Got tired of stressing over hard drive space.  So I decided to go ahead and replace the one I had in my macbook pro with one that went a little faster and holds 2x the space.

But, for the first time, I decided to do the repair myself.   Todd gave me some phone advice and a tip that I could find all I needed on ifixit.com and well, he was right!

I have now finished reformatting and transfering all the data I wanted.  1 day and $120 later, I have 320GB of space at 7200 bpm.   So, 3 cheers for a clean slate and a fresh harddrive with lots of real estate.  Now I think I’ll try filling it up with pictures 🙂

Today I turned 37. I spent the day being lazy with my family, shopping at the flea market, eating some lunch and ice cream, drinking too much java, watching my dog play in the waves, and stuff like that….

At lunch, for the first time, my kids asked me if I’d still be a youth pastor when they were in high school. I’ve always feared this transition, wanting my own kids to explore their own faith and OWN IT absent my leadership if they wanted. I’ve seen the “pastors kids” have great experiences. I’ve also seen them have horrible ones. I’m not willing to risk the latter at any cost. Having them beg me to stay is sweet. Some days I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t. Other days I think some subliminal youth pastor time clock will tick off before they get there. TJ is only 2 years away, so the reality is on the horizon. If God lets me stay for all of them to finish high school… I’ll be a 27 year veteran before it’s over, serving here at Journey for 16 years with Becky and Billy graduating in 2021!!!

Regardless, this month is 15 years in ministry. A milestone for me. (Shannon and I will also celebrate 15 years of marriage in June too.)

As I look back on these years, here’s my top 10 learnings…

1. Taking care of myself is not selfish, it is necessary. When I’ve failed to lead myself well, everyone and everything around me feels it.
2. My marriage and family are not my most important ministry, they are my ministry. My ministry flows from my pursuit of Godliness as father and husband. If I fail at those, the rest will fall apart too.
3. Leaders are learners and I have come to believe that there are only 2 ways to learn things: (1) the hard way and (2) from someone who learned it the hardway. The smartest thing I can do in ministry is keep learning- from my own mistakes and especially from the mistakes of others. It is a huge way that I can gain the wisdom to avoid doing or repeating them myself.
4. Never ever ever let bad news surprise your supervisor. When you falter or fail (not if but when), be the first one in line to share and offer a solution. Supervisors hate surprises- especially when there’s bad news inside- and especially when it’s from someone else.
5. More is not more. Deeper is more. I’ll take quality over quantity every day of the week.
6. Facebook might be the greatest gift I’ve ever been given in the effort to keep in touch with and pseudo mentoring old students. Without it, I would never hear from so many. I praise God for facebook.
7. I suck at all things music, I hate managing money, I get distracted by both posessions and pleasing people, and I might be the worst name memorizer in the history of youth pastors. If I get fired- one of these will be why.
8. 75% of a youth pastor’s job is spent reminding everyone what it is we’re trying to do, when we’re doing it, and why it needs to get done.
9. Work smart and hard. The people in ministry that I admire with longevity and a top notch reputation all have a solid work ethic and manage their time wisely- knowing when to take time off and when to work overtime. The longer I’m in ministry, the deeper appreciation I have for both of these character traits.
10. There is no such thing as a relationship short cut. All relationships take time. The ones that mean the most to me also cost me the most. And know this, NOTHING I’ve done of any significance over the last 15 years has been done alone. I owe a ton of volunteers 15 YEARS OF THANKS!

The coming posts this week will have some old school pics from the last 15 years and some memories.

If I can find time, I have a bucket full of old powerhouse flashback videos I need to upload and host on facebook someday. I gotta make that happen 🙂

Grandma and Grandpa arrived in town yesteday morning and we seized the chance as a family to do some bonding after having been gone all weekend in the desert. So we decided to take Becky and Billy for their first taste of one of our favorite family walks that includes lunch, a chance to see the seals, and some great photo ops. As many times as I’ve done this walk, it still doesn’t bore me.

Here’s the photos of our day in La Jolla. So blessed by the family God has allowed me to be a part of and ridiculously lucky to live in such a beautiful place:

Last weekend was my annual trek with our high school guys for a weekend of discussion and bonding about what it means to be a man. After all my years in ministry, I think if I was asked to start cutting things we do, this trip might be the very last to go. I have seen more visible and life-long fruit come from these “man trips” and the flip side of “women’s retreats” that we do than almost anything else. Students decide to follow Jesus for the first time, sins get wrestled to the ground, and the overall temperature of accountability and devotion to live like Jesus rises incrementally everytime we go. For the men, I have done this trip a few times in the snow and even on houseboats, but for the last 4 years it’s been in the desert.

I never thought I’d say this, cuz I really love streams and trees and places where there are real seasons, but I have come to love the desert for its beautify and inherent value as a place to bond with students and connect with God.

Here’s some pics to prove my point:

And I have come to discover that the desert is awesome cuz sand and rock does not catch on fire. Hence, no matter what we do to the fire… which is a lot of stuff we don’t talk about on blogs :)…. it cannot cause much damage. But it’s awesome nonetheless.

In all the years I’ve been doing this trip, this year had some firsts too.

• This year was the first time that I’ve invited a “speaker”. In all the previous years, it was always just the men of our ministry talking with the young men of our group. This year I invited a friend of mine, Mark Campbell, to come and share with our group. It was a great time. So stoked my students got to hear Mark’s heart and rub shoulders with a great friend and brother to me.

• We also, for the first time, invited some of our students to lead us in music. It was great to be able to worship God in song this year…. something that for whatever reason, has been absent from our man trips. I expect it will be a permanent fixture now. So blessed by the way our students sought God this weekend.

• We have always tried to see this trip as a “rite of passage” of sorts into manhood. This year Mark led us into the ancient tradition of a “jewish huppah”. It’s used in a lot of wedding ceremonies, but we used it like a Bar Mitzvah of sorts to allow these young men to intentionally signify a decision to embrace the responsibilities and implications of becoming a Man of God. It was sweet to be able to pray over guys who then took communion and picked up some reminders of their decision. I’m praying the boyhood ways decrease and the manhood ones increase in the lives of these young men. If the church needs anything, it’s men who live like Jesus- servant leaders willing to pay the price of cross-culture thinking and living. Oh God I pray we raise up some of those kinds of men.

• Lastly, we gave every guy a memory/ammo box. They carried them everywhere we went on this trip and we gave them several things to put in this box as a way for them to remember this trip and other memories of where they met with God and things they learned… like maybe even how to shoot a shotgun for the first time. I really think these boxes become a place where these young men store memories of significant life events for them for years to come.

I can’t wait till I can take my own boys into the desert for this transition season into manhood. I treasure the childhood experiences we are having, but I yearn to see them grow up into men who truly “get it” and are men with a solid work ethic, a humble servants heart, and a passion to live out the convictions of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Evidently people in our congregation have too much time on their hands. One of them made this video of some of our pastor team. I’m the sexiest of course.

Somehow Todd found it while he was clubbing and put it on his blog.

So I’ll post it here too for your comic relief.

You can follow almost all these sexy people on their own blogs:

• Ed Noble
• Rod Kaya
• Todd Tolson
• Jason no have one… sad.

If I was Chris or Peter, I’d be so mad that I got left out. I think at least on Peter’s part, it’s clearly racism 🙂