First, and foremost, I am off the charts pumped that I am no longer leaking spinal fluid!!! I am so grateful to God for what He did! I am also thankful for having a great surgeon, Jeff Nees, who trusts God & does incredible work. Plus, I can’t say enough to express my gratitude to my wife for taking care of me! And then there is our church family… You leave me speechless!!! The way you have prayed, encouraged, and taken care of our family is remarkable!

Here are a few other things that I am pumped about:

• Vintage Christmas starts this Sunday!!! We are going to be looking at the tradition of Advent! Can’t wait!
• We are providing some Advent resources for everyone! I love the thought of families have daily devotionals together through the Christmas season!
• I love that people are bringing toys to help provide Christmas for people in need!!!
• This year we are having a “Christmas Spectacular” on the weekend of December 18th & 19th! We have never done anything like this! You will want to invite every person you know! We’ll be adding worship experiences to help facilitate the crowd!
• Christmas Eve will simply be “Candles, Carols, and Communion” (And, cookies) It will be a little more intimate than it has been in the past! I can’t wait to read the Christmas story & get mauled by hundreds of kids! It truly is one of my favorite things!
• 2011 will be our best year ever!!! Totally blown away by what God is lining up!
• I get to serve alongside an amazing team! Robin, and I, are so blessed by the people we work with! It really is one big happy family!
• I’ve never been prouder of what God is doing in our church! And, I have never been more excited about what God is doing in our church!
• I can’t wait to be 100% and running at full throttle!

God is good!!!!

This past Tuesday night I had  the opportunity to share with our college students at LifeStream, our college worship experience! I have to say that it will go down in my book as one of the most fun nights of ministry ever for me! I shared with them some things that I wish someone had shared with me 20 years ago. Here are a few:

• Never drive behind a Buick!
• Abs get flabbier, not flatter! Work out now!
• Dunlap disease! Wear your belly doesn’t lap over your belt!
• Speedos are never cool!
• Life isn’t about how much you make, it is about how much you invest (savings and giving)
• Don’t look at your earning potential, look at you investing potential.
• Victory or Victimization is a choice – a mindset – life isn’t about what happens to you, it is about how you respond to what happens to you – the only person who can control your response is you.
• Rejection sucks! And it never goes away! So learn how to blow it off early & it will save you a ton of hurt.
• Some people are precious, some people are jerks – learn how to live with them both.
• Critical people never win! And they are always miserable as they lose.
• Don’t wait for others to make you successful, it is not their responsibility
• You’ll never see great success without great risk! But, remember the greater the reward, the greater the rejection and responsibility.
• Dream Big! Don’t settle for anything less than changing the world.
• You are a brand! Live it & invest it!
• How you think will ultimately determine how you live.
• Satan’s greatest desire is to put fear in our heart

The Big 3:

1. Life is all about our connections!
2. Life is all about God’s creativity working through us!
3. Life is all about our confidence in God and who He created us to be!

What do you wish someone had told you?