Yesterday I felt like trash. Woke up with a 101.5 fever and my throat was on fire. I was convinced that the swine flu had descended on my body at last. Impending death was immanent. Most of the day I stabled out around 100 degree fever and sandpaper ridden throat. Never before have I thought that I felt bad enough to need to send my sermon to someone else on staff to have them ready to preach. However, yesterday morning I found myself in that boat. This posed an issue for me on so many levels. I am STOKED about this series. I love being with our Roanoke people. We were prepping to baptize some people today. There are new people coming every week. You can see my dilemma.
I spent the vast majority of my day in the same spot on the couch in and out of consciousness. I finally took some Benadryl and went to bed at 8:30pm. Minus some pretty jacked up dreams I slept hard until about 3:0oam. I woke up sweating, got up and got something to drink, checked my kids and went back to bed. Woke up this morning at 5:30 and felt like a million bucks, well at least one hundred bucks for sure. The throat was still a little scratchy, but for the most part I felt good. As I drove through the quiet dark of an early Sunday morning I began to pray for God to do some incredible things in our midst today. Here are some of the things I got to experience today.
1. Talked with a woman in our church who’s son was ready to never set foot in a church ever again who came over Thanksgiving. She was in tears as she told me that he is now looking for a church where he lives.
2. Talked with a lady this morning who is going through some monumental things in her life and told me that our church was the one place that she felt comfort, peace, and love. She asked that we continue to walk through life with her. I assured her we would.
3. The message today started our Christmas Series and it was AWESOME!!! I loved communicating the love of Christ. That never gets old and it never gets old seeing people resonate with it.
4. We had record attendance in our children’s ministry today. So proud of Robin Nagengast and her incredible team of volunteers that love on and teach our kids every week.
5. When our worship team did Hosanna today in first service I could hear our people singing louder than our worship team. That NEVER gets old to hear and see people connect in worship.
6. I prayed with a lady today who is in a physical battle with her health, an emotional battle with her life, and a spiritual battle with God. Today she released much of that to Him and found some new freedom.
7. MY FAVORITE PART OF THE DAY: We baptized three people today. It was a celebration Compass Roanoke style. We piled 40-50 people into the Wilson’s house, ate incredible food that Mr. Rod Wilson himself prepared, and baptized three people in their hot tub in the 40 degree weather outside. I had the privilege to baptize Michael Logan who has only been a part of our church for four weeks. He is in LOVE with Christ.
8. Jeremy Peterson, campus pastor extraordinaire, Baptized Grant Long, one of the most incredible guys in our church. The beauty was that he came up out of the water and immediately baptized his wife Shelly. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL!!!
9. After missing my long run yesterday I decided to do it today. 5 miles in 51 min. 31 sec. The cold was invigorating as I listened to Rob Bell preach on being salt and light. That was the exact sermon I needed to hear tonight.
10. Learned that when you don’t put anti chaff stick on your chest it looks like Andy’s chest from the Office when they did the rabies fun run. If you are an Office fan you will appreciate that.
THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS WEEK:
1. Cookie Decorating for Underprivileged Kids in our community on Saturday morning at the Roanoke Elementary School.
2. Our women getting together Monday Night for the Annual Women’s Christmas Gathering. I cannot go cause I am a dude, but am stoked that all the tickets are gone.
3. Getting back in the groove of my training for the Cowtown Half Marathon that I am running with a bunch of our Compass Roanoke peeps. You should join us.
Hope you guys have a great week. Cannot wait to see what God is going to do over the next season of life with our incredible people here at Compass Roanoke. Much love to you all tonight. Now it is time for bed.
LET'S SOCIALIZE