This is LV reporting from San Diego! (but sad to say that this trip was taken through the air leaving the Vanagon back in Atlanta) I am here spending time with the staff at First Lutheran Church of Vista. Pastor Steve Awbrey (yes, he is pictured wearing a Colorado Buffaloes shirt, awesome!), Cathy Bohman, & Eisha Bohman invited me out for the weekend to speak with their leadership team, host a volleyball camp, help with a Saturday evening outreach, & speak at church Sunday morning. It's been a packed weekend already and an early morning awaits us tomorrow. Yesterday I had lunch with Pastor Steve, Cathy, and Eisha and had a chance to hear more about what is happening at the church and the next steps they are taking. Change is on the horizon for the staff and Pastor Steve is trying to stay ahead of the curve. He is asking the right kind of questions about vision and where they are headed as a leadership team. I was able to share about some of the stories we have been hearing from other churches and what others in similar situations are doing.

How do you leverage the resources you have to impact the community you are serving? Is it a strategy to identify that people that are available and the talents you have and then find a way to use them to do something... anything... for the community? Or, do you identify the greatest needs of your community and simply go after ways to meet them? It seems that the former leaves you with a focus on what you have and a strategy built on what seems possible, given available resources... the latter seems to leave you with a focus on a higher calling and a strategy that is rather impossible without the intercession of God. Steve and the team want the latter, and it's so refreshing to talk with them about how they are going about it!

I have uploaded more pictures from the final days at the Orange Conference AND pictures from our first two days in San Diego - one more day left. It's hard to imagine that some people, many people, call this place home. What's even more difficult to reconcile is why I am not one of them!!! Can we move the Catalyst Offices to Southern California?!

LV on behalf of the Catalyst Road Trip Team
(west coast trip without the Vanagon... l wonder if she will take me back?)

Oceanside Beach - San Diego

This past Thursday we took to the streets of greater Atlanta visiting some of our Catalyst friends and delivering the latest and greatest Catalyst Group Leader Kits. The Catalyst Team has done it again - an amazing experience package designed to equip group leaders to help build vision and excitement for the Catalyst Conference in October - usually delivered in the mail, but not today! We traveled through parts of Lawrenceville, Buford, Gainesville, and Duluth making stops along the way to group leaders that have been a part of the Catalyst Movement - some for many years!

A huge thanks to Kristen Paxson, Bruce Hardy, & Sean Jazdzyk for taking time out of their busy schedules to briefly entertain us and the Catalyst Vanagon - for some reason, the Catalyst Vanagon seems to kill any and all office productivity! We had a lot of fun... check out some of the pictures:

Bruce Hardy & the team from Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, GA

Sean Jazdzyk (far left) from Free Chapel in Gainesville, GA