A phone call you never want...

I woke up this morning before the sun came up. I laid there in bed thinking that today is December 18th. My mind quickly raced back to December 18, 1985. It was on that day that I received a phone call that I will never forget. It was around 2 am when the phone rang. The voice on the other end was a nurse from University Hospital. She said, "Mr. Baker, we need you to come to the hospital. Your son is in trouble." It had been a tough week. Patty and I had been with him just a few hours before and the doctors said that things were looking good. In fact, they gave us a 98% chance of him making it. Now, the nurse said the word "trouble".

I called a friend of mine, Ray Jones, and we headed to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, they ushered me into a small private room and I was told that the doctor would be in to talk to me. I knew at that moment what he was going to say. My heart sank. When the doctor came in, he said something like this: "I am sorry. We did everything that we could do."

They handed me his belongings and I went into the room to see his lifeless body. We left the hospital in silence. As we road down Washington Road toward my house, my mind was racing trying to figure out what to say to my twenty-four year old wife who was at home recovering from a c-section.

I walked into the bedroom, took her into my arms and held her as I told her that her first-born son was dead. It was the most difficult moment of our young lives. You can't describe the pain.

We grew up that day. We were kids, but on December 18, 1985 we became adults. Our dream world was shaken into reality. We mourned and grieved. We cried and we embraced the pain. In the end, we grew closer together and closer to the Lord. We stood on Romans 8:28 which says: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

God has been true to his word. He has brought good out of our pain. A year later, Stuart was born, then Sarah, and finally Samuel. With each birth, God's goodness has been multiplied. He has been faithful to us and to our family.

For those of you who are suffering through grief this holiday season, I know your pain. I also know that pain will eventually pass, but the beauty remains forever. Cherish the memories and do forget to look for the good.

Sacred Cows Make Good Hamburger Meat

At our house there seems to be two food staples:  chicken and hamburger.  It's amazing how many things you can do with these two food items.  Let's take hamburger meat for a moment.  You can grill it and put in on a bun and eat it as a sandwich or you can wrap bacon around it or cover it in mushroom gravy, add vegetables and have it for dinner. If you don't want to do that, you can ground it up and use it for spaghetti, lasagna, casseroles, soups and on and on.  

We typically keep a few pounds of this relatively inexpensive red meat in our freezer for those days when you just don't know what to cook. During those times, hamburger meat satisfies a real need. Most of the time, we don't wake up and say, "Let's have hamburgers tonight." We use it when we have been focused on things other than dinner all day long. When we get home and realize that we don't have anything to eat, so we reach in the back of the freezer and use what we have stored away. 

Financially speaking, I believe that some folks reading this blog may not be wondering what are we going to have for dinner tonight, but what are we going to do to pay our monthly bills.  I believe that you have money laying all over your house.  It's time to look around and find it.  Then, turn those valuable items into cash.  It does not make sense to carry high interest debt on credit cards when you have money laying all around your house. It's time get on Craigslist or Ebay or the Iwanta.  

Just last week, our oldest son asked me if he could sell on of his guitars.  This guitar had been in a case in his closet for years. We listed it on Ebay and it sold for around $250. Now, he can pay his fraternity dues.  Our youngest son got in on the act and listed some cymbals.  They sold for around $40. Now he can buy the latest video game or something, but more than likely he will stash that money away for a rainy day.  

What do you have under your bed, locked away in a closet? It's time to turn it into cash.  Hmmm.  Now that I think about it, I have a Vintage Selmer Mark VI Saxophone that is worth over $3,000 in my closet.  I have not played it at church since Christmas 1995. I need to sell it.  But, wait a minute. My parents bought that for me when I was in middle school.  It has a lot of emotional sentiment associated with it. It's sacred.  But, then again, sacred cows make good hamburger meat.

The Magic of Christmas

It's the most wonderful time of the year! The Christmas season is here and with it comes a sense of awe and wonder. At Stevens Creek, the holiday season brings energy, excitement and great enthusiasm. It hasn't always been like it is today. Through the years, we have learned how to maximize this holiday season in order to make the message of Christ attractive (Titus 2:10). In the early days of our church, we had a special service the Sunday before Christmas, but that was basically all we did.

Our second step was to add a weekend Christmas pageant and later we added a Christmas Eve service. The popularity of these two events soared in the community. In fact, Stevens Creek became known for it's Broadway-like productions. People would begin calling for tickets earlier and earlier each season. At the height of it's popularity, we even had corporate sponsorships for the events. The money we raised during this time helped us fund some of the equipment that we use in our weekly ministry today.

Then, everything changed. We read the book Simple Church and started to examine everything that we did as a church. We re-shaped our focus and began concentrating on the mission of Jesus: To love God, love people and serve the world. This emphasis caused us to look at how we do Christmas at The Creek.
We discovered that the way we were celebrating Christmas was not advancing the ongoing ministries of Stevens Creek Church.

We drew huge crowds and received large donations, but when we were honest with ourselves we realized that these people came from other churches and when the last song was sung, they went back to their local church. Not only that, but we discovered that our own people did not attend our Sunday experiences during the holidays because they were simply too tired after investing all of the energy in preparing for the production. You see, practices for the Christmas production began in August. The extra practices for the show affected our on-going ministry. We had to ask the question: what's more important ... a Christmas show or the week-to-week ministry of our church?

Several years ago, we pulled-the-plug on the Christmas Show. People complained, but that goes with the territory. We still had an intense desire to celebrate Christmas but we wanted to do it in a way that would enhance our local church. Todd Sturgell and his incredible team came up with a solution that would strengthen the week-to-week ministry, create enthusiasm in the congregation, increase attendance and honor the season in an appropriate way. What is it?

Today we use the three or four Sundays during December to carry a consistent Christmas story. Instead of a one night drama with three or four scenes, today we present one scene or one act during a weekend service. Then, we tie a message from the Bible to provide a spiritual foundation.

We have discovered the magic of Christmas once again. When you present one act per Sunday, the people in the audience connect with the story line of the drama and they come back the next week to find out what happened. If we can hook them on the first Sunday, then we have them the rest of the month.

We stumbled upon this concept three years ago with the Northpoint series, Christmas with Grace. Then last year we did Velma's Diner. This year, we are going back to our roots and presenting The Gospel According to Scrooge (our signature drama) over a four service format.

This past Sunday, we did the first act and I presented a message on how to handle difficult people. We played off of Scrooge's difficult personality and how all of us will occassionally run into a Scrooge-like person along the way. It was a very special day. We had 1540 people in church on Sunday. This probably represents a 10 - 15 % bump in attendance.

Not only does this increase attendance, but it is easier on the volunteers that we rely on. In the old economy, we did the show and then had to turn around and create Sunday experiences. This method was very tough on our tech team, music team and drama team. The streamlining of our Christmas ministry has made life more bearable for these teams.

What's the end result? Sunday services are better, attendance is up, and our volunteers can enjoy Christmas. The magic of Christmas has returned!

-- Marty Baker