i haven't been asked where i've been of late so much as "what i'm doing now?" which is an acceptable question since my leaving the paid staff church work back in july. the last few months have been a real ride emotionally and spiritually (not sure if those are completely seperate but for purposes of this sentance they are). i've run the gammet meeting/talking/chatting with people i respect a great deal on what they might see God's plan in my life. my general idea is that i was so close to myself that i needed help stepping back and looking in through the window. through this process i've identified some short term and long term places i'm putting my creative and passionate self into. thought i'd share those with you, so we can skip the "what are you up to now?" question.

All American Pest Control: this might be the most visible of the entities of late because for the past month or so i've been pretty chatty about my work with All American Pest Control. This is our family business and Erin has been working there for the last 7-8 years. We will eventually finish a purchase of the company in about 4-5 years from her mom & dad and we'll be sole owners. So, in the spirit of doing anything for the family, i've been crawling houses of late to help tend to our historical customers allowing our other employees to focus on some of our more current and up to date protection services. i am also helping erin our with promotions, marketing, and social media aspects of the company. you can follow the adventures of my life in pest control by following on twitter or facebook.

Sticky Sheep: this is one has been in the brewing for a year or two now. my buddy john ellis & i had spent a number or conversations talking up the mixtures of church & business, specifically marketing. we started writing a book on these conversations and we are still putting that together. in the mean time we figured it is time to start sharing these connections. you can engage in our little musings by hitting up the site or checking our twitter or facebook presences.

 

Proof Branding: this is an exciting project to be a part of. i'm joining in with long time friend sam davidson and a crew of others whom are especially creative in a full service branding company. my part in the team is to help translate and work with the church communities that wish to rebrand themselves. this would cover communications, marketing, design, creative directions, and more. i've been working independantly with with first presbyterian church youth in nashville before the launch of proof this past month and have had some real successes and enjoyable moments. you can follow the tweets of sam & matt via proof and the news on facebook.

YouthWorker Movement: is something that i'm really jumping into as my youth ministry passion. i am helping to put together a vibrant and transformational entity to help my beloved, and struggling, united methodist church & fellow wesleyan youth ministries. i've partnered up with charles harrison and a team of others i getting things mapped out and ready to roll next month. if you want in on the braintrust of a vast community of people you should get plugged in with the youthworker movement. in the short term we will have a new email list going out next week. a new website will launch in january (a temporary one will be available next week). in the spring we will be putting forth full service curriculum options from a wesleyan youth ministris perspective. through all this you can keep up on the 'movements' via twitter or facebook as well.

thanks a quick gist of me, if you want to talk further on any of these projects or hire me or my friends give a shout via email gavoweb(at)gmail.com is still my email. i'm pumped to get creative!

in another note: the company that hosts this blog is going in some different direction, so in anticipation of some crazy server issues. i'm going to be moving this blog over to my own hosting options sometime soon.. maybe when i have a minute not doing other cool stuff.