Filed under: Extraordinary Life | Tags: books, leadership, life, travel, vacation, work
I get to go on a pastor’s retreat to Hume Lake this week. I’ve never been there before, but I hear it’s extraordinary. I read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team-A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni this past week in preparation as we’re going through that material together as a staff while there. I’m also planning on reading Andy Stanley’s Visioneering, alongside the Book of Nehemiah, while sitting somewhere near the spot in the picture above. I hope it really is a retreat and not just four days of busyness. I could really use some peace and quiet – some space to reflect, renew and refocus.
Filed under: Ordinary Life | Tags: blog, entertainment, Football, travel
Finally found a few moments to catch up after a very busy week. The trip to Vegas was interesting. The GodBlogCon conference was underwhelming in terms of production, creativity, content and insight. Ironically, the overall geekiness and self-absorbed tendencies along with the ever present delusions of grandeur of personal blogging that were on display almost made me want to quit blogging forever. A couple real standouts that were really good were the sessions with Andrew Jones of Tall Skinny Kiwi and John Mark Reynolds at The Scriptorium Daily. Mark Joseph was interesting as well. You can listen to their podcasts here.
Of course, the best part of the whole weekend was hanging out with old friends and meeting some new people. I really liked Tim’s advice, “What’s really important about each session isn’t so much what’s being said up front – it’s who I sit down next to and meet.” While that’s great advice, it’s also one of the harder things for me to do. I’m a total closet introvert. I often try and pretend like I’m friendly and sociable and even gregarious. Really, I’d just assume stick to the familiarity and comfortableness and safety of people I already know and trust. I’m glad though that I met some truly engaging and even fascinating people like Dave Bruno at guynameddave.com and Brett McCracken at stillsearching.wordpress.com just to point out a couple.
Some highlights of things outside of the conference included Football Central at the Hilton with eight games at once on a GIANT screen, the $5 pizza deal at the Silverton, the fountains and garden at the Bellagio and best of all – Red Rocks. On the way out on Monday, got to drive out with Michael to Red Rocks National Conservation Area and also got to walk through the Red Rocks Resort. If you’re ever out in Vegas, take the time to get away from the glitz and trash of the strip and visit an area like this that is truly extraordinary. I’m always looking for cool things to do in Vegas that won’t get me into trouble and won’t make me spend a lot of money. Let me know if you have anything that fits that bill…
Filed under: Ordinary Life | Tags: blog, Calvary, church, leadership, production, travel, work
This week has been really full. I’ve been at work until way past usual almost every day. There has been a lot to get done and there never seems to be enough time to do it all.
Looking back over the last few days, I can see some big things checked off a still growing to-do list. I finished most of the design work for our big fall outreach at Calvary called Light the Night. Went to the LifeGroup leader training – still not sure if I want to be a leader, but I’m at least still interested in it. Had a 6 hour long, off-campus planning day for our new series on Nehemiah. I think this could be one of the best series we’ve ever gone through as a church. I hope all the good ideas translate into real moments of inspiration and life change for the people who attend each week.
I was also invited to my first ever church elder meeting to participate in the presentation of our campus development plan. It went amazingly well. I was personally so encouraged that night by both our elder chairman and our architect, who at different times gave me compliments and affirmation that meant more to me than they could imagine. I think I really needed that sort of encouragement in the middle of this insanely full week.
To top it off, I leave before the sun comes up tomorrow for a conference called GodBlogCon in Vegas, which is dubbed as “a gathering of Christians to advance the kingdom through blogging and internet technologies.” I’m hoping to get some new ideas and insights into how I can use the web for more than I am now. I’m also really looking forward to just hanging out with the other guys I’m going with – Jason Loftis, Tim McMahan and Michael Welles (who needs to start a blog about all of his world travels).
The only big downside is that I’ll be out of town Sunday, so I’ll miss this Sunday’s services (which I think should be extraordinary) as well as the LifeGroup leader vision rally that afternoon (which could be amazing as well).
Sometimes, there just seems to be too much good stuff to fit into a very limited amount of time. Time really is one of our most precious resources. I pray that I can be a good steward of what time I do have.
While the weekend started pretty well with the Counting Crows concert, it ended up being a bit of a bummer. UCLA lost huge. Last week against Tennessee they showed some sign of being legit. This week against BYU they showed signs of being a joke. One of my fellow Calvary pastors, Matt Doan, wrote a great post about UCLA football here. Then, I watched the Chargers melt down and lose in the closing seconds (due in large part to 2 terrible calls by the refs).
Sandwiched in between those two horrible games was a pretty good Sunday morning. We heard from a special guest speaker, Bob Vernon. He was the assistant chief of police for the LAPD and now runs the Pointman Leadership Institute. Overall, he just had great stories and mixed into them some good insights on leadership. Also, lunch with friends after church and dinner with the fam later that night were both really good.
Later that night, Calvary hosted it’s first (and I’m predicting last) Comedy Show. The format is best described as a live skit show with video roll-ins and a live band. I went home that night and watched the season premiere of Saturday Night Live on TiVo. I guess the two shows really do have a lot in common – both are almost 2 hours long and only manage to produce about 20 minutes of decent material. I’ve always thought I have a good sense of humor, but maybe I’m turning into a grumpy old man. Apparently Eric thought it was alright. I’m looking forward to what others on staff have to say about it. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for good, clean humor after two of my favorite teams lost…
Filed under: Extraordinary Life | Tags: Calvary, church, concerts, friends, life, work
This week I had three distinct moments that blew me away.
On Wednesday, I went over to Saddleback Church with Michael Welles to check out their new student center, dubbed The Refinery. This thing had a big Wow Factor. It’s 40,000 sq feet with 2 state-of-the-art auditoriums, indoor basketball courts, outdoor skate park, baptism area with waterfall, and 2 restaurant areas. It’s completely themed out. Every square inch is thoughtfully and creatively designed to communicate part of their larger vision.
The kicker – it cost around $20 million dollars. I think that as long as real life transformation is occuring and this place acts as a catalyst for growth in student’s lives, then it’s a good thing right? Is it excess spent at entertaining ourselves and blessing the already blessed? Or, is it creativity, excellence and relevance that speaks the truth and love of God above the rest of the competing noise in our OC culture? Is this an essential way to reach these students, who almost in spite of their prosperity, so desperately need the simple message that Jesus came to offer?
Then on Thursday, we got to go as a Calvary staff for a day away to a little demo park they’ve set up on the old El Toro Marine Base. Someday, this will be the site of the Great Park. For now, it’s a little patch of grass and trees next to a stinky mulch pile with a stage set up for weekend concerts. We loaded up onto two sweet, Woodie-style tour buses that a couple from Calvary operate (Brooke and her husband Tom).
The Wow Factor came from the giant orange balloon that takes you 400 feet up in the air. We used this as an opportunity to think about how we’re reaching Orange County as a church and to pray for our community and our nation on 9/11. On a side note – I had two revelations that day – we have an amazing staff and I’m pretty good at boccie ball.
Finally, Leslie and I got to go out last night with my brother and his wife to see Augustana, The Counting Crows and Maroon 5 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (aka Irvine Meadows).
The real Wow Factor moment came when The Counting Crows asked Augustana back ot the stage to join them for a mid-concert encore before Maroon 5 came out. It was a giant jam band that sounded so good together. At one point, during Rain King, I had chills running up my arms. It was such a cool moment of the night. After that, Maroon 5 had a really hard time keeping the crowd engaged as they kept referring to being “back in Los Angeles,” which is an obvious gaff when you’re in the middle of Orange County. They just seemed a little lame compared to the genuinely amazing moments that Adam Duritz created on stage. From now on, when someone asks me “who is your favorite band?” – I’m including the Counting Crows.
What people, places or events in your life have wowed you lately? What things have made the ordinary into something extraordinary?
So, Victor over at his blog thewonderfulnoise.com wrote about what distracts him in worship and referenced the video below. What’s amazing is that it was produced in 2007 and the production value is really pretty good. It’s also apparently from some sort of cult, so that explains a lot.
That lead me to this video, which is one of the coolest/funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. The moves, the lyrics, the tune – all awesome.
I’m thinking we should start incorporating some of these moves into our worship time at Calvary. What do you think?
Filed under: Ordinary Life | Tags: communications, leadership, production, work
“A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” — author unknown
This snarky, yet timeless, quote has been rattling around in my head for the past couple weeks. There are just so many things going on at Calvary and every single little thing is somebody’s really, really big thing. I’m doing my best to keep perspective and roll with the unexpected waves of neediness. I really am.
So, even while that quote is the perfect excuse to just let their “really, really big thing” that has to get done “right now” just slide until me ( and my amazingly talented team) can get to it - I don’t always think that’s the right thing to do.
My prayer is that I can have the wisdom, empathy and patience to deal with all of the last minute emergencies in a way that is God-honoring. And, to also have love and grace in dealing with everyone, in spite of their planning abilities.
Filed under: Finding God in the Ordinary | Tags: business, Calvary, communications, marketing
I did a video shoot last Friday with Chad Ashton for a new program starting at Calvary called Fusion Leaders. They are going to have monthly breakfasts for business leaders in our community. The first meeting is coming up in October, where their guest speaker will be former assistant police chief for the LAPD – Bob Vernon. Along with each month’s invited guest speaker, they also want to feature a video testimony of a prominent business leader who has effectively “fused” their Christian faith with their business life.
So, Chad and I hit the road last week to shoot two of these video testimonies that could also be used as a promo for their small group time facilitators. The first location was Custom Comfort Mattresses in Anaheim Hills. We got there at 6:30 in the morning to film B-roll of the start of their production run. We got really cool footage of each step in production and were ready to do the interviews at about 7:15 in their main showroom. We filmed the company’s president/owner as well the COO, who had prior experience working in youth ministry. They were both great guys and we got some really great stuff.
We then drove over to Long Beach to the main Farmers and Merchants Bank. The building just recently underwent a total renovation and it showed. We were able to film on the main bank floor and even inside the main vault. All of that was incredible. The testimony interview was with the bank’s president since 1979, Ken Walker. His family has owned the bank since 1907. His story of God’s faithfulness and the bank’s stability through the Great Depression and the current mortgage crisis alike was fascinating. However, I’m not sure how much of it translated well on video. In fact, we must have rolled over an hour of tape for what needs to be about a 3 minute piece, trying to get something that was easily useable.
While the mattress guys were fairly ordinary as far as business stories go – their video was so easy to edit because they gave great, consise sound bites. In contrast, the entire bank story was far and away the bigger and more extraordinary story, but there were no clear or useable points to grab. It will take a lot of extra work to pull something cohesive together, or it may get left on the cutting room floor.
The whole thing was a good reminder for me about how the message is really only as good as the medium being used to communicate it. What an awesome responsibility we have when telling the good news of God’s story to a world that so desperately needs it. We have got to keep it clear and concise and never let it become boring, or even worse, unuseable.
I got up early today to watch the UCLA/Tennessee game on TiVo. It was such a great game with lead changes throughout, a last minute drive by each team that pushed the game into overtime, all ending with a Bruins win! They were outmatched across the board in regards to talent on the field against the no. 18 ranked Vols. The big difference between this year and last is obvious. It’s their newly formed coaching squad of Neuheisel, Chow and Walker that seems to have this team playing above expectations.
Then again, I’m not sure they are nearly good enough to match the hype created by the ad featuring Rick Neuheisel that was run in both the Register and the Times last week.
I’m sure there were some very enthusiastic marketing people at UCLA who knew this would create a lot of buzz in a town that has been dominated by the Trojans for years. Is an ad like this, that captures so much attention, a good thing regardless of how their season goes? Is it okay to hype something without any real substance behind it?
Filed under: Ordinary Life | Tags: church, fitness, Leslie, sports, wedding, work
This weekend was humid and I don’t think I stopped sweating the entire time.
It all started with the Angel Game on Friday night. We just sat there in the nosebleed section sweating for like 3 hours. It was a great game, but I definitely needed a shower by the time I got home.
Then on Saturday morning, I helped my friend J-Lo move. They’ve had almost all of their earthly possessions packed up in a storage unit in Hawaiian Gardens. There is nothing remotely Hawaiian, or at all Gardenish about that place. It’s mostly just hot. But, moving everything with a bunch of really cool people made for a fun morning. A decent workout and a free lunch were both an added bonus.
Saturday night Leslie and I went to a wedding. It was one of the most beautiful weddings I’ve been to since our wedding three years ago. But, again it was just really hot. I didn’t stop sweating the entire night. At one point, I wound up sitting across from an NFL hall-of-fame lineman who is also a very funny man. Needless to say, he’s still a pretty big guy and he was sweating, too.
The next morning we had a big combined service. With many people really involved helping with the wedding the night before, it seemed like there were a lot of things left undone that had to be pulled back together at the last minute. That created frustration and more sweating. The service wound up being really good, but I get to have some follow up conversations this week about what surrounded the service. I didn’t have the best reaction to some of the distractions that morning, and I want to make sure we’re all on the same page going forward.
Then, to top it all off – while I was at work today, Leslie was grocery shopping and came out to find her car had a flat tire. For the first time all weekend I decided to just not sweat it. I’m completely capable of changing a tire. But, we have AAA for a reason. I let them put the spare on while I stood in the shade and kept my cool.
The long, hot weekend ended with laps across a pool, lounging in the shade, eating some delicious food and watching “What About Bob?” – the best Labor Day movie ever. The week ahead looks really full. I hope I can keep my cool through it all.
