What a weekend! In the services the message centered around that great part of the story of Elijah from 1 Kings 19 in which E split for Sinai. Just so you know, Journey is a great place to preach. People are responsive & into it. There’s a lot of freedom. But this week it seemed like we hit a cord. We rolled around in with Elijah through his despondency. It was easy to feel the connection people were making with the story.

We ended the message with this thought: inviting Jesus into our lives means inviting him into our dark places. The response to the invitation to come to Christ was about 2x what it usually is.

Leading into the message our team put together something special. The Band did the song by Lifehouse, “Broken”. Dan Stevers put an astounding video together. It seemed like the grace of God was all over it. Several times I felt a surge of emotion in me as the song / video went on! Wow!

Saturday Linda & Bethany & I drove up to the OC to see my mom. We had a great time. When we were at lunch my mom decided to tell the young waiter guy, that she thought he was a “good looking young man.” Of course Bethany was turning multiple shades of red. Awesome.

For me, this week features some solitude time & then on Thursday I head to Ames, Iowa to speak at a college retreat for a great College ministry called Salt Company (Click here). They are having a tremendous impact on Iowa State University. I’ll keep you posted.

I had this cool feeling as I was leaving my office Sunday morning & walking over to the worship center: Church is fun! There’s lots that goes into every weekend at Journey. Every time there is a service, there are hundreds of volunteers serving, there are dozens if not hundreds of hours of prep, there are lots that can go awry. But no question, those are some of the best hours of the week.

This week we looked at one of the truly EPIC STORIES of the Scriptures. The contest with the prophets of Ba’al on Mt Carmel is a defining moment in redemptive history, heck in all of history. Here’s another reason why James statement that is framing our series is so startling:

James 5:17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain & the earth produced its fruit.

Once again, Nancy Regas did a spectacular job of interpretively reading the story.

Speaking of great moments in history, we did our entire service with no announcements. Everyone know they are critical to connect people with church beyond the services, but it was pretty cool to soak in Worship for a little longer than usual.

A few times a year we gather prayer leaders from as many ministries as we can to connect, communicate & to encourage them. I’m usually pretty shot after the services to b be honest. But I’m always stoked after being with these people. There is something about people who are consciously structuring their lives to pray that is refreshing to be around. Pam Turner leads this ministry & this meeting.

Wisely we don’t just talk in theses meetings we spend some time with the Lord, usually in Lectio Divina & small group prayer. She brought an excerpt from one of the best devotional books ever written (in the top 10 – 15 for sure), Thomas Kelly’s A Testament of Devotion. I’m going to post the whole thing tomorrow, but here’s the 1st paragraph:
The Simplification of Life
(Excerpt from “A Testament of Devotion” by Thomas Kelly)

Our lives grow too complex, overcrowded and busy. Even the necessary obligations seem to grow overnight, and we find ourselves weighed down under burdens, and appointments. As we try to meet at least the minimum demands, we realize we are weary, and can even come to regret that our life is slipping away, having tasted so little of the peace, joy, and serenity Christ speaks of. Where is that deep life of unshaken composure in the holy Presence?

We tend to blame the complexity of our lives on our complex environment. But this is not fully true. Nor can we say simplification of life will follow simplification of environment. The truth is that we are not skilled in the inner life, where the real roots of our problem lie. For the true explanation of the complexity of our lives is an inner one, not an outer one.

Wow!

Somehow I felt a little football deprived this weekend. I taped the Charger game only to find out when I got home that a power outage jacked shut the VCR (yes, still a VCR) off. The Sunday night game was boring. So hopefully tonight’s game will be that sports fix I need… that is before Linda ousts me from the living room when Dancing with the Stars comes on. Part of the falleness of creation that will be redeemed someday.

I am pro-life. I don’t see how you could take the Scripture seriously and not be pro-life in some way. I’m not talking about a political position, although there are certainly political ramifications to being pro-life (duh). But, I don’t like the stalemate that we are in as a culture on this issue. I really don’t like the anger I see flying around this issue, especially when it comes from people who are invoking Jesus & the Bible.

That’s why I like the work of LIFE PERSPECITIVES. Think of them as an upstream organization. Instead of focusing on legislation & making abortion illegal, they are focusing on education, helping build the ground work for people to make like affirming choices – making abortion unthinkable. I’ve blogged before about their national campaign called Abortion Changes You. They also have a curriculum called “Whole Life Curriculum” getting at the root of the issue, at a worldview level. (My wife Linda is the author of WLC). They speak, write, educate.

Check out the great websites: Abortion Changes You (here) and Whole Life Curriculum (here).

We at Journey partner with and support them.

We also get involved in their main fundraiser called the LIFE WALK (click here). Thanks to a several Journey peeps who help me out, I’ve become one of the top fundraiser / walker dudes. I don’t intend to loosen my grip on this position. So help me out. Support me! Better yet, walk yourself. It’s fun. It’s inspiring. It will make a difference.

It was fun that the last post on the Name of God in the Hebrew Scriptures generated so much discussion. Who would have thunk it?

The one thing that has always stuck in my craw, and caused a little bit of doubt about the saying (perhaps even the writing) of The Name, Yahweh, is that it is never used in the New Testament. There is no indication that Jesus said it; it isn’t used in the letters the apostles wrote. It is not avoided, but it seems like the NT simply falls in line with the decision of the translators of Septuagint (for some background on the Septuagint – aka LXX see the fairly good Wikipedia article on it here). Contrast this with the text that we are going to look at for the message this week at Journey, 1 Kings 18. The Name Yahweh is all over the place. There is no doubt that Elijah and the people spoke the name in the conversations that are recorded for us in the narrative. Now the NT writers don’t seem to avoid it. They use the word God freely. But it’s always been, in my mind the best argument for those who don’t use it.

Last week, after the post & the discussion, in my devotional time I read this in Luke:
Luke 24:3 But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. For some reason the words the “Lord Jesus” stuck out to me. So I did a quick check, and want to know something interesting? (You are like, “it’s about time”) Only AFTER the resurrection is the appellation “Lord Jesus” used. Lord would be the equivalent of adonai; Jesus / Yashuah means Yahweh saves.

Let’s look at Luke’s sequel, Acts or more accurately, “The Apostles Strike Back” (he didn’t put a title on it really so this may be what he wanted all along, ya never know). After healing a lame man in the name of the Jesus Christ (Yashua Ha-Mashiach in Hebrew) they get called in to face the religious authorities and say this when told to knock it off:
Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

The Name by which one could be saved, every Jew knew, was God’s name, the covenant name. The highest of all names! And speaking of the highest of all names look at what the former Pharisee Paul of Tarsus wrote about “Names”

Phil. 2:9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him (Jesus), and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

We get a hint into how the very first Christ-followers understood this when we read things like this in Acts:
Acts 10:48 And he (Peter) ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
If you are flowing with the thought here, you should be asking, “didn’t Jesus, himself tell these guys, including Peter, to baptize people in THE NAME of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? (See Matt 28:18-20). Apparently, in the Name of Jesus, the full person of God is brought to bear.

In conclusion, in a very real sense the New Testament writers did pronounce the Name. Every time they utter Yashuah or if they were more comfortable in Greek, Iesou, or if you are a gringo, Jesus.

So when you read the Bible, feel free to read His Name when He seems to want you to. Next time you pray Psalm 8, don’t say the nonsensical, O Lord our Lord how majestic is Your name in all the earth. Say O Yahweh, Our Master / Lord, how majestic is that Name of yours in all the earth. Remember, “knowing God personally” or “in a personal way” or “not religion, but relationship” is not a cool Christian innovation that Jesus invented. It was in the Hebrew Scriptures from day 1. It was what the prophets called His people back to. It is the blessing that God has that changes the way we do life.

Jer. 9:23 Thus says Yahweh, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am Yahweh who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares Yahweh.

INTENSE: If I had to pick one word to describe this weekend for me at Journey this would have to be it.

THE MESSAGE was on a part of the “Elijah Cycle” that is full of emotion. It’s about the death of someone’s child. Yes, God raise him from the dead through Elijah, but if you enter into the story as the scripture intends, you can’t help but feel the pathos. The point of the message was that we are a part of & in need of God’s miracles in our own lives. Even as Nancy Regas read the story (it was a marvelous example of interpreting the scripture in the very reading of it – she had a keen grasp of the story & brought out the meaning as she read) the narrative seemed to grab your heart.

DIANA HARSHMAN’S MY JOURNEY – The story of the miracle her family experienced in their son’s life was such a great parallel with the text & the message. I’ll let you in on a slightly embarrassing secret: as I was sitting there listening, I had to consciously say to myself, “Pull it together, Ed. Pull it TOGHETHER!” The prayer meeting we had for their son was one of the most powerful I’ve been a part of.

GOD LANDING ON THE WORSHIP – I love it when this happens. I also am fascinated by how “not-controllable” this is. J did a great job of sensing what was going on.

PRAYER & THEN PRAYER, DID I MENTION PRAYER – It seemed like the message, last week’s message & the momentum from last week’s God works all stirred up some people’s need for prayer in a big way. We had people lined up down the aisles & across the front as our awesome ASPT (after service prayer team) prayed with person after person. I didn’t get out of the building for about an hour after the service ended. I walked away thinking several things:
- We have a lot of need, acute needs.
- There are some great people in our ASPT – we need more!
- It’s hard to see people hurting
- I want more faith

SELAH – Our worship & prayer gathering called Selah, kind of picked up where the morning left off. Lots of needs & lots of prayer. It is such a beautiful sight to see the body of Christ serving & ministering to each other.

SURF THERAPY. The week leading up to the weekend was utterly full and to be honest, stressful. So it was cool to surf with some good friends on Saturday. It was pretty crowded but the waves weren’t bad & having your boys out there kind of multiplies the fun.

I remember in somewhere around day 2 of our Hebrew class our instructor had us take out our main text book & we all read this statement together:
“Another type of deliberate change in the reading due in this case to reverence, is the Divine name (Yahweh). The Divine name was considered too sacred to be pronounced; so the consonants of this word were written in the text (Kethibh), but the word read (Qere) was adonai.
A PRACTICAL GRAMMER FOR CLASSICAL HEBREW by J. Weingreen.

He had us all get out our pens & cross out the word “reverence” and replace it with the word “superstition”. He went on a passionate rant / digression saying (weird that I can still recall this), “God has a NAME & He wants us to know it & call Him by name.” He would usually begin our classes with prayer. One day for example praying Psalm 8:1 prayed, O Yahweh our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth (Yahweh adonainu ma ‘adir shemka vacla ha-aretz).

Back to the present. We at Journey are in a series on the life of Elijah (1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2). One of the main themes of the life of Elijah is that Yahweh, not Ba’al is the true god of Israel & really of the whole earth.

GETTING US UP TO SPEED
For those of you that are totally lost let me give you a little background. When you read your Bible and are in the Old Testament, you frequently see the word “LORD”. It seems so normal to us that you are probably saying, “Duh! It’s the Bible, of course it talks about the LORD! This is all fine & makes sense until you get to passages like Genesis 4:26… “then men began to call on the name of the LORD.” What kind of name is “LORD”. So here’s the deal. When you read in most English Bibles the all-capital word “LORD” it is translating the Hebrew word “YaHWeH. Hebrew has no vowels, so pronunciation indicators, called “vowel points” are put in many Bibles to help us know how to say it (they are not in most texts read in synagogues). Somewhere along the line it was decided that the name of God was too Holy to pronounce. So in Hebrew you SAY adonai (Lord, master, think of English royalty, yes, my Lord) even through anyone can read Yahweh. Pretty much every English translation that any of you own follows this notion. Some of my Jewish friends not only won’t say the Y word, but even when they type they will refer to God as G_d or Ha Shem (the NAME).

THE QUESTION
But when you come to a section of Scripture like we are in now, in which the whole thing is a battle of the two very specific deities.,both of which have names. What do you do? In most of our minds the word “LORD” and the word “GOD” is interchangeable. But here one God is getting in the face of the other & at every turn essentially calling him a punk. In fact the main character, Elijah (Eliyyahu) means Yahweh is my / our God. So, I find myself referring to Yahweh in these messages. The question is this: is that o.k.? Further, are our English translations right in not translating what is plainly & repeatedly right in front of them?

REASONS FOR NOT USING THE Y WORD
It is nice to fall in line with a long tradition if possible. In matters of faith & theology, innovation is not exactly a cardinal virtue. The practice of not translating the name is ancient. For us protestants of course we have a long history of saying “who cares”. We point to places like Mark 7 in which Jesus blew off tradition warning about it getting in the way of real faith. Allow me to throw a speed-bump in our road through the neighborhood of faith we’ve recently (in historical terms) been invited to move into. This particular tradition pre-dates Jesus. The Septuagint (shorthand LXX, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures c.200 b.c.e. ) did not translate “the name.” They used “KURIOS” the Greek word for Lord. All of the New Testament writers followed the LXX in this practice. Often when you see OT quotes in the NT they are quoting the LXX. (I know this is lot of letters to keep track of… pretend we’re texting LOL, OMG, OT, NT, LXX)

To me this is the strongest argument for adhering to our practice of LORD for YHWH.

ON THE OTHER HAND
But the name is used over 6800 times by itself not counting where it occurs in names (like Elijah) and places. There is THAT! In the Bible that is next to my laptop, the Old Testament is 816 pages. Do the math. That’s a lot of occurrences of a word that we aren’t supposed to say. Then there are the places where it just doesn’t make sense if you don’t use a proper name.

The KaBoom for me is that essentially the name of Jesus is this name. Yashuah (the non-greekized / gringo-ized name of Jesus, what his mom called him) means YHWH is Salvation!

So here’s what my practice looks like. I sometimes pray to Yahweh. I often read it YHWH when I’m reading the text in my own Bible reading or when I’m memorizing verses. When I teach, I use it when the text calls for it, especially when it won’t make sense without it. I try to pray the Shema of Jesus (Deut 6:4-5 with Lev 19:18) in the morning & at night every day. I have memorized them in Hebrew. When I say v.4 I say Yahweh. When I say v5 I say adonai. Don’t know why, I just do.

As for me, I pray the prayer of Solomon when he dedicated he temple
1Kings 8:43 hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know Your name, to fear You, as do Your people Israel, and that they may know that 2this house which I have built is called by Your name.

And that name would be…

This was a jam-packed weekend! I felt like a wrung out washrag when it was over, but it was awesome. It featured one of my favorite things of the whole year, our BIG BEACH BAPTISM.

ELIJAH SERIES LAUNCH – we kicked off our series on Elijah. It is such dramatic story that it pretty much preaches itself. The whole series is predicated on James’ comment that Elijah had a “nature like ours” (homoipathoes – same feelings as us). These really are OUR stories. My point was that these stories are for “emulation not adulation”.

We all have a mark that God has for us to make.
Nicholai did a great job with the scripture reading – story time!

WORSHIP – O Yeah! We at Journey regularly experience anointed excellent “worship”. But it seemed to have a special anointing on it. I was rocked every service, overwhelmed by the goodness of God. It was fun to see David doing a great job with the band. Then the VIDEO TRANSION to the message was spectacular.

BAPTISM – There are some great “this is why we do this” moment that Churches have. Baptism days are among the best of these. I love to just see all the stories of God’s amazing grace represented by each person.


- As I pray over people before they are baptized, I try to listen to a word from the Lord for them. There were several people who said “wow, that was so right on for me.”
- I love how people’s friends are out there with the people getting baptized. One of the best ones this weekend was a young couple, the husband getting baptized, his wife crying for joy – an answer to lots of prayers!
- There was a TON of people there to celebrate! A huge crowd! My only frustration is there are so many conversations that only get half finished.

- I love the cheering on the shore. I wish everyone could have the view we pastors have out there seeing hundreds of people excited & cheering.
- I loved seeing several good friends kids getting baptized. Props to Aiana, Max, Tyler!

THE BLESSING OF LONG TIME FRIENDS – I have the great favor of lots of long-term friends. Blane Rings and his wife Crystal were in town this weekend. He was the 1st baby sitter for our 1st child, ever. We were great partners in youth ministry when we were both living in Omaha. Blane wanted to try his hand at surfing on Saturday. Let’s just say, he didn’t drown.

Speaking of weekends we are working on nailing down the rest of series for 09 including Christmas this week. It should be fun.

I pretty much took the summer off from my monthly desert solitude routine. There were several reasons. Of course “desert” & “summer” would be a good place to start, and the rhythm of my life is a little different in July & August. But I’ve missed my time & felt like I was overdue.

I like returning to places that are more beautiful than you can remember them being. You just can’t capture in memory how blue the sky looks against the brown mountains, how the long winding desolate road reminds you of your overly busy soul, the miracles of plants seeming to grow in sheer rock.

For whatever reason I felt compelled to spend the time in wordless relaxation trying to access God’s presence. I usually have part of my time in silence & then break the silence with prayer about half way through. I also usually journal like crazy out there. But I felt like I needed to be real minimal with words, even journaling. Here’s what I wrote today in my Journal:

9/9/09
Reflection: I was silent the whole day, even most of the trip home. I didn’t even write in the journal other than what you see. I think there were a few things involved here.
- Wanted to break a pattern – whine about my problems, my struggles my sin etc
- I wanted to not try to manipulate & frame & control with words
I ended up feeling refreshed.

The only words I did utter came in a prayer that is contained in Richard Foster’s book, Prayer. It comes at the end of his chapter on “Authoritative Prayer”
For some reason as I was praying, I was overwhelmed & started to cry –
Here’s the prayer:
In the strong name of Jesus Christ I stand against the world, the flesh & the devil. I resist every force that would seek to distract me from my center in God. I reject the distorted concepts & ideas that make sin plausible & desirable. I oppose every attempt to keep me from knowing full fellowship with God.
By the power of the Holy Spirit I speak directly to the thoughts, emotions & desires of my heart & command you to find your satisfaction in the infinite variety of God’s love rather than the bland diet of sin. I call upon the good, the true & the beautiful to rise up within me and the evil to subside. I ask for an increase of righteousness, peace, & joy in the Holy Spirit.
By the authority of almighty God I tear down Satan’s strongholds in my life, in the lives of those I love, & in the society in which I live. I take into myself the weapons of truth, righteousness, peace, salvation, the word of God, & prayer. I command every evil influence to leave; you have no right here & I allow you on point of entry. I ask for an increase of faith, hope, & love so that, by the power of God, I can be a light set on a hill, causing truth & justice to flourish.
These things I pray for the sake of him who loved me & gave himself for me. – Amen

On the way home, I put in the Anthem CD from my friends at Salt Co in Ames. Click here for more info. Wow! In addition to some wonderful passion for God poured out in praise & unbridled desire (the best thing about College ministry if you ask me) one of the dudes sounds a lot, I mean a lot like Bono! It was a great way to go home.

I like being back into my ritmo desierto!

This weekend we concluded our series on prayer with the creative title, PRAYER. It was a good weekend & all, but a little sad. I kind of hated ending this series. I’m going to post a few “Month of Prayer” type reflections in a couple of days, so I don’t want to elaborate too much, but this month we have felt such Holy Spirit synergy! I can honestly say that it surpassed our, or at least, my expectations by a country mile.

MESSAGE – I had lots of fun with this weeks’ message. I felt a little like I was cheating because I got to do lots of stuff with the message that I love. I love preaching out of the gospels. I love teaching on prayer (probably b/c I’ve been a struggler for much of my life & have now achieved the lofty status of novice ☺), I love Luke & then this passage had everything – a parable, some humor, bone jarring words from Jesus that challenge you to the core (ask and it will be given to you…). During the series, I’ve been reading through Richard Foster’s book called Prayer. He is almost as clever with titles as we are. This message had a couple of quotes from the book, but this one was hard to get through without choking up:

Does not every cell w/in you cry out for this life? Is there not deep inside a longing for his continuous presence? Do you not crave an increase of God’s love, God’s joy, God’s peace, God’s power? My bet is that a little prayer sprinkled here & there is simply not enough for you. Oh no, you want more, much more. You long to burn the eternal flame.

JON DAVIES MY JOURNEY – Maybe the best thing about this series has been the marvelous “My Journey’s”. This week, Jon shared the story of the miracle that he experienced being able to walk his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day & then being able to stand & dance the father / daughter dance. I love how God’s name is honored & his people are moved when he “acts on behalf of those who wait for Him” (Isa 64:4). I don’t think there were too many dry eyes, not due to sentimentality, but because it is beautiful when God works. If you missed it, it’s worth the podcast simply to hear Jon’s story. It didn’t hurt that he did all 3 services in a Charger uni.

“TOGETHER” – Part of the message was about not “losing heart” as Jesus warned about. It’s critical that we have a sense of “togetherness” if we are to “keep heart”. I remember the great Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his must read little book, Life Together, writing if not from a prison cell, with the imminent certainty of one in his mind: “the physical presence of other followers of Jesus is an unspeakable blessing which we may not always have.” So I tried to weave a strong plug for small groups & the prayer ministry into the message. Don’t miss out.

2 VIDEOS – I also loved having 2 videos in the service. One was the Baptism Video. You can check it out on Youtube using this link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2QA-9Gqp6g&feature=channel_page) I love those. I can’t wait for this Sunday. Our next BIG BEACH BAPTISM! But then we were able to watch the ELIJAH SERIES PROMO VIDEO. I have one word: WOW! Followed by a question: how are the messages ever going to live up to the promo video. Check out http://vimeo.com/6437872 to see it.

NICK TORTENSON & CO – Sunday afternoon it was great to have lunch with a friend from Fresno that was in the youth ministry when I was there. He was down with his wife & some friends from here in SD. I’m so encouraged that Nick is serving Jesus with everything he’s got!

More than usual this weekend was the culmination of a week. We went into this weekend having finished up our WEEK of PRAYER that I have been talking about here & on Facebook. It was an amazing week.

• People signed up to pray for hour blocks of prayer all week. I heard so many cool things about these hours.
• There was never a minute of the week, day or night, in which prayer wasn’t arising from Journey
• We gathered every evening for prayer. Each night was unique. Each one surprised me with how many people came.
• Lots of people fasted during the week, many for more than one day. It was cool.
• There was definitely as sense of being in this together!

So it’s not hard to imagine that the weekend following ALL THAT would be stellar. It was on the RISK aspect of prayer. The unique thing about the weekend was collage of stories that we featured.

It started as this floating idea with the working title, “GOD IN THE SUMMER.” We were hearing of all these wonderful things God was doing & I thought we have got to share this with people it would build faith. We had this segment slated for this weekend a few weeks ago & as were trying to figure out how to fit it in the idea came. What if this IS the message? It was a Holy Spirit moment; a God speaks up in a meeting! Maybe all those invocational prayers at the beginning of these meetings aren‘t just a ritual.

All was well until the run through Friday about 5:30. I don’t usually go to the run-throughs. But frankly it just seemed like it was falling flat.
To complicate matters, or maybe just make them more personal, a guy I surf with, whom several of us have been inviting to check out a service for months picked this weekend to show up. One of his former students had been leaning on him hard to get there before summer’s end and there he was.

As we started worship, I was gripping. I was lacking faith & wrestling till the 3^rd song. Then the voice of the Lord (Check out Psalm 29:4) broke through.  3 phrases came strongly & graciously to me. “This is a chance to love God as you preach.”  “You can love me by trusting me” & finally. “I got this.” Huh. “I GOT this.” For me when the still small voice speaks, I usually have a picture of what he’s talking about. It was like I knew – I got your friend’s 1^st time here, I got this different out of control thing we’re trying, you just love me in your speaking & preaching.” So cool! It was like a cloud lifted.

Everyone that shared had a faith-building, risk-inducing word. I especially liked the way it ended, only wishing we could have devoted more time to it. We have been ending all these talks in the prayer series giving a minute to interact with God. Here’s what came on the screen:

2 QUESTIONS –

* What risks does God want to talk to me about?

* What risky prayers does God want me to pray? (make a slide of sample risky prayers)

SAMPLE RISKY PRAYERS:

* Speak, Lord, I think I’m finally ready to listen.

* I want to live life to the full, no regrets. So show me what’s holding me back.

* What is the next step for me & You, God?

* Jesus, I’m tired of avoiding this decision, I give my life to you.

The weekend went GREAT. Lots of people showed up. I’m getting cool follow up emails. People’s faith was built up seeing God at work in our midst.

I’m praying for a new normal for us! For you! For me!