May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

[youtube width="425" height="335"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnpO6ewfkAc[/youtube]

Neicy_Salvation_Story from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

• Luke has been playing star wars legos on his Nintendo DS.  He is really good at it.  I love it! He calls Darth Vader – Dark Lazer!
• I really enjoyed Ken’s Yes from his yes and no feature he does on his blog.
• I am leaving today for Chicago! Pretty crazy. I have never been there before and I am looking forward to seeing Willow Creek for the first time. Truth Staff is going to the Shift Conference.
• Are next series in Truth is called, “Talking Donkeys“.  It’s about hard to believe stories in the Bible, the talking donkey, floating axe head, etc.
• I have been playing Rockband with the kids a lot lately.  They really love it and I enjoy watching them ROCK! Luke will make all sorts of cool faces and moves while drumming.  His list of moves includes, but is not limited to, playing from behind the drum set, jumping high in the air and coming down with a stomp (sure our neighbors underneath us love that one), spinning around in between hitting the drums, etc.  Mia just loves singing and I find it amusing everytime she sings, “Creep”.  There’s just something about hearing a 7 yr old saying, “I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo”
• We officially closed on our house yesterday! Praise God for selling our house so quickly! In a place that normally takes 6 months for a house to sell, ours only took 6 weeks.
• I want to change my blog.  It’s been like this for a while.  I wish I had time to learn CSS and create my own style.  Anyone out there feel like creating me a wordpress custom theme feel free.  Although I doubt I’ll get as many responses as Tony.

But wait… not just one or two nights.  They are cooking us dinner on 3/24, 3/25, 3/26, 3/27, 3/28, 3/31, 4/1, and on 4/2.

So for a week and a half they are going to provide dinner for us. How awesome is that!

Thank you The Met and thank you God for bringing my family and I to such an awesome place! 

Tonight was incredible.  It was the end of our Rockstar series and Andy had a friend of his come in to give his testimony. He grew up with parents who were always high and he got involved in drugs at an early age too.  He basically went to talk about his jail time, all of his dead friends, hitting rock bottom and then finding Christ.  He gave an invitation and we had 48 people willing to stand up and leave the room to go speak to our adult/student leaders.  Based on the cards they filled out 22 people accepted Christ for the first time and 26 people recommited their lives.

I had the opportunity to pray with, answer questions, offer advice, and encourage 5 young guys. I can’t wait to see what God is going to do with them.  I’m praying for you guys! Jelani, Austin, Rashid, Tony, and Billy thanks for having the guts to take a stand for Christ tonight!

I called her name and she immediately looked up at me…AND…smiled.  Nothing, I mean NOTHING can warm up the heart of a father any faster than seeing his child smile at him.

• Top of the list – I got to baptize my daughter.  That definitely ranks up there with one of the best days of my life.  It was an unforgettable experience.  It’s pretty awesome to baptize anyone and I’ve had that opportunity a few times, but this was the best.  I also baptized my two cousins Autumn & Eli on the same day.
• My grandmother had a very bad accident.  I am still praising God because she walked away without a scratch.  She called me while in the car after the accident telling me she had a wreck.  I didn’t think it was that bad, but when I pulled up to the scene there were 3 Counties and 2 ambulances.  That kind of freaked me out.  I walked down into the ditch and first thing she did was hand me the check she was delivering to me.  She was on her way to see me @ the church office.  I knew then she was ok.   They put her on a stretcher and took her to the hospital for x-rays.  Everything came back ok and they sent her home.  She is still sore today, but doing great!
• Today is my last day before I take a week of vacation!  WHOOO-HOOOO!
• Had Lost night last night, never noticed before – but in the episode “Adrift” of season 2 the shark in the water has a Dharma logo near it’s tail.
• Halo 3 is AWESOME!
• Bought Madden 08 with my birthday money from my Grandparents in Florida.  It is awesome.  Currently I’m doing the superstar mode because I don’t have much time to play and that way I get to play only when my player is on the field.

I know I’m missing something I wanted to blog about, but oh well. That’s what happens when you don’t do it everyday.

So this is for you “Culligan Man”.  I have since preached again, but first things first.

God was definitely all over that message just like I felt He was.  I think numbers wise there were 5 recommitments to Christ and somewhere around 12-15 said they were tired of being  “hypocrites” and wanted to stop being that way.

It was a great time and it felt great to be back involved in youth ministry.  I also got the opportunity to play guitar and sing a song.

This past Sunday I got to preach again.  I finished up the “Edges” series called destinations.  Deborah had been preaching about different countries and how slavery still exist today.  They learned about a 15 year old boy who is making a huge difference in the world and in slavery.  They also talked about Islam and persecution.

The message I did was Destination “YOU”.  It was basically about God created you to be you.  It’s ok to be you.  Be who he created you to be.  Also challenged them to make a difference in the world.  Either by doing something on a huge global scale or by just locally being someone’s bible.  Stand up for what they believe in.

I think the 1st service was a little rough, but the second I did a little better.  I heard on Monday from some parents that their kids really enjoyed me being up there.  AGAIN… it was great to be involved in youth ministry!