2009 - A look back

What an incredible year 2009 has been. I can honestly say that, outside of our first year as a church, we have experienced more incredible moments filled with God that it truly renders me speechless.

The spiritual growth, the impassioned servant hood, and the awesome favor of God led us all year.

The year started out with a teaching a series called "Disciple". A four-week series that challenged the average or nominal Christian to be all that God had intended them to be. As a result of that challenge many pressed in to God like never before and the fruit was nothing more than extraordinary.

The first week of February we started our series on the book of Genesis. We spent 48 weeks in this book and covered pretty much the whole thing verse by verse. Some of the highlights of the year include:

- We talked about circumcision on Mother's Day
- we talked about homosexuality
- we discussed adultery and lust and incest
- We saw Abraham leave the comfort of UR and pilgrimage to the unknown land of Canaan directed only by God himself
- We challenged men to be manly and not womanly by following hard after their Savior Jesus Christ
- we had an incredible marriage conference that exploded and strengthened marriages across the church
- we held youth events and ski trips and conferences that encouraged us to be more as we pressed in to our calling
- we saw our Kids on the move double in size as incredible leadership was put in place
- Our life groups grew to a staggering number, a number many thought would never be possible in a church like ours (we used to be an "event", now we are a "family")
- we added two services, 8:00 AM and 6:30 PM
- We published and produced a movement live CD and the results have been amazing as people all over are excited to hear new music come out of our church.
- We even considered expanding our reach into Temecula, only to have God remind us that what he was doing in San Marcos was the main priority.
- We granted a new campaign "I love my wife, I love my husband, I love my family" and place the slogan on T-shirts. The result? Sales went through the roof!
- We volunteered in the city of San Marcos and pledged to give away 5000 hours of community service.
- We redesigned the Canvas Café, and now are putting live music and broadcasting services available as an overflow or more comfortable seating those that want it.
- our harvest festival was each remanded success and our largest attendance ever in the community.
- We pray in faith knew that God would financially stabilize our church even in a economic downturn and God came through with flying colors! we closed 2009 100% debt free!!!
- and most importantly, we saw over 400 people give their lives to Jesus Christ in 2009.

None of this would be possible without the incredible hand of God and His leadership in our lives. He cares more about his church than I or any of us will ever care. He died for it, lived for it, and will return for it! the church is the bride of Christ and will forever worship him throughout eternity.

I think God that I have the opportunity to pastor this wonderful church and I can't wait to see what he has in store for 2010. My guess? It's going to be nothing short of awesome.

Here's to 2009 and Godspeed 2010.

Mammoth 2009

So we decided that at the last second we were going to go on a semi-vacation. Mind you, this was not something that we had previously planned nor were expecting but always anticipating when we were going to get to the mountain as a family. You see, the McGinty clan absolutely loves going snowboarding. It is something that we have done as a family for our little mini vacations since the kids were four years old. I grew up loving going to the mountains as a young boy.

My earliest recollections of going to the mountains was when I was around 9 years old and my parents took me to Wrightwood California. I started skiing when I was pretty young and I the first time that I went on the little skiing trip with my friend Marco Ruiz when I was in 7th grade. I already gone once with my parents and I really like the feeling of the snow and the free feeling of being able to go as fast as you can have your eyes water as you fly through the mountains on a pair of long skinny planks.

I remember one of my mom's friends was a pretty crazy person in that she was very high profile and seemed to enjoy a lot of expensive things. As a young boy, I was always attracted to the appearance of what seemed to look like fun. They had PAC-MAN and BATTLEZONE arcade games in their house kinda like Ricky Schroeder from Silver Spoons. Glamour, glitz, and fashion ruled the roost. So, you can imagine there wasn't much shock when we all went skiing and she comes out of the RV camper with these huge fuzzy brown boots, looking like two stumpy legs from Chewbacca walking along the icy, wet asphalt writ with black and charcoal gray snow in what looked like a black lake surrounded by snow.

Ah, memories.

It didn't take me long to figure out that I really enjoyed skiing. Fast forward to my youth filled with fun trips, and a love for going to high-altitude places to enjoy a sport I really loved. I remember thinking to myself that one of the most wonderful things that a person could do would be to have a family and take them on snowboard or ski trips to have memories that will always be savored.

You want vintage 80's? I remember the days in 1988 when my friends and I were the only people on the mountain with a snowboard attached to our legs. Out of 2000 skiers we were the only two that were fastened, sideways, to our board. We would go up to little mountains in Southern California called Mt. Kratka, Waterman or Baldy and enjoy the snow for six dollars on a student pass. Back then, the only snowboarding to be found was in SoCal resorts like Snow Summit. Even then, it was a highly limited sport with people mostly doing carving and trying to avoid the double-plank joyriders known as skiers. The animosity was massive and I remember thinking how silly it looked to ski when you could snowboard!

Back then you would be kicked off the mountain and had your ticket taken from you if you did any kind of jumping whatsoever because you might harm other people. I noted to myself that I knew that snowboarding was going to take off because I would literally have person after person on the mountain that day asking us the same question 100 times a day: what is snowboarding like? Our response was always the same, "it's kind of like skating and kind of like surfing but totally not like those all!" We would laugh because we knew that we were enjoying the sport that not many people knew nor had tried to take on. The equipment used back then was raw and rudimentary but it was so much fun because it felt like you were skating or surfing, like we said, on the mountain.

I was a pretty good skier at the time I did a lot of things on those two planks and I really enjoyed the sport. But one snowboarding took hold of me I knew that I was going to do it forever because of the so much fun and so much freedom.

Fast forward to 2009, my children are both 14 and 12. Together, they have been snowboarding 17 seasons out of a possible 26. Pretty good ratio for a snow lunatic like me. One year, during my first year of college, I remember snowboarding 39 times in one season. Sadly, I know that I wanted more. That was the last true year of El Niño and I remember it like it was yesterday as the skies opened up and filled even the local mountains with tons of fun snow.

So we go up to Mammoth on a last-second trip, and we decide that we are going to have the most fun that we can possibly have as a family on a mountain because we know that we are due for a great storm. Mind you, I hunt storms like a tiger hunts women. (c'mon, I said "a" tiger) A lot of people might give me flack for taking my vacations during the middle of the week during the snow season. I agree that my career as a pastor and what the Lord has allowed me to do it somewhat convenient for a snow lunatic like myself. However, this is absolutely 100% part of the benefits of doing what I am called to do. The majority of my life is spent on the weekends and in the holidays when people go to church most. This includes Easter week's as well as Christmas, Memorial Days, and the like. My weekends are always full where my weeks can be manipulated so that the majority and the most important work always gets done in the right fashion. Insert smiley face.

The downside to what I do is that I'm never able to really go on weekend vacations with friends nor spend Christmas traveling or Easter to go back and see family. Most people travel on Memorial weekends and labor days and do things like that, but I am always aware that I've always got Sunday coming and I'm excited to do what I do. Therefore, I know each snow season that when the snow falls I gotta hit it. By God's grace, he has allowed me to do just that. Another smiley face.

We don't take elaborate or expensive vacations to exotic places but one thing we do is we know how to travel to the mountain and make the most of everything that is before us. The fact that I just finished preaching the 50th chapter of Genesis this year and there was 5 feet of new snow to me it just seemed like God was giving me a signal. :)

So we showed up and lo and behold it was exactly as advertised. The snow was amazing and we were excited as we headed into town. We had never stayed at a new place called the Village in Mammoth. God connected me with a gentleman that truly blessed us as a family. To him I am grateful, although most grateful for God who helped orchestrate it all.

So we get into town and everything is white. Pure whiiiiiiiite. The snow had fallen, there were huge white walls surrounding our car on every turn. To say that we were excited would be an incredible understatement. We woke up the next morning to absolutely perfect blue skies, 70 inches of new snow, and a whole bunch of smiles all around. We traveled up the mountain and knew we were going to have a blast.

One of the most wonderful things that I enjoy as a father is seeing my children enjoy the sport that I love the most. I am not sure that my daughter has exactly fell in love with the sport, although I do know that she really really likes it and sometimes she really, really doesn't. This is probably true for every 12-year old girl on the planet.

My son, however, I believe has fallen in love with sport over the past couple years. What may have started out as a love relationship ("Daddy, Daddy the snow is fun!!!") soon turning into a love-hate relationship ("Daddy, Daddy the snow hurts!"), partially due to my overaggressive parenting and the necessary need for learning the sport quickly ha ha… I think that he has finally found love with my favorite sport. I can only pray!

As a father, you hope to introduce your children to things that you love and enjoy in life. I think every single trip always reminds me how important it is to have my family and those closest to me sharing life together. The fact that we are 11,000 feet in the air on mountains of snow only adds to that wonderful experience, in my opinion. I would hope that each trip is a reminder not only of how rich and sweet fellowship is together, but that there would be a continual reminder that it is only God and his grace that has allowed us to experience this wonderful blessings of playing on the playground called Earth.

It is in our fellowship and our love for one another were God is on display in the most green and even in those times of hardship and persecution and sin and rebellion we can always look to forgiveness and reconciliation and the grace of God that allows us to experience the joys of parenting in the wonderful little sport called snowboarding.

On that note, I think there's a storm coming….:)