Surviving...

Oh man, oh man, what I week I just had.

Two weeks.

Rewind with me to Sunday October 18th, 2009.

Dad's preaching, so that's cool.  I get to sit with my eldest boy in the front row, his head resting on my shoulder as he splits his time between reading and listening.  Three generations of Cantelon men in one spot under the preaching of God's Word.  Pretty cool.

Problem.

It's also my wife's birthday and she's NOT at all happy that, later that afternoon, I'm hopping a plane.

To fly to Las Vegas.

I arrive in Vegas, scout the town, study and write, hit the sack.  Next day I'm out in the blazing sun in the Nevada desert filming all day.  Dust, blazing sunshine, whirling wind.

Survive that.  Hit the town.  Miss the wife.

Fly home all day the next day.

Thursday/Friday/Saturday catch up, study for my shoot upcoming in L.A.  Make it up to my wife. Write a sermon.

Sunday Oct. 25th.  Preach my but off.

Next day, fly to Los Angeles--what--ten or eleven hours in-transit?  Awesome.

Oh--hang on a second--rewind to Friday the 24th.  I can feel myself getting sick, can feel it's going to be a bad one.

Monday, the 26th.  On the plane.  Sick as a DOG.  Eleven hours in-transit on a 100% full flight sitting next my photographer/DP/Director friend who's 6.4 and weighs 250.  Add that to my 6.1 215 and put us in adjoining seats and you can picture how comfortable THAT flight was.

Get to L.A.

Tension brewing.  Typical stuff at this level of the game but no fun all the same.

Wife calls--all four of my kids are getting sick.  Niki's not going to be able to come.

Rewind...

The week before, we'd booked her into L.A for Wed/Thurs/Fri.  She was going to come to see our set, meet our crew, and party with us on the last night as is our custom.  We were booked into two of the hottest Hotels in N. America, she was going to pimp out, chill by the pool, get spoiled.  Couldn't wait.  She hasn't left all four kids EVER.  That's a long ten years folks.

And now, she's not coming.

Weeping (and lots of it) ensues.

Tuesday, 11 interviews.  Tension brewing. So sick I don't even know what end is up.  Fake my way through it.

Wednesday, 11 interviews.  Tension increasing.  So sick I can barely tell what end is up.  Feeling better (much better) than yesterday but still.  

Wife is definitely NOT coming.  Kids are DEFINITELY sick--seriously so.  You can imagine my phone calls at this point.

Thursday, 12 interviews.  Tension hits boiling point.  Feeling much better.  Appetite's back. Wife's resigned to her fate.  Wrap.  Meeting (...) Dinner with our principals and out to dance for a bit (cool club with Macy Gray on open mic) then back to the pool/hot tub.  To bed by 4:30am.

Friday.  Up at 6:30am.  Yes, that's TWO HOURS SLEEP.

Awesome.

Take the house car to the airport.  That was fun.

Hop my flight.  Got a seat open next to me this time.  Close my eyes--sleep straight through for four hours.  Lord only knows who I drooled on.

Cleveland.  Connector flight.  Dissect my sermon.  That goes well.

Car.

Driving home.

11:30pm (14 hours in-transit) kiss the wife.

Sleep.

Saturday.  Stumble around.  Hang with my kids.  Sleep.  Write tomorrow's sermon.  Can't bring myself to double check the powerpoint.

Sunday, Nov 1st.  New screen and projector supposed to work.  Don't.  

Problem:

We don't figure it out 'till ten minutes before we're supposed to start.  End up with incomplete or non-existent power point for the service.  Start 15 minutes late.  You can imagine how that goes over.

Oh, and did I mention that our town is reeling under Swine Flu panic?  No joke.  Attendance is cut in HALF.

Full suckage.

(HOLY FRIGGIN' CRAP I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M BACK TO SQUARE ONE LIKE THIS!!!)

That's how I was feeling anyway.  Did my best to preach through it.

Felt like the bad old days when I was nineteen and just starting out and had no idea what I was doing.

Balls.

Sunday night.  Want to quit.

Monday.  Still want to quit.

Today, get the screen and projector working.  Finally.  Looks awesome.  As I'm sitting there with my worship leader watching the thing work for real I start getting excited, imagine it being re-installed in our final building someday with room for a thousand.

Alright.  We can do this.

Back to it.  Just tallied the attendance for our first eight weeks at THE WELL.  Figured I let you know how things are looking so you can see how humbling and nascent this aspect of my career is right about now.

Average attendance over the first eight weeks: 47/wk

Average giving over the first eight weeks: $645/wk

Hilarious right?

What's really funny is, those are pretty good numbers as far as Church plants go.  We were hoping to be averaging 60 people and $600/wk by December so we're pretty close to on-track. Also, if you look at things from the inside perspective, we've got a good group of people with us (6 or 7 solid families) and--with the exception of some worried looks last week, and fair enough I was worried too--they seem pretty 'into things' and have started showing tangible support.

We have every reason to be hopeful.

Plus, we got a nice shiny sign (up top) and a SMOKING hot screen.

Looking good.

(come see for yourself this week)

So far.

SDG

T