Posts tagged Southern California

So today marks the start of my third week of being an official employee of Coast Hills Community Church (Technically I’ve been working there since about mid-May as Mike’s temp).

I feel like I just need to say this about my job: I FREAKIN’ LOVE IT!!!

I love the people.
I love the location (though I hate the drive, more on that later).
I love the tech.
I love their mission.
I love their passion.
I love their impact.

I really don’t have a single complaint about this place as a church or as my employer.

I really hope that doesn’t change.

Just to be clear, I really do love my job. I have no idea if anybody from Coast Hills will even read this so it's not like I have some ulterior motive here.

I mean there’s a lot of stress that comes along with a job like this: there’s timelines and due dates and projects we’re trying to finish. Right now we’re trying to finish our audio system upgrade and a lighting overhaul. Those are two very big projects.  As time goes on I will probably write some more about the systems we’re installing and some of our successes and failures with them. I still can’t believe the way that God can use me. I guess a big part of it would be that I had to reach a point in my life where I told God that He could do anything with my life that He wanted to… and I meant it.

I guess now is as a good a time as any to explain how I ended up working at Coast Hills with/under Mike Sessler.
<cue wavy flashback lines>

How it all began…

It all started back in 2008 when I was the TD (Tech Director) for a small church in Norco. I had been reading different blogs to try to keep up with the rapidly changing tech in churches. One of the blogs I kept up on was Mike’s blog ChurchTechArts.com. I really liked how he managed to make the really complicated stuff easy to comprehend. In fact, the drum booth that I had constructed at my church was inspired by the one I read about on his blog.

Later I also found out he was a part of the Church Technical Director Roundtable. I had heard of CTDRT through Rob McInteer (the TD at theGrove in Riverside) and decided to join so that I could network with other TDs around the country. It’s a pretty nifty group of guys. I think I am number 56 and there are now over 265 TDs listed. It’s a great place to ask questions or bounce ideas off of people who are smarter than you.

So fast-forward a year or so and it’s sometime in October. Rob has decided to do a CTDRT meet-up at a local restaurant and then invite everyone to head over to theGrove for a tour of the place. I have to admit that I was pretty eager to go and meet these giants of Church Tech. I was even more excited when I found out that Mike was going to be there as well. So I went and I got to meet a lot of really cool guys. I already knew Rob, but I got to meet Van Metschke, Kevin Sanchez and Mike (there were more guys there, these were just the ones I tried to keep in contact with).

Fast-forward again to mid-April of this year. I’m no longer the TD at the small church in Norco and I get an email from Mike completely out of the blue saying he needed some help getting some work done and wanted to know if I was interested. I totally was! Only there was a slight problem: I was up north spending time with my family. I let him know that I was very interested, just that the timing was bad and that if the position was still available when I got back that I would be happy to come help out.

By the middle of May I’m getting ready to come back to Southern California and I sent Mike an email asking if the position was still open. He said it was but that they weren’t quite ready to bring me in yet. You know how they say God’s timing is perfect? It totally is! The day after my flight got in I got a call asking if we could meet up for lunch to talk about me coming to work on a temporary basis. I was stoked!! I hadn’t had a real job in nearly four months. But there was one more problem: I had also just had an interview for an IT job at Kaiser in Los Angeles. I knew I wanted the church job because that’s where I felt I was called. But I didn’t want my personal feelings to get in the way of God’s direction for my life. If he wanted me at Kaiser I would go to Kaiser.

After driving down to beautiful Aliso Viejo and touring the building Mike and I went to lunch and talked about what has been going on in my life and why he needed a temp for three to four weeks. It was a really good conversation and afterward I knew this is what God wanted for me. But once again, I didn’t want my personal ambitions to get in the way. I prayed that God would give me direction and show me the path He wanted me to take. And He did. I got the dreaded rejection letter from Kaiser. Except it wasn’t dreaded. It was the best news I’d heard in a long time! And I kid-you-not, I got an email from Mike less than six minutes later saying that he had gotten everything approved by brass and I could come in and start working for him. Yeah, it gave me chills. I had a job! Sure it was temporary, but it was a job!

I knew going into it that I was only going to be there for three to four weeks. So after the fourth weekend there Mike and I again go out to lunch. He tells me how great it’s been having me around to help him out and scratch stuff off the to-do list. I tell him I’ve had a blast getting to know the rest of the team and learning all that I could. Then he drops the “but”. He says the church doesn’t have the budget to keep me on any longer. Then he drops another “but”. The guy that had been running the monitor console for them was moving and they needed someone to fill in. Me. Win! So even though I would only be working on the weekends I would still be a part of his team and still have an income. Win again!

When the time came to hire the new Associate TD (or Assistant to the Technical Director as he says), I was in a perfect position. I already knew the team. I felt that I had proven my ability to work well with them and that I could learn anything that I needed to. But most importantly, I had the heart and passion to serve there. I know Mike interviewed several other guys for the position. And I’ll admit that I had an unfair advantage over them. But even so, I was still the “safe” bet. I have no idea what stress Mike had to go through to finally decide who he would hire. I can’t imagine it was all that easy. But I am glad it was me!

I still remember the email I got. I opened it as quickly as I could and frantically scanned for either “good news” or “I’m sorry”. Either way would be an answer. Thank God “I’m sorry” wasn’t in there!! He said he had made his decision and that I would start on Wednesday, August 18th. Which just so happens to be my birthday (best birthday present ever, btw!).

Now I don't want it to sound like I'm blowing my own horn, but rather to show just how with the way God has wired me I was a perfect fit for this team.

So that’s pretty much it.
Congratulations if you’re still reading this.

Long story short:
I feel super blessed to 1) have a job 2) have a job I love 3) have a job working with some of the best people ever.
Maybe next time I’ll put the “long story short” version at the top.