Well its been a while, I haven’t been here since Thursday, I’ve just been bombarded with so many things. Well yesterday I spent about 4 hours trying to get my utilities up and running for Monday. Monday? yeah! My wife, Diego and Myself are moving into a new place. Not too far, we’re going to be living in East Lake, apparently its part of Keys Gate. We are really excited. We are planning a house warming party sometime in October and you are invited. Just RSVP here on my blog. Here’s the catch. The party has a theme and you must dress as the theme. Ready?…. 1980’s. Yup you hear correct. Your ticket in is your replica of 1980’s. I’m jumping the gun a little, first we have to move in. If you’re schedule is open, and your body is feeling the strength of 300 we can use your help. And if you are not feeling so strong don’t worry we have light weight things to carry as well. Either way we’d totally appreciate the help. We are thinking Sunday around 6pm. For more information please see me, my wife or Diego on Sunday after service. Either the 9:00am or 10:30am. We’re there for both. Much Love. So get your 1980’s on!!!

-the santoyo’s

life pointe

Archibishop Romero stated “when the poor and people in need are invisible, God is invisible”. We can’t forget what this is all about. I couldn’t wait till tomorrow to blog, I had to do it tonight. We had about 22 people tonight, 4 of which committed the lives to Jesus Christ. Tonight(the cure bible study) by far goes in my book as one of the most filling nights. We spoke about sex and God’s perfect plan for us. Everyone was intrigued by the story of Joseph and how he ran out the palace naked by doing the right thing! Ultimately though to see these young people, hear their stories, their concerns and doubts. We brought it home in the end and with tears in their eyes surrendered to Christ. Forget the glamour, the titles, the recognition, this is what it is all about. There is so much need, but when we get too ego driven and selfish we lose the point. My heart is pounding like crazy. God forgive me for being selfish and driven by my own concerns. We’re here to make a difference while we can, and while there is time. Angel, Jeremy, and Pinky, you guys are the coolest dudes I’ve met. I can’t even imagine the great things God is going to do with you! These guys are gonna change the world.

goodnight

-fuser+

life pointe

It just doesn’t seem to stop. I’m new to this season of constant rain. I’m not a huge fan of the rain. I guess more like not a fan of the gloomy overcast days. Well its not like I can day anything about it. It is, what it is. I thought Waterstone was sold out or something this morning. The cars were endless. Everyone was trying to get in, and everyone was trying to get out. Not the greatest combination when you want to get somewhere on time. The rain added to the madness, or could be blamed for the madness. So I started pondering on “rain” this morning. It is so necessary yet it carries so many other things with it that can be annoying. Some get more “rain” than others. While it seems some never get it. Our land and lawns need rain. Animals need rain, we need rain. Yet when it shows up it complicates things a little. It makes our streets slippery and dangerous, it prolongs our commutes by double maybe even triple the time, it can flood, it can destroy, it will soak you, alter your vision, but it also sets the mood for the greatest naps, movie nights, soothing sounds, and a great portrait. It also makes our palm trees taller, the grass is greener, and it filters our air a little. Doesn’t it seem God allows “rain” in our lives. Some of us get alot of it at one time, some never do, some people are always soaked. Its in season of rain that our patience is tested, our perseverance is tested, our wisdom and integrity(traffic) is tested. Our faith is tested!!! I’ve been in the rain for a while now, I have gone from “GOD! stop this! It makes no sense! Whats the point? Am I the only one? …to Lord, may your will be done, its out of my hands. Let it rain all night long if it has to. My Wife shared some awesome words with me last night, and I hope it encourages you. I’m being totally transparent with you guys as I share this. I told her, “I wonder if God will ever heal my ear?” She replied saying stop asking him to take anything away, but ask and wait patiently How will God use this to impact the world.” Rain= growth…Let it rain!!!!

-fuser+

life pointe

“We stand in the midst of human dilemma. We long for community;we long to belong; we long for love. Yet what we long for most we seem incapable of sustaining. Humanity has no natural predators except each other. We are safer in the jungle than in the city. We are our own worst enemies”. -Erwin McManus

DC Talk has a song that says, ” confession is the road to healing”, and last night our own transparency set us free. We are all addicted to love. We yearn for for it,  we are desperate for it, and it consumes our every thought. Last nights life group was really cool. We all came to the conclusion that we constantly battle with this void. We wanna be loved, we wanna love, but the minute we give it a shot it backfires. McManus states that the more we love someone, the more that person can hurt you. Crazy! We shared how we choose to love therefore our human nature drives our love to be conditional. We love GOd “unconditional because he first loved us. Yet despite of that, we choose to love conditional! We are so human!! I was the advocate last night, and it was great to have everyone thinking back and forth. I have an amazing group. You guys rock! Without Love we are dead, without Love there is no true reason to live. God created us to love and to be loved. Or as nick put it last night, ” we are sexual beings”. True!  The reason for our existence is found in our Creator. Scriptures state that GOD IS LOVE. Therefore its fair to say that without him we are dead, without him there is no true reason to live. Without him we will lever experience TrueLove…

-fuser+

lifepointe

Well I’m back. My weekend trip flew faster then a cannon-ball. Got to see alot of great people in my life. Here is a brief recap of my weekend in Chronological order.

+I miss my flight to Chicago by a few minutes. + I had lunch with my brother Luis the detective/pastor/singer! It was cool, I really hope he changes his mind and moves down here. + i hung out with my old band berto ramon, these guys are doing awesome things in the Chi+ Hung out with my bassist John John and watched as he gave my bro Alex a makeover…he’s a stylist…we had some amazing pizza at metro.+ Friday+ woke up to my dad’s coffee and Mom’s awesome breakfast+ chilled with the folks+ picked up my sis and ate at the best stir fry place in the world. flat top Grill. We’re praying our Chicago house sells, please pray with us! + Friday evening, rehearsed with TSP and had dress rehearsal for the FHL event on Saturday. rehearsal was not our best but the show…+ Friday night had coffee with 1773 at Hollywood grill, we got kicked out+ they said we’d been there too long…its a 24hour diner! I was really ticked off. right after they asked if we’d leave they offered me some more coffee?? Dude You just kicked us out. + We walk outside and hang out in-front of the diner for another 3 hours.+ A tow truck speeds down a 25mph street going 90 mph. There was a pimp at the corner of the diner he must have been 18 or something. Craziness….”and this is the up and fancy yuppie area.?” + A motorcycle is stolen and thrown into a mini van right before our eyes.+ we run after the van and get the license plate number. + 2 cars smash into each other right across the street + 2 huge vans are chasing each other like a drive by! + means streets i tell you. Had my small moment of fame. Someone on the street recognized me from the Saturn project…it was 230am. +went home, got up early and had breakfast with my whole family little Manny entertained me with his depiction of 300. He’s only 3 years old. Skirt steak was freak amazing!!!!! + Went to the ball park to see my nephew pitch a no bitter, 4 innings. His friends would chant ” B A R R Y B O N D S” when he was at bat. The kid is 11years old and he’s playing like a pro. He rocked that ball every-time! + went to franks shrimp house…amazing+ got ready for the show and rocked the house at FHL. I’m proud of them guys, they ran the living room sessions with me. These guys are impacting the city. + Got asked to speak for a few minutes…didn’t expect that but it was cool. Some guy got up scandalized when i spoke about rebelling, he left before i could hit the punchline. He left when i shared that we gotta be like Jesus, and rebel against the pharisees not the people. Ouch! It felt kind of cool though to share the right thing! The theme of the event was radical=faith hope and Love.+ Sunday I performed at storehouse church, got to hang with my old church and Pastor Lou. +Had lunch with the fam, and barely made my flight+ flight was so turbulent I thought i was gonna die + got home and woke up Diego..had to! + Had my cafe con leche with an empanada this morning. Just to make sure I’m back, now i can hit my diet again.+ I heard reina, and phil lead the worship to glory yesterday….doesn’t surprise me! The Saturn Project will be in South Florida in November! Can’t wait! that’s everything in a nutshell, a huge nutshell!

-fuser+

life pointe 

Well so far its been really cool to see my family and friends. I got to hang out with the guys from BERTO RAMON. I drove around with my bro Luis convincing him to move out to Homestead. We’ll see how that goes. I definitely do not miss the traffic here in the Chi. It is crazy. I got to eat some amazing pizza!!!! thanks John. I got to spend the night here at my Mom’s house. I haven’t done that since I got married. I felt like I was 15 again and at home with no responsibilities. Well we know those days are gone. All my parents have been talking about is how they loved Homestead and Life Pointe Church. They’re not so fluent in the English language but they loved it. Well I guess thats it for now.

-fuser+

life pointe church

So I Left my house at 540 this morning. I figured enough time to get to MIA via Chicago. I got to the airport at 7:34am. Yep! from making a wrong turn to contruction to everything you can possibly think of.  I rushed to the self check in area to tell me its too late. So they directed me to 2 different desks and people. I was told I’d be charged extra for the flight, others said I’d have to go standby. Well the young lady finally helps me and asks. What time did you get here? Not a great question to ask me when it became a mission to get to MIA. She said you could’ve still made it! all you had to do was…. AAAAAGGGGHHHHH. I calmly and peacefully walked away with my new boarding pass and tried to figure out what I can do to kill 2 and half hours.  So i figured well let me get online, blog a little and so forth. Well my computers battery was pretty low and on the brink of death. Easy solution right? Find a power outlet. Well there’s 1 single outlet to every mile you walk in this airport. So when I finally found one, I got all confy, set my bag to the side, placed my green tea at my side…every-ones looking at me do this. i plug the computer and…you guessed right my computer set on FIRE….not really, but rather the outlet didn’t work. Eventually after walking a good 10 gates away from mine there was a working outlet. Well at least I got my workout out of the way. See you soon.

-fuser+

life pointe 

On a great note, last nights youth/life group went well. 3 youngans accepted Christ as their personal savior. It was really cool. Everyones been really enthusiastic about brining new friends with them, that or the VIP part they want to attend at our home depending on how many new people come to Life Pointe.

Read this small excerpt from the revolution church website. Check it out I think its great. It yells out freedom in Christ, what following Christ was meant to be.
Religion Kills
Religion is a false perception of holiness that focuses on law and kills the true message of Christ. Jesus had much to say about the religious who put the law before his true message:“…How terrible it will be for you experts of religious law! For you crush people beneath impossible religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.” Luke 11:46

“How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law- justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but you should not leave undone the most important things. Blind Guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat; then you swallow a camel.” Matthew 23:23-24

Jesus came and declared that the most important law was “You must love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37.39) Religion ignores the reasons behind this being the most important commandment and only focuses on the exterior and works as a way to get close to God. It is religion that not only kills the true message of hope Christ taught but also has held back the lost from understanding the true meaning of Christianity.

Sunday was great. We had a full band, guitar, bass and drums. Reina, Julie and Eileen sounded amazing. Extravagant Love had a very soulful feel with their vocals. Phil? what can I say bro that you haven’t already heard. The heartbeat of the tunes were definitley there with Todd’s drumming. Its coming together people! This Sunday is gonna be even better. Its all about bringing your best for God. Its something that can’t be measure nor compared. Your worship is what God seeks and when you do, things happen my friend.

Allow me to intr0duce you to Casy Watkins. Life pointe logistics specialist and production manager. This is his world. He gets in on Saturday.. more like Sunday at 12am. He leads his crew from set up to tear down the next day. And these guys are hardcore. Yep! They don’t even sleep but carry tons of metal staging while we get our 8 hours of sleep! It’s very easy to enter the theater and totally critique the theatre, with the good the bad and the ugly. Its all about the aesthetics of the room. It’s not all about turning all the colorful lights and letting them be. There’s more to the madness. The lights must be tweaked to perfection for the human eye, the lens of the camera, and the over all experience. This is definitely something Casey is close to perfecting. Its not an easy road, but a life long craft. Casey brings it and makes it happen. From sweat, tears and blood, whatever it takes to have it ready for YOU! There is no room mediocrity, and just letting things be. Everything must make sense and be perfect. There is always plenty of room for experimenting and discovering better methods to executing the perfect stage. This is Casey’s world. So next time you see Casey thank him for his work. ” Give props where props are deserved. If you think you have what it takes to be part of the production team, BRING IT ON! We’d love to add another piece to the puzzle. Oh yeah and on top of that all that he’s booking bands all over the world..while he sets up his lights! Thats some rockstar status! We definitely got the dream team.  Next week Ill give you a sneak peek into the world of Paul Hollifield, LIVE and DIRECT!

thanks for reading.

Musicians, Painters, Skaters, Sculptors, Dancers, fashion designers…they were all there last night at our life Group..aka “The Living Room.”. It was an awsome time. We definitley learned that artists are not normal! That explains a whole lot! An  artist does not see something for what it is, but its potential and what it can be. An artist sees beyond the surface, and a true artist never gets full sleep, cause they’re always thinking of what to create next. Genesis 1:1 says “In the Beginning God Created..”.The reason we are so creative is because we were created by the ultimate artist.

We shared some awesome stories last night, and we learned a few things from each other. It was a great introduction to our life group. Everyone was very enthused about reading the book and talking about it next week. Every week just keeps getting better and better. Something is stirring up here in Homestead, something huge!!! Don’t blink!You might miss it!

-fuser+ 

LifePointe