Change and butterflies

Change happens. In almost every area of our lives.

A childhood Adventist friend supposedly asked why I had to change. I was a passionate Adventist leader to them, and they were so disappointed that I changed course. My answer was that famous anonymous quote: “If there’s no change, there’d be no butterflies.”

The right question is not why you had to change, but rather, did you change for the better or for the worse?

Seven

They say, seven is a lucky number.

I’d say, seven is the number of love.

Seven years of trials. Seven years of struggles. Seven years of character building. It is also seven years of discoveries. Of love. Of patience. Of kindness. Of Christ-centeredness. Seven years of blessings.

Seven years of failures and triumphs. Of giving and taking. Of loosing and gaining.

Today, I’d like to honor my wife, my love, my partner, my chear-leader, my personal psychologist and nurse, my no. 2 — as we both agreed that Jesus is our number 1. The Joy of my life.

We’ve made it to seven, why can’t we seven times seven?

Excited for Makati; The big “C” at work

In a span of one month, 3 new churches were launched in Makati. Our church, LifeChurch Makati at Glorietta 4 Cinema 1, was launched May 16. The next week, Word for the World’s RC Campus was also launched near the area of Rockwell Makati. Last week, Victory Makati started well with 300 attendance at AIM Conference Center.

That, actually, did not excite me. Seriously. Because I see churches being started left and right.

What excites the heck out of me is the fact that these 3 new churches did not come from the same organization but are friends. Pastor Rodney Garcia of RC became a good friend with LifeChurch Makati’s leadership team. Victory Makati’s Pastor LA Mumar, through Pastor Dennis Sy of Greenhills, is really interested to connect. Kuya Prudy, our lead pastor has met with him one time and I heard, they’re planning a get-together. This, to me, is inspiring.

Let me explain.

I came from a religious tradition that tries to divide God’s church. In fact, it became a sub-community on its own. After I felt my calling to be part of leading a church, and probably due to Craig Groeschel’s influence, it has become my passion to see the Church unite. It was Craig who said that “we can accomplish more things together than divided”. In a church world very diverse, selfishly thinking only about its own organization, even trying to tear each other down, I long to see us work together this time.

What if church leaders will forget about their denominations and their theological biases and instead pray for each other, encourage, help start-up churches get off the ground, mentor young pastors and inspire other organizations — even outside of your own? Imagine what will happen to Makati where 800,000 people reside (then swells to 4M on work days)! We will see more churches planted. On each street block. Small groups on each building. People’s lives changed. Marriages restored. Directions in life straightened.

Because, seriously, do you think 4 million very diverse people can be reached by just one church organization? Or could even multiple competing churches?

LifeChurch Makati is a testament, a case study on seeing how the big “C” church can be united.

When we were praying on how to bring LifeChurch.tv here in the Philippines, we saw hurdles. While LifeChurch.tv is very supportive — their enormous talent, creativity, leadership, training and Craig Groeschel pouring his heart out to us are in the bag — we pretty much are on our own as far as funding and starting up the church from the ground. And, unlike the 2 churches I mentioned, we don’t have a local mother church to support, train and provide encouragements. We’re on our own.

So, we have about 20 people from the original Grace Place team and a negative balance on our bank accounts and a raw passion to serve Jesus and make his name more famous.

I told the team, if we’re going to start this thing, we need the Church to come together and see our vision for the city. We need to be able to make them work together.

We’re on our 5th week after we launch. It is still a struggle as far as funding and enough volunteers are concerned. But in a small ways, we see the Church come together to help LifeChurch Makati get off the ground.

We have praise and worship volunteers who attended Joy Fellowship in Intramuros, Victory, Word for the World and Word of Hope. We have kids teachers, ushers and welcomers from New Life Christian Center, WWCF and other churches all over Makati. Financially, Horizon Fellowship promised to help out. Pastor Dennis Sy of Victory Greenhills not only provided encouragements and friendship but his church also helped us financially at some point during our preview services.

At this very early stage of this church “project”, we can feel the momentum going. If God blesses LifeChurch Makati with thousands of people in the future, it is because we have nothing and God’s Church have everything. We were united, we encouraged one another and we had no other goal in mind — not our egos, not for our own organizations, not to show our own strength — it is to make Jesus the Lord of Makati and every city.

A few thoughts on my birthday

* I’m 35 years old today. But with what I’ve gone through in life, I’ll say, I’m a guy about 40 years old with the looks of a 25 :D

* Thanks for those who greeted. One quick thought: 3 years ago, when I wake up in my birthday morning, my cellphone had already been swamped with text messages. Today, except for that message from my 2 brothers, I have none. Everyone else went to my Facebook page. The techopreneur in me is wondering how much mooneys does the telcos loose because of the popularity of Facebook.

* Nothing special today, really. This year’s the birthday that I never really felt any anticipation or excitement. The reason is simple: my thoughts were focused on other things, that is:

* Today, on my birthday, God birthed a new church family in Makati — LifeChurch Makati. The launch team worked hard, prayed hard, invited people (and its hard!) for this launch. And today, it’s official — we’re a church. :D

I thank God for 35 years of challenges, love, grace and peace that does not come from the things of this world. Thirty five years of ups and downs, victories and failures, joys and disappointments. I may have not survived it without my Mama and Papa, my wife Joy, my church family and most especially, the ever willing listening ear, ever forgiving, ever willing to give grace, the friend and Lord of my life — they call him Bro, JC, best friend — I call him with the name above all name, Jesus Christ.

As one commercial says, “Tomorrow’s another day!”

The Last Preview Experience

Let me write a quick note about LifeChurch Makati‘s last preview experience this Sunday.

We’re excited for this Sunday’s Preview Experience. This is our last chance to “tighten the screws” so to speak as we near our official launch on May 16.

This Sunday, we’re going to enjoy and be blessed with high energy worship and going to be challenged spiritually by Craig Groeschel’s message lifted from his recently released book “Christian Atheist”. If you’re planning to come, I promise you, after this event, you’re life will never be the same again.

Here’s the Facebook invite page. Bring your friends and your family members. The experience starts at exactly 10:45 am at Glorietta 4, Cinema 4 in Makati. Come earlier so we can have some more chats before the experience.