That's Racin'

To those of you not from around here, today is one of the biggest days in Charlotte...at least as far as NASCAR goes.

More than 200,000 (yes, you read that right) people show up at Lowe's Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600. Now, the race is at night. But the word on the street is that to beat the traffic you need to be there by 9 AM.

There are even reports that during the course of that long day a few of the fans consume an adult beverage or seventeen.

So, in the church world we tend to write off this Sunday - not only are tons of people at the race, but it is a holiday weekend and tons of people are out of town! Could be tempting to let off the gas a little and take it easy on a day like this.

Bad idea.

I watched the last twenty laps of the Indianapolis 500 this afternoon, where the top three drivers were dueling for position as the race wound to its conclusion. Several times, the commentators said "even in the turns, at this point in the race you can't take your foot off the throttle and let up, even for a second". And the guy who won, Scott Dixon, didn't let up for a second.

I am so glad our Creative Team takes the same approach, because this morning was killer. Not only were there lots of people but there were tons of new faces (where do you guys keep coming from?!).

We wrapped up the Heroes series and, far from mailing it in, Harrison and the band called an audible Thursday night at rehearsal and added a killer Foo Fighters tune that complemented the message and Big Idea perfectly. I was so glad our volunteers and our band went all out today because the energy on the Matthews Campus (and from what I hear, at Ballantyne as well) was off the charts.

Good reminder for me that even when we might be tempted to take our foot off the throttle. God expects and demands nothing less than our best. I am very glad to work with people who get this, and better yet, act on it!