Celebrating in style

Well, as of this past Monday I am done with college. I had to finish up one more class here in Fresno to be done and I have done it. So after quite an up hill climb, in the words of Jesus, "it is finished" (though He may have meant that in a slightly different context). Anyway, college was something I was not prepared for after high school. I just kind of didn't want to be there and after a couple of years of me not going to class, Cal Poly Pomona didn't want me to be there either. The last chapter of my life, therefore has been about figuring out who I am, becoming a finisher and realizing that if I want to live my life for Christ, I need to take advantage of opportunities like school in order to have greater influence. Anyway, I am (with the exception of a couple of tests) officially a finisher. It feels great to be done and for the first time since I was five, I don't have homework. What a relief. Today, Jenn and I will head up to Sacramento to celebrate with my parents and my sister and brother-in-law. We are going to have dinner tonight in Sac-to and then tomorrow we will head to San Francisco to see Barry Lamar Bonds and the Giants take on the hated Dodgers in the final game of the season. Growing up, I went to Candlestick Park (the Giants old stadium) a lot, but have never been to Pac Bell, err, SBC, err, AT&T Park. I've heard it's amazing and I can't think of a better way to celebrate than to be there. Let's just hope Barry goes yard. Now that would be celebrating in style!

My big debut

Sunday was a big day in my life. I co-lead worship for theHills. It was made equally cool because we did a Crowder song and because it was pledge day. We've been asking people to trust the Lord for an amount that God would have them give to our More than Ready campaign to help prepare us to effectively minister to the thousands of families that'll be moving in to our neighborhood over the next few years. Here are some pics. What a day!

My to-do list

So I was reading Dana's blog and he has a section on there of to-do's. Because I am a giant copycat, I thought it would be cool to maybe get some to-do lists going from all sorts of people. So, I'm posting mine and then you guys can post yours. This will also be a good test to see how many people are actually reading my blog. So this is my list of to-do's. Some big, some small, but all very much mine. What are yours? 1) Become a better guitar player 2) Learn to play the piano 3) Overseas ministry 4) Plant a church 5) Lead worship in front of a crowd of over 5,000 people 6) Coach a little league team (preferably one my kid is on) 7) Record a worship album of original stuff 8) Go to Hawaii 9) Shoot a score of 80 or better in golf 10)Build a studio in the music suite at Clovis Hills

My wife the blogger

The day has finally come. A moment I never dreamed of is here. My wife has joined the blogosphere. By the way, if we want people to stop thinking bloggers are lame, we should come up with a different name than blogosphere. It kinda sounds a little Star Trek convention-ish. Anyway, Jenn is up and running. At this point she only has one post, but we're pretty excited about it. Don't expect too much as you go there as she's still playing around with her sidebar and stuff, so it's under construction, but please feel free to check her out. Make sure you leave a ton of comments to keep her excited about blogging. Oh yeah, tell her Paul sent ya. Check it out!

Meez

So this guy's a lot skinnier than I am and it looks like he's shredding that guitar. All in all, I'm not sure if this looks like me. What do you think?

Bathroom Video

Okay, so I was checking out Carlos Whittaker's blog and thought this was hilarious. I usually try to avoid taking stuff from other blogs, but this was just too good.

More Than Ready Leadership Event

Tonight is a special Leadership service for the More Than Ready campaign. We've been gearing up for pledge day, which is the 24th of September when people will come and give their offering as we trust the Lord to bring in over a million dollars so that we can prepare to minister to the thousands of families that will be moving in all around us over the next 5 to 10 years. Tonight though, is when the leaders of the church (staff, elders and volunteers) will come and bring our offerings. I'm excited about what the Lord's going to do tonight. I'm leading worship and feel like the stage is set for God to do some pretty sweet stuff. Pray for us!

Jesus Camp

So there's been some buzz about this new movie coming out, Jesus Camp. Personally, I'm a little freaked out by it. I'm not talking about just the 8 year olds in Jesus'army or the rolling around on the floor should kids be catching the "Holy Ghost" stuff. I'm mostly freaked out by this one hommie's mullet. Take a look at this trailer and tell me that's not the freakiest mullet you've ever seen.

Funny Shirt of the Week

So it's been a while since I've posted a funny shirt. Partly because I truely love and have gotten great responses from the I gave my word to stop at third shirt. But all good things must come to an end and so in that same borderline inappropriate spirit, I bring you: Gonorrhea: Not as funny as it sounds

A little frustration

I think it would be safe to say that I love this Church. I have been here less than a week, so maybe that's a bit premature, but everything about this place has been great. We had a retreat this past week with the creative arts department and it was awesome. I got to know my team so much better and we laughed a ton. I'm back at the office now, getting the feel for things and as I'm meeting people, doing more of my job and getting ready to lead my first band rehearsal tonight, I am loving this place. Except for one thing. Our office is completely Windows based. PC's on every desk and, while they are mostly new and look nice, they are not the greatest machines in the world. My computer froze three friggin' times this morning! Can you believe that? I got in at 9 and before lunch, I saw message after message from my computer saying, "I'm sorry, I suck and can't do multiple things at once" (that was a paraphrase of the windows error message). Then I went to the music sweet to work on some stuff and the thing takes like 5 minutes to open an application. I'm not talking booting up the machine here, I'm talking I double-click on iTunes (by the way, it's so hard seeing a great program like that having to submit to the will of Bill Gates on these machines) and it takes 5 minutes before it opens! At least the one on my desk is fast. I'm not trying to complain. I know that the cost of switching from PC to Mac would be incredible, not to mention the learning curve involved. As much as I love the idea, I would much rather see those thousands of dollars go to ministry, but seriously; why doesn't this thing just work.

first few days on the job

Well, today was my first Sunday at Clovis Hills. I played guitar, no singing and loved it. We only did three songs, but at the end of the second service I wanted to keep playing. The band is amazing and it was such a cool environment to be in. People were really doing business with God and so being able to see that and help them go to the throne room was a pretty cool thing to be a part of. Here are some pictures. We're in the midst of a campaign called More than Ready where we're asking God to make us more than ready for all of the exciting ministry that is going to happen over the next 10 years as thousands of families move into the area around our church.