Apomo

The State Child Care inspector gave us the all clear and issued our license today. Cool. She said there were no changes or additions required and that everything looked good. Very nice. What a relief. I wasn’t at all worried but at least now that’s behind me. Still gotta finish a handful of projects of being licensed really helps and now we can get on the list for a couple of referral agencies.

I have almost 7000 comments in my moderation file. All those porn and drug sites. I wonder when the file will blow up?

We had our second board meeting last night. It went well. About half as long as last time and we mowed through quite a bit of stuff. I was pretty happy with the flow. I facilitate the meetings since I’m the Head Board Member so I tried to keep everything on topic which I think helped it move quicker than last time. We got alot done. I think we probably made about 15 decisions last night and we’re pretty close to having the By-Laws where we want them and will prob adopt them at next week’s meeting.

Went and saw the barn last night. It wasn’t as finished as I imagined it to be but it was still very nice. I think it would work. It was more rustic than I imagined and the renovation is still underway although I think most of it will be complete by the time we get there. The only downside is that it’s out in the country a little bit. But I think that if we pitch it as temporary and talk about how it’s free but that we’ll be actively looking for another place in the meantime that people will come out there. It’s such a cool place that people will want to come because of how it works so well w/our ancient/future style. Even the drive out there is nice as it’s in the middle of vineyards and the road is straight and has large oaks overaching the road from either side. It kind of feels like some scenic route. We didn’t vote on it but the board pretty much had a consensus at this point that we’d go there. We’re probably going to have a church BBQ out there to get everybody out there to check it out.

Man, it’s been so busy around here. Still working on the house getting everything ready for the daycare. Interviewing prospective clients almost every day trying to get our roster up to capacity. Our State inspection is on Wednesday. If all goes well we’ll be licensed on Wed.

Also been writing papers for my class. I have a total of 5 one page papers, a 10 page paper, a 30 page paper, and a research survey of have 10 people to complete for the class. Over the last 3-4 days I’ve completed 3 of the one page reports, 9 pages of the 10 page and 7 pages of the 30 page one. I hope to have everything completed by the end of the week.

Having my laptop is a real blessing in this regard. I can just login and do stuff basically wherever and however I want. It was especially helpful in school on Thurs night as I was able to take the best notes I’ve EVER taken in a class. I type WAY faster than I can write so I get better notes. This computer will pay itself in spades once I start school full-time.

Good news on the Sanx front. A very wealthy family in our area heard of our plight regarding a place to hold our worship services and they offered us a facility for no charge. It’s an old horse barn on one of their properties that they’ve recently renovated and converted into a like new event center for weddings and stuff like that. It’s out in the vineyards and has a nice pond outside and plenty of space for parking. Everything is new and renovated, including the bathrooms. Russ says it has beautiful stained and stamped concrete floors, finished walls and all that stuff, but it also has the exposed wood beams and stuff that gives is coolness. 300 chairs too. So it has the combination of ambience and functionality we need. They refused to take payment as they’re Baptist and want to bless our church. They suggested we use the pond for baptisms. I told Rustin he’d have to get a camel haired baptismal robe and we’d call him Russ the Baptist. haha.

The only real downside is the that it’s about 20 miles from where we currently meet so people would have to drive a little to get there. We all come from all over the county so that’s not such a big deal except for visitors. But, it’s one of those things where it came out of the blue and you don’t really want to look a God gift horse in the mouth. Plus it saves u $1000 a month which we can use for gear and advertising. We’re having our second board meeting tonight so we’ll talk about it more but chances are we’ll prob go for it.

We had another offer at a really cool warehouse downtown. It’s huge and really, really cool. Old brick building with fenced in parking. It definetely has the ambience that we want. But, our town has such a bad reputation for crime and violence already (one of the worst per captita in the US) and it’s in what our town considers a bad part of town and we’re really concerned it’d scare visitors away. The people we’d be renting from are Christian as well and said we just make an offer for rent and they’d prob accept it so our cost would be minimal. But now that we have the barn offer it’s, on balance, a better location for us.

Another cool thing came up last night. A guy in our church used to do landscaping on the side to make money. Somebody offered him a side job but he doesn’t have time to do it. So he suggested that several of us guys in the church all get together and do the job, he’d supervise, and we could donate the $2500 to the church. He said he made a phone call and can probably get the sod donated for free since it’s a church thing. Cool! What a creative way to raise money. What a great way to help the guys get to know each other too, helping to build community.

Better than that, the ideas are coming from within the group which is really cool. We’ve worked hard to foster a sense of “us” and people are starting to take ownership of the church. That’s way cool.

Just heard the other day that the agency I worked for most recently got bought out by a mammoth insurance agency from the East coast and the pay structure was completely changed to where you can’t hardly make any money. Also heard that AllState, where I worked just before that pulled the trigger on a moratorium on writing new homeowners policies here in CA. That’s huge bcuz your bread and butter as an agent is your auto and your homeowners. You take one those away and it’s very hard, especially for a new guy. That’s why I didn’t start my own agency. I heard they were going to do that and figured, correctly, it would be disastorous for me as a new agency owner. Looks like God’s hand is on my finances, although my checkbook doesn’t reflect it right now. haha. But he’s protecting me from disaster as I try to follow him. And I’m listening and have the faith to make decisions that seem odd but in the end prove to be correct. That’s an ability a pastor needs to have and I’m learning it. Way cool.

Well, we had our first board meeting for the church last night. I felt it went really well. It was pretty long, about 4 hours, but we covered a ton of ground and made several key decisions. Everybody seemed to gell pretty well in the new group setting and everybody seems to be taking the job seriously and thoughfully. We had some good discussion about the By-Laws I drafted and we made some changes here and there but essentially it remained the same. We’ll probably adopt the By-Laws at our next meeting next Wednesday.

The main church has basically told us to get out of their facility by July 1. Of course they don’t frame it in those terms, but basically they’re kicking us out. Politics and egos. Stupid. But it is what it is and we have to git. We’ve been looking around and our most viable option is the nice dining room adjoining the student union at UOP. We’re prob going to do that.

It looks like we’re going to have the yard sale and ask for the big offering to help raise funds for the transition and to buy some gear.

The next couple of months are going to critical for our church as we raise the funds, set the legal structure in place and move to a new location.

Russ appointed me as the Head Deacon which basically means I run the Board meetings and act as the public spokesman for the Board.

To add to the mix Rustin and I are talking about the possibility of making me the Co-Pastor of the church. We’re not sure really exactly what that means and how that’d work, but I am definitely interested in this and he seems to be positive about it too.

From my point of view it gets us back to what we originally started out doing as far as approaching leadership from a team orientation. To me that idea was such a big part of the idea of our emerging church. Also, I just think it’s the right thing to do considering my investment across the board in the church, that I pushed for so long for it to happen, that I’m so intimately involved with every aspect of the church. In effect, for all intents and purposes, I’m already doing the work of a Co-Pastor so it just seems right that it’s made public and recognized. Part of me wants it for redemption too. But more than that I want it because it’s a new model of leadership that we can help pioneer.

Also, it gives Rustin somebody else who can help take the punches in public and I think it helps diffuse some of the personal issues between him and James since now James isn’t dealing with just Rustin, now he’s dealing with a third person who isn’t involved or connected personally to the problems between him and Russ.

If Russ and I can do this, and I have no doubt that we can, I think it would model to the people the idea of cooperation, partnership, open communication, friendship that is part and parcel of the kind of spiritual community we’re trying to create here. It’s not about a “me” it’s about a “we”, which is the essence of Christian community. No better way to model that than from leadershp core and across the body.

Other than all that I’m just working on getting the daycare set up. I’ve built a couple of walls to section off part of my three car garage into a playroom. I’ve built a couple of other protective walls, installed fencing around my A/C compressors outside the house and today I’ll start building a gate to keep the kids out of the side of the house. Once I get that project done I’ll have all the major stuff done and then it’s just a handful of minor little things. Hopefully we can get inspected and be licensed by the end of next week.

I’ve not been reading much or thinking spiritually too much, at least not in an overt sense. I’ve been indirectly though as I try to think things through in regards to Sanx as well as the material I’m learning in seminary class. I’ve gained a ton of confidence in my calling and ability as a Christian leader as I can honestly say that 95% of what he’s teaching in this class are my strengths and I can see how I come by these traits naturally as a gift from God.  Obviously I wouldn’t go around broadcasting this to everybody, but it’s obvious to me that at least according to the stuff we’re talking about in class I pretty much have a grip on at least the basic principles of Christian leadership. That’s a huge confidence booster for me.

Just got back a little while ago from taking my two boys to see Spiderman 3. It was the first time my 3 yr old has been to the theater so I wasn’t sure what to expect. He did ok. During the drama parts he was somewhat restless, but during the action scenes he was into it. Then he fell asleep about 2/3 the way thru and started snoring.

Go see the movie, it’s worth the effort. It has a really good message about bitterness, revenge, reconciliation, forgiveness, redemption, grace, and putting yourself in the other guys shoes. It even has a Calvary type scene. One of the last scenes ends with a pretty powerful statement by Peter Parker. You’ll have to see it to hear it.

I had to practice this kind of undrestanding and forgiveness about 10  minutes after the movie when I discovered that somebody had stolen my cell phone while I was watching the movie. Damn!

Rustin and I went and looked at possible location for Sanx. It’s at the University of the Pacific. It’s a larger room than we have now and it has a large wood deck attached to it as well complete w/propane grill and patio furniture. The room is used as an executive type dining room during the day so it’s well appointed yet contemporary and it has tables and nice chairs. Seats 100. Just outside the doorway and across the hall is the student union of sorts where they have the cafeteria and coffee house and above us is student dorms where 700 students live in this one building. It’s just one block away from all the frat and sorority houses. Good location and it’d work for what we need. A little pricey at $1000 a month for six hours of use each Sunday. But the upside is that everything is there, it’s very nice, it’s smack dab in the middle of campus life with lots of walk by traffic from the students, and the cafeteria/diner/coffee house place across the hall is open until midnight on Sundays so our people could go hang out there afterwards if we want. Rustin and I figure the extra expense could be factored into being part of our evangelism and “marketing”. It’s our target audience and we’re literally taking the church to their doorstep. We can do a three month lease and maybe stay there six months and keep an eye out for something more permanent w/ 24/7 access somewhere else. We can move in in three weeks which would get us out of the place we’re at now.

I told Rustin that if we do this then we need to raise some money quick in order to get good gear and have a cool set up. It’d be stupid to go into such a prestigous university and such a nice environment and be all cheesy and cheap looking. I suggested having a special meeting of the church, casting the vision for the new locaiton and new gear and asking for special offering from the group. Then after that have a yard sale where everybody brings stuff and we can sell it. I figure that between the two events we could raise $7-10,000.  We could do alot with kind of money.

Was talking to my prof last night at seminary. He was telling me that his denomination sponsors non-denominational church plants and mentors them and gives them grants up to $30,000. He’s the district superintendent and he volunteered the info so I think he’s kind of offering it to us if we’re interested. We’re going to look more into it. It’d be good to have someone of his caliber helping us and advising us. The money wouldn’t be bad either.

I’m totally stoked. I ordered my Apple laptop today. It’ll be here Wednesday. It’s a Workbook, I didn’t get the Workbook Pro. It has a 13.3″ screen, 1.83 Ghz Intel Core Duo 2 processor,  1 GB RAM, 80 GB hardrive, DVD/CD reader/writer, Bluetooth wireless, and all sorts of other stuff. More than enough for what I need. It comes w/the built in camera and mic and all sorts of audio/video software plus the regular office and calendar stuff.

 Now that I’m working at home I can’t ever get on the computer since my wife uses it so much for her Ebay business. Then you add in my 10 year wanting to get on-line and it gets crazy. I figured that w/school, my daycare business, and with Sanxtuary I could justify getting it now.

Now I gotta learn how to use the Mac. Rustin says it’s pretty easy. I hope so.

What a week! My brother showed up as a surprise for a week which was cool. He lives in Maui. We hung out and did some projects around the house for the daycare which was a real help to me. We built a couple of walls in the garage to make part of it a playroom.

Then on Friday I was in the kitchen and when I turned around there was my sister who lives in Cincinnati standing there! I about had a heart attack. I didn’t know what to say! What a surprise. This is the first time in a long time when all three of us siblings have been together. Really cool. We all went to Monterey for the weekend and had a good time there. Did the 17 Mile Drive thing and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We got back yesterday and they both flew out today.

Watched “Blood Diamonds” last night on PPV. Good movie.

Back to the grind. Good news is that we’re getting clients for the daycare and it appears that we’ll be at capacity even before we’re licensed. Way cool.

Looks like I’ll finally get my Mac laptop too. I’m stoked about that.

The situation with Sanx vs. the main church has gone from bad to worse in the last few days. It’s a real shame. I wish there was something I could do to help fix it. But I’m not one of the main players. If I were this would prob be settled.

We’re incorporated now, have our own bank account, got our federal employer ID number, and we have three board members and are waiting on a decision from the fourth. Once we get our fourth we’ll have our first board meeting and work toward ratifying the bylaws so that we can apply for tax-exempt status w/the IRS and the State. Blah, blah, blah.

We’re also looking for a place to rent so that we can move out of the main church’s facility. Hopefully we can find something reasonable that will work for what we want to do. Somebody volunteered a PA system for us to use which is cool. Just need to get a couple of projectors now.

We’ve planned to do our first experiential worship event this Sunday but I’m not sure if we’re ready. Haven’t had much time to talk to Russ since my family was here so unexpectedly.

I have almost 4000 posts waiting to be moderated by me. They’re all porn sites or blackmarket drugs. I’m not sure how to stop that. What a drag.