In the interests of wishing to give Pastor Dino Rizzo a unique little surprise, a few of us on his team at Healing Place Church have hacked this website while he’s out of the office. “How can hacking his blog actually be a thing of happiness for him?” you might be wondering. Great question, but a simple answer:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PASTOR DINO

[p.s. - a big thank you to the team at life church of west monroe for blazing the trail in this type of subversive activity in birthday celebration for the pastor….]

Well, it is at least halfway done now.

Yesterday we officially turned in the first half of the manuscript for the book, Servolution: Starting A Church Revolution Through Serving. It is set to release in Spring of 2009, but the manuscript is due this month so the process of editing and marketing and distribution and everything else that has to happen can get going.

It has been such a learning experience for us here. Working with the great folks at Zondervan and Leadership Network has been a blessing - we continue to see more and more how the book has the potential to help a lot of pastors, churches, leaders, businesses and everyday Christ-followers be ignited with a passion to serve others.

And I can’t say enough about the team effort going on here at HPC that is making this project come together. The team in my office, our design team, and the whole staff, really - helping us put in words what God has been doing here for the past sixteen years, and finding ways to encourage others through it to start a servolution where they are. And “servolution” is really just a name we started using about a while back to describe what God has been doing here all this time. It simply means, “a significant change in the course of history sparked by simple acts of kindness.”

Please keep praying for us as we wrap up the rest of the manuscript over the next several days. Pray that God will help us communicate His heart through it, and that ultimately He will be glorified through the book.

Today we are going to mark the halfway point of the year with a day of prayer with the entire staff team at HPC. I just really feel it is important for us to spend this day reflecting on what God has done so far this year, and listening to His voice and what He is saying to us about the rest of this year.

I believe He still has more to speak to us about the harvest and the hurting. I would encourage each of you no matter where you are or what your day holds in store to try to find even just a few minutes to pull away from everything and spend some time listening to God’s voice.

Today we are going into the secret place. My prayer is that on the other side of today we are changed, refreshed, and infused with an even greater passion for our mission to build the Kingdom.

Epic - the new worship CD from Healing Place Music comes out tomorrow! Yeah, baby. I’ve heard it. Trust me, you want it. Get it here or come this weekend and pick one up.

VBS - coming July 7-11 at the Highland campus in Baton Rouge! Be sure to get your kid (and all your neighbors’ kids signed up!

Caleb Domingue, Shaun Alexander, and Dylan (my son)
Shaun Alexander - got to meet Shaun Alexander and his wife Valerie last week. Shaun was a great running back in the NFL and is an even greater man - a Jesus-lover and has a heart full of compassion. They came for a visit to check out the Baton Rouge Dream Center and just to connect. Really cool couple.

Navigate and Saturate interns serving at the Baton Rouge Dream Center a few days ago
What do you do with 123 teenagers in summer? Send them to the poorest part of town to make snowballs to give away free to help get the word out about an upcoming block party.

Twitter - I just started doing twitter - an online messaging network - check it out at http://www.twitter.com. Pretty cool deal. For those of you who are twittering, look for me under “dinorizzo” - would be cool to see you there.

And check out this recap video from Submerge summer camp. God was there.

Submerge 2008 Recap from Healing Place Church on Vimeo.

Wow - Submerge - like a crazy A.D.D. spiritual yes GOD environment

I’m sitting in an oasis of hope for the next 20 years (I pray). The oasis is called “Submerge Student Ministry Camp” with 4 churches. 650 hearts are in this room - wow. There may not be a more important experience and investment that a church could make than into these moments of freedom. I have much anticipation for what may come out of these 79 hours spent at Panama City Beach. I wanna give a big ol’ shout out to Lance and the super team working behind the scenes. Also thanks to all the churches partnering and the tech team - out the park - all the youth guys, leaders, volunteers, speakers, all-pro mix of worship guys and girls, and, and, and those parent’s who said “yes” to this investment.

Wow. I pray they - no we will never be the same. Thank you.

Hey Lance - can’t wait till next year!!!

If you went to Submerge, leave a comment and lemme know what you thought.

We, and 1,400 other churches across the world, are right in the middle of the One Prayer series. It has been really cool to check out the One Prayer blog and see the really cool daily devotionals by some participating pastors. I was honored to be able to write today’s devotional. Check it out.