Starting Tonight

Tonight is my first practice as coach of my daughter's new basketball team at the Y. It will be the first time I've coached a basketball team.

Did I mention that it is a team made up of Kindergarten and First grade girls?

Pray for me.

Great Weekend

Well what a great weekend we had at Evangel. It all started Saturday night with our annual Harvest Party. I have to admit that I didn't really know what to expect since it was my first one, but I have to say that I was impressed with what I experienced. With close to 2,000 people coming through the church it was a sight to see. In an earlier post I put some pictures of the inflatables in the sanctuary. But each of the rooms in the church were transformed into a story. It really was creative.

And we handed out so much candy. About halfway through the night the candy started getting pretty low so I jumped into my van and headed out to Wal-Mart for a candy run. Here were my instructions: Make sure you fill the cart to overflowing with candy. And that I did. You should have seen the looks on people's faces as I was pushing this cart through the store. I just kept saying that I had this HUGE sweet tooth.

And the cashier was happy to see me come through their line because they had to scan each bag individually! It was great. No one wanted to get behind me in line.

I kept telling myself to take a picture but in the confusion I forgot. Sorry.

And Sunday was even better. My dad had a great message called "In a Moment" that talked about how God uses specific moments in our lives to do great things. It was a powerful message and the response time was incredible!

Overall it was a great weekend.

Oh yeah, I won my fantasy game...and the Cowboys were on bye.

Little Wolverine

Just thought I'd post my son's Halloween costume this year.



Doesn't he look cool?

Harvest Party

Well we have a really big weekend coming. It's our annual Harvest Party. From what I've heard this thing is pretty big each year. I'm excited to see my first one. So if you're around here just stop by Saturday anytime from 5PM until 8PM. It's a great free event for the entire family.

They've been setting up this entire week and the inflatables have taken over the sanctuary today. So I took it upon myself to test them out and make sure they're ok for the kids tomorrow night. Here are some pics of Caden and Crystal helping me test them out.





Should be a lot of fun.

Special Night

Tonight when my daughter got off the bus we all jumped into the van for a surprise. Crystal and I decided that tonight was Alexis' special night. We took her to her favorite place to eat and let her order whatever she wanted. And believe me, she wanted the dessert.

What's so special about a Monday night? Nothing except Alexis. We just thought that tonight was a great opportunity for us to show her how special she is.

She had a huge smile on her face after we told her all of this.

Being a parent is great.

Caden has already decided where he wants to go when it's his special night...

...McDonalds.

Can't wait.

Sunday Recap

We had a great day yesterday at Evangel. With my dad out of town it made my day just a little bit busier....but in the end things went really well. If you read one of my previous posts you saw the pictures of a clock that was hanging from a string. We put up about 20 clocks all across the stage for the AM service. The message was entitled 40,000,000 minutes. It focused on how we spend our time. Does it matter how we spend our time? Do we honor God with our time?

It's always fun when I can have a messy illustration in the middle of a sermon and close the message with a Carrie Underwood song played beautifully by the band.

And to make everything great...two people responded to the invitation to accept Christ at the end of the day.

That makes the day great.

Oh, and did anyone notice that the Cowboys are 6-1 going into their bye week? Go 'Boys!

Movie Nite

Well its family movie night tonight. We're watching a movie that the kids wanted to see and they get to enjoy all the popcorn they can eat.

It's the perfect ending to their great day.

Sunday

Well my dad is out of town this weekend so I am getting ready for a big weekend. I'll be preaching the AM service and doing his study on the life of Abraham at 6 PM. And of course I'll still be leading our "Love and Respect" class at 9 AM.

Should be a lot of fun this weekend.

And here's a little hint for Sunday morning...it has to do with this picture.



You'll just have to be here Sunday morning to find out more.

Lion Chaser's Manifesto

At Catalyst I was privileged to hear and briefly meet Mark Batterson the author of "In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day." His session was incredible. Here is the Lion Chaser's Manifesto from his blog:

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshiping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.

Chase the lion.

Let this be true in my life!

New Hoop

Well my kids got their new basketball hoop yesterday. And it looks good in the box sitting in the garage. It's really going to take some serious work to get this thing up and ready to play. I've been looking over the instructions and....let's just say I'm glad I have a graduate level education. It looks like it takes some serious work.

But first I have to set up getting a little concrete slab poured.

Sounds like fun.

Oh, here is a pic of their new basketball set-up. Look out NBA, here they come.

Prayer

Can I ask you to pray for me?

Can I ask that and not tell you why?

I really would appreciate it. I could use it right now.

And deep down inside I know that's really the only answer.

What a night

All I can say is wow. The Cowboys are 5-0. I don't care how...they just are.

Late night. But it ended up to be a good one.

Problem is...the Patriots are coming to town.

Romo

Ok, the Boys are going into tonight looking to start the season 5-0. Anyway, if you missed this clip from last week, check this out.



Pretty cool.

Finally Home

Well I've made it home from Catalyst. It was a great week down in Atlanta with some incredible speakers. Andy Stanley wrapped up the entire conference with one of the best sessions I've ever heard. It really was the "nuts and bolts" of the entire conference. We purchased the CD's and DVD's and I'm really excited to hear it again. It's something that all church leaders need to hear.

So it was a great time this past week. I had a lot of fun hanging out with Chris who is our Creative Arts Pastor.

Now it's time to jump back into the swing of things. I've already had a good day with the family. We just got back from seeing "The Game Plan." It was pretty good.

Oh, and look what I found at the airport in Atlanta. What a great way to end the trip.

Catalyst Day 2

I am sitting here listening to the best version of Amazing Grace I've ever heard.

I can't even describe what has happened at Catalyst today. It's been one amazing session after another.

I'll have to post some more when I get home tomorrow, we're getting ready to wrap up the entire thing with Andy Stanley.

Then Chris and I have to head to the airport and catch our plane home.

More later.

Catalyst - Day One

Wow, what a great first day of Catalyst. We really didn't think it could get better after the lab sessions yesterday but today was pretty incredible. There are over 11,000 people filling the arena we are meeting in. (It makes the lines at the bathrooms extra long.)

Andy Stanley started the day off by asking the question, "What do you do when it dons on you that you are the most powerful person in the room?" He talked about how leadership brings power and that the true leaders learn to leverage that power towards other people. The most powerful leader is one that can give the power up.
I really enjoyed the session with Andy. Great stuff.

Next up was Patrick Lencioni who wrote "The Five Dysfunctions of a team." He talked about the three reasons for job misery.



Then we had a panel talking about the book unChristian. It was kind of a repeat of what we heard the night before at the final lab session.

Francis Chan brought one of the most powerful talks of the day. He talked about truly loving people and that God has set us apart and called us to do what we do. One of the great moments of the session was just pausing and reflecting on how big and mighty our God is. We didn't say a word, but just sat and thought about our God. Truly this was one of the highlights of the day.

And to close out the day Rick Warren talked about the church and the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom? It's wherever Jesus is king. He shared that God's agenda is the church. We cannot love God and hate the church. That's like telling someone that you like them but hate their body. That would be offensive.

The church is God's agenda and it will be the one thing that lasts.

Here are a few more things from Rick:
I'm not interested in changing culture, I'm interested in creating it.
When God asks you a question its not for his benefit.
When God does a miracle its never to show off, its to teach a truth.

Wow, what a huge day. It's time for me to hit the bed so we can do it all again tomorow. And then the travel home! I may not post Day 2 until Saturday morning.

Final Session

Well we have wrapped up the lab session of this year's Catalyst Conference. Tomorrow we start the real deal.

Here is how we started out tonight. Waiting in line.


The only bad thing from this was that we had to wait for a while to get in the ballroom for tonight's session. But one thing I've learned so far is that you can see almost anything walking around.



Yep, that's a cow walking around. And it was there for a purpose, it was advertising another conference coming up next year.

Well, we did finish up tonight with the debut of a brand new book called unChristian. The book is a study that was done on 16-29 year olds and their perception of Christians. And the findings were pretty alarming. There were six things that people outside of the faith believe about Christians. I'll let you check out the book to find out more. Maybe I'll post some more after I read the book.

Anyway, great first day here in Atlanta. Can't wait for the BIG show tomorrow.

And I know you've all been wondering. Yes, I made it to Moe's.



It was great. See you tomorrow.

Catalyst so far...

Well it seems that the internet connection costs money per hour at the arena so I'll have to post highlights from the day:


Pre-Lab session with Reggie Joiner

We started the day with a special pre-lab session that featured Reggie Joiner. He talked about how important it is for churches to change. In order to reach the next generation we can no longer do business as usual.

We find there are churches that either embrace change too slowly or churches that only change halfway. What we find is that the people we might offend by changing the way we do things are the same people who will be mad when we don't change. Because we will have not impacted their kids.

1st Lab with Mark Batterson

Then we headed to our first lab session with Mark Batterson. It was cool to hear from Mark who wrote "In a Pit with a lion on a Snowy Day." He talked a little bit about the history of his church in DC and spoke about chasing lions. In order to chase a lion you need to do something crazy, do something scary and do something risky. Afterward I was able to talk with him for a few minutes and get my book signed. Pretty cool!

3rd Lab with Brad Powell

We went to lunch and came back for a lab session with Brad Powell from NorthRidge Church. He talked about change without compromise. He showed us that church is all about change and in the church we need to embrace change and lead change. True leaders will lead through change. One of the key statements he made was, "the church is the hope of the world, when it's working right." The problem is that most churches aren't working right.

All in all it has been a great day so far. We heading back in just a little bit for our evening session that we're both looking forward to. It's been pretty amazing so far and we really haven't even started the conference yet.

Oh and for your information here is a picture of our cool Volvo:


More later.

Here in Atlanta

Chris and I have made it to Atlanta for the Catalyst Conference. It's getting pretty late so I'm going to head to bed for the night.

Such a long flight. Just kidding, it was nice to have a direct flight. And we're driving a Volvo station wagon. Sounds like a soccer mom but the car is actually quite nice. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

I'll also let you know how the conference goes. Should be pretty exciting.

Catalyst

I'm excited about heading to Atlanta tomorrow for the Catalyst Conference. I'm going out there with Chris who is the Creative Arts Pastor at our church.

Should be a fun time. We leave late tomorrow and get back late Friday. Fast trip.

Wow, I'm getting old.

I read this on another blog today. The Atari turned 30. The scary thing is I remember having one of these.

Yep, I'm getting old.