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’m teaching our How to Grow LifeLab this Wednesday night at Calvary Church. It’s all about wilderness experiences in the sense of spiritual dryness. I think it will be really helpful for people. It’s so easy to give up or get depressed when we don’t “feel God.”

What has been helpful for you when you feel spiritually dry?

What are LifeLabs?
LifeLabs are 4 week, interactive experiences designed to help you learn how to live out the Christian life and the purpose of Calvary Church… to Connect, Grow and Reach.

How To Grow
This is the second class in our Connect, Grow, Reach series that will help you learn what it means to be a growing person and who you are in Christ. You will learn to grow through Bible study, prayer, and other disciplines as well as find some help for when you feel spiritually dry.

Wednesday, May 6 | Week 1
o Am I a Growing Person?
o What is spiritual growth?
o 5 Lies about Spiritual Growth

Wednesday, May 13 | Week 2
o The Problem of Sin in our Growth
o The Role of the Holy Spirit in our Growth
o How to Pray and How to Read the Bible

Wednesday, May 27 | Week 3
o Growing when I feel dry
o Growing when God seems distant
o When growth gets hard

Wednesday, June 3 | Week 4
o Practical steps to spiritual growth
o Ingredients for Closeness with God
o Advanced Spiritual Disciplines

Parables – Mysteries of the Kingdom from Calvary Arts & Media on Vimeo.

I got this from Ryan Walton who blogs at On Beauty’s Road. Perspective is always a good thing.

But that’s not the point of this blog post. The point is that there was a couple in the front stage-right section of the crowd who were fully making out in the middle of my sermon.

That’s right – MAKING OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE OF MY SERMON!!

It was crazy. I looked in their direction at some point and saw something that looked like making out, but I just thought the guy was helping the girl get something out of her eye or something innocent like that. But no, I looked again, and the guy had half his body on top of the girl and was just sucking her face off. It was freaky. I had to just ignore it and keep going. It’s a big room. I couldn’t point it out and I couldn’t look anymore or I would have just died laughing or throw up or something.

I did youth ministry for 15 years and I never had a couple fully french kiss in the middle of my sermon right in the front of the room. At least teenagers would sneak out and make-out in the bushes or something. It was unbelievable.

Matt Doan said that they were visitors and I guess they had a pretty great church experience. It seems like they will probably come back. Does anybody else know anything?

Have you ever had someone make-out in the middle of your sermon?
Calvary Elevation People – what is your version of this story?

I guess I’m glad that people felt comfortable at Calvary who obviously had no previous church experience.

Wow.

I love that we have adopted this physical place in our community. I love that we are starting to reach out more. I had an incredible conversation with a member of our church yesterday about something called SAFE Families that I think will be a perfect opportunity for our church to be Jesus to Santa Ana in some tangible ways that are actually doable for most people. I think this will be big.

Check Biola’s webpage at www.biola.edu and you will see a picture of myself and Matt Davis with our crazy green hair for VBS. If you click on the picture there is a full, professional video of me and Matt and Calvary’s VBS. It’s pretty sweet. You might even see Victor’s mug on the video if you look closely.

We did a funny video of a potential leader being interviewed by me to show that anybody can be a leader. Then today we used that video to show a group starting and had Ross Bennett ride his mountain bike off the stage and then whistle and four other guys ride in on mountain bikes. He says, “You got your Bibles?” They say, “Yeah,” and they ride out of the room. All this was to help show people how groups can be based around an interest.

So all the trainings are finished. Now, this week I need to get everybody’s roster finalized and then the groups can begin. Overwhelming, but exciting.

I was in the Calvary Comedy Show playing a Ryan Seacrest character in a parody of American Idol called American Whiner. The skit was reasonably funny. Tom Stewart was amazing in his role of Canine Man, a contestant who was whining about animal rights until he turned into a dog onstage. He was rubbing his bottom on the ground and even bit my leg as I was closing the skit. I think I did pretty well. I remembered my lines and delivered them in my best Seacrest imitation – ie. in an announcer guy voice that was nothing like Seacrest.

I don’t think I’m too into the whole acting thing. First of all, it takes a lot of time. There were many rehearsals and it’s just not worth it to me to be gone from my family. Secondly, comedy is very difficult. I know that I usually enjoy about half the skits on Saturday Night Live and that’s the Major Leagues of sketch comedy. We are probably like little league to them so some skits were funny and some weren’t. Third, I could tell the other people in the cast were super into it. Like they love it! They loved showing up for rehearsals. They loved being at each show. They loved staying late. They laughed at the the other skits even after seeing them 20 times. When I saw this I realized that it’s just not for me. I just didn’t care as much. I don’t mean that in a weird way like I think I’m more important or something – not at all – I just think that we should do what we are passionate about and this wasn’t it for me.

So the Comedy Show is over and I’m a happy man.

I also want to show people that it’s not something we should get caught up worrying about too much either way. There is an amazing verse that I can’t wait to read today. It’s in Romans 14.

“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”