The Way

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...

We had a great time in Orlando. We enjoyed both Universal Parks even though half of the world decided to attend the same days that we did. We rode all of the coaster rides and laughed alot. On Thursday we hung out at the pool and got some good sun. I slept until 1130a on Thursday, which is the longest I have slept in like . . . oh, 2o years. I guess my traveling and Malaysia caught up with me. It was awesome sleep for sure. We drove back on Friday and dodged storms in Chattanooga and came through Murfreesboro about 3 hours after it had been hit by tornadoes. Unfortunately there was much damage there, 2 deaths and about 41 injured. We saw a lot of devastation. Thankful we did not get into it however. Shelbi is home for Easter weekend and she and Morgan worked an AAU basketball tournament at DCA today. Helps Morgan pay for basketball game later in May and puts some cash in Shelbi's pocket. Mowed the lawn today and it looks great right now. Always looks good in the Spring while we hav...

I apologize to the tens of you who happen to check my blog and find that I have not updated in almost a week. I tried to keep it going regularly when I was in Malaysia and so many of you were faithful to pray for me. Thanks so much. This past week was pretty crazy when I got back. Morgan headed to Honduras on Monday - Friday and was involved in doing missions with 9 other people from her school. A huge thanks to Mrs. Folsom and Mr. Streng for taking them. These kinds of experiences always help us secure and take more ownership of our faith. Morgan was no exception. It was her first international trip and she continues to tell us the things that God did. So thankful she was able to go. Her stomach issues seem to be doing so much better. Our chiropractor, Don, who I affectionately call a witch doctor, seems to have helped her the most. He is also a nutritionist and Morgan is just doing so much better. Thank you God and thank you Don. I struggled with jet lag through Weds. and then Fri. a...