We moved to Orange in 2003 and by 2005 the city had a new library. Then in 2006 we moved to Irvine and a new library opened up down the street from us that year. Most recently we moved to Tustin in 2008.
And today, June 19, 2009, a new library just opened in Tustin.

So let us know if you are a City Planner and need a new library? We can move to your city soon.

Friday morning I left for Rosarito, Mexico for Michael Welles’ bachelor party. We spent one night at the McDowell family’s condo down there. We had the best tacos ever at Tacos el Yaqui. It was seriously amazing. Then we hung out down on the beach at La Fonda before eating dinner at the La Fonda Hotel where we shared stories about Michael and what we appreciate about him. Then on Saturday we went and rode ATVs at the Cantamar Dunes. That was really fun and I was surprisingly tired afterwards. So we capped off the weekend hanging out by the pool back at the condo. It was a great time. We are all looking forward to the wedding in two weeks.

Today was church day with the entire church all decorated for VBS like a bayou. It looks legit. Bea has been gone all day today on a girl day with some friends. Now I’m just relaxing after a fun but exhausting weekend.

VBS is tomorrow. Let’s do this.

Well, I skipped Wednesday. Two things were cool about Wednesday. The first was that we had a BBQ at our house for lunch to appreciate John Norton for the last six years of being the elder of Student Ministries at Calvary Church. It was a relaxed and fun time. Then I met with a potential College Pastor who is a SoCal youth pastor that I like a lot. It was great just chatting about life and our hopes and dreams for ministry.

Then Thursday had another similar meeting. I had coffee with a different potential College Pastor who I have a ton of South County connections with and I loved our time together. I was supposed to have lunch with one of my major life mentors which had to get canceled by him – that was a bummer. Then I went and bought a mullet wig for VBS and checked out all the decorations for VBS at church. It’s crazy and outrageous. The entire church is being transformed into a bayou. VBS is seriously the biggest, most legit thing we do in a program/production sense.

We interviewed another High School Associate Director candidate in the afternoon. My brain and heart are seriously getting drained by all these interviews. Hiring is such a big deal to me that I want to make the right decision. Plus, both decisions have multiple good friends who are applying and I HATE the fact that I will have to disappoint some of them. I also emailed “rejection letters” to some folks who applied for the College Pastor position who were just clearly not qualified. It bums me out to do that. I know the feeling of applying and interviewing and the initial news of not getting a job stinks. You know it’s God’s will and all that, but you still feel like the girl you asked to the prom just went with the other guy instead of you.

I like these pics Bea took.

So I think I’m gonna try just journaling my days on my blog just to get me going. We’ll see.

Today is Tuesday or should I say “Meeting Day.” Tuesday is meeting day in my life. But before my meetings I hung out with my family a bit in the morning. It was actually a wildly different morning. My kids usually wake up at 6:00am. Today they slept until 7:15 so I was able to relax on the couch with a cup of coffee and my Bible in peace. We have staff chapel at 8am, Elevation service planning at 9:15am, Strategic Leadership Team meeting at 10:30am. That ends around 12noon.
Today, I was a bit distracted during chapel because I knew we had some interviews in the afternoon that I hadn’t finished preparing for. So I was half reading some resumes/applications and half listening – which I will admit is not good, especially in my role as Exec Pastor of Ministry.

Our Elevation team meeting involves evaluating last week and doing final prep on this coming Sunday. We meet at other times to come up with cool creative elements and things like that. Overall, this past Sunday was great. Solid sermon from Brent, great worship from Victor and the band, and some funny interaction between Doan and Davis during Current Highlights (aka – announcements). We talked about having more Scripture on the screens between songs instead of song titles unless it’s a newer song. We also talked about making sure we explain the Response Stations fully each week even if it feels old. We also are really liking having two people do Current Highlights. It provides some better humor and a light feeling.

Our Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) meeting was good. We have been taking a cue from Andy Stanley and discussing behaviors and systems. We came up with a bunch of behaviors we would want to see from the people of Calvary Church. Then each week we focus on one and discuss what Current Systems we have that HELP, what Current Systems we have that HURT, and what Systems we don’t have yet that we need to start.

The rest of my day started with a quick lunch. Then we had a meeting at 1:00pm for what the promotion plan for LifeGroups will be in August/September. We relaunch LifeGroups every year near the end of September so we push hard for new LifeGroup Leaders in August and then promote the LifeGroups themselves in September. We have an amazing Communications Team and they are easy to work with.

I ran out of that meeting to head to two interviews for our High School Associate Director position that we are looking to fill by the end of summer. Interviews are an interesting exercise. You want to get to know the person but you always know that most people are going to leave the process disappointed. It’s also just a ton of pressure to hire well.

Then I finished the work day with a 4pm meeting with Matt Davis, Chris Gniffke and Trevor Behrns about the VBS Opening and Closing sessions for next week. It’s going to be amazing and INSANE!!

After work I came home and Bea had to leave to hang out with some fellow teacher girlfriends. I had dinner with the girls and then played with legos in the playroom before putting them to bed. After they went down, a friend came over that wanted to discuss some theological questions. It was a great time just discussing our spiritual journeys and some questions that he had.

That was a very full day. But also an amazing day.