Loud & Clear

how rock stars begin

If you stick around long enough after the second service on Sunday, you’ll find me chasing my son all around the auditorium. Really though, he’s looking for Paul. You see, Paul is the one who lets him play the drums.

Now, music is a big part of our family. Rohan loves to play the drums, the piano and his guitar. But I think he loves the drums the most. As you can see here, he sits behind them with authority, always uses both sticks to do different things and will even ask whoever is near him to participate and tell you exactly what you should play.

So one day, when he is supporting me in my old age, we’ll look back at this photo and say, “That’s when it all began.”

heath ledger and most of america

This Sunday is the Free Estate Planning Seminar. This is a really great event. Jen and I went to the one we did last year and got our plan all set up. Along with most of adults in the US (studies show over half), Jen and I never got around to planning for…the unexpected. Once we had a son, we knew we needed something set up but never knew where to start.

Not only did we get great info at the seminar but the Foundation worked with us and a lawyer from our church to really walk us through what we needed to do, provided some great insight about things we didn’t know much about and finally get the darn thing set up.

If you don’t have a Will set up, don’t end up in a Heath Ledger situation. Make sure your family is provided for.

away at the beach

Jen and I haven’t had any time off since in October. We’ve been pretty busy since then. Not counting the major holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter (which is quite a production with a waddler it turns out), we’ve had Christmas services, Christmas Eve services, Ultimate Comedy Theater, the Laugh & Love Seminar, Good Friday Service and Easter services with a few outside events to boot. With our 9th anniversary last week, it was time to get away.

After ensuring Rohan was all set up with his grandparent, Jen and I headed to Avila Beach. I really like Avila. The beach is tucked away behind some tall hills leaving the it mostly sheltered from the cold ocean winds. The town is very quaint and feels like a community you can easily become a part of. the shops are bright and owned by folks you could live right next door to. It’s also surrounded by some other nice spots with San Louis Obispo, Morro Bay and Pimso on all sides.

It’s good to get away. Sometimes just changing locations for a short time can bring a perspective you miss while still at home. Jen and I had our yearly “how are we doing” anniversary talk. We review the year, talk about what was good, what’s been tough and create some strategies to keep us on track for the next year. Combine that with hours of lounging, eating and wandering the sites at our own pace and three days should be just enough to get us to summer.

Easter video

Paul worked up a pretty cool video giving a couple shots of the Good Friday service with some behind the scenes and actual footage of our Easter Services. I love the shots of people going forward. Check it here out on Paul’s Blog.

Easter at Clovis Hills

Well, Easter was pretty amazing at Clovis Hills. I felt like everyone was at the top of their game. This is what we are called to do and wow, did God move. If you didn’t catch the theme this Easter, here’s the front of the invite cards we created for folks to give to their friends.

We put luggage tags in every program. At the end of the service, we encouraged people committing their lives to Christ for the first time or those returning to Christ after a long absense to write their name on the tag and bring it down to the front where our Prayer Team waited. There, they exchanged their baggage tag with their name with a tag that had “FORGIVEN MARCH 23, 2008″ printed on it.

It was amazing watching people come forward. I know of two families who had adult children accept God’s forgiveness and start fresh.

The Easter dinner with turkey and homemade biscuits that followed with Jen’s family were good, but not as good as watching God work.

launch day

Well, today we go live with Staff Blogs. It’s a soft start so only those browsing the website are likely to see it. We start promoting it next weekend.

Good Friday Service was good last night. Paul did his first original song at Clovis Hills. It’s a great song. I hope we get to do it in a weekend service sometime.

Heading off to rehearsal for Easter services in about an hour. Hope to see you this weekend!

Good Friday service

What a day! I’ve been working like crazy on the staff blogs. I can’t wait til they go live. I really hope this is a great way to communicate with you guys and gives you an inside look at how we are as staff and all the things we are crazy passionate about.

Kimberly MacNeill, Paul Haugen, and Jen Strong have been buzzing in and out of the office all day setting up for our Good Friday Service. This should be a really awesome service, and very different from our usual thing. After some extended worship, Pastor Steve will speak for a bit and then everyone will be released to go to stations where we will confess our sins (black pens on black paper I heard earlier this week, though might have evolved by this point) and then serve ourselves the Lord’s Supper. It should be really cool to watch families take Communion together as a unit.

Which reminds me, I’m late! See you over there.

getting ready for Easter

It’s a big week of preparation around here at the office. Those of us that are here that is. We have staff in Mexico on a mission trip. Others are on vacation since it is Spring Break. The rest of us however, are getting ready for the weekend.

Worship Practice is tonight. I’m only on two songs, but I’m at the end of the rehearsal so it’s going to be a late night.

We release a new program shell this weekend also. This one is going to take us all the way through the summer. I dig it. It’s nice and clean.

If you listen to Alice or Big Country, you might hear our radio spot. Or you can listen to it here: Easter 08 Radio Promo