What A Weekend!!!

Feb 27, 2006

First of all—let me apologize for not putting up the red velvet cake recipe on Saturday…I had the best of intentions; however…we did our 12 mile run—and it was AWESOME. It began raining about 2/3 the way through and it felt great.

BUT…I think I have sustained my first running injury…it is my left hamstring. It doesn’t hurt, but it is definitely letting me know that it is there. I felt it twitch in about mile four of our run—and yet we still managed to do an 8:45 pace for 12 miles.

So I got home and had lunch with ‘Cretia…and then was going to take a nap for 30 minutes…I woke up TWO HOURS LATER! Oops—my bad!

So I grabbed the recipe this morning and was going to bring it with me…and upon looking at it there are some things that I need for ‘Cretia to explain to me first—so I promise—sometime this week.

We had baptism this past Saturday night! This was one of the most moving things I have ever experienced, watching 87 people confess Christ as their Lord is an amazing event. Let me share a few stories…

The first is about a couple that came in and was registering. One of our staff members began to ask them about how they had first began attending NewSpring and how they came to receive Christ. They said that they had both been in church all their lives…but they accepted Christ the first Sunday they ever attended NewSpring because this was the first time they had ever heard about anyone having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

That pumped me up AND fired me up at the same time. I was pumped that they had received Christ…and I was fired up at the fact that they had been in church all their lives and had never heard the GOSPEL!

The second story was about a dude who was in attendance and seemed to be sort of in awe at the entire ceremony. He asked one of our staff members, “What do you guys do here?” She asked him what he meant and he replied, “Why are all of these people being baptized…I’ve been in church all my life and I have only ever seen two people baptized…I am going to come back here sometime and see what you guys are doing.”

That pumped me up AND fired me up at the same time! This dude had been in church for most of his life—and had only seen two people baptized! WHAT IS THE DEAL? What in the world is going on in the church? People are not receiving Christ. People are not being baptized. I don’t know about you but that bothers me!

Yesterday was a great day! (And it seems that Granger had an awesome day as well…the church I posted about last Monday…you can read about it here.) I spoke with Tony on the phone yesterday and the dude was PUMPED!

AND this week is going to be a blast—First Wednesday will be THIS Wednesday at 6:30! I can’t wait!

That’s about it for the day…oh yeah…I know I link this dude A LOT—but Mark hit it out of the park with this post...it has a lot to do with what I dealt with last week—check it out!