Sort of Random Thoughts About A Great Weekend

It is a rainy and cold Monday, which makes the warm and sunny Sunday we experienced yesterday seem a distant memory, BUT I wanted to capture some impressions and thoughts about a GREAT weekend at Next Level.

-Thanks to all of you for your warm and loving response to the news that Miranda and I are engaged. And thank you for loving on her like you did with all of the hugs and kind words and well wishes. It was a crazy week for her with engagement, new job, and new church as fiancee of the Lead Pastor but you guys made her feel right at home. THANK YOU for that. I love you guys. And, man, we really want and need your prayers in the weeks to come!

-Starting Point was a blast! Way more people than we anticipated showed up, packing out the old Cafe' and killing the last shred of pizza. I am proud of Doug Irvin and Melissa Jackson and the team who have put together a great, rapid fire introduction to NLC that really does cover all the bases.

-The Next Steps Wheel really is a cool way of visualizing involvement at NLC...gotta do a dedicated blog post soon.

-The cover of "Mess of Me" by Switchfoot awesome - aggressive, loud, and on point. Of course, being detail-oriented I was "wise" enough to have my 70something parents seated in the front row right in front of the subwoofers. Oops.

-I raced away from Starting Point to get to BJ's soccer game. What an amazing day - warm, sunny, Davie Park filled with what felt like hundreds of kids and parents and brothers and sisters. One of those afternoons when all felt right with the world. Of course, it delayed my legendary Sunday afternoon nap till 3:30 or so but I will tell you, I OWNED that nap!

-Dinner was my (yes, MY) homemade chicken enchiladas and these cookies Miranda made that were buttery chocolate with peanut butter M and M's inside them. Oh my gosh. I said to Justin "OK, dude, two of those is enough". He looked at me as if I were from Neptune and just laughed loudly as if I had said something roughly equivalent to "That banana peel would look wonderful wrapped around your elbow and smeared with mustard". My parental dietary advice did not even merit a verbal response.

-Trying to decide if I am bringing the leftover cookies to staff meeting tomorrow or keeping them for myself. This is not an easy choice.

-Excited about the launch of "It's Personal" this coming weekend. I really am excited (not just hype talk) about ALL of our scheduled series this year because each one offers you a great opportunity to bring your friends who are disconnected from God or from church!