A Minor Confession

So I am sure my blog reader population has decreased due to a lack of recent activity. I must make a minor confession and clarify that it is not an excuse or an attempt at an excuse only an explanation! :-) I have been more busy in the last 2 weeks than maybe any other season of my life. I am working harder and longer hours than any time before. God is giving me and my family lots of grace to get through this season but it is very tough. Starting a new church requires a ton of time and it is not for the faint of heart. I do know that I have the opportunity to influence people's lives through my blog and I am lagging in my lack of maximizing this opportunity. Please keep us in your prayers as we lead up to Easter Sunday at South Bay Church. We are praying for over 400 people at our first Easter. Will you join us in prayer for this? in addition we are doing a community wide easter egg hunt on the Saturday before Easter- April 11. Please keep this in your prayers as we get ready to impact our community in significant ways through this event and Easter. All of this will be on the South Bay website next week. I can't wait to give all the info. Thanks for your prayers!

Mid Week Reflections

So I am about halfway through my week. Actually I only have one more work day and then I take Friday as a rest day and time with family. I have been working a ton this week on all of our Easter outreach, message series preparation and our easter egg hunt we will do in the Live Oak park. I am so excited about that weekend and all that God is going to do. Please keep us in your prayers as we prepare for this. We are praying that God would bless us with over 400 people on Easter Sunday. This would be such a huge win for us as a church!

Secondly, I have been working on my message for Sunday titled, "It's All or Nothing." I don't want to reveal too much because of suspense factor. Let's just say i think that this message of all the messages I've given since the beginning of our journey is deep within my heart. It is the message that I am most excited about giving and the message that I think has the most power and potential to radically change people's live. All I am going to say is that anyone who is not there is going to seriously miss out.

I can't wait until Sunday! God is going to seriously show up in our midst this week!!!

Unleashed

Tomorrow at South Bay Church we start a brand new message series titled "Unleashed!" We are going to talk about what it means to live our lives at full capacity and unleash the potential God has placed inside of us. Below is a short intro video. I am really excited about this series and believe it is going to be a huge inspiration and encouragement to a ton of people. I hope you'll join us tomorrow @ 10:30am for the kick off of Unleashed. Go to our website for directions.

Unleashed! from South Bay Church on Vimeo.

Mistakes

In the last ten days we've had a lot of quirky mistakes on our staff... typos on things that should have been proofed, emails that should not have been forwarded, conversations that should have been handled differently, and this week has been especially bad for me. I've done some dumb things that make me want to kick myself. For example I was helping lead a small bike ride this morning with our city. Stacie told me about 2 weeks ago that I should check my bike that I haven't rode on for almost a year, just to make sure it didn't need a tune up. I ignored her advice. Sure enough last night I went out to check on my bike and realized that it needed to be fixed. Who could fix it and have it ready by the morning? No one! So I took it to a shop that could rent me a bike. So in rush hour traffic last night I rushed to the bike store only to get there 3 minutes before they closed for a new bike. I parked on the street in heavy traffic and tried to unload and reload bikes with traffic whizzing by at 50 mph. As I was leaving and putting the bike in I scraped the upholstery in the car and completely jacked it up. Finally when I arrived this morning the city had rented bikes for participants and I could have totally asked the coordinator to have a bike I could ride as well. In the end the bike ride ended up being canceled because the participants did not show up. I felt bad for the people who organized the event. :-) Well, that has kind of been the way this week has gone for me. I woke up Monday with a horrible headache and had to get a week's worth of work done in one day before heading out of town for a staff retreat on Tuesday and Wednesday. I tried to take Thursday off, but because I was so behind due to staff retreat I ended up having to work. In addition I went to a play in SF on Wednesday night with Stacie and only got 5 and half hours of sleep that night. What a week. All of this to say, when you are tired and your life is out of balance it is common to make small mistakes that you would not otherwise make.

There are several basic reflections on this week:
* I need to really analyze well the flow of my week, especially when I add things like traveling or 2 day retreats. I need to make sure that I do these things at the very best time when i don't have as much on my plate.
* I greatly need more administrative help with my day to day routines.
* I make needless mistakes when I am not getting enough sleep or resting.
* When I prepare and think in advance I prevent needless tyranny of the urgent situations.
* I need to proofread things more by reading out loud.
* I should not put things in email that could be misinterpreted.
* It is important to understand that we are not perfect and everyone makes mistakes. Especially when the train is moving very quickly. Grace is very needed in relationships and on a team.
* When we make mistakes it reminds us that God is bigger than those mistakes and there is no one in scripture who was fruitful that didn't make mistakes aside from Jesus!
* I love working with our staff because our hearts beat together and we don't take ourselves too seriously but we all take God and his call on our lives very seriously.

We learn together and continue to press on! Thank you Jesus that you are perfect in all your ways and that you want my "yes" and you give grace when I miss the mark. With your help I will become the leader you've created me to be. Glad that you are the one I serve and I am reminded that you are the perfect boss who gives grace to his employees!