• Swell Season

    The Swell Season, House of Blues San Diego, August 17th 2010

    Yesterday held one of those sweet, unexpected moments of marriage awesomeness. (Get your mind out of the gutter) We came home completely exhausted but having really enjoyed ourselves. (Again, what’s with the gutter thoughts? Knock it off!)

    It all started with an early morning check of Twitter. I had gotten a direct message from a youth worker buddy from New Mexico. It was pretty random, actually. “You live in San Diego, right? Want to see Swell Season tonight?”

    I’m not going to lie. I was confused. I was confused why a guy from New Mexico wanted to know if I wanted to see a concert. I mean, I like music… but I don’t know this guy like that. And the truth was that I wasn’t sure who Swell Season was. Was it a cheesy Christian band I’ve never heard of? The name rung a bell but I wasn’t sure where I knew the band name from and I kind of feared that they were the opener for Hawk Nelson or something.

    A couple of direct messages more and I had the story. Aaron and Heather had come to town to see Swell Season, the band from the movie Once. Yeah, one of the most romantic movies that wasn’t a chick flick I’ve ever seen. And Glen Hansgard and Markéta Irglová delivered my favorite Academy Awards moment ever with their acceptance speech for Best Original Song in 2008.

    Seriously, I just watched that video again and it still makes me cry. Freaking awesome, right?

    OK, back to earth.

    I sent Kristen a quick email. Just sent the link and said, “Do you want to go?” She responded back with a very romantic “YES” and the date was on.

    We met up with Aaron and Heather from their hotel and went over to El Indio for a taco. It was fun to get to hang with Aaron outside of the context of NYWC and to meet Heather. I’ve  got this corny little saying that you can’t really know a person until you meet their spouse. So now I feel like I got to know Aaron in a whole new light and that was cool. The guys talked youth ministry and church shop while the ladies talked about… well, I have no idea because Aaron and I were talking about youth ministry and church stuff!

    From there, we went over to the House of Blues. It’s a great venue which provides a real sense of intimacy between the artist and the audience. The opening act was pretty fun. But he was an opener and I can’t remember his name. (Isn’t that the job of an opener?)

    That guy played his set and then there was a little break where we chatted some more. Then, the main act came up.

    I don’t know really how to describe Swell Season live. I’d heard that they were really fun live and that’s totally true. Hansgard is super savvy at working an audience. He gets them to see along sweetly to his tunes. And the interplay between himself and Markéta is over-the-top romantic.

    They are ridiculously wonderful live. You get lost in their harmonies. They take you on a ride into long and slow ballads only to be lifted out of that pit with a fun song. And, of course, the whole time you are left to wonder… “Are they together?” and “I wonder if this would be a good song to play on the streets of Dublin busking?”

    The show ended late. We drove Aaron and Heather back to their hotel. And we made it home right before both of us fell into a deep sleep.

    A swell night with some new friends and The Swell Season.

  • What motivates people?

    Some stuff to chew on, right? How does this correlate to church leadership?

    We spend a lot of time talking about ownership. But I don’t hear a lot of talk about autonomy.

    Ultimately, church is just a closed system.

  • 4 Types of Youth Ministry Teachers

    Teaching is a core competency for youth ministry. If you’re going to make it… you had better be an above average communicator of God’s Word. Titus 1:9 gives a simple description of a ministry overseer that is tough to escape:

    “He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.”

    As I chat with professional, full-time youth workers around the country I think I can categorize most of them into basic 4 categories. Forgive the generalizations. It’s not clean and I think people hop in and out of different categories at different parts of the school year and their life cycle in ministry. I think I’ve been all of these at various times in my life.

    4 Types of Youth Ministry Teachers

    1. The artist: These people consider their teaching a craft. In their eyes, their lessons are as much art as a photographer, an architect, or a ballet dancer. They spend countless hours lost in crafting their teaching series, messages, etc. These folks look down on those who buy resources. Though, they may buy stuff occasionally for inspiration.
    2. The time manager: These people understand and were maybe once “the artist.” But they don’t have time for that anymore. They look at their role as a teacher a task and they want to prepare quickly. They are always on the look-out for a quick idea. They love ministry resources, video curriculum, and have a mantra that if they spend a little money on a resource that they’ll spend more time with students and less time preparing lessons.
    3. Copycats: These folks are always looking for someone else’s idea. It’s all equal in the Jesus economy, right? They listen in 6-8 sermons a week to glean ideas… not be taught, they love free downloads and hunt them, and they are always trying to take something someone else did and tweak it for their own use. They may not have many of their own ideas in play, but they’ll also be the first people to label their ministry as “very creative.“
    4. Processors: These youth workers believe that their teaching will be better when they work through the content as a team. So they draft concepts and have a team of friends/volunteers look at it. By the time a lesson is taught, it has gone through 4-5 levels of revision. These people love their process.

    Here’s the kicker. I don’t think any of them are necessarily better or worse than the others. I think they all have a place. And I think each category can lead you to be a better-than-average communicator of biblical truth to adolescents.

    Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter that much which process you use. It matters far more that the message/teaching/lesson is delivered in a way it is absorbed than it is how the message/teaching/lesson was produced.

  • San Diego Beauty

    Last night our community group went to Ocean Beach to enjoy a bonfire.

    Fire, stories, sunset, hotdogs, and s’mores. Dang. Such a cool time.

    It’s nights like that when you have to pinch yourself and laugh a little as you fall asleep.

    I’m thankful for where I live. And I’m thankful for the friends I’ve made.

    Time to write a cheesy Christian song, isn’t it?

  • Nehemiah vs. The American Church

    Photo by Nick Chill via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    I love the audacity great faith brings.

    It’s idealistic. It’s over-the-top. It’s incomprehensibly arrogant simplicity. It’s stupid fun to be around.

    And that’s why I love my church.

    This little church in the city truly believes they can be instrumental in seeing a new San Diego rise up to be an amazing place to live.

    Right now, we’re in a sermon series on the book of Nehemiah.

    As I read the narrative I can’t get past step one.

    Step one of rebuilding your city? Chapter 1… lay on your face and be honest in confessing to God.

    O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. Nehemiah 1:5-7

    What I love about Nehemiah and its message to the church is obvious… it’s not about your church, people. The purpose of the church isn’t to build a little empire. It’s to bring life to a dead and dying city. It’s to see the gospel bring renewal.

    When I look out over the landscape of church culture I can’t help but see that we’re missing step one.

    We need to deal with our own hearts. And we need to focus on the city and not our fiefdom.

    This next passage absolutely wrecked my view of the local church. At the end, when Jesus comes to judge the church, Revelation 2-3 gives us a glimpse of how he judges the church… it should change how you and I do business.

    v. 1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write”

    v. 8 “To the angel of the church in Smyrna write”

    v. 12 “To the angel of the church in Pergamum write”

    v. 18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write”

    3:1 “To the angel of the church in Sardis write”

    v. 7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write”

    v. 14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write”

    In case you missed it. Jesus isn’t judging the work of a single, local church. He’s judging the work of His body in each city.

    Can I get an Amen?

  • Kristen is Blogging Again

    Yup, Kristen has got her blog going again. I know she plans on talking more about our families shift to an organic lifestyle, gardening, shell hunting, and fun stuff for our kids.

    Kristen was a pretty successful mom-blogger when that fad was hot. She got burnt out with all the free product people sent us to review so I think she’s going to avoid that this time around.

    She and I sat down yesterday  to talk about a new look for her blog… let me know what you think. We were looking to create something fresh, open, and elegant. (Yes, the shell is one she found in a neighborhood in Haiti. Only Kristen could find a shell in a path a mile from the ocean amidst all that garbage!)

  • Irrigation

    We live in sunny Southern California. And while it is amazing to have 300+ days of sunshine per year it comes at a cost. Namely, we live in a coastal desert and have water restrictions.

    Thankfully, we are able to have a vibrant garden by using some smart water techniques.

    Where we are

    Back in January, when we first planted our garden, we bought a basic drip irrigation kit from Drip Depot. This kit came with everything we needed to get started. We had enough of the big tubing to run from our water spikket all the way around our yard. It also included enough of the smaller tubing and fittings to run water directly to every plant.

    Basic Garden Kit from Drip Depot

    This was great at first. But as the occasional showers of February – April came to a screeching halt and things dried up, we quickly found out that we weren’t able to distribute water like we needed to. Some plants were drowning while others were drying out. This was especially evident in our herb area. Everything was dying.

    So with each water cycle I kept an eye on what needed less water and what needed more water. I swapped out dripper and finally found a match for each plant to thrive.

    My next challenge was determining how often to water. I wanted an easy answer that I could program into my life. For some reason 12 minutes has become the magic number. And, in general, I lay down 12 minutes of water every other day. But I also adapt this to the weather conditions. A little hotter, I’ll wait 1.5 days between waterings. A little cooler or especially humid, I’ll go 2.5 days.

    Next steps

    Expansion: We have two more garden areas we’d like to expand to. If we’re able to do those expansions, one I will be able to add onto our existing system while the other is further away and I’d want to larger crops, so it’ll require its own irrigation system. Our neighbor also waters our fruit trees and I’d like to expand our system to be able to do that easier, as well.

    Timers: Our summer vacations revealed a new problem for this new gardening family. I drove 40 minutes each way every other day to water the garden. That hardly seemed “green” to me. So I’m looking at adding some timers to the system to help.

    Rain barrels: We don’t get a lot of rain in San Diego. But when we have our rainy season it’d be awesome to capture some for hand watering over the summer.

    Experiments: We have a few areas of our property that are difficult to get water to. I’d like to try a few ollas there to see how that would work. I have a feeling that it would work especially well for some types of vegetables and not so well for others. But, since we’d be expanding into areas not currently gardened, any yield would be awesome.

    Some pictures of our irrigation in action

  • My most used iPhone apps

    My current homescreen
    click image to see high res version

    I almost never use my iPhone as a phone. Maybe 150 minutes per month. But I use it as a mobile computer constantly.

    To make it to the home screen of my phone an app has to truly be utilitarian. Rather than flipping through pages or searching or digging through folders, a home screen app is something I want easily available.

    The bottom bar

    The are sacred spots. And a non-Apple app has yet to get there. Texting, email, camera, music. These are my most used items.

    The home screen, all app are free

    Phone – I leave it on the homepage so that it still feels like a phone. But for a left-handed guy this is the worst spot on the home screen.

    App store – I’ll admit it. I check the app store a lot. I like to get updates, what can I say?

    Calendar – That thing runs my life. It synchs my work calendar and my Google calendar together. I don’t know how it works, but it is magical.

    Twitter – I’m still bitter that I paid a few bucks for Tweetie 2 and then Twitter bought it and made it free. But this is, by far, the best and most stable Twitter app I’ve used. It’s a lot faster on iPhone 4. Which helps because I check Twitter several times per hour.

    Facebook – I like the app almost as much as I like the web version. The app is solid. I just wish I could do more page admin functions.

    Settings – I’m always playing with settings. Turning a notification on or off. Or, more likely, helping someone figure out their settings.

    Maps – I use Google maps a lot. Why? Because I suck with directions.

    Safari – Yeah, this thing has a web browser. Crazy, I know!

    Google reader – I like to keep up on the blogosphere. For time managements sake I often look at Google reader while I’m on the train or in transit from point A to point B. I wish it had a simple “save to Delicious” plug-in. One day.

    Mint – Mint tracks all of my families personal finances. This app and the service itself just keeps getting better.

    Evernote – Any time I think of something that I am afraid I’ll lose, I jot it down in Evernote. Blog posts, shopping items, to-do list, product ideas, things to say, and the early alpha of any idea… all get put in Evernote. Once I synch the notes from my phone to the cloud, I can then get that same note in the desktop app for my Mac. Love it!

    Clock – I set timers for myself constantly. I know, I’m weird.

    New York Times – I love the Times and I love their app. I use a bunch of news apps that I keep in a folder. But the Times has earned its spot on my homepage.

    MailChimp – Are you kidding me? Mailchimp is my right leg. It has quickly become one of my most valuable tools as a social media guy. They’ve got another app coming out soon that just might replace this app… or maybe the Chimp will have two coveted spots?

    Photos – I like to take pictures and videos with my phone. So keeping this app handy is practical.

    Dropbox – When I work on my laptop, most of my valuable documents get stored in Dropbox. Dropbox is a cloud-based (free) application that allows me to have my important files on my computer, on my phone, and in the cloud… available whenever I need them, however I need them.

    What about paid apps?

    It might look like I don’t buy apps. I do. I just haven’t found a paid app that could replace these that are currently on my home screen. I like to keep the home screen full of utilities. So things move around based on what I’m doing in life. Traveling a lot? Tripit is going to sneak up there. Football season starts? I’m going to guess the Notre Dame app will be back on the home screen. You get the idea.

    What are apps that you use that I should give a try?

  • Watermelon

    We’ve been impatiently watching this watermelon grow in the yard. Since we’re new to this we don’t know if it is normal or not, but each plant is only growing one fruit at a time. Another will flower and get to about an inch long before dying. I wonder if that’s some sort of selection process of if the plant knows it can only support one fruit at a time?

  • Date night with the kids

    Kristen hosted a girls night for the ladies of our community group. So Paul, Megan, and I disappeared and went to see Toy Story 3.

    One thing I haven’t adjusted to about Southern California living is how expensive the movies are. I still grimace at paying $11.50 for an adult and $8.50 for a child when in Michigan it was a whole lot less. And a lot of the major theaters don’t even have matinees! Seriously, what is up with that?

    To express my inner-cheapskate, we went to Rite-Aid in our neighborhood and bought movie snacks to eat on the way to Fashion Valley Mall. By the time we got to the movies we were hopped up on sugar and ready for the flick.

    As for the movie– it was great. I don’t know how they managed to keep both the Toy Story (and Shrek) franchises going so strong. The plots and the quality of animation just keeps getting better.

    I don’t think the movie was the point of the night any more than loading everyone up on sugar. It was just nice to get a few hours to relax and laugh with my kids.

    I relish that.

    In other news. A new round of college guys are moving in across the street. With school at SDSU about to kick off another year, people watching is back!