This is why we drive an hour each way in one night when my sister comes to town.

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

On Sunday, April 6th we’re going to have our first quarterly worship night here at Clovis Hills.

I’m pretty stoked about this, because it is going to give us a chance as a church to sing, pray and experience God in a different way than a regular weekend service.

We aren’t what you’d call a “worshipping” church, in that we don’t do 30-45 minute worship sets and because of the sturcture of our services, musical worship and expressivness in that way just hasn’t really been part of our DNA, though we’re getting there.

We’re turning a corner in the life of our church and starting to see people really dive in and reorder their lives around the reality of the gospel and worship, musical or otherwise, is a natural bi-product of that.

I love being a part of this church, because I get the feeling that this past year, our church has been falling in love with Jesus more. That’s exciting to me, because it means that we’ll soon start to express that a bit more in how we sing, how we pray, and more so, how we live.

So if you’re around next Sunday night, you should come and check it out. It’s going to be amazing!

Micah and erica were over tonight and they were sort of arguing about a missions trip and I snapped this pic.

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

I’m sure they’re gonna love this!

So Easter was amazing, and that night, Jenn and I were looking forward to having Micah and Erica over and having just a quiet dinner and a movie. That almost happened. Take a look at how our quiet evening almost turned into a bit of a mess.

This weekend was amazing! Our team of staff and volunteers worked hard and saw God do some amazing things! We had a Good Friday service with nearly 300 people worship together and then three Easter services that saw over 3,000 people step on campus and over a hundred indicate decisions to receive Christ or rededicate their lives. Here are just a few of the highlights.

Okay, so here’s the big news… Clovis Hills is going public!  

Staff blogs are up and running and there will be some major changes to this site!

Here’s what you can expect:
1) more video content! We’re talking behind the scenes of worship at Clovis Hills as well as a glimpse into my life. You may be thinking, “Paul, why do I care about that?”  Well, let’s be honest, if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

2) Some new categories. I’ll be doing regular worship confessionals where we talk about what went down during each week at Clovis Hills and what songs we’re doing, how they’re going and hopefully, here from you on whether or not you like them I’ll be doing a new segment that I’m calling “Pimp my volunteer” where I highlight one of the many volunteers at Clovis Hills that make this place go.

3) You’ll be hearing original music and seeing performances of those songs soon.  We’re working on original stuff and will be getting to do more of it coming up soon and so this is going to be the spot to hear it first.

4) Also, there will be more interaction with other bloggers on staff at Clovis Hills as well as those of you regular attenders and volunteers who blog.  This is going to be a place where we develop community and connect in exciting ways.

5) The biggest change is that this site will no longer be up.  I am moving to blogs.clovishills.com/paulhaugen.  Put it in your favorites, get the RSS feed and keep up to date with what’s going on.  There’s a whole new look, new posts already up and some exciting stuff ahead!

I know there are some of you (Dana) who are saying, “I waited 8 days for this crap.”  Well, sorry about that.  I didn’t quite expect all of the hullabaloo surrounding this countdown.  I’m not leaving the church and Jenn is not pregnant, I’m just changing up the look of the blog!  

Thanks so much for your understanding, and I look forward to seeing what happens through the new site! 

Well here it is, a new look, a new title and lots of new content.

This is The Open Door, a place to see a little bit more of what goes on behind the scenes with worship at Clovis Hills and a place to get to know me in a way that just isn’t possible on weekend services.

I’m going to be giving you all a reasonable amount of access into my life, my passions and my quirkiness and hopefully in return I’ll get to see some of yours.

My prayer is that this place becomes a community that laughs together and grows together and that as Clovis Hills gets bigger, staff blogs like this as well as the blogs of so many volunteers can help keep us small.

If you want to know about my life, just ask me. I’m fairly open; what you see is what you get. If we can eliminate all of the pretense and disconnect that comes from being a part of a church our size, then we can just get down to the business of getting to know each other and walking through life together.

Come one come all, this is the open door!

drumroll please…

you ready for this? 

wait for it…