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Wow…how did a month go by since my last post? It’s amazing how quickly time goes as I get older! I’m going to set a goal of posting once a week, even if it is something short, just to get into the habit of sharing my thoughts, ideas, questions, musings, and memories. Each of us on the Coastland team is or will be blogging regularly, so look forward to continued thoughts on that topic.
Our Easter celebration at Coastland was awesome! A bunch of people came out, more than we normally have on a Sunday (something very uncommon for church plants), and God definitely showed up big time. We were able to give our Easter offering to an Ethiopian church in downtown Tampa. Leaders from the church were there to accept the offering, and we’ll be partnering with them in the future, to help them focus outward in reaching the 3,000 Ethiopians living in Tampa. I found out yesterday that our offering was 10x what they normally receive, so that should be a huge boost for them to be able to serve their city even more!
I’ve been staying quite busy in a number of different areas with Coastland, but mostly with the media aspect of the church. I’m slowly but surely learning Final Cut Pro 6, and will soon dive into the latest version of Motion. I shoot and edit all of our videos right now, most of which are interviews or man-on-the-street, but I definitely want to branch into more creative ventures that will come alongside the weekly message. You can check out the videos at Vimeo.
Another big project that is almost ready to be launched is a redesign of the Coastland website. We’ve teamed up with my good friend Mark over at AntistaticDesign to build us a custom site running on ExpressionEngine. I hope to have that live in the next few weeks.
Outside of work, I’ve gotten into mountain biking, thanks for my friend Eric. Right down the road from where I live is Alafia State Park, which has some of the best MTB trails in the state of Florida! I’m riding a Redline Monocog 29er, which is more or less an oversized BMX bike: single speed, no shocks, lightweight design, and those monster 29″ tires to roll over anything in my path.
The first time I went I hooked up with another group of guys and ended up following them down some seriously difficult trails, one rated a black diamond. They couldn’t believe I went down them my first time out because I was riding so well AND that I was riding a bike as “hardcore” as the one I was on. I’ll be honest…I felt pretty cool. I still have to check out the 3 other nearby locations that have trails, something I’m really looking forward to.
Keywords: life church planting
