked about life, ministry, family, God.  Jim is one of those guys who just bleeds Christ, and vision.  It comes from him as naturally as the smell of garlic from someone who eats it regularly.  It was a divine appointment at at time where I'm doing a lot of soul searching. 

anchor of my soul

A few years back I was fishing on a boat on a channel that led out to the ocean.   It was incredibly foggy, and the water was rough.   We had to keep our eyes on a buoy marker, and make sure we could see it, because to the north of us was a lane reserved for barges and large ships.  We were anchored, but the sea was rough enough where we knew it could come dislodged.  At one point it happened, we looked up and realized the buoy was nowhere in sight.  We had drifted, and really had no idea where we were or how far.  I kept waiting any moment for a barge to come out of the fog and level us.

That is how I feel today.  It happens so quickly.  I take my eyes of of Him for a second, and I start to drift, and before I know it I'm in the middle of nowhere in my soul, the anchor is loose, and I'm lost, waiting to get leveled. 

Need to spend sometime tonight finding the Buoy that is my Savior, and letting Christ be the anchor of my soul. 

trip down the gorge

Today was such an awesome day.  We headed down the gorge with my parents, and Shelley and her girls, and Mike and Beatrize, and  of course Allison, Macy and Ava.  We stopped at a ton of the falls, as well as Bonneville Dam.  The weather was PERFECT, and it was just a great day with the fam. 

Ava loved being in this back pack.  My knee was fine going up, I just struggled walking downhill anywhere. 

Comment turned blog

I went to leave a comment on my good friend Tyler's blog in response to this post of his, God Bless America.

I ended writing enough for a blog, so I copied and pasted here.  Plus I'm lazy today and this was a quick way to post.  If you want to read Tyler's post and then my comment here, have it at, would love to know your thoughts.

Hey guys,

Interesting topic for sure. I don’t know if God blesses “America” as a country or not, in the way that some people mean that phrase. There is much I don’t know about how God views America now, vs when it started etc etc, vs the rest of the world, others countries.

I know that increasingly around me in the media etc, that America is looked at negatively for many reasons, some valid, some not. I have noticed that in some ways its almost hip or cool to not like our country. I listen to hours and hours and hours of both sides of the debate about how horrible America is verses how great America is. Why there is so much I don’t pretend to know about, I do know what I wish for, as I raise my daughters in this country.

*I hope and wish that God will bless America. I pray that if there if something America can do in action, and be in leadership, that that will happen, and that God will bless us for it, for our obedience as a nation. And by bless I mean whatever God means by the word bless. I don’t want this only for America, of course I hope He blesses other countries as well. But I do have selfish interests for the country that most likely my daughters will grow up in.

*I hope and wish for Christian leadership. I would go to the wall for a leader of our country that was and said he was sold out for Jesus Christ, and that all the good we want to do and be as a country, was because of Him. I know that would be nothing short of a miracle because of a thousand reasons of where we are at, but I still hope for it.

*While I am on board with many of the global concerns/issues that are rising to the top of the consciousness of many, I am definitely perplexed about all the issues of morality that can be legislated, and how that should affect my vote. So much is made of the church and politics remaining separate, but the reality is that picture of the flag and the cross is an accurate picture of how many things the government is a part of every day that are morale issues, that decide our countries general direction on literally how we behave as a nation. I understand that many people are switching which morale views are the most important when it comes to voting. I am definitely torn by this, and wish we could have it all. I wish we could care for the poor in Africa, in the name of Jesus, and stop killing babies here, in the name of Jesus, under a leader who was bold enough to say it. It seems like while increasingly the cross needs to stay out of the flags way in our country, the flag can get in the way of the cross anytime it wants. I wish and hope for a country for my daughters where the flag lives in the shadow of the cross.

wow, this is the single longest comment I’ve ever left on a blog! Thanks for the blogalogue Tyler!

Replaceable

I’m at the point in my ministry life where I am acutely aware of how replaceable I am. Somebody else can do all my “tasks” here at church. I can think of many people who can lead us from song to song, can help pick out songs that we sing, can write devotionals, can set direction etc. Sunset doesn’t really need anything I have to offer musically, or even caring for the hurting or serving in the community etc. In the “technical” aspects of my job, I am completely and utterly replaceable.

What is irreplaceable about me is the same thing that is irreplaceable about you. And that has everything to do with relationship. And love. All my tasks are meaningless apart from a relationship with Christ. First and foremost, He wants me to follow Him, to love Him. When I am following Him, then all my tasks take on purpose and meaning that only a relationship with Him can give.

You have some irreplaceable roles in your life. You are someone’s son or daughter. You may be someone’s father or mother, or someone’s husband or wife. And you are definitely a creation of God. These roles are irreplaceable. Never let your functional roles take priority over your relational roles.

I’m at the point in my life where I’m acutely aware that the greatest thing I can do for anybody period, at work, at home, anywhere, is to follow Christ.

Where are you replaceable at?  Have you discovered where you are not?

from niche to family

Does church feel like family for you?  Do you long for it to?  Do you care? 

Church feels like a family to me, but it took a while. I'm going on four years at Sunset and it really wasn't until the last year that I've really begun to feel like part of the family. 

I long for Sunset to become family.   

We don't get to choose our families that we were born into.  Church is a little different.  If I don't like the music or the preaching or the whatever at this church, I can switch to the church down the block or across town, until what I'm looking for is met.  This isn't a slam, this is reality.  I think the challenge for churches is how to become family, because when that happens, it becomes much more than just what happens in a few minutes on Sunday, it starts to become living life in community, and then when we show up on Sunday its more like a large family reunion.  It becomes less about what I am looking for, and more about what I bring to the family dynamic. 

What are some ways you think church can become family?

video of the camping trip

Macy Trillium trip June 08 from Jay McKenney on Vimeo.

Camping with Macy

Macy and I decided to take a spur of the moment camping trip yesterday. 

We went to one of my favorite spots in Oregon, Trillium lake.  The scenery there is literally breath taking.

Let me just say first off, we had a BLAST!!! Macy is SO fun to camp with.   And holy cow did she catch a lot of fish.  Many of them all by herself!  All I did was cast it out there, she waited till she got a bite, pulled up, and reeled some of them all the way, it was awesome! She caught over 10 fish!  That's a fish she caught in the grassy reeds, you might not be able to see it.

 

One thing I discovered, is that Macy HATES bugs.  I mean despises mosquitoes, ants, gnats and the like.  Often she was engaged in conversation with them, telling them how much she did not like them, and asking them to please GO AWAY!

At night around the campfire she was SO precious.  She kept saying that this was so peaceful and that she was so happy to be with me.  We made smores and stared into the fire.  We read Prince Caspian in our tent.  Right before she drifted off she asked me, "Daddy, could a bear come and kill us?"  I've been camping all my life, but not with Macy alone like that.  Let's just say I didn't sleep much last night.  All night long I was plotting what I would do to protect Macy in the event a bear or mountain lion made its way into our camp.  When I drifted off to sleep now and then, I dreamed about bears.

We both woke up at about 2:00 am.  We had windows in the top of our tent, and the stars were insane.  Macy took one look and sad, "Daddy, its DAZZLING!"  It truly was.

I think Macy is hooked on camping, and fishing, but still hates bugs.  I can't wait until Ava is old enough to take on this trip.

 

My brother Mike

This is my brother Mike.  He's a stud.  I remember when I had abs like that.  I had just turned 5 and my metabolism was still really active. 

Mike lives in Georgia, he is a firefighter there.  I miss him terribly.  There is a chance he may be coming to visit the family with his wife in a week or two, I so hope he does.  I have never met his wife pictured below.

My brother is funny, real, and a blast to be around.  We used to try to weight lift together and we would end up getting so frustated because we just kept laughing.  He is the kind of guy that when you meet you want to be counted as his friend.   He has a heart for Jesus, and talks about Him naturally. 

I could tell you endless stories of Mike and I growing up.  I'll tell you one. Since we're close to the 4th of July this is sorta relevant.

I'm not sure what the firecracker of choice was, all I remember is, Mike was way too close and it was way too powerful.  The amazing thing was, that the extent of the damage was mainly limited to taking off his eyebrows.  Which I'm pretty sure at that time was more scary to Mike than anything else.  So, be careful everyone this year with your fireworks, and be willing to part with some facial hair. 

Love you Mike.  Praying you can get here.

Firewall

A firewall is a device or set of devices configured to permit, deny, encrypt, or proxy all computer traffic between different security domains based upon a set of rules and other criteria. (Wikipedia)

Michael Sainz heads up the IT department at Sunset. He is my friend, and he is a security nut. He is constantly safeguarding and protecting the flow of information and the infrastructure of our network from threats on the outside and inside as well. Routinely changing passwords, carefully scrutinized computer privileges, and the ever stronger firewall are par for the course around here. I used to think he was over protective, but Mike knows much better than I how vulnerable we are, and what kind of commitment it takes to preserve a functional work place. And it’s not just the monster virus he is trying to avoid, but it’s also all the little threats, like spyware, hackers etc, that over time can be just as destructive.

Most thoughts in your head just happen on auto pilot. You aren’t even aware of them. You aren’t analyzing them. They just flow. They just happen. They are happening now. They pass freely, some from within, some from without, usually with unlimited access.

What is more valuable, the internal network of a church, or a human mind, your mind? Are you safeguarding it? Are you aware of the threats? Not just the big ones, but all the little threats that over time shape the way you are thinking even today? Have you set up a firewall at the doorway to your mind? Are you analyzing the thoughts from within that are worth keeping, or worth rejecting? The best firewall I know of for our minds is the Bible.

The Bible is a device configured (spoken) by God to help us know what to permit, deny, encrypt, or proxy all thought traffic between the world and the domain of our brain upon a set of rules and other criteria. (Jay’s morphing of Wikipedia)

Serves Up more recap

Here are some more highlights from me from our serves up day in Vernonia.

*My father-in-law Bob mowing the greater part of Vernonia for hours on end.

*The group that went going above and beyond and taking an impromptu collection to give to the pastor and his wife of the church we worked on.

*Watching Scott Resnick go to town with the paint roller on that church, he was an animal.

*Watching the Resnick kids jump in there and help and work hard like their mom and dad.

*Seeing that church transformed with fresh paint and hearing all the stories about how God has been providing for that congregation and community.

*Eating lunch with the 70 plus and remembering our goal to take to Vernonia was 40.

*Seeing the bathroom in the church that had two sit down toilets pretty much straight across from eachother, no walls, no barriers.  We got a good laugh out of that one.

Serving together was so so so fun.  It was really minimal effort on our part, but the impact on the town and that church  we worked on was huge, and will last far beyond the Saturday we gave up to make it happen.  It was addicting too, I can't wait to do more in our community, with my Sunset family, and hopefully take Alli and Macy next time.

Serves up

I am excited for tomorrow!  So many people have signed up at Sunset to go out and serve our community that we had to find new jobs.  Over 400 people heading out to just serve outside our walls with a united front.  Can't wait to see what God does with it, for the people we're serving, for our community, and for His Kingdom!

young and old in the church

The following blog is more insight and things I am wrestling with from my time at the Arts Conference in Chicago last week.

I'm officially a tweener at this stage of my life.  Young people think I'm old, and old people think I'm young. Won't be long before I'm no longer a tweener.

I'm learning a lot about things that younger people value in our society, and how different those values are than what you find in most churches.  Here are a few.

*Freedom.  Freedom of schedule, freedom of work flow.  Technology has changed everything when it comes to where you can work, when you can work, and how you can communicate.  Young people don't know what it means to "wait till after work" to connect with someone.  Connection is seamless, always, and continuous, with everyone and from anywhere.  And this blew me away, most are past email!!  While we are still trying to catch some people up on using email, young people have moved on to texts, twitter etc, and many consider email to corporate and outdated.  

*Multi-tasking.  This one overlaps the above.  Its not that younger people are more muli-tasking oriented than previous generations, its that they have so much more to mulitask with!

*Permission granting.  If you look at companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc, you find a culture of permission granting.  They welcome ideas, change, and challenge to their way of thinking.  Microsoft encourages people manipulating there programs, hacking their defenses, or finding new applications for their programs, and they seize the opportunity to grow as a company and reach more people. 

This is a stark contrast to a permission withholding culture found in many churches.  The culture can be this if we're not careful: We are not going to let you do anything, unless you come and ask, and then if we talk about it enough, we may let you do it.  This is not an attractive atmosphere for a young person to come be a part of. 

Why is this important to discuss?  Because ideally, we are family.  Ideally the church will be the whole family, with everyone having a seat around the dinner table.   We have to find ways for the young to respect and learn from the wisdom and experience of the old, and for the old to bless the energy and the innovation of the young. 

Tweeners like me are off the hook and have no responsibility whatsoever.  Just kidding.  Tweeners like me might be one of our best chances to try and pull both generations towards eachother, because we have a foot in both worlds. 

Being a leader is hard

*Because at my core I'm a people pleaser, still trying to learn that its God's opinion of me that truly matters.

*Because making mistakes is part of the deal.

*Because the people you are serving become your family.

*Because staying engaged, energetic, and passionate is not a guarantee.

*Because people see your weaknesses.

I still feel called to be a leader.  I still have so much to learn.  I am so grateful to be at a place where people love me and have patience with me.  Without that being a leader would be a whole lot harder.

random twitter thought

I figured out what bothers me about twitter.  Now don't get me wrong, I love twitter, love following my friends on it, connecting with them through it, and occasionally sending out a tweet of my own now and then.  I think my red flag with it, is the tendency to use it as a tool to make myself look better.  Meaning just twitter the cool stuff.  Again, not that that is wrong, but it leaves out all the authentic, not so cool stuff that can also make up a day, a week, or a month of my life.  Then again who wants to hear that stuff? :) 

Spiders and blessings

Tonight I went to spend father's day with some of my family.  My mom and dad are house sitting at this awesome place out by Oxbow Park, and they had these flowers at their house that have these white spiders on it that catch bees with their arms, no web.  This is a picture of it, that little white spot is the spider, and it is chowing down on a bee it just caught. Pretty amazing!

The book I am reading pictured to the left on my blog, Building Faith at Home, had a chapter on giving a blessing to your children every night.  I have been saying a blessing to Macy and Ava every night.  When I told Allison about it and what I was saying, she shared with me that she had been doing the same thing every night on her own for most of Ava's life.  I love my wife! Tonight Macy came up to me right before bed and say "Daddy, can I have my blessing now?"  Too cool.  Here is what I say to her (and Ava) with all the meaning and passion I can.

"Macy, may the Lord continue to bless you and keep you, May the Lord continue to make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord continue to look upon you with favor and give you peace."

"Macy may you be a dangerous Christ follower. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I love you. Amen."

Its like ampm

I'm not sure if ampm stores are everywhere, but where I live there is a 7/11 type of store by that name.  They have a slogan that goes "ampm, too much good stuff".

That describes the condition of my head and heart right now, having come back from Chicago and the arts conference.  Life has such a strange and wonderful cycle of coming to the end of yourself, and then God restores His strength in the midst of our weakness.    Hope, passion, knowledge, purpose.  He is so stinkin faithful to do that!! 

When I recover from jet lag I will unpack some more that God taught me over this last week.

Tyler has an eating problem

Tyler has what doctor's call an eating problem.  This was one of our lunch experiences at Willow.
Tyler spills his food from Jay McKenney on Vimeo.

I am grateful

I am so incredibly grateful right now for the training, inspiriation and encouragement I am receiving at this conference.  I know without a doubt by what is going on in my heart right now, I was meant to be here.  I am already praying about the responsibility I have to take this privilege, this gift of knoweledge and training, and be faithful to apply it, to give back, to reallocate this and invest it and reap as much fruit from it as possible.

out tv at our homestay in Chicago

Yes, I am well aware I looked stoned at the front of this video.  Severe jet lag, sleep deprived, too much pop, etc etc.  This is my first official video I've ever posted on my blog.

Arts conference recap so far

Trip so far?  Really really really awesome.  If all I had was what I learned today, the trip would be worth it, but I still have tomorrow and Friday!!

Before I do a recap, Tyler and Janet are awesome to travel with.  Good conversation, fun to be around, easy going.  Well Janet is easy going most of the time. :)

Here are some of the thoughts or quotes that grabbed me and made me think!  Hopefully they will be encouraging or challenging to you as well. Some of these thoughts were just the Holy Spirit speaking to me at the conference.  These are just the tips of the ice berg and I won't unpack them because the blog would be FAR too long!! So, here we go.

*I HAVE to lead more at home, be the spiritual leader, lay a foundation for my wife and kids.  I would rather quit church and get home right, then give people the impression I am a good leader but don't lead well at home.

*We are rescued from apathy and self-absorption when we see the big picture.

*Every day, every moment for that matter, we have the chance to have a fresh surrender to God.

*There is a huge danger in ministry when it starts happening more from memory than imagination.

*Church needs to routinely tell the whole story of Christ, as much as possible, tell the whole story, not just bits and pieces.

Gille Ste-Croix, senior vice president of creative content for Cirque du Soleil spoke, here is some of what I gleaned.

*"We (humans) have a need to create beauty around us. It feeds the soul." (I believe this need is because we are created in the image of the ultimate Creator!)

( I learned more but it was specific to my role at church and may bore you!)

The last section is things I gleaned from Brian McLaren.

*Does the list of things we spend our time and care most about at church, line up at all with the list of things people care about outside of the church?  (hint, the answer is usually no)

*We (by we I am referring to a lot of Christians), have turned issues of poverty, helping the poor, caring for the needy, stewarding our resources, including taking care of God's planet, etc into a political issue, a republican/democratic conservative/liberal, political issue.  Instead of caring about people, we turn things into "issues".  If Jesus talks about it, we should too, regardless of what political party claims to have ownership.

*Art in the church is important, and its good to make the church better, but it is also extremely important that the world is a better place because of the church.

That's all for now.

Da Bears

Tyler and I are heading to Chicago to go to the Willow Arts Conference.  We are in route to Seattle as I write this, because our plane flies out from there.  My in-laws graciously are taking us there.  I love technology, I'm hooked up the internet through the data connection on my phone.

I'm really excited about this trip.  We weren't going to be able to go this year because finances at Sunset are really tight, but at the last minute we ended getting an insane airline deal through my friend Aaron, as well as free lodging.

Tyler and I will be blogging throughout the trip, he will probably be posting some video on his blog throughout as well.  We will be heading home on Friday evening. I'm homesick already.  Macy was crying when I left this morning.

10 things I'm lovin

1. That I get to go to Chicago next week with Tyler and Janet to the Willow Arts Conference. 

2. That Sunset has finally hired a new Minister of Students!  I'm happy for the kids, for Sunset, and for Kurt and Mike.

3. Still can't believe Aaron is back, and drumming this weekend.  Practice on Thursday was intensely awesome with him on the kit.

4. That Allison is the best mom I've ever seen, and just keeps getting better.

5. That I get to sing a duet with Tyler  this Sunday, even though I have a sore throat and probably won't have a voice, it should still be fun!  I love singing harmony and Tyler is an amazing singer and that's always fun to sing harmony with someone who sings as well as he does.

6. That the Lakers and the Celtics are in the NBA finals. 

7. The fact that some of my family is in from Florida right now.  Way cool to see them.

8. Reading The Silver Chair with Macy.  We're almost done.

9. Vanilla pudding.  So simple.  But so so good.  I think Allison buys it for Macy.  But I have been adding peanut butter to it, its a really nice combo.

10. Have to round out the top ten with my still fresh new love for Cold Play. Viva La Vida baby.

Jesus threatens my standard of living

I went to read the Bible today, following the church’s reading plan, more as something to check off the list than a time to connect with God.

After a couple minutes of just not getting Act’s chapter 25 and why it should matter to me, I thought I’d better at least read some Psalms and feel like I had some sort of connection before I stopped reading.

Then I decided to read it again, slower, asking God to help me connect with something in the passage. This time the chapter came alive to me. The fact that the religious leaders were planning to ambush and kill Paul, a man who until recently had been one of them, before Jesus changed him, really jumped off the page at me.

What was at stake for them? Why would they consider taking a man’s life just to shut him up? I think, among other things, to put it in a term we understand today, their standard of living was threatened. They were comfortable, in power, and wanted to hang on to life as they knew it. Jesus threatened their status, their power, and their standard of living. So they killed him, and killed or planned to kill anyone else who stood for Him.

Living for Jesus threatens my standard of living as well. Any time I really spend with Him He begins to challenge me on how I live, how I think, how I spend my money, and how I spend my time. Our initial response is often to feel threatened, to feel like something good is going to be taken away from us, and to hang on to our lives tighter.

It’s a ploy though, by our enemy, who wants us to think we have everything to gain by avoiding Jesus. And I’m not just talking about a ploy for people who don’t know Jesus, he still uses the same tactic with those who know Him as well.

John 10:10  The thief’s (Satan’s) purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My (Jesus speaking) purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

Luke 17:33 If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.