I’m still working through the questions you sent in, now divided into three stacks. It seems that, for some reason, some of you want to know a few more personal things about me.
Now that I think about it, I guess I don’t write much about my personal life. I think the wider the audience of this blog becomes, the more I assume you don’t care what music I like, what cute thing my kid said, where I went out to eat with my wife… but apparently, someone does. Someone other than my mom, even.

So here are 3 things I’ll bet you didn’t know about me. Unless you really know me.

-I’m pretty anti-social. And I’m getting worse every year. I probably get more nervous going to a social event than I do preaching to thousands. I understand that a lot of pastors are like this. I’m sure some would say that this reflects some deep rooted psychological, emotional, or spiritual flaw…
But honestly, my idea of a night on the town is me and Holly in our house with Prison Break DVDs, or at P.F. Chang’s with a booth way in the back. So I guess I’m trying to say that I’m really very boring.
If you ever meet me personally, I bet you’ll agree.

-I used to play guitar and write a lot of music. I played in front of my entire hometown at a 4th of July festival at the Berkeley High School football stadium when I was 8. The song was Your Mama Don’t Dance and Your Daddy Don’t Rock and Roll and I asked my guitar teacher to let me play that one because Poison covered it, which made it cool. The guitar was a good deal bigger than me. I’ve been fronting bands since I was 14. We wrote punk rock music and covered everything that was on the radio-from Nirvana to Green Day to Hootie and the Blowfish. I learned a lot about leadership by fronting bands, because before I even had my driver’s license I was the lead singer of bands with guys in college.
Plus, the chicks dug it.

-I really think I have a deadly combination of OCD and ADD, and I have no idea how all of the people close to me put up with it. Sometimes before we can start a meeting I have to have certain pictures on the wall or papers on the desk straightened out so I can concentrate. I typically have a sermon and music playing in my office at the same time. Sometimes 2 sermons, one in each of my office areas. As I type this I’m making a to-do list on the side and eating chicken fingers and reviewing the ‘08 Elevation budgets and writing tomorrow’s blog and reading someone else’s blog… maybe yours. And every Sunday backstage I make them put one song on repeat that I listen to for the entire morning. The same song. Every single Sunday.
So there you have it. In addition to being a pastor (or maybe directly related to me being a pastor) I’m a relatively boring ex-rocker semi-basket case.

Thanks for asking.