This past weekend I celebrated 7 years of marriage with my wife. We were completely blessed to have been given the whole weekend to ourselves. We were able to reconnect and spend time just being us. Once you have kids, you lose a lot of that and it’s harder to make time for it. Anyway, I learned quite a few things about myself this weekend. Some of them were things I actually rediscovered. Here they are…

1. I love reading mystery novels. I love mysteries and thrillers and didn’t remember. We went to Borders a couple times this weekend (see #2) and I starting reading a book that I couldn’t put down so I ordered it at Amazon.com. I’m so excited to get this book and read. I’ll probably write about it when I’m done.

2. I love Borders. I don’t know if there’s a difference between all the bookstores in the world, but Borders has a more inviting feel to me. I love the colors on the inside and I felt compelled to stay and read. Eva and I love reading books and we love spending time together in that way.

3. There is a lot of good music in St. Louis, MO. I love this town. It’s home for me, but as I grow older I’m finding out things that I didn’t know when I was little. There is good music here that isn’t always on the radio. We went to a GREAT concert Friday night (see Concert Review) and I’m sure that I’m missing so much good music here.

4. I have amazing friends. The more time we get to spend with them the more I realize that God has really blessed us with some great people. I can’t wait to see what God does over the next few months as we get to know them better.

5. I must really be growing up. Eva and I went to a couple movies this weekend and one of the movies we saw was profanity laced. It did nothing for me and sort of took away from the story of the movie. There was a time in my life where I didn’t care and would watch anything. That’s not the case anymore.

6. Jim and Jeremiah may quite possibly be the perfect storm of public embarrassment. They may also be the perfect storm of straight fun in many forms as well. There’s not much else to say about that.

7. I will, always have, always will, love ice cream. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

8. I don’t write new music because I’m lazy and can find many things to do besides sitting and writing.
8a. I really want to start a music group. That has been my dream and it won’t go away. I’ve done all I can to turn away from this idea, but it keeps putting itself in my line of vision.

9. I adore my children. I loved having the time away where I could connect with Eva, but I was quite happy when my kids came home last night.

10. I cannot live without my wife. Period.

11. God is amazing! He continues to bless me in ways that I KNOW I don’t deserve. I’m not sure why He keeps it up, but I’m so glad He does. Thanks be to God for everything I learned this weekend. I also pray that I keep learning things. If I stop learning, I’m dead.

What a weekend this has been! For the most part, it was all a blur. There were so many good things that happened, and some crazy ones, too. Through all of that, God did some very cool stuff. First things first, story:song:life was amazing and I can’t thank my friends enough for helping and being a part of making it something special for everyone involved. It was fun being on stage with such amazing musicians, and having Bry Hampton share her art brought another element to the night. Hopefully there will be some music and video clips in the near future…

Also this week, my wife and I were able to get away and really look at our lives and where God is trying to lead us in this church search. We essentially visited 3 different churches in an entire weekend while still going to our own. This process has been really trying, but God has really been guiding us in some real amazing ways. But the big thing for me this weekend was the encouragement. There have been so many people in our lives this week that have given us very specific encouragement when we really needed it. One that really stood out was last night. As we sat in Springfield, MO in ‘Grandma’s’ house, we were filling her in on our lives while we sat at a table with homemade Chicken Cordon Bleu among other things…anyway got distracted for a bit… Grandma was really just sharing how God has guided her life once she decided that God was in control and she was going to follow him. Her encouragement was real and it was timely. She spoke the Word of God, which is where true encouragement comes from. She shared with love, compassion and confidence, knowing that God is real and that He still works today. You can’t find that type of love anywhere. You can only find that kind of love in the community of believers. I TOTALLY appreciated it and it gave me more than enough energy to drive home after an ignorantly long day…

This whole worship180 concept comes from a desire in my mind to help people reevaluate the way we look at worship. This whole thing oozes the idea of enriching your community. Grandma is family and she shared her heart like only family can. She was enriching her community. I was glad that I was able to experience first hand the one thing I’ve been trying to promote and share with others. I was also glad I was able to experience strawberry cake…

So as God continues to work, I’ve decided that I’m going to actively watch Him. Man, is He good! I am constantly surprised at what God has been doing throughout this whole idea. It would be very easy for me to get ahead of myself and move faster than I’m supposed to with this thing. I have to be able to be still and listen to God and let Him lead me.

I have no idea what it is that God is doing right now. The more that God does, the more I realize I don’t know what He’s doing. I do know that there is a plan and this is what I have up until now…

So I was hanging out with a friend (I’ll leave him anonymous until the linear notes of the CD) last night and we were talking about this idea. As we talked and shared and let God work, we came up with the idea of worship180 being the overarching theme of this ministry. We then started to put some things together graphically and it started to come together a little more. The scripture that stuck out after awhile was 1 Corinthians 13:12. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. I won’t go into all the nerdy details that we came up with as far as how we will make that look in the future, you’ll have to wait for the website for that. However, it’s fitting that the passage comes from the “Love Chapter”. When we are dealing with worship, we are expressing our love for the Master. We want to show Him how much we love Him, but we don’t know truly how to love Him. We don’t know how to love Him fully because we don’t know Him fully. The desire of the ministry is to help us look at the gospel, which will help us to see Him a little more clearly.
From a ministry front, we don’t totally know what God is doing yet, we see through this mirror very dimly right now. The hope is that as we continue to look to Him for guidance and direction He will continue to clear the glass out a little. Stick close, this is getting good…