Showers of Blessings

I apologize for the silence...once again. When Pastor Dino is out of pocket, my life gets incredibly busy--I have a new respect and appreciation for his schedule--and blogging is one of the last things on my mind. We taught on being relevant this weekend at HPC, and I have to confess, I had a blast!! It's such an honor to be able to stand before the incredible people of our church and learn God's Word together. Rachel and I have been on staff for over a decade (I started fresh out of college when I was only 22 years old), and many of the families at HPC have watched us grow up. From the youth ministry days of Crosswalk--with only a handful of teenagers meeting in an unfinished studio--until now, there is no other place I would rather be!

Yesterday was full of surprises. I was scheduled to speak 3 times, 3 different messages (Pastor Dino's Bible study, Life U., and Late Nite), and my day was spent hibernating in a cave I call my office. Sermon preparation can be an interesting thing: sometimes it's so effortless and easy that I can't write in my notepad fast enough...other times it's a grueling task of scratching and clawing just to hammer out a few coherent thoughts. Take a wild guess which experience was mine! After the all-day wrestling match in my office (Bibles and commentaries scattered everywhere), my preparations were complete, and I was finally ready to say something.

Out of nowhere, the electrical thunderstorm of the century hit Baton Rouge around 4:30pm. I felt like Chicken Little trying to tell everyone that the sky was falling. Traffic was backed up, streets were flooded, and the power at the church was completely knocked out, so we had no choice but to cancel services. With all the effort and study I had put into those messages, I couldn't let it be in vain. So that night at the house, I gathered Rachel and the girls in our living room and preached my heart out for 3 hours...1 person almost got saved, 1 person fell asleep, and the other 1 threatened to leave and start her own church! We did, however, collect a record-breaking offering of several crayons and leggos!