• Finding a church home: Journey Community Church

    finding a church home: journey community churchSeveral weeks ago I shared that our family would document the church search process. And this past weekend that search continued as we attended Journey Community Church in La Mesa. 

    It’s worth pointing out right away that a ton of people I work with go to Journey and suggested that we check it out. Everyone at work says the same thing, “I love Journey.” With that ringing endorsement… why not visit?

    First impressions: Journey recently bought a shopping center. So their campus is spread around in a typical California shopping center kind of way. (For you midwesterners, this means that its designed like a mall, but the walkways aren’t indoors.)

    As we pulled into the parking lot Kristen told me “if you flash your lights at a parking attendant they’ll know you are a visitor and you can park in the front row.” Apparently, she read that on the website. As soon as she said this I swerved to park back by the student center. Getting out of the car, the kids could tell this didn’t look very much like a church. In fact, Paul said “can we go to a regular church next week?” (Kaleo meets in a movie theater.) So we walked to what looked like the main building and started looking for signs to the kids area. 

    When we got to the lobby we were pointed towards the kids registration area. So far, so good! As we made our way through the maze of hallways we saw lots of pictures of things the church had recently done, I liked that a lot. (Good to know they do stuff today.) The child check-in process was painless enough. After checkin the desk printed some badges for the kids and we were led upstairs to the kids rooms. 

    The kids rooms were well stocked and the staff was clearly well-trained. Our kids were nervous, Paul particularly, and they were fine with us giving them a little extra attention before we headed to the service. 

    From there, Kristen and I made our way to “big church” for the 9:00 AM service. The room has a lot of very comfortable chairs, the room is laid out a lot like a typical conference room. Big sections of seats, bleachers near the back, big stage, and two big screens so people in the back can see. 

    The service. The music was familiar to us. In fact, the order of service was pretty familiar to us as well and we found comfort in that. Couple songs, announcements, shake some hands, couple more songs, offering, song, sermon, song. The music was good, nothing about it really captured my attention strikingly good or bad. If nothing else, the songs were performed fairly closely to how they are recorded. It was clear when we came in that they were trying to do something artistic in the room that day. There were several prayer stations in the auditorium. Let’s see, lighting was good, display of stuff on the screen was good, sound was good. From a technical aspect the only thing that was distracting was that their transitions were pretty rough leaving the service feeling very disconnected from its elements choppy. Plus, the very fact that I was sitting there thinking about the service order, lighting, set design, and transitions should tell you a lot about the service. 

    The message. Clearly the people like the teaching pastor. I found him to be an acquired taste and struggled to pay attention for longer than a minute or two at a time. The people listened intently and followed along on the outline diligently. (Well trained!) About 10 minutes in Kristen leaned over and said what I was thinking, “Can we get something in the middle?” This meant at Kaleo the sermons are so deep that it’s easy to get lost but at Journey it just felt very light. Not knowing the mission of the church its impossible to know if this teaching approach is right for this fellowship and the people they reach, but I’m just being honest in reporting that I didn’t connect with the message or the teaching pastor at all. His message ended with a transition to some prayer stations. It was really clear to me that there was a disconnect between the preparation of the prayer stations (art guy) and the communicator/instruction of the prayer stations. (teaching guy) When the speaker told people to get up and shuffle to the stations I looked at Kristen and just said, “Let’s go!” Yep, we bolted. 

    The church. It was really hard to grasp the heart of Journey in one visit. It’s a big church with a ton of people and a ton of things going on. I know from people who attend that it’s a very loving church and people grow a lot in small groups. In our visit, we didn’t feel the love. (yet) What came across to Kristen and I is that Journey is a programmatic church. You can see that in the kiosks and the endless bulletin. Now, there is nothing wrong with a programmatic church where there is something for everyone. Certainly, a lot of churches operate this way and are successful in reaching people. But not having been to one in a long time… it was a shock to the system! I kept thinking… where in the world would we start?

    Kids ministry. Our kids were happy. They told us all about the reward system of verse memory. They told us about the game. They showed us their crafts. They talked about how nice the teachers were. They told us they sang songs, but couldn’t remember what the songs were. Paul didn’t like the puppets but did like a guy dressed like an astronaut or something like that. (Did this really happen?) But when we asked them what they learned about God they looked blankly at us and said “I don’t know.” This is our families normal routine as we talk about what they learned in church… they are really good about telling us what they learned. But for some reason the lesson didn’t stick and 10 minutes after leaving they couldn’t remember. But they did get a nice goodie bag and were very entertained by that. 

    Overall. Let’s just say that I’m glad our process requires a second visit as we feel it’s not right to judge a ministry based on a single visit. Likewise, we know from our friends who a involved that this is a great community to be a part of. Yet, judging from Sunday services alone you can tell where this review would lead a decision for us. Let’s hope on our second visit we’ll get to meet a few people and get better connected to the heart of Journey. 

    A HUGE upside to Journey is that I know they have a rocking student ministry. Since we don’t have kids in that age bracket I didn’t get to see that in action. I’ve been in the middle school room, met the middle school pastor, and met a few of her volunteer staff… so when push comes to shove, I’m a youth ministry dude and having a great youth ministry is going to trump a lot of other stuff.

  • Wow, just wow

    kroc center san diegoThat’s how I felt at the gym this morning.

    I made it through the warm-up act of 20 minutes on the cycle just fine. But next came my “silly idea” of jumping in the lap pool and knocking off 5 lengths. First of all, 5 lengths is a stupid goal as it makes no sense to end a session on the wrong end of the pool. At 13 feet deep you can’t exactly skip over to the other side and be done. Second of all, 6 lengths is a long flipping way for someone this out of shape.

    So there I was, 6 lengths of the pool completed and completely humbled. Swimming is hard work! I was sucking some serious wind when it was all over. The truly humbling part, surrounded at both lanes by people in their 60s and 70s kicking my tail. An older lady of about 220 years old passed me twice. I was having visions of Moses and Noah lapping me and laughing at me. Change the world, huh? Better hope there’s world changing power attached to the keyboard. (I swear, Moses said that to me. He’s kind of a jerk for such a quiet guy.)

    But I’m not done. The plan for Kristen and I is to take turns with our mornings at the Kroc Center torturing ourselves.

    And irony is not lost on me that I’m working out at a place named for the founder of McDonald’s.

  • Legal implications to scientific discovery

    By far, one of my favorite shows is Mythbusters. It’s a big reason we need to spend more money to get better cable service. Anyway, watch how Adam answers this question about testing RFID vulnerabilities.

  • My Two Dads

    I love deadpan mistakes. For some reason the commentator just had a brain fart. Chances are, Barack Obama really doesn’t have two dads.

  • First Day of School

    Paul McLane, kindergarten studentIt’s safe to say the kids are jacked up and ready to go for their first day of school. Megan came out of her loft this morning wearing her school uniform and Paul came out of their bedroom carrying his backpack and lunch box.

    It’s quite a change from Amanda Moore in Romeo. First of all, we’re actually closer to school than we were in Romeo. Darnall Charter School is about 2 blocks up the hill. (Yes, we’re so close we know we’ll be late often!)

    Even if the kids aren’t nervous, I am for them. It’s one thing for dad to have this dream that his kids will grow up in an economically and culturally diverse climate. It’s another thing to send them off to it for the first time.

    Megan McLane, 2nd grade studentFor Megan, this is old hat. She loved kindergarten and 1st grade and we have high hopes for second grades challenges. My hope for her is that she’ll meet some girls to connect with right away. No one is complaining, but I can tell the whole family is in need of some friends. (I’ve got built in people to hang with at work.) Every grade she matures I get a little more worried about social pressures to conform. Megan is the type of kid where she is oblivious to most of the bad stuff happening and just focuses on her stuff. She is like her mom in that! Kristen went to a large high school in suburban Philadelphia and swears there weren’t any kids doing drugs or having sex. Megan was born with that same set of blinders… it’s a great thing!

    For Paul, this is brand new! Mom and dad are more nervous for the first day of kindergarten than he is. He’s been correcting me for the last two weeks. I typically call him “little man” since he’s pretty much a smaller version of me. Now I’m supposed to call him “big man” since he is in school. I’m nervous for him since he’s not done super well in Sunday school and we didn’t enroll him in preschool. (Combination of it just being easier to keep him home and we didn’t have the extra money to pay for it.) He’s a lot like his daddy. The actual educational part of school was never a problem for me and I don’t think it will be for Paul. But he was born with my “adamant adam” genes. It all has to do with his connection to his teacher. He met her last week and seemed to really like her. But that will be tested when he hears there are rules and that he’ll have to obey them. I keep saying to myself, “It’ll be fine.” But something tells me that I’ll be a frequent visitor to the principals office.

  • Why do you do it?


    This is associated with something we’re doing called “Youth Worker Appreciation Day.”

    If you’ve got a youth worker in your life, make sure you take a second to thank them on September 6th. This applies to both paid and volunteer youth workers!

  • Photo Post: Padres Game

    I think he’s the 3rd base coach
    3rd Base Coach Talks to a Runner
    Everybody Dance!
    No idea who this is
    Synchronized dusting
    This is the sad part of the picture
    Full of nachos, lemonaide, and cotton candy the boy is out
    Down by 5, not sure the urgency

  • Interview with World’s Fastest Man

  • Where are all the Christian Single Men? Part 2

    real menI’m still thinking about this. And typically I don’t carry on like this. But there were so many good comments that, in my mind, this deserved a follow up post rather than endless comments.

    Dave Tucker (that’s my father-in-law everyone else) brings up an interesting wrinkle to this. Technically, in the US there are more baby boys born than girls… slightly. I wonder if it is safe to assume that slightly more boys die in childhood and adolescence since boys like to jump off things and work on more farms and stuff. But, by and large, roughly the same amount of boys and girls make it to an age where they should be looking for a spouse.

    That still leaves a mighty problem though.     I’ve got 20-30 single women in my life who are looking for a Christian man. Preferably, one with a job, doesn’t live with mommy, showers more than once per week, and is more interested in holding onto them than an XBox 360 controller.

    Dave Luke brought up a good idea, maybe these women should expatriate for their 20’s to meet a nice NorIrish boy. Since most women I know love an Irish accent this isn’t a bad idea. And all that stuff about Irish men being drunkards, violent to their spouses, and a few other stereotypes is just plain untrue.
    (At least in the Christian community in Northern Ireland.) The problem with that idea is that it’s pretty difficult to get a visa into the United Kingdom with “looking for a man” as the reason for moving over there. Plus, the standard of living over there is so high they’d have to get married there and then immediately move to Michigan where it is cheap enough to live. (And we know NorIrish can’t say “Michigan.”

    So, single women in my life looking for a nice Christian man to date and maybe one day enjoy Song of Solomon benefits… I have 3 bits of sage advice for you.

    se-xbox shirtSage advice #1 Think about wearing game controllers. Either wear it as an accessory, or keep one in your purse. Occasionally taking it out, making eye contact with a cute Christian man, and hiding it again will send the message. Thanks to Sara for this advice. Get your se-xbox gear here.

    Sage advice #2 Go to Bible college, Christian college, or anywhere else that harbors young men in an environment where video games aren’t allowed. This way you have them trapped. They will naturally follow their God-designed ways to seek after you when these “pseudo-women” have been removed. If college is too long or expensive, get a job at a Christian camp. They lock away men there too with no video games. But don’t get confused, while prisons do have men locked away without video games those men typically aren’t eligible for parole for a while.

    Sage advice #3 Be Blunt. Let’s face it, most men are not that bright when it comes to figuring out woman-folk. In fact, that may be why guys like video games so much… they can figure it out. And if they can’t… they have the ability to make it stop until they have the energy to try again. So if you find a “humanous male-ocous Christiani” just let him know… pay attention to me, love me, treat me right, and I’ll be better than your best friend forever.

    Christian Women Aren’t to Blame for the Shortage!

    I just thought I’d put that out there as something obvious. It’s not that the Christian women in my life caused this problem. And I don’t think it’s a cultural thing we should just get used to. I think, as Adam R mentioned in his comment… guys need to be taught how to be men. And that means that the men in my life (including myself) need to make sure we continue to mentor young men past high school and into college. We need to force them to grow up. We need to help their parents see that babying them hurts everyone. We need to tell their moms that their boys aren’t their husbands… that their role is to raise a man, not substitute a husband. (This is a large problem, in my opinion.) We need to teach dads that their role is to raise a man, not get them into college so they can act like a boy 4 more years.

    And we need to remind men over and over again that they will be irresistible to women when they take care of themselves, fall madly in love with Jesus, live on their own, make their own money, and treat women with respect.

    On second thought, it’s just easier to move to Northern Ireland.