2009 has come and gone and I thought I would recap some of my highlights.

You remember when your grandparents or parents would tell a story and they would say, “the year was 1965…”? I’m not that guy.  I don’t generally remember the year something happened as much as I do the event itself.  I remember making a cross-country trip with my family as a kid and I remember the first Major League baseball game I went to and I remember the first time I kissed my wife, but for the life of me I don’t remember the year these things happened.  Frankly, why should I?

I was thinking about 2009, though and realized this was a pretty big year for me.  There were a handful of pretty life-changing events that took place and I thought that if I didn’t remember the year, it would be hard to see how much God had blessed me with.  He didn’t just give me a few good things here and there, but he blessed me with a lot of great things continually.

So here goes; my recap.

1) Gracie Mae - This one was an easy #1.  Jenn and I had our first child and she is the love of our lives.  I was always excited about having kids, but having Grace has surpassed any expectations I may have had.  She’s just so cool and fun!  I’ve had the somewhat unique opportunity to be a stay-at-home dad two days a week and, while I’m a bit out of my element at times, it’s really allowed me to have a pretty special bond with her.  She smiles all the time, seems to love music and really likes snuggling up to daddy.  Frankly, she’s my favorite thing in the world.

2) My wife - Now, I didn’t get married this year, and though Jenn and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary, it wasn’t a milestone anniversary, like 5, 10, 20, 50, etc.  However, Jenn and I grew even closer this year.  We worked through some pretty challenging things at times, from work stuff, to family issues and others and got through giving birth.  I also saw Jenn in a way that I haven’t seen her in a long time; right in the center of God’s will.  Jenn has been trying to figure out what she’s meant to do for a while now.  She’s taught in a couple of different schools and both have been really bad situations.  She’s done ministry and while she’s really great at it, figuring out how to do ministry when it’s not your full-time job has been a hard adjustment.  She’s been going through this rather tough process for 3-5 years now and while she’s always had a lot of faith, there have been times where it’s hard for us to see that she just can’t seem to find that “sweet spot.”  That all changed this year when Grace came along.  During her pregnancy, while she was well within her rights to complain and be frustrated she spent much of her time laughing.  Watching her give birth and fight through all the pain and junk that comes with giving birth (reason #437 I’m glad I’m a dude by the way), she pushed through it all and now is an amazing mother.  I love watching her with Grace.  She never seems to lose her patience and she at various times will just look down at her and say, “man, I love this girl!”  It really has been great to watch her step into mother hood.

3) I got promoted - Kimberly MacNeill is the greatest boss anyone in my position could have.  She has taught me so much about ministry and service programming and this year, as she stepped into a new role, she and the executive staff turned over her position as Pastor of Worship and Arts to me.  Since then I’ve gotten the chance to “hang with the big dogs” on the executive staff and be completely in charge of our weekend services.  We’ve been working so hard around here and I think our team has been doing great.  We did “Journey” a four week series using music from Journey to help people navigate tough times, “Re-Dream” a four week series helping people see past the difficulties in life and imagine all that God has still in store for them and a Christmas season that included “A Beatles Christmas” our special Christmas Service chalk full of amazing music and a candlelight service that was fantastic.  2010 will certainly bring a ton more work, but I’m so excited for what lies ahead.

4) Songwriting - I’ve been writing a lot of new music and am excited to see what happens with it.  I’ve gotten to write and record with some great musicians like Dana Pellerin, Luke Mundy, Tim and Jill Douty, and Paul Carlson and Justin Kulekjian.  I’m so stoked to see what God is able to do with these songs as we’ll introduce some of them at Clovis Hills in 2010.

There have been so many other great things that have happened to me this year that it would take multiple posts to talk about it.

I am so excited for the new year and am looking forward to everything God does!

I had a good conversation with Aron and Jen this afternoon that got me thinking about the political climate in our country.

When did we become so polarized?

Somewhere along the line we began hating each other so much that we went to our separate corners clinging to our values and we decided only to come out long enough to tell the other side how crappy they are.

If we could all drop our weapons for a moment and look around I think we’d see that neither side is doing much of anything.

Name a member of congress that is legitimately concerned with your well-being.  Maybe there are some in there, but when do I get to hear from them?  If you don’t play the game your ideas don’t get heard and if you play the game it would seem that you have to make so many compromises that your ideas are no longer yours.

I would love to find one politician who instead of reciting the party’s talking points or spending millions of dollars on smear campaigns of their opponent, lays out a plan to fix our problems that is clear, concise and actually works.  Give me that guy or girl and they will have my vote.  I don’t care if there’s a D or an R next to your name.

It’s like this health care deal.  I know there are way too many people in this country who cannot afford quality, affordable health care.  I’m one of them!  Why is it that the left thinks that doing something, even if it’s horrible like the current 2,700 page monstrosity, is better than nothing?

Why is it that the right thinks that because the left wants to do something they should do nothing and pretend there’s no problem?

These people don’t make sense!  There are real problems that need real solutions and, this side of Heaven, we’re not going to see progress made until people stop screaming at each other long enough to sit down and talk about actual solutions.

On Sunday after church Jenn and I got to go camping with some of our best friends in the world, the Percivals.  We had a blast!  We got up to Sequoia National Park Sunday evening around 5:30 giving us just enough light (with the help of our lanterns) to set up our tents and get a fire going.  We had burgers and hot dogs, I made bacon and eggs in the morning and we got to do a lot of playing.

It was very cool to get to use a lot of our new camping gear (courtesy of Jenn’s parents, mostly).  We busted out the propane stove and our camping cookware set complete with pots, pans, cups and plates.  It was fantastic.

The Percivals have 4 kids, 3 of which they brought with them (they left the 1 year old with some friends) and it was very fun to see them running around.  These little girls were cheating death for 2 days climbing rocks, navigating the camp fire (one of them actually stepped in it at one point; she’s ok) and even breaking in their new princess fishing poles.  Needless to say, Snow White is about as good a fisherman (fisherwoman?) as I am, so they didn’t catch anything.

We had a great time, but lived in fear of getting caught in the rain as that was the prediction.  Fortunately, the weather held off until the last morning and we were already pretty well packed up so that we could make a quick exit.  To our surprise, though, we did not get caught in the rain, but in the snow!

I woke up and quickly scurried out of the tent to take my morning…stroll? and felt little snow flakes falling.  It didn’t stay light for long and soon we driving home in some beautiful, though a bit scary, weather.

Maybe I should’ve sprung for 4 wheel drive on the Escape!

Really?!? Crying bunnies?!? Drowning puppies?!?

Come on environmentalists, is this really the most effective way to get your message across?

Week 2 of Journey was fantastic!

We continue to hear stories of how God is working through this series and, oh by the way, the band sounds fantastic!

Here’s our performance of “Any Way You Want It.”

“Any Way You Want It” from Paul Haugen on Vimeo.

 We’re in the middle of our series called “Journey: Navigating Tough Times” where we’re using the music of Journey to help people find hope in the midst of difficult situations.

I guess Oprah is hip to us, cuz she had the real band on her show the day after we started the series!  Sorry Op! we beat ya!

There is, perhaps, no bigger reason for my lack of blogging in the last 5 months than the birth of my daughter, Gracie.

So as I begin this process again I thought it only fitting to show you some pictures of her and why my attention is focused more on her than on all of you (sorry).

So, you can look forward to seeing pictures of my little rock star whenever you stop by.

Last week we kicked off a new series called Journey: Navigating Tough Times.

We wanted to address all of the difficulties that people are facing right now in a way that brings hope and joy to their lives.

So we’re using the music of Journey to talk through it.

We started with “Don’t Stop Believin’.”Enjoy.

Don’t Stop Believin’ from Paul Haugen on Vimeo.