Well, it’s with both sadness and excitement that I write this. I’ve been procrastinating composing this post for a couple of weeks now, but as I sit here watching the movers load my stuff into the moving van, I realize I can’t put it off any longer. Yes, I’m moving, and it’s not just across town. I’m headed to beautiful Carlsbad, California in North San Diego County! Making the move less difficult is the knowledge that I’m planning on being back in Vegas about every 3 weekends to continue to serve at Central Christian. In fact, I already have a plane ticket back for August 27/28 weekend!
So where am I going? I need to give you a quick history lesson first. In 2005 before I moved to Las Vegas, I co-founded planningcenteronline.com with my friend Jeff Berg, who I met at my last church. Planning Center is an online worship planning & scheduling tool that we developed from scratch to help churches of all sizes stay or get organized. Over the last 5 years Planning Center has become a huge product used by thousands of churches and over a million people all over the world!
For the first 4 years Planning Center was in existence, I was a “contract” worker. I went to conferences to exhibit the product, I made video tutorials, I helped Jeff design and implement new features and I helped answer customer support. Because it was still growing, I was able to do most of the things I wanted to do without sacrificing my full-time music position at Central. But because of our growth, eventually it came to a point where we needed a full-time Product Manager. I really wasn’t willing to have someone else take over the job I had been doing and helped pioneer, so after some prayerful consideration, I decided to shift my jobs. As of January 2011, I have been the full-time Product Manager for Planning Center and I have been a “contract” worker for Central.
It’s been pretty difficult working full-time for a company who is located in another state. Central was gracious enough to let me keep my office, so many days I could work with other people at the church, but since the Worship Department is generally not at church on Mondays and Fridays, I worked by myself from home. During the summer as most people have been on vacation, I’ve been working at home a lot more.
When I took the job at Planning Center, they were planning on relocating from the Palm Springs area to the San Diego area. It is pretty difficult to try and recruit talented programmers and other technical people to a retirement community, so to help continue our growth, we chose the San Diego area. The plan was to relocate sometime in the summer of 2012, but when we found a great building for a great price much sooner, we decided to move ahead a whole year earlier than planned.
Construction on the interior of the building began early this year and is set to be completed this coming Monday, August 8th. I wasn’t sure when I would move, but about a month ago I started looking for a new place to live. After looking at many apartments I took a chance and looked at a privately owned townhome that I loved. The owners are a great Christian couple who will be living one neighborhood away and wanted someone to move in…..August 8th. I decided I really wanted to be in the new Planning Center building on day 1, so I signed my lease at the townhouse and started to get ready to move 3 weeks later.
So after the movers are done today, I’m going to a “See Ya Later” party my friends are throwing for me tonight. Then I’ll be at church this weekend, and drive out to California to start my new life on Monday morning. Did I mention that my parents and 2 brothers will only be an hour away? Plus I’ll be moving much closer to many of my college friends and I’m looking forward to seeing them more often.
I have absolutely loved my time in Las Vegas. In fact, I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my entire life! I’m made wonderful friends, found an amazing church family, and I’m sad I won’t be around that as much. But at the same time, I know that I plan on coming back frequently, so it’s not really goodbye!