Hi gang

Sorry again for the erratic posting...although even when I posted daily it was fairly erratic. :)

I'm on the verge of going Mac, but my pledge to you, the faithful readers, is that I will not become one of those irritating amway-like mac evangelists. Really, I won't.

Where was this when I was a kid? Looks a heck of a lot more fun than spellingl Also note the French and German teams couldn't find Iraq on a map.

Although I will be here over the weekend, today is my last day in the office at VCC. It will not be easy to leave this place - an incredible staff that I'm proud to serve with. Staying on in an extended staff role is a blessing, and I appreciate the long term connection with this community.

The next two weeks we'll be in flux (as if we haven't for the last ninety days!) as we settle last minute things here and then race to upstate NY to Kels' grandmother's birthday party, then back to Kansas City to get started. We can't wait.

Wow...I'm tired. :)

Monday morning I flew to San Francisco to spend some time hanging out with friends at the official headquarters of the Burning Man festival. It's located in a funky 10,000 square feet above a warehouse across the street from a cement plant. Corporate America, it's not. A great time was had...spent a few hours talking with Larry Harvey and recording some of it for a writing project later. Also grabbed dinner one night with one of their staffers and our own Rusty Geverdt. We went to a little Thai place off Haight. They just don't have these dives in the midwest. Great food.

It was my first trip to SF. We celebrated by upgrading the rental car to a convertable...drove it down through Chinatown, the Waterfront, across the Golden Gate and into the northern counties, catching a glimpse of Alcatraz in the fog.

Aloha, gang.

Sorry I've been personna non blogga for the past few weeks. We literally moved out of our house during the busiest workweek of my year. All is relatively settled now (?) as we crash with benevolent friends and await our move to KC.

Kelsey was in Kansas City this week and found us a rental house - it's official, the Bohlenders now have a crib in which to rest their weary heads. We will be moving our weary heads there after attending Kels' grandmother's birthday in upstate New York the first few days of August. Can't wait to join forces with IHOP and see what will be.

I am officially back in bidness....

I think I may have fixed my problem with my laptop......

Contrary to what most might think, I have not passed away. I am having trouble blogging from my laptop computer and we are 'between homes' at present...no internet access...I promise I'll be back in the swing of things early August at the latest.

Check the post time. It is correct. I am tired and beyond thinking. If you are looking for something profound, you may want to visit Todd Hunter, at least until we get moved to Kansas City. In fact, you probably will want to just keep visiting him. He either thinks a lot or has Ghost Thinkers who feed him posts.

We just shut down from loading Pod 1. Pod 2 awaits us tomorrow. All this after a day of SOS. The kicker was when, at 11:45 PM, Kelsey convinced me that we could move the upright freezer across the garage floor and into the Pod. Subdivision neighbors: Be assured that there is nothing suspicious about your neighbors moving a large freezer out of their house at that hour of the night.

I took a quick break this evening to run Grayson past the library, where he picked up his first library card. He is a voracious reader....well, as voracious as any six year old can be...and now he can continue the long Bohlender tradition of keeping library books out far beyond the date they were supposed to be returned. When "Library Fines" is a budgeted line-item for you, you know you've got a problem.

While at the library, I picked up a Johnny Cash CD - a 30 song, two cd set of his greatest hits. Few artists could come up with 30 hits, let alone be forced to weed some out to keep it from being a six cd boxed set. I have incredibly eclectic taste in music, and Cash harkens me back to growing up, listening to such wonders as "A Boy Named Sue" and "Ring of Fire". Listening to it tonight as we packed up, it hit me how few male pop singers today have masculine voices. Cash has this great booming voice that sounds he-man even if he's reciting poetry. He could read the phone book and make it sound profound.

New Info for Me: By placing a simple phone call, if you sound desperate enough, you can conjole Sam's Club to promise to deliver four 96 case pallets of CocaCola by tomorrow morning. It's all in the desperate tone in your voice.

Further Learnings of SOS

Once you put 300 lbs of ice in the back of a truck with 600 cokes, you're going to break some cokes enroute to the destination.

People consistently respond warmly to the kindness of God, minus a few grouches.

A plunger will stick to a cleanly shaven head.

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On the moving front...we've spent the last three evenings loading the containers and have come to the conclusion that we have more stuff than will fit in 2 containers. A good friend is going to haul the rest of it out in a small trailer in August. Also got to thinking today...wonder where the bike rack is? D'oh. It's in the front of the container.

On a side note, I now have Mac fever and want an iBook big-time.

Key Learnings of Day One of SOS

No matter what the schedule says, some people will show up a day early. At 7 AM. No kidding.

It is possible to load 740 people into sixteen buses and get them off the property less than 5 minutes from the scheduled EDT.

The herd mentality is alive and well in the youth of america.

and now I've gotta study for my talk tomorrow....

We may have had the perfect Sunday afternoon...lazing around a friend's pool watching the kids play, followed up by a campfire and some killer 'smores. It was a very relaxing way to lead into a very hectic week.

The moving PODS arrive tomorrow. We will spend the week loading them and attending to duties at SOS and be out next weekend to crash with friends until our last day at VCC. Then the PODS are shipped to KC, to a yet-to-be-determined location. (yes, this does strike me as a little nuts, so I'm going to bed!). Kelsey will be flying out July 8-10 to look for a house to rent. I have no fear in sending her - last time I did this, we ended up living in a gorgeous cedar split foyer on two lots up on the side of a Tennessee mountain. Better her than me!

Uh oh. The soon-to-be owners of our home have worked out all the details. Don't get me wrong - This is a great thing - a definite needed-step on our journey to Kansas City. The wrinkle is that they take possession of the home July 1. That is not a misprint. Now we need to pack and move to temporary holdings in the next week...during SOS, the biggest week of the year at the church. If I miss a few blogs, you know why...

One more thing - looks like more fun on my beloved Black Rock Desert. I particularly like the part where the story gives you the impression that they're building this thing under a shade tree somewhere....Check out the photo of the Black Rock. It is the world's largest natural parking lot.

I taught my final Wednesday Alpha session tonight...I'll do two sessions on Saturday at the retreat and then I'm done. Alpha is a 10 week course for those interested in checking out the claims of Christ. Students range from skeptics to long time believers wanting to brush up on the basics. In the past, I've taught 8 of the 10 sessions (we do three courses each year), but scaled back to 5 this time because of our upcoming transition. Alpha's been a joy to be involved with here - It avoids the pat answers that most people have encountered in order to dig a little deeper. I'll develop it in Kansas City as well. I like the way it respects a persons journey as their own without soft-selling the story of Jesus or His designs.

The church is buzzing w/activity surrounding Summer of Service, which begins on Monday (or as the StuMin team is saying, "T minus Five Days". We'll be invaded by 600+ teens from across the nation who come to learn the value of an outward focus. My role will be teaching one session (Wed AM) and serving as Sherrif of Outreach, cruising the locations where the kids are serving to make sure everything's okay. I love SOS. Mostly because I get to legally open fire hydrants. We use them and this incredible six-hose-splitter to wash more cars at one time than you can imagine. NOTE TO SELF: remember from last year, a fire hydrant opened abruptly will shoot brown sludge completely across four lanes of traffic.

One last thing - you've GOT to check out this fantastic machine....it's worth a peek!

Rick Warren teaches 40days of purpose. At VCC, we just finished a 50 Day journey of learning to love God. I've been on a 60 day pilgrimage of my own.

Last night, sitting in a church in Middletown, I paged through my journal to realize that sixty days ago I was sitting in the prayer room of the International House of Prayer, gingerly writing a note to God explaining to Him what moving to Kansas City was going to cost me in the way of influence and relationships (as if God needs my help on either one....).

The last sixty days have been a blur of meetings, telling people about this big change in our lives, and being overwhelmed at the response...so many have graciously teamed with us, offering financial and emotional support. Often it's been people we just didn't expect to be on board. The lessons we've learned along the way in being open-handed with the gifts God gives us has been incredibly valuable. If this much can happen in sixty days...where will we be in a year? Hang on folks, this is going to be a ride.

One last thing - if you're in Cincinnati, join us this evening at the VCC Chapel to hear Aaron Walsh, leader at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, as he teaches. Adam Mosley, worship leader extraordinaire, will be playing along with his SOS band. It starts at 7 pm.

We were up late last night gabbing with Aaron & Kristi Walsh from the International House of Prayer. Aaron and Kristi have been there since day one and are an incredibly valuable resource for newbies like Kels and I. Most of the evening started with us asking "What about..." and them filling in gaps for us. I loved it for the info, and I loved it for the fellowship.

If my blogging is erratic over the next few days, blame it on a bum laptop, a big event at VCC on Tuesday and the fact that I'm learning that God would probably have me interact with live faces a little more than I have lately. Where did I get the idea that, at the end of my days, God would be all that pumped about my blog?

I just spent a relaxing hour by the subdivision pool, watching the bigger boys play and reading a little further in Gary Cross' An All-Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in Modern America. If you like history and have an inherent suspicion that we have more junk than we need, this is a great read.

The book makes one think about what we have and why we got it. It's awakening questions in me about my own expectations in life. There seems to be some link between how much I have and how little I care about it. Cross quotes Simon Patten as writing "To have a high standard of living means to enjoy a pleasure intensely and to tire of it quickly."

Moving to Kansas City, for me, is partially about learning to be simply happy, or happy simply (whatever is grammatically correct here). It will mean giving some things up - not so much in possessions but in activity. The busy activity that I have relished for the past few years is going to shift...I'm sure the hours will be as long, but the focus will be more distinct. I'm looking forward to moving from being a floodlight to a laser. Time and simplicity will tell.

I was up early to take Jason Upton to the airport for his return flight. He and his band led worship for over 3 hours last night - he's a refreshing worship leader...no pretenses and no Christian celebrity vibe. Found out that he's going to be in Kansas City for a few months in the near future - sure will be fun to get to know him better.

Things are really cooking around ServeCincinnati. The VCC outreach team has that glazed over, it-must-be-june focus with both ServeCincinnati and SOS the same week.

I can see the headline now....New on FOX: When Prophetic Words Go Bad.

Also, this kid is in big whoopie trouble, particularly with his friend who just finished his term paper and saved it to the shared drive....