Loud & Clear

the black plague

In days gone by, I lived in Sacramento where a few of my best friends and I would gather on Friday nights for games of strategy and brilliance.  Penny ante poker was the subject of many an evening. The other evenings were dedicated to a game called Risk.

Risk is a turn based strategy game where you try to take over the world. Each player’s armies have a color and you gain additional armies based on the size of the countries you controlled. I was always black.

What made this game so fun, was the strategies we would employ to prevent certain players from growing too strong and wiping out the others. Then it was all about negotiations. If you could convince the others you meant them no harm, you could gain a precious foothold toward global domination.

Of course, my friends always called me the black plague. My negotiation skills were supreme, and despite the warnings of others, I often lured my prey into a false sense of confidence.  This comic brought back all the warm memories of those Friday nights. Just substitute “black” for “blue” and it was like it was written from our living room over a decade ago.

Ah, good times.

If the above is too small to read, check out the original page here.

life, uncensored

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine a couple weeks ago. He’s somewhere in the seeker/early believer stage. One of the things he’s struggling with is the lack of transparency in church people, staff folks in particular.

I understand where he’s coming from. A lot is riding on what we do - people’s eternity. The Bible gives us clear instruction (Paul in particular) to live spotless lives, to make sure that how we live causes no one to stumble in their faith journey. When you take that with how judgmental folks are of Christians, leadership, celebrity, etc., it’s easy to get drawn above the water line and live on the surface, hiding all the dark secrets of your sin and struggle. It’s not just the world either. Church people can be the worst offenders of the bunch.

Our culture demands us to be real, true authenticity and transparency. (Jesus too, by the way) On the other hand, it crucifies anyone who makes a mistake. An odd mix.

But I understand. Let me confess: I’m no different than our culture. I totally believe in transparency. Ask my friends, I’m always the guy that says “more than he should” when it comes to self disclosure. I just am who I am. I crave that in my relationships. But there’s always that line of how much can you share and still remain safe. I don’t always know. But I’d rather opt for transparency. My only other option is to begin to live only for other’s perceptions. And that’s a dark and lonely road.

So I’m here to confess: I feel tired, insecure, and stressed out. For reason of brevity, I won’t go into all why my week was junk. I tried and this post got way too long. Here’s the sum up. My son’s really sick, I’m suffering for lack of sleep, my wife’s out of town, work is crazy with innovation and obstacles and I feel like crap.

Not that I feel like you’re only being real when you share your junk. It just tends to be what we hide the most.

How’s it going in your world? Really?

understanding the source

Great devotional post today from our Exec. Pastor, Greg Warmerdam.  It really reminded me to evaluate my motives, keep my focus pure, and understand the source of every good thing. Many of Greg’s devotionals focus on having confidence in our faith. I think that’s awesome.

Check out today’s post here.

Mother’s Day recap

Well, it was another Clovis Hills slam dunk. Another can’t miss weekend.

The music smoked: Paul was awesome doing Mr. Mom, complete with a southern twang that just a little seemed “too natural” if you know what I mean.

It sounded like we had Point of Grace in the house with the message capper.
And I was told my rendition of Phil Vassar wasn’t too shabby. The band sounded great the whole weekend.

Steve and Kimberly co-taught a fantastic message about women of influence. This is one of my favorite parts of Mother’s Day. I still remember when Jen and I were struggling through the emotions of our inability to have a child of our own. Mother’s Day was such a hard day back then. A day celebrating what those we were incapable of becoming. We heard the stories of others like us. Or of those who had lost their children.

I’m proud of the fact that Clovis Hills takes the courage to expand this day to show how God has called women (and men, but that’s a different holiday) to take charge of the influence they have in the lives of others. To cherish them for the way they were created. And give them tools to continue to grow in the work of changing lives.

Mother’s Day photo’s were a big hit. A huge thanks to our photographers: Alicia Alejo, Michelle Koch, Becky Crecelius and Katrina Rocha for serving on what was technically their holiday so everyone else could get great family pics. Also, thanks to Amy Glines for working behind the scenes and making sure everything ran smoothly. There were many other volunteers who helped as assistants, with set up and take down and a dozen other things. If it wasn’t for these folks doing what they do, things like this could never happen. Way to go church.

If you didn’t make it, you can check out the pics at clovishills.smugmug.com/mothersday2008

What was your favorite part of the weekend?

solitude retreat

I’m headed out this morning for a solitude retreat with much of the Worship & Arts teams. I’ve really been looking forward to going. Solitude is one of those disciplines I appreciate greatly when I actually do it, but am just not disciplined enough yet to schedule time for it.

I’ve a list of things on my agenda for this retreat:

There’s some life focus issues God and I have been trying to work though, along the lines of 7 Habits if you’re familiar with Stephen Covey at all. I’m tired of wasting life. You can call it time if you want to, but the older I get, the more I want to maximize everything I do with intention and focus. I feel God calling me to a higher level of personal accountability in every area of my life.

Also on the agenda is some songwriting with Paul Haugen. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken the time to write but as I’ve pulled my guitar out of the closet, it feels good to get those creative juices flowing again.

Finally, we’re beginning to work on our department budgets for the next fiscal year. I want to spend some time listening for God to make sure what I come up with is on his page, not just mine. It’s his church after all, I just get to play here.

I’ll fill you in on how it goes when I get back. If you’re interested in how it’s going, keep an eye on my twitter roll to the right.

my week in 4 letters

Sick.

And I don’t mean that like, “Dude, that movie was sick!” or “That car was so pimped out it was sick!”  Really, just plain sick.  Not just me either. The whole family. Which in some way I should be grateful we didn’t trade it around over the next three or more weeks.  But still… ick.

With that, nothing really interesting to write about this week. If you missed last Sunday, you missed an awesome team teach with Steve and Kimberly.  I still hear people talking about how “this is only a snapshot, not the whole movie” as encouragement to each other. If you missed the message last Sunday, you can catch it here.

In good news, I think we’ll be able to bring back Free Mother’s Day Photo’s. I have two photog’s confirmed though I’m still looking to secure a third. I love doing this. I dig not only seeing my family (especially now that we have a boy), but also dig seeing all the other family’s that go to Clovis Hills.

I’m working in the tech booth this Sunday as the technical director. Never done it before, so if you’re in services this weekend and something goes wrong, it’s probably going to be my fault. Just fair warning.

*EDIT* Disaster has been avoided. It turns out I’ll just be observing this weekend instead of technical directing. Probably not a bad idea over all, and really, a service upgrade for you guys.

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.”

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.