Day 3 - Wednesday the surf was a little bigger in the 2-3 foot range. Most wind swell. Surfed with Greg and Ian at Abb for a dawn patrol .Water temp dropped.
Day 4 - Thursday A little more surf, but super shifty and Holy Cow the water was freezing, 60 degree the first week of August. My back was stiff and I paddled in circles. I was out of sink the whole session. Surfed with Lori, Greg and Ian.
Day 5 - Friday Surf continued to come up with a long period swell from hurricane Eugene. Mostly wind swell in the 2-3 zone with a bomb set in the 3-6 range every 20 minutes. Surfed from 3:45-4:30 and only caught two set waves but was stoked. The water temp popped back up to mid 60's. Still some real cold spots. Surfed with bird and Chris.
Prayer Update - Frustrated today when Michelle canceled her appointment with therapist. This is a real battle. I need more folks to pray with me for Michelle's courage and will to go through the healing process.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Day 2
This evening Ross Brodie and I took Isaac out to surf the cliffs for the first time. The waves were pretty junking, 1 to 3 close period wind swell. I caught only two waves. We did however witness a beautiful sunset. Isaac spent most of the time sitting out side in the channel. When we went to paddle in, he got cleaned up pretty good. His board was tomb stoning and I had to grab him off the bottom of the reef. All told he was only down 5 seconds, but he was not happy. It was almost a perfect first surf. Minutes before he declared that he wanted to go surfing with me every day of his life. Post wipe out, he told me, "Dad, Im just not ready yet."
Prayer - today I had a good prayer time. I was able to pray with Michelle this afternoon. She had been having tummy issues all day, running to the bathroom. I prayed over her. She is now much more hydrated!
Monday, August 1, 2011
Monday, August 1
Today, I am starting what I hope to be 31 days of surfing and prayer. I have never been one to just go out and exercise, I need a goal. The goal started out to surf everyday in the month of August. I long for the feeling of being back in shape. Then last night before I went to bed, I thought, what would my intimacy with Jesus be like if i committed to pray for at least an hour a day too?
Today's surf report - I surfed Abb from 1:40-3:00. There was a mix of small NW wind swell and long period SW swell. Waves were in the 2-3 foot range. There were long lulls but i managed to catch a few fun waves. It was sunny and the water temp was around 65 degrees. I am glad I wore the spring suit. One other guy out.
Prayer Report - I am praying for Craig and Lara Kimmel, good friends from DeLand Florida who have separated and soon to file for a divorce. Second, a job in OB for Mark Maliepaard.
Today's surf report - I surfed Abb from 1:40-3:00. There was a mix of small NW wind swell and long period SW swell. Waves were in the 2-3 foot range. There were long lulls but i managed to catch a few fun waves. It was sunny and the water temp was around 65 degrees. I am glad I wore the spring suit. One other guy out.
Prayer Report - I am praying for Craig and Lara Kimmel, good friends from DeLand Florida who have separated and soon to file for a divorce. Second, a job in OB for Mark Maliepaard.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Every Week a New Adventure
The last month has unstable at best. First, Michelle's physical and emotional health has been rough. We have had times, when we did not think we could bare it anymore. It is at those moments when the LORD has come and shown His graciousness. I forget how powerful the cross and resurrection truly are.
It is so easy to build walls in a relationship. We are relearning what it means to stand together. I am convinced the enemy of our soul wants us divided. When there has a been a lack of intimacy, it is also the time when we have felt the most powerless.
The church planting is so fragile too. In the past few weeks, out jam up worship team has gone through major transitions. I've literally shown up on Sunday not knowing who was going lead worship and do our Sunday set. My heart wanted to run to anxiety and stress out, but i have had to preach the gospel to myself that this is His church. In the end all the signs get set out and worship ends up so good. I am so thankful that the Lord has protected me from myself.
Even though there has been real crisis in many of your member's live, I have been able to see and be a part of significant transformation. Growth always comes with giving up our rights and trusting.
Still Living The Dream!
Jim
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Harbor Testimony - Part 2
Testimony of Chad Gray
I hung out on the periphery of Harbor Downtown for a couple years. I had grown up in the church, but when I first came to Harbor I was very cynical about Christianity, Christians and any place where Christians tended to congregate—like church or youth camps or my parents’ house or the Republican Party. For me, Christianity made for a head case of alternating guilt and self-righteousness. It was a confusing mess which I had tried to ditch several times. I could not seem to shake it, and so I was fairly miserable. I checked out Harbor on the recommendation of a friend who knew me well. The place immediately felt different from other gatherings of Christians I had experienced. My first observation was that Pastor Dick pretty much preached the same sermon every week, no matter where he was in the Bible. Pentateuch, Prophecies, Psalms, Gospels, Epistles—each week he somehow ended up at the Cross talking about a love story. It took me a while to grasp the concepts beneath the terminology—grace, righteousness, imputation, propitiation, justification, adoption—but I understood the feel right away. Here was a group of people that was honest about its sin and struggles, but full of joy. The people had a strange mix of humility and confidence that I found very attractive.
I slowly got more involved. I got around to becoming a flaky member of the set-up team. Then I joined a community group and made a few friends. I was in a Harbor class taught by Dick called "Gospel and the Heart" when I first really "got" the Gospel and started to grasp how very good the news is. It felt like a rescue to me, to be gripped by this love story and pulled to safety. Having grown up in the church, I was actually angry that I had never heard this stuff before. When I think about it now, I suspect I had heard the full gospel growing up, but for whatever reason it had never clicked until that class.
So the gospel became sweet to me, but I was still very stand-offish about the church. I guess I knew intellectually that church is important, the way I know vegetables are important. But eating vegetables has never been my favorite part of the meal. If I could get the nutrients some other way I would probably avoid them. I certainly liked Harbor better than other churches I had attended, but I was still pretty freaked out about actually sharing my life with all these strangers.
When Dick came to our community group and asked us to be the launch team for a new Harbor church plant in my neighborhood, I was up for it. After all, I had lots of opinions about how a church should not look and feel. And if I had to be part of a church (like I had to eat vegetables), here was my chance to make it a comfy place full of folks just like me!
So we began meeting together to plan and dream and pray about this new community. We talked about all the different aspects of a functioning church—preaching, music, set-up, childcare, event planning, refreshments, small groups, hospitality, care and mercy. There was a moment during this process when it suddenly hit me that if any of this necessary stuff was actually going to happen, it was someone in that room who was going to do it. That was the first time I grasped the wisdom of team leadership.
We spent a lot of time praying—praying the Lord's Prayer, praying for friends and family, praying for each other and for this church that was being born. It was during that intense time that I felt something shift in my heart's attitude toward the other folks on the launch team. I actually began to care, to really care, about them. We were mixing our lives together in prayer, accountability, encouragement, helping, dreaming, reminding—we were working toward a common purpose—we were discovering together the connection between the tasks that needed doing and this inspiring vision to see the Gospel transform people's lives. We were joined in anticipation to see how God would move. We shared a sense of being part of God's big cosmic plan. We were caught up in how He was shaping eternity. It was a trip. I found myself beginning to love this community, this church.
I think it caught us all by surprise when we finally launched and found out that we were the leadership team of this new church. Somehow I hadn't seen that one coming—that I would end up in charge of something, that God would now be working through my weakness to lead and build His church. I still wrestle with it. I feel like I should be a better man, have my crap more together, be more Jesus-ish. I take comfort in remembering that Christ is the one building His church, not me. He is amazing at drawing straight lines with crooked sticks.
For me, helping to plant Harbor Uptown was a life-changing experience. I learned that the community of believers is the body of Christ, not the individual. Jesus gifted each of us with different aspects of His perfect strength so that only when we come together can we most accurately reflect who He is. I learned that a community of believers is an amazing source of comfort in times of trouble. I learned that one of the best pieces of evidence for the truth of the Gospel is the time when a bunch of broken, selfish, and very different believers are surprised to find that they love each other. I learned that vegetables, lots of different vegetables, are very good -- frustrating, yes; challenging, yes; uncomfortable, yes, yes -- but very good.
In short, I learned to love the church. I highly recommend the lesson.
I hung out on the periphery of Harbor Downtown for a couple years. I had grown up in the church, but when I first came to Harbor I was very cynical about Christianity, Christians and any place where Christians tended to congregate—like church or youth camps or my parents’ house or the Republican Party. For me, Christianity made for a head case of alternating guilt and self-righteousness. It was a confusing mess which I had tried to ditch several times. I could not seem to shake it, and so I was fairly miserable. I checked out Harbor on the recommendation of a friend who knew me well. The place immediately felt different from other gatherings of Christians I had experienced. My first observation was that Pastor Dick pretty much preached the same sermon every week, no matter where he was in the Bible. Pentateuch, Prophecies, Psalms, Gospels, Epistles—each week he somehow ended up at the Cross talking about a love story. It took me a while to grasp the concepts beneath the terminology—grace, righteousness, imputation, propitiation, justification, adoption—but I understood the feel right away. Here was a group of people that was honest about its sin and struggles, but full of joy. The people had a strange mix of humility and confidence that I found very attractive.
I slowly got more involved. I got around to becoming a flaky member of the set-up team. Then I joined a community group and made a few friends. I was in a Harbor class taught by Dick called "Gospel and the Heart" when I first really "got" the Gospel and started to grasp how very good the news is. It felt like a rescue to me, to be gripped by this love story and pulled to safety. Having grown up in the church, I was actually angry that I had never heard this stuff before. When I think about it now, I suspect I had heard the full gospel growing up, but for whatever reason it had never clicked until that class.
So the gospel became sweet to me, but I was still very stand-offish about the church. I guess I knew intellectually that church is important, the way I know vegetables are important. But eating vegetables has never been my favorite part of the meal. If I could get the nutrients some other way I would probably avoid them. I certainly liked Harbor better than other churches I had attended, but I was still pretty freaked out about actually sharing my life with all these strangers.
When Dick came to our community group and asked us to be the launch team for a new Harbor church plant in my neighborhood, I was up for it. After all, I had lots of opinions about how a church should not look and feel. And if I had to be part of a church (like I had to eat vegetables), here was my chance to make it a comfy place full of folks just like me!
So we began meeting together to plan and dream and pray about this new community. We talked about all the different aspects of a functioning church—preaching, music, set-up, childcare, event planning, refreshments, small groups, hospitality, care and mercy. There was a moment during this process when it suddenly hit me that if any of this necessary stuff was actually going to happen, it was someone in that room who was going to do it. That was the first time I grasped the wisdom of team leadership.
We spent a lot of time praying—praying the Lord's Prayer, praying for friends and family, praying for each other and for this church that was being born. It was during that intense time that I felt something shift in my heart's attitude toward the other folks on the launch team. I actually began to care, to really care, about them. We were mixing our lives together in prayer, accountability, encouragement, helping, dreaming, reminding—we were working toward a common purpose—we were discovering together the connection between the tasks that needed doing and this inspiring vision to see the Gospel transform people's lives. We were joined in anticipation to see how God would move. We shared a sense of being part of God's big cosmic plan. We were caught up in how He was shaping eternity. It was a trip. I found myself beginning to love this community, this church.
I think it caught us all by surprise when we finally launched and found out that we were the leadership team of this new church. Somehow I hadn't seen that one coming—that I would end up in charge of something, that God would now be working through my weakness to lead and build His church. I still wrestle with it. I feel like I should be a better man, have my crap more together, be more Jesus-ish. I take comfort in remembering that Christ is the one building His church, not me. He is amazing at drawing straight lines with crooked sticks.
For me, helping to plant Harbor Uptown was a life-changing experience. I learned that the community of believers is the body of Christ, not the individual. Jesus gifted each of us with different aspects of His perfect strength so that only when we come together can we most accurately reflect who He is. I learned that a community of believers is an amazing source of comfort in times of trouble. I learned that one of the best pieces of evidence for the truth of the Gospel is the time when a bunch of broken, selfish, and very different believers are surprised to find that they love each other. I learned that vegetables, lots of different vegetables, are very good -- frustrating, yes; challenging, yes; uncomfortable, yes, yes -- but very good.
In short, I learned to love the church. I highly recommend the lesson.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Miracle of Harbor - Part 1
Testimony of Bill and Dana McCurine
Harbor has profoundly affected our lives. Although there are many ways to explain this impact, we will focus on five primary areas. First, we have both been Christians since approximately 1981. Harbor has given us a profoundly deeper understanding and appreciation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul says he is not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God to save. However, we had thought that once we were saved the Gospel was only important to share with others. We did not appreciate, or understand, the Gospel is responsible for our sanctification as well as for our salvation. We did not appreciate before that we not only had to repent for our sins; we also had to repent of our self-perceived righteousness. Through a deeper understanding of the Gospel we have come to learn we are worse sinners than we had ever imagined, but also that in Christ we are more loved than we had ever imagined possible.
Second, Harbor's approach to the Gospel has resulted in identifying with much greater clarity the idols that exist in our lives. We continue to trust God to identify and destroy those idols.
Third, we were married in August 1971. We know and love each other deeply, but Harbor's approach to the Gospel has radically deepened and enriched our marriage beyond anything we had earlier thought possible.
Fourth, we did not understand how the Gospel figured into developing an enriching community, whether that community is viewed as one’s family, city or church. We now understand that one cannot successfully be a Christian and also a Lone Ranger; God requires us to be intimately involved with our communities on a variety of levels. This learning is exciting, even though it has the tendency to topple our apple carts. But now we would not have it any other way.
Finally, the Gospel has produced more peace and deeper joy. The Christian life is hard, but life without Christ is much harder. The Christian life has many struggles, but God has a way of turning those struggles into stepping stones to a deeper relationship with Him and with others. We worry less and trust God more. We are finding deeper satisfaction in simple things (e.g., dinner with friends, a movie, music). We are not anxious to die but death has lost its sting. We know Christ has done the work for us and has embraced us with a deeper love than we had ever known. He represents in His very being both a present and a future richer than anything we had imagined before.
Harbor has profoundly affected our lives. Although there are many ways to explain this impact, we will focus on five primary areas. First, we have both been Christians since approximately 1981. Harbor has given us a profoundly deeper understanding and appreciation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul says he is not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God to save. However, we had thought that once we were saved the Gospel was only important to share with others. We did not appreciate, or understand, the Gospel is responsible for our sanctification as well as for our salvation. We did not appreciate before that we not only had to repent for our sins; we also had to repent of our self-perceived righteousness. Through a deeper understanding of the Gospel we have come to learn we are worse sinners than we had ever imagined, but also that in Christ we are more loved than we had ever imagined possible.
Second, Harbor's approach to the Gospel has resulted in identifying with much greater clarity the idols that exist in our lives. We continue to trust God to identify and destroy those idols.
Third, we were married in August 1971. We know and love each other deeply, but Harbor's approach to the Gospel has radically deepened and enriched our marriage beyond anything we had earlier thought possible.
Fourth, we did not understand how the Gospel figured into developing an enriching community, whether that community is viewed as one’s family, city or church. We now understand that one cannot successfully be a Christian and also a Lone Ranger; God requires us to be intimately involved with our communities on a variety of levels. This learning is exciting, even though it has the tendency to topple our apple carts. But now we would not have it any other way.
Finally, the Gospel has produced more peace and deeper joy. The Christian life is hard, but life without Christ is much harder. The Christian life has many struggles, but God has a way of turning those struggles into stepping stones to a deeper relationship with Him and with others. We worry less and trust God more. We are finding deeper satisfaction in simple things (e.g., dinner with friends, a movie, music). We are not anxious to die but death has lost its sting. We know Christ has done the work for us and has embraced us with a deeper love than we had ever known. He represents in His very being both a present and a future richer than anything we had imagined before.
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