Finally Updating!

Well, its been a long time since I updated, and I apologize. Have had quite a few things going on. I’ll give you the short list:

Gotta job working for the King of Cars. Gotta check out their website @ ent.kingofcars.com. Totally worth it. My boss is Emperor Two-Step and Chop is the owner. Oh and Blue Genie is always around…
Anyway, the wife is doing well, tomorrow is 30 weeks, and the kiddo is kicking like mad. She’s supposed to keep count of how long it takes for 10 ‘movements’, and that if 10 movements don’t happen in 2 hours you should be worried. Well the boy takes about 2 minutes. He’s active as can be.
I’m still running with my buddy Tobeyone Kenobi [www.twitter.com/dtobey23]. Did 10 miles last Sunday and will do 4 tomorrow morning followed by 11 on Sunday. Pretty crazy.
We got ourselves a house to live in. Due to some job insecurity, we are renting for the time being. Its in a pretty sweet neighborhood. Last weekend after work, I went out for a run, and when I got back I was waved over to some guys chilling in their driveway. Pretty soon about 25 guys were out there just hanging out. Apparently, ‘that’s how we do on T-ville’. You don’t even know how stoked I am to hang out with them.
Job front is still hazy. Trying to figure out what the plan should be. The wife had a call back today, so that’s pretty awesome. I have about 5 live resumes out currently, but no luck. Its really dry out here.
As for Verve, things are coming together. We are close to finishing up a rental agreement for a huge space that is about 5 mins away from my house. Also this month we will be starting our blockparties at random Vervian houses, one being ours! I’ll post more about this later.

That’s about all. If there are more specifics, I’ll post it up. Thanks for following along!

Well...

So we’ve been here for about 2 weeks now. Pretty crazy to call this place home. Felt really blessed by the appearance of some good friends who came in to town on Tuesday – Thursday, and then another buddy came in on Friday – Saturday. Both were really exciting. Mixed in there was a couple job interviews, but no leads yet. We also had our first official Verve ‘meeting’. It was really good to get to meet the people we will be doing this craziness with. Anyway, its been a while since I updated because there isn’t much news. The wife is doing well despite the 115 degree heat and the kid is kicking like mad. Hope all is well.

Woah What?

Ok so if we rewind 20 years, I was in school in Salina, KS with just about 10 kids. Of the 10, 3 of us were Josh’s. There was Josh K, Josh S, and Josh L. Well I happened to ride to school with Josh S and we got to be friends, but after the year was over, his family moved to Oberlin, outta my life. Well guess who lives here and had us over for supper on Saturday. Yeah totally Josh S. It was totally awesome to reconnect after so long and see how God brought us to this wacky place. Its been wonderful to see how God has worked in my life recently, but more exciting was some of the ridiculousness that has happened in Josh S.’s life. I would love to take the rest of this space to share some of his stories, but that’s for a different time.

Anyway, we got into our PODS today, and everything was ok! Nothing was broken that we could tell, and I dug around in there for quite some time. I called my cousin Duane and told him that since he did such a good job packing, the next time we move, I’ll have to fly him out and have him pack me up again! This week brings some craziness as we have appointments all over town, and one of my good bestest buddies is coming to town tomorrow! Just wanted to update enough to communicate we are alive and well, and are totally stoked about what the week brings.

So we made it through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and finally to Las Vegas. We are staying at a sweet pad that is about 20 minutes from the strip. Our first night in town we went to the MGM Grand and just walked around. Its pretty surreal to think this will be our home. The next day we had 2 Doctors appointments to try to find someone who will be there when little Krause decides to show up. That was entirely draining. We then spent the rest of the evening with Verve’s pastor and his family. That was pretty enjoyable. Mostly because their dog kept trying to get on the table J We woke the next morning to more driving. 8 hours on the road to Santa Cruz waited for us with open arms. Fortunately we had good friends waiting for us at the end of the trip.

Saturday we spent at a wedding at Mt. Madonna County Park. It was one of the coolest weddings I’ve been around. We met some awesome people and even stretched across cultural barriers. The groom is Swiss and the bride is from Cali. They actually met in Chile and they speak Spanish to each other! Pretty nuts. Today and Monday we have some time to just relax and gather ourselves. Then Tuesday its back home to Vegas. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. See you all soon!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh

Spent all of Friday packing with the help of my wonderful parents-in-law, who came back on Saturday to help finish it up. At 10 A.M. same day [Saturday] my cousins, aunt, and small group came and helped us load up the POD. My cousin Duane played the packing game just like a stinking jigsaw puzzle. It was awesome. EVERYTHING got packed in their.

absolutely redonculous.

I'll have pics later. Sign closing papers tomorrow, drive away tuesday.

Spent today [Sunday] speaking at my home church and was really blessed by their support and honored by them. It was pretty exciting. Anyway off to relax and rest before the big drives.

1 week left...

So, this morning marks the last Wednesday in our house. Its really starting to snowball now. We had our last small group get together last night and it was marvelous. We had some amazing Italian food, but maybe the high point was a group picture of the guys that turned into a cheesy picture on the stairs, then a cheesy picture on chairs, man it was quite funny. Anyway as we finish up some loose ends I’ve been finding some solace in some different books I’ve been reading. The first book I read was Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels. It’s pretty good perspective on the reality of being in a church leadership position. Not only was there some good thoughts about different styles/types of leadership it was an easy read. The other book I’ve had my hands on is The Divine Commodity by Skye Jenathi. Its pretty intense and isn’t as easy to read as Hybels’ book. But the content is great. A few thought provoking bits:

An economist was asked his opinion on the next phase of the economy we are headed into. He quickly identified that as American’s we’ve been through an Agrarian Economy which lead to the Industrial Economy in turn led to the Service Economy, and that is leading to the Experience Economy. Example: It used to be cheaper to buy the ingredients and make a cake from scratch [Agrarian]. Then it was easier to just buy a mix from the store [Industrial]. After that, its just easier to have the grocery story make a Superman Cake because its better than the others [Service] and now the cake is presented at Chuck E. Cheese’s or a bowling alley to fully enhance the Experience [Experiential]

The economist goes on to say that as a church, we have followed these economies, but unfortunately marketing an experience at church is somewhat fake and not truthful to the Gospel. He’s questioned by a young preacher who says, If I’m to reach this culture, shouldn’t I have a product to offer them? The economist answered, the only thing of value in today’s church is the Redemptive Grace of the Message of Jesus Christ.

That really stuck out to me, not only the economics of it, but the fact that I get so stuck on all the externalities of church, when the only true thing of value that the church has is Jesus.

The economist goes on to say that the true commodity of the Experiential Economy will be Authenticity. Marketing an Experience vs being Authentic. Thoughts?

Little One

Not much really to say besides WE ARE HAVING A BOY!!!