The Way

Okay, so if you live in Middle Tennessee you know that we are in our 10th straight day of rain. The plus side is - everything sure is green (or under water). We have seriously considered trading in one of our three cars for a boat but the girls are not too hot on that. This past week has been pretty busy for all of us. Sondra spent the week at her mom's in Bolivar getting her fingers into the rich, Missouri soil and planting flowers, etc. Yesterday morning, Bolivar was visited by a tornado (or at least strong, straight-line winds) and sustained some damage throughout town. Sondra's mom's house had some wind damage (shingles, back screened in porch blown around and some chairs carried a couple of hundred yards). Power is out in many places. The storm swept across the mid-section of the US and was pretty wicked. I was in Orlando, FL and Spartanburg, SC meeting with some guys on some pretty exciting youth ministry ideas. I am pretty excited about God is doing across this land...

It was nice to be at home this past weekend and great to have my dad here. He flew in Fri. am and was here until Mon. am. We pretty much stayed out of the rain on Fri. (we have had about 5 inches of rain in the last 4 days) and on Sat. we all (Morgan, Shelbi, Sondra, Dad, and I) drove to Jackson (2 hours) to be with Shelbi at Union. She was playing with a fraternity in benefit volleyball tournament and we needed an excuse to go see her anyway. Dad had never been over to Union so it was a good visit for him as well. It was big fun. Of course it rained pretty much the whole time, but hey, it's water and it was no big deal. On Monday, Sondra flew to her mom's in Bolivar to hang out this week, Dad flew back to KC, and I flew to Orlando to spend a couple of days with FL youth ministers. They are doing some pretty exciting things related to coaching other youth ministers in the state. It is at the beginning of the process but these guys get it and invited me to listen in and offer m...

Finished up last weekend in California and a great time of learning and presenting at Equipped for Excellence in Riverside. I get so pumped and energized being around people who love: God, working with students, and life in general. We were together for about 6 hours of youth ministry training and I was tired, but man it was fun. I also got to spend some time with Mike and Nicole Lovato and their 9-month-old daughter, Addison. It was fun to reconnect with them. Mike serves as a youth ministry contract consultant for us at LifeWay . Addison was doing the all-fours move, but not quite crawling yet. I got in the floor with her, whispered in her ear how to put it all together and on Monday she made it real. I am taking credit for some of that. It has been a good week in the office. It is nice to get in around some of the FUGE team and listen and learn from them. With about 60,000 kids coming to camp this summer, it is pretty wickedly busy around here getting ready for all of them. This t...

Last week it was home all week and this week it is gone all week. I left Monday am and headed to Destin, FL (I know tough assignment) for a couple of church visits and then Metro Youth Minister's meeting. This is a group of about 60 of the largest church youth groups in the US and they meet once a year. It is always good to connect with them. I flew to CA yesterday to participate in Equipped for Excellence . It is a large one-day training experience for the Inland Empire Association. I will be leading many things related to youth ministry. Of course, they will hear alot about the LifeWay Student Development Strategy . I enjoy these training sessions. My running has been going pretty well. I mentioned in my last post that I had some buddies running Boston and all of them did well. Congrats to David, Gene, Bob, and Ted. I still am planning to running Boston next year and hoping to get some of my buddies from Nashville qualified this Fall. This has been an incredibly busy Spring it se...

It has been great to be home all this week. It was good to have the whole family together for Easter. Monday through Wednesday we hosted a Student BETA Conference at LifeWay and it went great. It was so refreshing and encouraging to listen to and learn from youth ministers. We had invited 21 youth ministers here to hear about our student development strategy and to hear what LifeWay Student Ministry can do to learn from them. It was an exciting time. I love that fact that I get to work with youth ministers across the nation and even some around the world. Last night we hosted a get together for our sunday school class from New Hope and laughed until we cried. What a great group of students and what a priviledge to just get to hang out with them. Family is good. It is Banquet night for Morgan. She has had many of her friends come through the house today for their make-up to done by my wife. She dabbles in BeautiControl and made the girls look more beautiful than they already were. N...