Easter weekend has come...and is about gone

Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend!  I know I did.  Extremely busy, but great.  Started it off Friday night volunteering with Passion at Verizon Wireless Ampitheatre.  There was an incredible storm that came through and almost cancelled the event.  Turns out they postponed it for 2 hours and I am so glad that they didn't cancel.  Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Louie Giglio...what could make for a better Good Friday.

So Saturday....at church all afternoon getting ready for Sunday.  Had to be there at 3 for staff pictures.  Which, let me say were AWESOME!!  Lisa of Party of Seven Photography (and our keyboard player) did the pictures and she did an incredible job.  You should go to her site and check out her work. (www.partyofsevenphotography.com)  There is info on there about booking her.  (up top is a sample she put on the web).

Sunday worship went off great.  Had a great crowd with a lot of new faces at Journey.  Had to do a bit of prodding to get everyone out of the "were at a concert" face and into "were here to participate in worship" mode, but it turned out to be a great ride!  I pray that God did some work in some lives of those in attendance.  Oh yeah...the set...

Faithful

True Love

Oh the Wonderful Cross

I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous)--Tomlin Style!!

Yo...What a busy week last week was!! Wow!  I was ready to get it over with.  But anyway, we had a good service yesterday.  Here is the list;

Hallelujah!  What a Savior

No One Like You

Beautiful the Blood

By His Wounds

We closed with By His Wounds while the church did communion.  It went pretty good.  Of course anything that you have to keep repeating due to not knowing how long you are gonna have to play it has it's own challenges, but for the most part pretty good.

Finished reading "Jesus Wants to Save Christians" by Rob Bell.  I did not like the book very much.  The thoughts were too random and never came full circle.  Velvet Elvis was random but got all wrapped up in the end.  I really don't know what the intention of this book was...you know...what I'm supposed to do with the information.  A few parts ticked me off pretty bad.  Some very Un-Patriotic themes in there.  The parts of the book I liked were talking about the church in exile.  Much like the exiles in the Old Testament.  My favorite quote..."Jesus wants to save the church from the exile of irrelevance."  That I like...and agree!  But for the most part I do not recommend it.

Looking very forward to this weekend.  I'm volunteering at the Good Friday service at Verizon Ampitheatre with Louie Giglio, Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman.  And I can't wait for Easter Sunday service.  I love the stuff we are doing and I love a packed house!!

See ya next week

wassup?  what an awesome week so far.  The Crazy Love study has us focusing each day on the Cross of Jesus.  This is something that we should do every second of our lives.  To see everything through the lens of the Cross!!  Today has been great just trying to think of the sacrifice every moment!

So Sunday went great!  It was one of the best sets we've done.  I have definitely filed that one away for future use.  The tunes;

Let God Arise

Blessed Be Your Name

Hallelujah--Our God Reigns

Breathe on Me (a new tune by Todd Fields)  awesome song!!

Crazy Love was great.  I am having such a blast being a part of that class.  Heather and I went to our Northpoint small group tonight.  It was my turn to tell "my story", which i loved (i love any chance to talk and be the center of attention for a few...lol)  But it was great to look back at all the things that God has put together in my life to bring me to where I am right now.  Henry Blackaby in Experiencing God said that we should have "spiritual markers" in our lives.  Times and things that we can look back to when God did something or taught us something new.  The markers come from the Old Testament when folks would stack rocks or build some type of monument when God came through or they had an encounter with God.  It is a very important thing to do for Christians.

Anyway, each day I am sending those in the Crazy Love group a reminder of something Jesus did on the cross.  I look forward to reading it myself...

i'm back

so i'm a little behind on my posts.  the last 2 weeks have been really busy and crazy.  So to start, last week a bunch from Journey went to the Un-Leashed conference at New Springs church in Anderson South Carolina.  We had a great time of fellowship.  Mike and I were the outcasts seeing that our wives did not go so we were on the outside looking in most of the time.  But that's fine....we had fun with our white armbands (inside joke).  Anyway, the conference was ok.  Nothing earth shattering though.  After touring their campus I was sure that they were not selling any Francis Chan books at the bookstore...i was right!! 

So we got back Friday.  That night I was at the Apple Store (heaven on earth) at Northpoint.  I was standing in line waiting to get some service and there next to me was Chris Tomlin!!  He was getting something done to his MacBook. We talked for a while.  He is a truly awesome guy!!  He was in person at the mall everything that he portrays himself to be.  It was great...i got to meet my hero.

Everything went good at Journey Sunday.  At least as the band goes.  We did stuff we and the church knew.  I don't know if everyone was tired or what, but there wasn't much expression in the crowd during worship.  A good friend of the church that is starting a church in Newnan spoke.  He did an incredible job.  He spoke right in line from what we are learning in the Crazy Love class.  

Anyway, i've been spending alot of time writing and recording here at home.  I have a song that I would love to have by Easter but don't think it will be ready.  It would be a great transition into I Stand Amazed in the Presence.  We'll see>>>>

Sunday March 8

We had a great sunday this week!  Attendance was a little down...I attribute it to 3 things; time change, only second week of new schedule, and the race.  But the people that were there were excited and made up for the lack of numbers!

set list

Take It All

Salvation Is Here

Jesus Paid It All

The band rocked as always!  Jesus Paid It All was better than ever.  Or maybe after the amazing things that God did in my life last week I was just ready to really sing that song.

Crazy Love class was great.  I really love the group that God has put together for this class.  I can just see God working in the lives of this group of people.  

Just watched the forecast for the week and all i can say is it is MOUNTAIN BIKING season!!!  see ya on the trails...

WOW!! What a roller coaster of a last 24 hours we have had!  It all started at lunch yesterday.  Heather came home and began having some bad cramps.  We didn't think much of it until she got back to work.  Then things got worse!! She came home and called the baby doctor.  They set her an appointment for 2 o clock today!! 24 hours of waiting, reading on the internet (which was a big mistake), and praying that she didn't lose the baby.  Everything we read on the internet seemed to be pointing that way.

So I picked up Lance early from school and we met Heather at the doctor.  The doctor even introduced himself and said he was sorry it was under these conditions that we were meeting.  My heart sunk.  Heather and I had already prepared for the worst and began to prepare Lance as well.

Then they started the ultra-sound.  I knew what we were all looking and listening for...a heartbeat.  I noticed that the Doctor turned the volume down so that we wouldn't know exactly what was going on.  I could see in his face that he was expecting the worst too.  I couldn't look up at the screen...I just sat with my head down and prayed...God, why would you let us try for 3 years...then give up...then Heather get pregnant just to take it from us.  I prayed God, please let the baby be ok. Then the doctor got excited and said I see the heartbeat.  He said the baby was moving all over the place it it seemed that he/she was waving at us.  As if to say..."what are you guys so worried about?".  Heather began crying and I was so excited i could barely sit still.  I finally realized how much I want this baby.  

Lance was so worried.  When I was walking down the hall toward him I could see the fear on his face.  Then I smiled at him and you could see the relief come over him.

What a day.  Up top is a pic of our baby.  It may be hard for you to make out, but we sure can!

So today...great day at Journey.  Complete with a snow shower!!  We were continuing in our series on the Song of Solomon.  The reception has been great with a lot of requests for cd's of the messages.  Music.  Heres the list;

Happy Day

All Because of Jesus

Never Let Go

There was an air of excitement during worship..(of course I think some of it was looking out the windows and the impending snow storm coming), but it was a great time.

We started this semester of small groups today.  Crazy Love went great.  There is a wonderful group for it and I cannot wait to see what God is going to do with us...