Gas prices in California

As I was driving home last night from meeting with the church (by the way, it's about 80 miles...one way), I ran out of gas and was forced to fuel up in the desert--right around Morongo. For the cheap 87 grade, I paid $3.97!! I couldn't believe I was doing it, but I needed the gas to get home. I only fueled up with what I needed...something like $10 or less, but it felt like a total rip-off. Sucks paying this much for gas. Must be one of the prices we pay for living in SoCal. Gotta love it!!

Andy Stanley @ Exponential

I wasn't able to go to the Exponential Conference in Orlando, FL this year, but thankfully, some that do go, blog on it and post their notes. Scott Hodge posted some notes on vision based on Andy Stanley's talk over there.

Making Vision Stick

1. State it simply
2. Cast it convincingly
3. Repeat it regularly
4. Celebrate it consistently
5. Embrace it personally

For a little more exhaustive view of Scott's notes, check it out here. Mark Batterson also posted his notes on his blog, which you can check out here. I really wish I could've gone, but it wasn't possible this year. I do wanna check out the NOC at San Diego in November, though.

Anyway, as far as vision, it's easy to overlook the repetition of it so as not to overwhelm or bore people, but how necessary it is. Right now, I'm dealing with Andy's first 2 points as we're still in the initial stages of the replant.

Changes

Today will be the last day (other than Sunday) that we will be meeting at the place we call "church" on Thursdays. We'll be meeting in homes starting next week and begin laying some more groundwork with the core group. Eventually, I'd like to begin small groups--as soon as June--and begin being more aggressive in reaching our community.

Meeting in homes, coffee shops, restaurants, etc. tends to foster a much more real environment and helps most put their church-guard down. Plus, it will help foster community as we connect people with God and each other. I'm looking for several materials that will help us put together a culture-appropriate curriculum for our small group meetings as well as going with the mission and DNA of the replant.

There are many other changes that need to occur, but my tendency is to be more subtle and cautious. Who knows? I just may have to dive into the deep end.

...still wrestling with this...

I'm baaack

It feels like it's been forever since I've been on the blogosphere. Gotta take an occasional hiatus once in a while to get caught up on other life stuff.

Anyway, life has been good lately, despite the curve balls that are thrown once in a while. Life with the church is moving. There's a lot of change and re-positioning coming up, and I believe that people are starting to feel it. Thankfully, most are on board and willing to press forward...exciting times.

This past Sunday was great. Some of the newer converts and I had some meaningful conversation. It's great to see people open to God's "reconstruction" of their lives. As Jonathan Martin of Renovatus puts it, we are definitely a church for people under renovation as well, and it's great to see God doing his thing and people allowing him to do so.

We had been having a mid-week service, but we're moving it into a home. This will be a pre-cursor to starting small groups. Man, I can't wait! I'm a huge small group fan.

Anyway, it's good to be back on the blogosphere. Hopefully I won't be as sporadic as I've been in the past month.

Busy or Productive?

How easy it is to get caught up in being busy all the time, and somewhat losing sight of the bare essentials...even when you know it's happening, but you still do it anyway. It certainly takes courage and guts to actually cut out those things that keep you busy and not productive. Being busy all the time is not the best feeling in the world and many times does not accomplish much.

John Maxwell is right in recommending that we make a list of the important, urgent, unimportant, etc. things in life. He obviously uses other terms than what I'm using, but the principle is the same. I may have to go back and reread some of that material and re-apply it to my life.

Do you have to cut "stuff" out of your life to be less busy and more productive?

Sunday Recap

Today was an awesome day! We seemed to have worked a lot more like a team today, and it just felt good. We were expecting a lot more new people, but the upside is that two people made decisions for Christ today. Man, I was stoked!

The kids got to go on an egg hunt while I was speaking, and we had a grill-out on the same field after the morning gathering. We had a great time talking, laughing, playing, etc. Although I was pretty tired by the end of the day, today was definitely like filling up on church/pastor fuel.

By the way, I got sunburned a bit 'cause we have perfect weather in SoCal!

Roadtrip

This past weekend, I got to travel to Tucson with 7 others in a rental to a leadership summit held there. Upon entering Phoenix, the highway bottle-necked and everyone braked pretty hard, including the driver of our van. However, the guy behind us did not brake in time and rear-ended us causing our driver to lose control. He was able to avoid the line of cars that had come to a complete halt and somehow avoided hitting the rail on the median (we were on a bridge at that point). We finally stopped on the median grass--after the bridge--with minor injuries to one person only.
Turns out that we had clipped a car in traffic as well. As far as the guy who hit us, he disappeared. Thankfully, somebody who had witnessed the accident collected a bit of information about this person's vehicle.

Looking back, it could have been a lot worse, and I am so thankful God protected us. Interestingly enough, all of us on the trip grew closer together, despite being sooo different. On our way back home, we actually laughed at some of the stuff that had happened on the trip. Good memories were created...