more signs...

Yes, that would be a new iPhone on my desk.

A new tool for my work.  A new bauble for my workspace.

The reason it's significant is 'cause I'm emphatically NOT a tech-head.  I'm a very late-adopter when it comes to tech and new tech in particular.  The reason?  I tend to prefer to spend my time thinking about story.  Story for screen and story for pulpit.  Any time I don't spend thinking about story I spend thinking about, then working on, ways to get those stories told. Any time I don't spend doing that, I wrestle my kids or chase my wife.

That's my life.

Naturally, all that thinking and action follows my life of devotion to Jesus, my wife and my kids.

So I don't have much time to mess around with unnecessary things.

Like iPhones.

The only reason I went and got it is 1) I missed a call with the William Morris Endeavor agency last week because I got stuck in traffic and had no cell phone. 2) I'm planting a church and people need to be able to reach 'somebody' at the Church and for the first while (two years at least) that somebody is going to be me.

So, cellphone.

"What, you mean all this time, all these years in show business and church planting and you haven't had a cell phone?"

Well, not exactly.  By times over the years I've had months where I've racked up thousands of dollars in cell bills.  That was early on in 'cell world' when it was still prohibitively expensive.  I had a cell glued to my hip all the time and as I got older, and added kids therefore erasing expendable income, I began to ask myself if it was really necessary.

At the first church I planted I had a cell phone and needed it for the first three years.  But in the final two years--when the church started reaching a fairly healthy size--I had other people working with me that could receive calls.  More and more I didn't need--or want--to be reached constantly.

Then, 2006-May 2009 we endured some serious financial strain and the last thing we needed was a cell bill.  So I basically stopped using mine. And from 2000-2009 I was a paper day timer guy.  I still have the hardcopies sitting next to me.

This year, things have started accelerating in strange new ways.  I've had four or five high-level conference calls with Hollywood in the past couple weeks, am working on two very interesting projects right now, while gestating another two, plus (while planting this church) I'm trying to meet with every pastor in my city.  That means, you guessed it, my iCal is getting fuller and fuller.

It's been tough to migrate from paper to digital but I've been slowly doing it.

Since last year I've been talking with my wife about getting an iPhone.  I knew it was inevitable but I really wanted to put it off 'till the last moment.

The past couple weeks my schedule has started getting away from me so it was paper day timer time or digital, no more waffling.

So, I up and got an iPhone.  What's cool about it is my wife loves it.  We used its GPS function to guide us to a new beach on the weekend and I'm re-learning the discipline of tucking it in my pocket before I leave the house.

If THE WELL is going to be your church you can even call me (or better yet, text me, 905.320.2127)

What's most significant about this is the symbolism of it all.  It's yet one more tangible symbol that THE WELL is actually happening and that my life in Hollywood is continuing to progress.

I was saying to Niki (my wife) last night that I feel a strange calmness attached to our life these days.  Sure there's lots of uncertainty and many things to be figured out, processed and acted on, but I feel like there's a momentum that's arrived and that--to some degree--we just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Remember that--in your life also--there will be distinct 'tangible signs of progress' popping up all over.  Be sure not to miss them.  They'll encourage you that you're going somewhere and exhort you to keep going.

You do--after all--have a cell bill coming that you gotta' find a way to pay, no?

T