1. Got home from Myrtle Beach late Friday night.
2. On the way home, we were playing the game with the boys "Would you rather?" Most of it was spent asking questions like "Would you rather eat pizza or ice cream?" "Would you rather fly or be able to be invisible?" However, I decided to make one into a teaching moment, so I asked, "Would you rather score 2 soccer goals in a game and your team lose OR score zero goals and your team win?" Caden thought about it for a moment and said, "I'd rather score 2 goals AND our team Win!." That's my competitive son. Sheesh.
3. Our soccer game was at 8 am Saturday morning. Ouch. Especially after getting in late Friday night. But, our kids all did really well. As for Caden, wouldn't you know it...he scored 2 goals and we won.
4. The game ended at 9:15 and the Sacred Marriage Conference started at 9:30...so I was hauling getting over to campus in time to introduce Gary Thomas.
5. Now, as for the conference on Saturday...AWESOME! I had several people comment to me that they had been to different marriage conferences in the past and that this one BY FAR was the best and most helpful. About 200 people were there. Some traveled as far away as Florida. Crazy. Anyway, incredible, life-changing stuff. I'm convinced the impact will be HUGE on those who participated. If you missed the conference, Gary just released the conference on DVD. You can purchase it by clicking here. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
6. Fortunately, Gary was able to stay over to Sunday and speak during both gatherings this morning. It really was a big honor to have him share with our community. I mentioned this morning that his writings on spiritual formation have greatly influenced me the past 10 years and he has my utmost respect. Anyway, when I spoke to him a few weeks ago, he shared with me about his latest book that's supposed to release in a month or so. He had never spoken on the topic yet, but as he unpacked it for me, I thought it would be perfect for our community. So, he decided to "try it out" for the first time on us and his publisher rushed a special pre-order of his upcoming book, "The Beautiful Fight" for us to have this weekend. In short, I thought Gary brought it! (He quickly sold out of the books...so I assume others thought so as well) He shared how far too often we've relegated Christianity to recognizing Jesus as the standard, or a memory...saying things like "What would Jesus do?" or "I want you to imagine if Jesus was in this room right now" rather than living in the reality of what Paul describes in the Scriptures as "Christ living in me": the spiritual presence of Christ active in us-speaking to us, leading us, changing us. He also challenged the notion of defining ourselves as Christians by the things we don't do and evaluating our holiness that way and that internal conflict and sense of frustration and disappointment that constantly creates since the Scriptures promise "we ALL stumble in MANY ways." Rather, we should listen for what it is God is asking us to do...what tasks is He calling us toward and to do those things. To let ourselves be marked by carrying out the vision God gives us each us to do. Anyway, lots of great thoughts I don't have time to unpack now...it should be up on the podcast by tomorrow afternoon. Well worth the listen.
7. Time to go put together a new bed for Trace. Pier One Kids is going out of business and everything in the store was 75% off....my wife can track down a bargain like none other. So, off I go.
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