Vertigo (and our departure from The Pursuit)

God truly works in amazing ways…

For a time I have been feeling Jesus would lead my family and me to take greater risks for His Kingdom. And during that time, I mentioned to godly people in my life that I had gotten “the bug.” Truthfully, the bug has been there longer than I can remember, but I tried to ignore it. Perhaps because doing the music thing was the easiest thing for me. Perhaps because I didn’t feel I would ever be worthy of such a calling. Perhaps because I was waiting to be ready for the next thing.

But it wasn’t about that. It was about God being ready for me to move forward, in His time and in His ways.

So, not without strong guidance, prayer and different hands pointing the way, God showed us that our time at The Pursuit was coming to an end. And so it did, on Sunday October 11.

The key word for the day was the word “bittersweet.” Here’s the bitter part: the servants that stay, the people we will no longer serve with. We went through too many things together as to try and ignore at least one tear in honor of such memories. And the lessons learned. Looking back at the last couple of years I realize how much Jesus showed us all. But here’s the sweet part: what lies ahead. The risk and the excitement in realizing that future. The high that us servants of the Most High God get when He says “go” and we do. The vertigo that His Children feel right at the pivotal moment when He pushes us out from the nest and into the void of life, only to realize His hands will help us soar into mission.

And so, we go. Where? How? When? With whom? Details that are coming together, and that He is slowly showing us as we seek Him, and I’m excited to find out. Suffice it to say that this “bug” left quite a sting. But so far, what He has been showing, is beautiful. As beautiful as the previous expressions of Church that we’ve been involved with, because His Church, His bride, is beautiful. She is intriguing and diverse, She moves and breathes and waits for Him, and He loves Her. And tangled up between those two, the Kingdom. His Kingdom.

I do thank The Pursuit for letting us grow and learn. I hope we were of service with whatever little service we could bring. I pray and am sure that God will bless you all with leaders who will be way better than we were, and with blossoming ministry in the years to come.

As for us, we are looking ahead, and in due time we will share more about what Jesus is putting before us. During the process, our leaders are supporting us, cheering and praying for us (click here to read a letter from Matt to The Pursuit). Please keep us in your prayers, and stay tuned!

Back from Venezuela

Last Friday we returned from a 10 day trip to Venezuela. I myself hail from there and had not been there in 3 years, which was inexcusable! But our main reason for going was not tourism. We had the honor of sharing at one camp and two churches (Iglesia Cristiana El Bosque and Iglesia Cristiana del Este) about what we’ve been learning from God recently about joining His mission by being missional. I got to teach 2 workshops and preach 4 times, all in one week, although the best part of the whole camp was an unexpected baptism! Johanna, who had no church or spiritual background other than nominally, was invited to camp by her friend Ricardo and gave her life to Jesus Christ on the last day! That next Sunday she brought her sister to church with her. The movement keeps on going!

We also got to encourage and spend time with friends who serve Jesus in that country, people like my youth minister John Dye and his family, my friend Jorge Lugo and his family, my uncle Fernando Torres who’s a youth minister at a Christian Missionary Alliance church (Iglesia Encuentro con Dios), and many others. My body was exhausted, but my heart was filled by the encouragement from all the people we spent time with and by what they are doing to expand the Kingdom. I was humbled that they wanted to hear what little we had to say, and by the many great things we learned from them!

The down side of going on a trip like this was the little time we got to visit with friends and family, but I am thankful for all the love we received and I know next time we return won’t be in 3 years but hopefully sooner.

At my home church my friend Lucio had a bunch of guys lift me up making me feel like a rock star! Actually, he did that to show that sometimes things may feel upside down, but God will never let go. It was a lesson he taught me in the same way 5 years a go when I left Venezuela, and it was very meaningful to hear it again and to look back at how God has been holding me in the last 5 years.

I hope to return there soon to keep encouraging them to do what they do best, and to reconnect with a bunch of people we didn’t get to see.

Here’s the video of the baptism:

To see pics of our trip, click here:



Church Planting in Venezuela–a Movement is Arising

Next week my wife and I will be traveling to Venezuela, my country of origin. We have not been back in 3 years, so we are very excited about the chance to go. But we’re even more excited about the reason. This year we’ve been given the chance to teach and lead worship at the annual youth retreat of the Christian churches in Venezuela.

In the last 20 years or so 12 Christian churches have been planted by a group of missionaries from Team Expansion. I myself am the product of one of these churches. They trained me, cared for me, and blessed me when I left for the US. Now, the vision is to have Venezuelan leaders plant 120 churches in and outside of the country by the year 2020! (Hence the name-VISION 20/20), and this year’s retreat will be a time to encourage young leaders to be a part of this vision.

Now, I am not an expert in church planting, nor am I a Bible scholar or a great speaker. So, why am I going?

I am going there to encourage them. I am going there so they can see someone who started out like them and is now part of a great adventure. I am going because I know them, I have a relationship with them, and I speak Spanish well (actually, I speak it perfectly, it’s my first language!). I am going to let them know that two church-planting churches like The Pursuit and Central Christian Church are praying for them and hope to help them in any way possible (Central is making it possible for us to go, and The Pursuit is sending us with care packages for each camper!). I am going because God has commanded me to go, and this is just another example of Him using the unlikeliest of people for the task.

So, pray for us, and if you have any words for these young leaders that you’d like me to pass along, leave me a comment!

more about “campamento universitario / jovenes ad…“, posted with vodpod

Showing some Love to those who need it

At The Pursuit, we view the Big Idea as a holistic excercise. It should be taught during our celebrations services, community groups, Kids City, and day to day interactions inspired by community-wide efforts. Because of that, our Big Idea Catalyst Team has come up with 3 ways for the people of The Pursuit to be used in epic and extraordinary ways! Here’s how:

Back to School Supplies Drive to Benefit Children’s Harbor, Inc. Foster Home
Saturday, August 1, The Pursuit will collect much-needed school supply donations from shoppers at Wal-Mart on Pines Blvd. and 184^th.  Our goal is to provide 50 to 100 book bags filled with back to school necessities for the residents at Children’s Harbor, Inc. in Pembroke Pines, FL.  Children’s Harbor, Inc. provides homes and a stable environment for children referred by the State of Florida’s foster care system.

Birthday Party in a Bag to Benefit Children’s Harbor, Inc. Foster Home
So that “every child can celebrate his birthday,” The Pursuit is providing residents of Children’s Harbor, Inc. with gift bags, each of which will include: one cake mix, one can of frosting, candles, balloons, party hats and favors, candy, unwrapped small toys, coloring books and crayons.  Our goal is to provide 50 Birthday Bags.  For just $10.00 you can bring cheer to one foster child with food, toys and decor for a special day of fun. Please make your donation by Friday, July 31.

Care Packages to Benefit Ministry Camp in Venezuela The Pursuit is reaching out internationally to encourage campers assisting to Campamento Universitario 2009 in Higuerote, Venezuela by providing them with a journal, pen, Live Strong bracelet with camp theme (Unete al Movimient0), flashlight key chain, and a book mark, all packaged in a lime green paper bag. [More info about this camp will soon be shared on this blog. Stay tuned!]

Wanna help out? Join us this weekend (Saturday @ WalMart, Sunday @ The Pursuit Pembroke Pines).

My love-hate relationship with… Twitter (a self-promoting post)

Twitter. Most of the time it’s fun, sometimes it aggravates me. Here are some of the…

…things I like about Twitter:

- It enhances certain aspects of my relationships, especially in the distance. Having lived in 4 cities in the last 5 years means friends are left behind, and they want to know what’s going on with me and my family. Also, there are new friends I’ve met in conferences, at other churches, or online who also want to know what’s going down. At the same time, I am able to follow and see what other friends are doing, no matter where they are (even if they are local).

- It allows me to ramble on stuff I’m doing or on mindless things.

- It allows me to find useful links to blog posts, web sites, and other online goodies. Sometimes I find breaking news or events taking place in my region. If you follow sports teams, you can get some good tweets from them as well.

- It helps me celebrate people’s victories and mourn their losses.

- It is a great way of following people I admire. I personally tend to follow pastors and artists (both secular and Christian).

…things I don’t like about Twitter:

- It offers the temptation of replacing live interaction for Tweeter updates. It does not. Twitter should enhance certain aspects of your relationships, not replace them.

- Spammers. Ughh!

- There’s such a thing as too much self-promotion. I hate it when I see it. I hate it when I do it (guilty as charge). However, who doesn’t like to brag? (by the way, you can follow me at http://twitter.com/galexdiaz … ah the irony!)

- There are people on Twitter who absolutely despise other people on Twitter. Why are you on it then???

The Haps

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged! Apologies to my dear readership, all four of you!

Truth is, I’ve been putting it off because of other stuff happening. In the last few weeks I’ve added a few things to my calendar:

- I’m teaching guitar classes at The Pursuit warehouse.

- Last Sunday I taught at church, and will keep doing so for the next two weeks.

- We’ve started a new team at The Pursuit called Big Idea Catalyst, where we meet to discuss ways to embody the Big Idea and take it outside of our building to fulfill needs in our community and inspire people to be like Jesus in their environments. We are still in the planning stages of our first efforts in that direction, but I’m excited about what’s being accomplished.

- I’m getting ready for a couple of trips this summer. One of them to Venezuela, where I have not been back in 3 years!

- I keep doing my regular stuff: music, planning for our celebration services, meetings, practices, hanging out with old and new friends, etc.

There’s a bunch of great stuff in the horizon. Stay tuned!

Francis Chan – Session 5 of Exponential 2009 on Vimeo

This is the video of the last session of this year’s Exponential Conference. Francis Chan told it like it is! Check it out…

more about “Francis Chan – Session 5 of Exponenti…“, posted with vodpod

Ed Stetzer and Alan Hirsch on Church Planting

Here’s a great video from the people at The Upstream Collective showing Alan Hirsch and Ed Stetzer talking about church planting at the Exponential Conference. Check it out, leave a note if you have an opinion.

more about “Ed Stetzer and Alan Hirsch on Church …“, posted with vodpod

Anything They Want

more about "Anything They Want on Vimeo", posted with vodpod

Exponential Confessional

As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, I had the opportunity to lead a group of translators for the Exponential Conference. One of the things I heard from people during and after the conference is that they did not notice the translators most of the time, which is great news! All of them did a fine job! However, there were things that happened behind closed doors that were really funny to me. So, here are some of them…

- One of our translators was translating for a certain speaker whose accent is difficult to understand. So much so that this translator could not understand much of what the speaker was saying… until the speaker decided to talk about a stripper who came to know Christ. The translator was only able to translate the story about this speaker’s friend’s trip to the strip club… and could not understand the resolution of the story! So he only translated the first part of the story!

- There were three translators in one room, two of them listening to what the one person was translating. At some point, this person translated the phrase “Acts 29,” as in Acts 29 Network. The other two translators, having gone to seminary and worked in ministry for years, were appalled by this and convinced the person translating to translate it as Acts 2:9 since Acts 29 is not a real chapter of that book. So, if someone calls Acts 29 network asking for the Acts 2:9 network, that’s our fault!

- One of our translators was enjoying a certain speaker’s jokes so much he began to laugh out loud during the translation and forgot to translate the jokes! We told him later he should have said “I guess you should have been there…”

… I guess ya had to be there…