If you cannot make it live to our House Concert/Africa Mission event Sunday night May 22 at 6:30pm PST  in Murrieta (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=171995142856547) you can watch this embedded video here and see us LIVE online. You will be able to login Facebook or Twitter and chat live and interact with us. To go directly to the link, go to http://www.livestream.com/rkweblog/.

I just experienced my first job fair today at the Murrieta Community Center. The above blurred, black and white picture captured the mood I think with the crowd there today. Everything from the power company, casino, to retail and medial were represented. Being more of a creative professional, most of these were not my field of interest, however I did connect with at least two prospects for free lance work.

Our Murrieta Mayor Pro Tem Randon Lane gave a brief introduction and mentioned the terrible statistic of the 15.3% rate of joblessness in the Inland Empire region. As most of you know, this does not count underemployed and unreported figures. So, things are pretty bad in our area.

I had the privilege of briefly speaking with the Mayor where he told me that Murrieta is trying to do more things like this where employers are brought to the people. I applaud that action. Last year he said that over 900 people were lined up outside the building. Clearly, this session had less people but still a good crowd of interested parties and is filling a need.

Our congresswoman, Mary Bono Mack, had some of her representatives there as well to hear the stories of what life is like for folks. I met with them as well. The congresswoman could not make it for travel or weather reasons, but I would loved to have seen her in person.

Here is a question: How has the jobless rate affected your life? Are you a statistic, or is there a story in there for us to hear about?

Recap: It was a wonderful time of worship at The Lamb’s Fellowship in Murrieta, CA. What a great group of people and I thoroughly enjoyed leading with their worship team. Ryan Sharp delivered a sermon challenging us to live out the truth. It was a sweet hearing and seeing this wonderful church in town worship out loud in their four services!

Set List: I got to repeat some songs I did the past couple weeks of guest leading. Yes, you get to do that when you lead in different settings. Here is the set of songs.

• Your Grace Is Enough – Matt Maher
• Majestic – Lincoln Brewster
• Our God Saves – Paul Baloche
• Jesus Paid It All – Passion
• Not To Us – Chris Tomlin

How was your worship weekend? Please share.

For set lists from all over the US and abroad from this past weekend, go to TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

On Being Human In Concert

CD Release Party with bands Cassettes and Pilgrim
April 10 • 5:30 PM

My church, Sunridge Community Church, will be hosting this event. On Being Human are musicians who as Christians tell their story in a way that relates to people from all backgrounds. They formed in 2004 in Murrieta, CA, originally under the name Ocean Daybreak.  Their new CD on Luma Records “To Light the Coals of Hearts” will be released at this special event and include two opening bands, Cassettes and Pilgrim. Their “adventure rock” sound incorporates visual story telling.

There will be giveaways, a BBQ grill with the band and a chance to hear On Being Human perform their entire album.

For more info go to our Facebook Page.

Merry Christmas (or Bah Humbug if you feel grumpy)… I thought I would leak out the naughty list for those who attend Christmas Eve services this year. (Tongue in cheek guys).

• Suzie I-get-up-and-have-to-go-pee-three-times-during-the-service is getting 1 lbs. of coal
• Jimmy my-kid’s-screaming-is-not-heard-by-anyone-around-me is getting 1.7 lbs. of coal
• Bob I-can-save-seats-I-really-don’t-need-for-people-who-will-come-very-late gets 2.4 lbs. of coal
• Julie I-will-sing-as-loudly-out-of-tune-as-possible-to-get-noticed is getting 1 oz. of coal
• Julie’s Mom who smiles with pride and encourages the obnoxious singing gets .5 oz. of coal
• The kid who is thinking about burning the lady’s hair in the row in front of him with his candle–SANTA CAN SEE YOU KID!

Merry Christmas and hope to see you at our Christmas Eve worship tonight if you are in the Temecula-Murrieta Valley: Sunridge site OR Facebook Event link with info here!

If you are in the Temecula – Murrieta Valley area for Christmas, please consider attending our Christmas Eve services at Sunridge Church! All I can say is that our audio guy even wrote a blog post about it due to the production details being so huge.

Go to www.sunridge.tv to test out the beta version of Sunridge Community Church. Its not complete yet, but we are working hard to get it hard-launched as soon as possible.

Give us your feedback here. We are learning a lot and hope to connect to many more in our community.

If you have not already heard, a new era has begun at Sunridge Community Church. If you live in the Temecula-Murrieta Valley and do not have a church to attend, please come this month and experience the change. The following is an invitation from our Interim Pastor, Britt Sipe:

The only constant in life is change. Literally, it doesn’t matter what environment you look at: family, work, personal, even church — all are dynamically in flux. Some changes are expected, many are not. Change can be external or internal. Some changes are welcome, some not so much. So, how can we face the challenge change brings in a way that gives us the best opportunity to move forward and embrace the next new thing? How can we manage the changes life brings in a way that brings stability? And, what does the unchanging Word of Life have to say on this subject?

For the next four weeks we’ll be examining the inevitability of change, the wonder of change, and I expect that most of us will develop a deeper relationship with the change-maker. The recent changes Sunridge is experiencing will prove to be a learning environment for transforming the discomfort of change into pure exhilaration!

Join us beginning this Sunday, November 29th, for Change Happens!

Check out our video on how much people can change.  See if you can guess which member of our pastoral staff is the subject of change.

Britt Sipe
Interim Pastor

Thanksgiving is approaching and I would like to extend my series of posts on this (Part 1, Part 2) with the hope in all of this. The victims sister has asked me to pass on the following to our community of Murrieta and my neighborhood:

I would appreciate a message to be passed on to your neighborhood and community. It would mean the world to myself and our entire family. The message is: Our words cannot express how much we appreciate you all. Your cooperativeness in the investigation, your flowers, stuffed animals, candles, words of encouragement and empathy left us speechless. We had to move to get away from the memory of losing Isabelle there so tragically. Please know that we know things no media, no paper, no network, will ever know so we assure you that you are in a safe neighborhood and the murderer that caused our lives to be hell is not amongst you. Be grateful to have the police department you do. Again, our love and thank you’s to all of you. God bless…….  -M

I sure hope my neighbors will read this. I am going to copy this and hand it to as many as I get to meet the next week or so. Thanks does indeed go out to our police force for doing their job. Even though I am not applauding the TV media in the exploitative nature they portrayed things (no surprised there) I am supportive of our local law enforcement for letting us all know that they are working hard to protect us and enforce law and order.

The other thanks is to God for providing us an amazing home in a great neighborhood. I pray that we enjoy and thrive here and bless this block as I know the memory of Isabelle and her surviving children deserves such. Isabelle’s sister let me know how much she and Isabelle enjoyed espresso in the very kitchen that is now ours. I will remember to pray often for the family as I pour many many cups of coffee in the years to come.

Happy Thanksgiving and God Bless!

Here is PART 1 if you have not read that yet…

ABC’s 20/20 ran the story of the murder that happened in my house. Imagine seeing your house with your kitchen, the front of your house and more juxtaposed with crime scene photos and police video of a bloody murder. It was a bit unnerving and proof that allowing the film crew to “reenact” the scene in our home would have been a terrible choice.

Murrieta police and the District Attorney’s office I am sure enjoy the publicity of their success, but as the newer home owner its a bit gruesome and disappointing see how our community allowed the media to exploit the situation. One of ABC’s camera angles showed a document with our full address on it, for instance. My wife had repeated requests for our home to be filmed.

With the man behind bars with a life sentence my house has a story but not the full story told. This neighborhood is a great neighborhood and our city an incredible place to live. We love the house and will live well in it.

The sad news here is how a family and neighborhood were assaulted and how evil destroys. The house is just a house but my prayer is that our family would redeem this house and bless our neighborhood and city. God has my family living here for a purpose.

Here are some bizarre factoids:

• The killer was a devout Jehovah’s Witness and elder in the church (I am a pastor.)
• The public defenders last name is Kirkpatrick
• The day of the filming, we saw the crew filming in a similar house and the crews awkwardness at our glaring at them
• Our house was shown on national TV and my lawn had a brown spot (At least they could have warned me so I could have painted it green!)
• ABC showed very gruesome pictures of the crime scene…flashing the victim’s body into every single cut to and away from commercials and in the footage as a motif. Seriously! (ABC, you SUCK by the way).
• The circumstantial evidence was so huge, the jury took only 3 hours after a full three week trial but all the evidence was circumstantial. (I guess buying life $1M in life insurance, googling ways to kill and not telling 911 about your dead wife first before talking about the supposed break in swayed the vote.)