This weekend was our 7th anniversary as a church. It’s all flown by so quickly, I almost forgot about our anniversary. I’ll be taking time over the next couple weeks to talk about some lessons we’ve learned in 7 years, but for tonight here’s my thoughts from another weekend at Palm Valley Church…

• Baptism was incredible. We baptized people on the patio (in an inflatable pool) after every service. It was cool to see the crowds stay to celebrate with people who have come to Christ!
• Baptizing my oldest son was a highlight of my life. He loves the Lord, and it was cool to see him take this step of faith and obedience. I was blubbering like a big baby, took me about 10 minutes to challenge him with some thougths I had for him.
• Seeing a guy invite Christ into his life as he stepped into the pool blew me away. It was like Philip with the ethiopian eunich in front of my eyes. Muy cool!
• I had no clue why God placed this message on my heart months ago, but it couldn’t have been more timely. So many hurting people right now.
• Having people stand to be prayed for is moving, but it’s more powerful to watch our people stand up, put their arms around each other and pray for them. It made me cry in every service (a lot of tears from me this weekend ).
• Derrick’s brought a lot of new talent to the praise team, and I really see them growing.
• Michael did an incredible job on the Haiti video. It was awesome! I hope to have a link to it tomorrow.
• People really responded to the point that we need to give generously in a down market; it seemed to resonate that this unleashes God’s blessing!
• Our staff works very hard. Being a portable church of our size takes a lot of work. They are really growing and I see an awesome future ahead of us.
• Lots of life-change happening, it’s stretching all of us and growing us in our faith. I feel like God’s preparing me for something big. I’m praying more, reading Scripture more, and more in tune to hurting people. I love that God’s not done with this work in process.
• I’m off to Catalyst this week. Really need the time of refreshing, encouragement and growth. I’m looking forward to every one of the sessions. It looks like I’ll be drinking from a firehose for a few days (spiritually speaking ).

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