Well, it's good to be back in good ol' San Diego! To the left is a picture of Crystal Pier, an icon in PB. It's one of my favorite places and one of the first beaches I took my kids to when we first arrived back. God has blessed us with typical March San Diego weather, plenty of warmth and sunshine. It's nice to have tanned feet again.

In our 21 years of marriage, we have had three distinct phases so far. The first 4 or so years was finishing college for Kelley, doing youth ministry at Del Cerro Baptist Church and laying the foundation in our marriage. We left a very comfortable situation there to attend seminary up in Marin County and start a new life. God blessed us with 4 amazing years there and once again, we left a very comfortable situation for the unknown when we came back to San Diego to start a church. God was very gracious to us in that he allowed Coastlands Church to exist for over 13 years from core team development to the end.

Now we are in phase 4, returning to San Diego and ready to start something new once again. We are excited about buying another home here in San Diego, stoked that we made some cash on the sale of our home last Fall and way-stoked that just like 8 years ago, we are once again in a great place to buy a house. We've got a decent amount of money to put down and housing prices in San Diego are certainly good for buyers.

Please pray with us that God will open the right doors as we look to him for my next pastoring job and a nice house so we can resettle somewhere here in San Diego.

What's it worth?

Kelley and I watched a great movie tonight, "Flash of Genius." It tells the story of Dr. Robert Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent wiper. It's a fascinating story of one man's quest/obsession to prove to Ford Motor Co. and the world that he truly was the inventor of this product. If you've seen the movie, you know how it ends. I won't give that away here. I would love to hear from any of you who have seen it though. It's a classic story of "gaining the whole world, yet losing your soul." (Mark 8:36) In the process of fighting for what really was rightly his, he lost his marriage.

It's a great movie because it makes you think about fighting for what is legally and rightfully yours, but at what cost?It's moral victory for Dr. Kearns in the end, but a sad scene when his wife walks away. I feel for the guy because it's great to see the little guy take down the giants (Dr. Kearns vs. Ford Motor Co.) but sad to see his family suffer. To me, it comes full circle to the wisdom of God's word on the value of our families above our jobs. Any time I see a movie where someone "sells their soul" for gain, it makes me dig deep and remember the greatest blessings God has given me, a personal relationship with Him and a beautiful wife and 5 amazing children.

The great Northwest

I'm a firm believer that you need to make the most of every day and every situation. For as long as we're here in Washington, we are trying to do that. We took some great photos of all the crazy snow we had here and now I've got these great pics from the hike we took a few weeks ago with my sister. I'm still not quite sure where we were, somewhere about an hour out of Bremerton, past Seabeck along the Hood Canal? Regardless, it was Washington at it's finest, sunny, clear and near the water and mountains.

Bishop of what?

Now that all the excitement has (somewhat) calmed down from the inauguration, it's interesting to see just how "tolerant" Obama was with his invites for those who prayed and spoke at the big event. Diversity seemed to be the key word on Tuesday. As with most politicians, Obama did his best to please everyone (always a mistake) by inviting opposing clergy such as Rick Warren and Bishop V Gene Robinson. I find it interesting in the debates of gays vs. not gays just how intolerant and angry most gays are with those who are not gay and don't openly accept and condone that lifestyle.

Rick Warren applauded the President-elect this week for inviting the openly gay Episcopal Bishop V Gene Robinson to pray at the inaugural opening ceremony. “President-elect Obama has again demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground,” Warren said in a statement. “I applaud his desire to be the president of every citizen.”

Yet Robinson gave what seems to be a typical response to Warren's invitation to pray at the inaugural event: Robinson was among the critics, calling the Warren invitation a “slap in the face”, according to The Washington Post. If those who are gay are all about "tolerance" and "diversity" why can't their response be a little more positive when someone who doesn't share their view is asked to pray or speak?

Yet to me, as a pastor myself, this is where the Bishop Robinson issue gets weird. In preparation for the event, the bishop said he has read inaugural prayers throughout history and was “horrified” at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were”, according to the New York Times. For his prayer, Robinson said he is “very clear” that it “will not be a Christian prayer, and I won’t be quoting Scriptures or anything like that”. “The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer,” he said.
Robinson said he might make the prayer out to “the God of our many understandings”.

I'm thinking at this point that he may want to opt out of the Christian faith. Maybe he needs to be Bishop of his own religion. It's like he sort of wants to still be affiliated with Christianity by being an Episcopal Bishop, yet doesn't want to do anything crazy like say a Christian prayer at the inauguration. Brother, pick a side. And we wonder why so many non-Christians want nothing to do with our faith. I can't blame them for being confused.

And kudos to Rick Warren for accepting the invitation to pray and doing such a good job on Tuesday.

This Washington weather is kinda crazy! These last few days we've been teased by the sun. I left the house this morning with my boys in the midst of thick fog and arrived home at 5pm in even thicker fog.

However, the reason we left the house this morning was to go on a hike with my sister Cindy, her husband Dave, my niece Stephanie and their dog Rascal. We hiked somewhere up near Hood Canal. Once we got there the sun was actually out and we had a blast. Not only that we hiked to a beach! A Washington beach, but a beach none the less. The whole hike/experience was absolutely beautiful. These sunny days really show off Washington's beauty.

I took a bunch of great photos on my sisters camera so once she emails the pics to me, I'll post some here. We are enjoying our time with family here and soaking in every opportunity we can. Even though our time here in Wa. will be shorter then I had originally planned on, we're doing our best to enjoy the extreme weather change from San Diego.

A night away

Thanks to the generosity of my parents, and sister, Kelley and I got a night away to celebrate our 21st anniversary. I'm so blessed to have such a great wife like Kelley. She is the love of my life and fantastic mother to our 5 wonderful children. I am a man blessed beyond measure and am daily grateful for God's goodness in my life. Here's a few pics of the killer room we got at less then full price 'cause the girl at the front desk was way-cool.

A different Christmas

It's actually a bit comical if you contrast these pictures with our family photo at the top. We took that picture back in October in Mission Beach in San Diego. Now here we are dealing with Northwest weather. This is the first Christmas in a way-long time that we've had snow, that is actually lived in it. The first pictures of our house are nice snow. That was when the snow was fun. Now it's melting and pretty messy. Notice the picture with the pool toys scattered in the snow. Don't really need those here. The top right photo is our street which was tricky to navigate for awhile. The bottom photos are pics of family gatherings at Christmas. That's my immediate family, proud of 'em and a big reason we moved up here. The bottom left photo shows our 30 + gathering on Christmas day. The only photo I couldn't manage to upload is the classic family photo standing around the snowman. I managed to save that picture onto the internal card of my camera and can't find the cord yet! Any ways, just wanted to let you all see how things are going up here. Much love to you all!