2 posts tagged “weekend update”
Simply put, the trip was amazing. Really quickly I want you to imagine a trip of 200 college students that is being planned, organized and led solely by other college students. . .
Now erase all the mental images of drunken mellee and destroyed hotel rooms. As much as anything else, I was blown away by some CRAZY high quality leadership throughout the entire trip. I was well taken care of, the students were well taken care of, and ultimately everyone made it there, encountered God and made it back home safe.
For sure one of the more interesting parts of the trip for me was that we stayed in what would be considered a fairly traditional church. Let me first off say this place was extremely gracious as they opened their facilities absolutely free of charge and even provided 2 meals for our entire group of 200. I got no complaints.
The interesting part were old questions that sometimes I forget are even being asked anymore.
Does God care about the clothing that I wear? Is using the word "crap" sinful?
Maybe the questions aren't really even that interesting to me. . . I think the passion with which people hold opinions on questions like these are pretty interesting though. Alright, we'll be back to more regular posts as of tomorrow. I'm still catching up on sleep.
P.S. Columbia, I missed you.
Thurs.: Finnegan Bell live in concert at the US National Whitewater Center (which is a man made river complex where Olympian kayakers practice - they have full raft trips as well). Finnegan is Shane Williams' (lead singer of the late, great Silers Bald) band. It was an awesome intimate show with just Shane and a drummer - Josh Kean who happens to be a Columbia native and the drummer for local sensation Baumer.
Friday: We got a lot of work done at Nathan's house. Installed a sink, garbage disposal and a dishwasher. After Nate and Levacee treated to a delicious calzone at the Sub Corral, I went on to Greenville and hung out with my boy Ray.
Saturday: Drove up to Cashiers, NC to a mountain home for Matt Ables' bachelor's party. Can I just take a second to say, despite what you Columbia natives may think, I have GOOD NEWS! Mountains, waterfalls and STARS still exist. They're just terrified of the heat here in Cola, so they stay away.
We hit up Glen Falls, and Dry Falls; cooked man burgers over an open fire; burned some copper wire (which makes gorgeous blue flames) and had some incredibly enriching bachelor's conversation. Seriously.
Sunday: All I can say is last night at Midtown was intense. I walked into the 6:00 p.m. service and it was a holy moment. God showed up and the 170 or so people were going after His heart in a way I can't explain. It was beautiful. He took my breath away. Thank God for letting me be part of His family in this city.
On the night, we ran about 320. I'm not the guy who gets crazy excited about numbers and growth for growth's sake. I'm the guy who loves to see more and more people connecting to God AND knows it's detrimental if people don't plug into community and get discipled to maturity. So, let's hit our knees and start praying. Growth is happening. We can't allow spiritual maturity to be a casualty of rapid growth. Especially not if we want to see Midtown full of missionaries on fire for seeing the kingdom grow in our city. (More on this later this week)
