You Give and Take Away

First the Take Away:

Well, it's Friday night and I'm taking a break from packing clothes and what not for a trip to West Virginia. Not a trip I'm excited about. My grandmother passed away on Thursday and her funeral is Sunday at 2 pm. About a week ago she feel and broke her hip. Mawmaw, as we like to call her, has had a history of heart and lung problems, and has had very bad osteoporosis...not the best candidate for anesthesia/surgery. But, the doctors said she needed it or she would be bed-ridden for the rest of her life. Surgery was a success, but she never made it out of the I.C.U. She was in such pain that the doctors gave her more morphine. Because of that, her respirations were suppressed. So the doctors were constantly playing tug-o-war with controlling her pain and knocking out her breathing. Then on Wednesday night she went into a coma and then passed away at 11 am on Thursday. The family has found solice in the fact she passed peacefully and pain-free. But, the weird/neat/encouraging part for me was when I found out Thursday morning she was in a coma, I started praying and I heard the Lord clearly told me that "He was going to take her" that day. When I talked to my mother that night I informed her of what the Lord had told me and she was comforted and encouraged. So now I'm picking out a white shirt and tie because that is what pallbearers are going to wear on Sunday. My uncle wants me to give a eulogy at the funeral...I don't know if I'm comfortable doing that. I'll just have to be praying hard to see if God wants me to share or not. Mawmaw was a wonderful grandmother! Always so loving and boy could she cook!! Mmmmm....mmmmm!! I will miss her so much but I know she is not suffering anymore and she is with Jesus...man how happy is she right now?!

And now the Give:

Prior to my trip to Scotland, my grandfather developed these fainting/passing out episodes (basically multiple strokes). I witnessed one of these episodes and it was scary. I'm a doctor and all and I see a lot of scary stuff sometimes, but what I saw really freaked me out. Anyway, he went into the hospital in Macon (after being to 3 other hospitals) and I was wavering back and forth on whether or not I should go to Scotland or stay with the family to support them and be there for them. I talked to my dad and he told me I should go to Scotland and that if anything changes, they will get in touch with me and if I need to come back home, I could do it then. I knew I was supposed to go to Scotland, but to be honest, my heart and mind were back here in the States. While overseas, I checked my email as often as I could, fully expecting to get an email saying that Papa (that's what we like to call him) had passed. But instead, I got emails saying that the doctors believe they've found out why he's having these episodes. They performed a heart cath procedure and un-blocked 3 very clogged coronary arteries. Praise the Lord! But the Lord always gives more than we expect, and He truly gave our family some leftover bread and fish during this whole ordeal (reference to when Jesus fed the multitude on a few biscuits and sardines). The night before Papa had his heart cath procedure, he had an encounter with the Lord and he surrendered his life to Him!! Now if you knew my Papa, you would know that he is a very boisterous man (don't know if that's the right word or not?). He is always the first one to tell his stories of the deer he killed, or the fish he caught, and so forth and so forth. And he would tell these stories with all that was within him! The day I got back to America is when my dad told me about him being saved. The coolest thing my dad told me was that he was telling everyone who walked in his room that he got saved and Jesus is the Lord of his life! It was the first thing that came out of his mouth when my dad went up to the hospital the next morning. So to top it all off, Papa was baptized tonight. My brother and mom were there (as well as other aunts, uncles, cousins) and they said when he came out of the water, he shouted, "Praise the Lord!" That's my Papa. And you know what, that's my God!! He is in the business of healing, not just physically (which Papa is getting stronger by the day), but emotionally and spiritually as well.

So Lord, the past couple weeks You have truly given and taken away, but I can't help but bless Your name!

Grace and Peace.

Got to Crawl Before You Walk

Something I was thinking about tonight that could be an addendum to the previous post. I was at the Square and I saw a father holding the hands of his little boy as he was first learning how to walk. The child's feet were wobbly as he desperately hung on to his father's hands for support and reassurance. Then it hit me...this is where we are in worship. We are at the stage where we are transitioning between crawling and walking. There is the uncertainty of steps and the fear of falling on our hands and knees, even worse, falling on our faces. The little boy had the assurance of being able to crawl, but the next step in life (literally) is to walk. It's science. Worship right now, at least in America, is at this transition. Go with me on this one for a minute, I promise to make a point (and feel free to expound on it if you so desire). I touched on this in the previous post, but we have grown comfortable in our ability to touch the bottom. Or maybe we are at the middle rope in a pool and occasionally we venture out into the deep end where we can't touch, but quickly return to the rope. We as a church are on the brink of walking, but there is the comfort or the inward satisfaction of being able to crawl. That's just what we are used to. But like I said, it's time. It's time to walk. At first our feet are wobbly and we are unsure of our next step, but the key is holding on to the Father's hands. His hands are not too short to uphold us and save us! Will we fall? Will we fail? In a way, I hope so. If we don't find ourselves failing, then maybe we aren't taking risks enough! All in all, failing is not as bad as it reads. Failing equals learning. In the Gospels, Jesus encourages His disciples that if they go into a town and they do not receive them, then shake off the dust and go into the next town. Jesus is basically saying that the disciples will fail, but to not lose heart. Shake off the dust and go the next town and keep doing what you are called to do. The little boy has the innate goal to walk. The fact is, he is going to fall at least once (probably multiple times) before he "gets it." If we gave up after the first time we fell, then we would all be cruising the streets of the Square on our hands and knees! That ain't natural! But we have this fear inside us. Maybe it's root is the fear of man; the fear of what other people or what the congregation is going to think of us. Maybe the root goes even deeper...sarcasm. Sarcasm? Yes. We are afraid to step out and walk because of the sarcastic comments that may come our way. You know that the word sarcasm actually means "to tear man apart?" We are afraid that the words of the body will tear us apart (they do have the power of life and death). I don't know, I'm just kind of rambling right now and don't know if I'm actually making a lick of sense!?! So I'm enlisting a challenge...let's get off of our hands and knubby knees and start walking! Take ahold of the Father's hands. Put your little fingers inside His big, capable hands and start walking. We will fall and we will scuff our knees, but we can't stay like this forever...it just ain't natural!

Grace and peace.

Catching Up

It has been such a long time since I blogged (I feel like I've said that before in another blog) and a lot has happened in my life since my last post. Let's see...I went to London for close to 2 weeks and took part in a worship leader conference by Tim Hughes. I think I have characterized that trip as both confirmational and transformational. It indeed was. I was there with 20 other worship leaders from around the globe and we had amazing teaching sessions, as well as incredible worship times together. It was confirmational because as I was there, I felt God tugging on my heart strings and whispering to me, "this is what I have for you, Justin. But, this is just the beginning..." I gained a lot of knowledge, wisdom and revelation concerning worship and where God is taking worship around the world. And, I gained amazing friends. God is taking worship to new levels. It is kind of hard to explain, but worship as a whole is going into deeper waters. I feel as if we have been in knee or waist deep water for so long now, but God is calling us deeper. Waters so deep that we can only swim. No more touching the bottom of the old way of doing worship. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful of what worship HAS been in the past 10 years or so. Delirious came in and took us to deeper waters, then Passion, and now God is raising up worship leaders all over the world, and He is uniting us with with one goal...enountering Him. If we don't encounter Him and if we don't leave a worship setting changed, then we did not have a true encounter with the Living God! Now I am talking about the corporate gathering together where we lift up the Name of Jesus and adore Him, whether in song, meditation or contemplation. There are so many more ways to worship, laughing with friends, obeying your parents and authority, taking a walk and standing in awe of the beauty of His creation, reading Scripture, and so on and so on. But as far as corporate worship goes, where we are heading is exciting and can be a little uncomfortable to some. To start, look at what people are watching these days...reality TV shows. People enjoy tuning in every week to see what's going to happen next. They are drawn in to the unpredictable nature of these shows. In the same way, our worship services need to be "Reality TV Show Worship Services." In no way should one be able to know what is going to happen when they walk into church on a Sunday morning, or a Wednesday night. They should wondering, "what's going to happen this week?" I remember going to 7:22 many years ago, totally expecting to have loud worship and then hear Louie Giglio give his message. But as soon as I walked through the doors, there were signs up telling us to find our seat and stay silent. The whole service was silent. There was no music. There was no sermon. There was no ministry time. We sat in darkness (yes there were candles around the room) and read words on the big screens; words of Scripture mainly, but also words of instruction on what to meditate next on. It was an altogether different service, but one that I will always remember. It was the Holy Spirit that led that service as you focused on Jesus and allowed Him the time to speak into your heart. So, our worship services need to be unpredictable, because the Holy Spirit is unpredictable!

Which leads me to the next major point, the Holy Spirit is THE worship leader. I love Matt Redman's idea of lead worshippers. This takes the pressure off us mere humans and puts it all on the Holy Spirit. If you look back through the Bible, you read of different "worship leaders." You read, "a song of Moses," or a "song of David," or "Mary's song," or "Zechariah's song." These words were mentioned all the way up until Pentacost. It was here that the shift took place. From here on out, the Holy Spirit controlled the worship. He became the Worship Leader. So, as the lead worshippers (ie. Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Tim Hughes, Hillsong, Kevin Mann, Tate Welling, Bill Tanner, myself, etc) prepare for a worship service, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to direct the service. We need to ask Him where He wants the service to go. We need to seek His direction and ask Him what kind of response He wants in our worship. Also, we need to plan for the unpredictable. Space needs to be planned to give the Holy Spirit room to do what HE wants. He may want us to stay on one chorus for longer, or He may want us to completely go off of the set list and do a different song. Or, He may want to go into a prophetic time or He may lay a word of Scripture on our hearts that we need to turn into a song. Or, we just need to be silent and let Him speak into our lives. To some, this is scary because they have gotten used to touching bottom. Has He ever let us down? Will He leave us? Dive in. Swim. Splash around. HE IS GOOD!!!

It should be common in our worship services for people to dance. It should be common in our worship services for people to weep. It should be common in our worship services for healings to occur. It should be common in our worship services for God to call out people into their Kingdom destiny. If these aren't happening, then we need to take an inventory on the worship that is in our churches. It may be time to humble ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to lead. I'm speaking to myself here. See, God is doing a new thing all over the world. It's time to swim people. That's just it...it's time!

So I will leave you with those points. The bar has been set. I'm both excited and anxious to see what it is going to look like when the Holy Spirit is leading our worship. Not just in the corporate setting, but in our own lives as well.

I will include a few pictures of the London retreat:



Here is me and Tim Hughes! (My new friend...he loves Ketchup)



Here is the whole group giving our rendition of "jazz hands"



And this is the mansion we stayed in...pretty sweet huh?

WWOOOOWWWW!!!

Ok....from the title I bet you can assume how amazing it is going. I haven't been able to land an internet connection for several days now, and I've been wanting to send daily updates...oh well. This trip has been in one word...transformational! Soooo much information has been downloaded into my brain that it is going to take a while to process and move forward. I just want to say that Tim Hughes is probably one of the coolest, most humble guys I have ever met! He has been cracking me up the entire time...and I do know what he eats on basically every kind of food though. That in and of itself was the object of some comments in jest for the first couple days. Brad, I have a lot to bring to the team! I have learned some incredible truths and practical worship ideas that I know will take the worship at Riverstone into deeper waters. I have been asked several times by people here what is one thing I have learned that I will take back to the U.S.? Well, there's not really one thing, but many things. This has been definitely a confirmation on my calling in worship! My heart is enthralled and my chest tingles when all 20 or so of us gather together and learn with each other and worship together. It is very encouraging to meet people from all over the world (most are from the London area, but there are some others from Singapore, Scotland, Wales and 3 others from the U.S.) that have the same struggles, the same questions and the same desires. We have had some of the most intense times of worship where we go into a room and leave it up to the Holy Spirit to lead the worship. I have a stronger passion for the prophetic aspect of worship, which we so desperately need at Riverstone! I can't wait to share more, but that's it for now. I plan on typing out all of my notes and making them available either by email or posting some lessons on this blog thing. I'm off to Ireland this weekend and then back to Tim's church in London. So until next time...

Grace and peace.

On my way...

So, here I am, sitting at the E32 Gate at the Atlanta airport. What am I feeling? Extreme excitement and awe at the greatness of my God. He has such good plans for me...for you...for all of us who call Him Abba. Words cannot even describe what is going through my heart and mind right now. One is that this is where I'm supposed to be. No, not the airport! But on my way to be encouraged and skilled in the calling God has for me. I'm about to embark on the journey that God had planned for me since the beginning. He has had this day in mind while I was in my mother's womb. I can imagine that he has had this gitty, "boy do I have a surprise for you" look on His face up until this day because He has been waiting for this day, for this journey, for this life-changing event for 28 years! So, I'm ready. I'm ready for the knowledge and wisdom that will be poured into me. I'm ready for the new friends I will make...including Tim Hughes!! How freagin crazy is that?! I'm ready to come back to the states (we'll see about that I guess...) and take what I learned and be faithful with the talents the Lord has given me. Well, we are about to board. Please stay tuned for more. I would love for all my friends and family to be sharing...at least in the blog world...in this momentous time in my life.

Grace and peace.

So timely!!

I must say that God is a timely God. If you have been keeping up with me via this blog thing, you have read about some struggles of mine. One, being rejected for the 3rd year in a row for a neurology residency and then the last blog about my struggles with getting alone with God. Then on Friday the Lord encouraged me in such a way that I was immensely overwhelmed. This past February I applied for a worship leading seminar in London with Tim Hughes. There were only 20 spots available to the entire world! Yes, the entire world!! Well...I am one of those 20!!! Encouragement, confirmation, affirmation and spirit/soul uplifter all in one. More and more God is opening doors for me when it comes to leading worship. I'm getting all shaky even typing this blog. Being specialized in veterinary neurology would have been good, but God had/has something so much bigger and better in store for me. The seminar is the last week in May and it will consist of Biblical training, practical worship training, learning about the roles of each worship band member, and there will be song-writing sessions. Plus, I get to spend a week with Tim Hughes! After this week, I will be able to say that Tim Hughes and I are friends...maybe I'll call him Timmy (probably not but you never know?). I can't wait. I want to leave tomorrow. It's amazing to see prophetic words (some that were spoken over 8 years ago), dreams, etc starting to come to fruition. God is so good and faithful! He has BIG plans for me. I'm not being prideful at all, but I'm believing God for an international worship ministry. I believe I am going to be partnered with such people as David Crowder, Tim Hughes and Chris Tomlin, leading others in unity in praise and adoration of our Creator and King! My spirit is welling up inside me just by me typing this truth. I am so thankful for the many of you who have given me encouraging words about this gift and calling of mine to lead worship. By doing so, you spoke this opportunity into being. Thank you for your hearts and your friendship. Not to us God, not to us, but it is Your Name that deserves all of the glory!! Hallelujah...

Welp, gotta book a flight.

Grace and peace.

Zeal where are you?

I am in a dry land right now... a desert if you will. Today it hit me, I haven't spent quality time with the Lord in...man, about a month! What I mean by quality time is actually sitting down in my secret place, worshipping, reading and digesting His Word, and listening. To be real and transparent with you guys, I haven't had the desire to do it. I can try to pin it on me being busy this month, working overnight shifts, etc. But it just stems from a lack of zeal right now. It's been over a month since I studied the book of Colossians, which if you don't know, God placed it on my heart to in-depthly study this book after the Passion 07 Conference. Is this an attack from the enemy? Maybe. Is it just a period I'm going through? Maybe. Whatever the cause, the result is the same...run to Him. Lately I've settled and become content on the emptiness and blah-ness. I've become comfortable going through the motions. I lack good Christian guy fellowship. I need encouragement and accountability.

BUT, our God is faithful. His heart is moved at the site of one of His children pressing in during times of drought to seek Him and worship Him. He rejoices over our responding to the "yes" inside of us. I need a fresh wind to blow in and through me. I need a fresh water to refresh my soul. I need the breath of God to blow on my coals. I want to feel His gaze, and feel the warmth and strength of His embrace. He is beckoning me to come to His table. So that's where I'll go. I'm reminded of the amazing song by Leeland called Carried to the Table. Here are the lyrics:

Wounded and forsaken

I was shattered by the fall

Broken and forgotten

Feeling lost and all alone

Summoned by the King

Into the Master’s courts

Lifted by the Savior

And cradled in His arms

I was carried to the table

Seated where I don’t belong

Carried to the table

Swept away by His love

And I don’t see my brokenness anymore

When I’m seated at the table of the Lord

I’m carried to the table

The table of the Lord

Fighting thoughts of fear
And wondering why He called my name
Am I good enough to share this cup
This world has left me lame
Even in my weakness
The Savior called my name
In His Holy presence
I’m healed and unashamed

You carried me, my God You
carried me

Deuteronomy 33:12

Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in Him,

for He shields him all day long,

and the one the Lord loves rests between His
shoulders.

Can you visualize that last line? Here is what I see after I read that verse: I see God sitting down on the floor leaning against the wall or sofa with his legs straight out. Then I see me sitting between his legs with my back to His chest. His arms then wrap around me...I'm resting between His shoulders. There's no where else I'd rather be.

He is summoning me to His table and He is waiting to be able to cradle me in His arms. Oh sweet love. The cry in my heart is to be swept away by His love. At His table we don't see our brokenness anymore, we don't see our fears anymore, we don't see our insecurities anymore, or our weaknesses anymore. Here at His table, our healing and wholeness are found. Here the Lord places a banner of love over us.

Grace and peace.

El Doctor

I don't really know why I'm blogging right now. I guess because it's 2:15am and I'm at work! Yes, yes, I know I promised all of you that the next blog would be about the Fourth Man playing up at Camp Glisson, which I know you have been waiting on pins and needles for! But instead, you are left with this random blog about some of the patients that are under my care right now. Let's see, I have a 7 month old Lab mix with a fractured right femur. It's kind of sad because it appears to be involving his growth plate, which may mean his right rear leg will be shorter than his left. There's a young Bichon that got hit by a car today that has pulmonary contusions (bruises in her lungs) and possibly has a broken jaw. She's resting a little more comfortably in one of our oxygen cages. Godfrey (which I think is an awesome name for a dog), is a 1.5 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel with fungal pneumonia...not good. Oh and there is this 215 pound Mastiff, named Oki, with septic arthritis (infection in his knee joint). Yes, I said 215 pounds! It takes the whole staff to get him up and outside to use the bathroom...pretty funny site to see. These are just a few of the patients I have the priviledge of monitoring tonight. Some critical, some not so critical. But being here and trying my best to help these little creatures (or big creatures...Oki is freagin big! I could probably ride him. But I'm not gonna because his knee hurts) makes me happy that I do what I do. There's nothing like taking in a critically ill animal or one that had a serious traumatic episode, and seeing them get better day by day, by day, by day... . Yes, there is the other side of the story where animals come in and they are bad off, and their condition worsens to the point where they die on their own, or we help them out. But you know, we tried our best, and most of the time, euthanasia is for the better...I find peace in that (see previous blog "Good-bye").

Well, I guess I should get back to my doctor-ly duties. Oki says hi!

Grace and peace.

Un-Match Day

Is that even a word?! Well, for those of you who read this (again I'm sticking by 1-2 people) and are wondering what the "h" the title means, today was the day where those who applied for a residency position to become specialized in a particular genre of veterinary medicine found out if they matched or not. And I'm sure y'all are smart enough to pull from the title that I did not match...for the 3rd year in a row. I'll admit I wasn't too hopeful this year, but it's still disappointing to get rejected. I don't do well with rejection...I'm sure you can ask those who used to be close to me and they'll agree (key word being "used" - that's where the word rejection fits in). Even though I wasn't hopeful that this hail-marry residency pass would be completed, I had a feeling that this might be my year. I only applied to 3 places (out of 7 in the country) - UGA, Univ of Florida and NC State. I thought I had a good chance at UGA since I went there...wrong. My mentor at Georgia Veterinary Specialists where I did my internship went to Florida for his residency, so I thought I had an "in" there...wrong again. NC State was kind of a long shot, but I had a fairly good interview with them 2 years ago...and so there was "no" number 3. So I'm done. No more emotional roller-coasters for me. It'll take me a few days to get over this rejection, but then I'll start to look at the brighter side of it. Being rejected for 3 years in a row simply means that God has something better in-store for me. It probably has to do with worship...not probably, it does. I will say that if I had gotten a position somewhere, then I would have had to drop out of the mission trip to Scotland (even though I'm not too keen on going right now anyway - hey I'm just being honest; I don't want to be fake blogger...or a flogger. God just needs to add a few more guys to the trip, that's all). Also, the skies the limit for The Fourth Man, and I would have little to no extra free time to play music or lead worship if I was a resident. And by the way, my next blog will have some new pictures from our latest "gig" up at Camp Glisson.

"All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails" (Proverbs). So His purpose is prevailing in my life. Everything I try to do for the most part fails. The plans He has for me are such deep waters and are so good. What's that phrase? I can't see the forest from the trees? Is that right? Well that's how I feel. Sometimes I lose sight of the greater because of the lesser that is being burned away or pruned away in my life. The "lesser" is what I thought was good in my life. He promises to shake everything that can be shaken. God is so grand and big and majestic! Stars come out of his mouth and He knows them by name, each and every one of them. In the beginning light came out of His mouth! Ponder those 2 sentences a minute and try to wrap your mind around how BIG God is! The billions and billions of stars that are in the universe; stars that are 100-1000x the size of our little planet earth, came out of His mouth! I mean, come on, we serve a BIG God! Yet, He's a God that wants to be intimate. He's infinite and intimate. He cares for me, He cares for you, He cares for us! He gathers His sheep and pulls them close to His heart...how beautiful is this picture?! So whom am I to question? Whom am I to say, "are you sure God?" I just need to trust Him, which I do, wholeheartedly. I've heard it said, "Wherever you are, be all there!" So that's what I'm going to do. For now (and I do stress for now), where I'm at is Marietta, GA. I honestly don't see myself living here for too much longer. When I say that, I mean in the 1-2 year time frame. Until I get called elsewhere, I pledge to be all here! My God is faithful and sovereign. People will let you down...I know this full well, but God will never leave or forsake you. People will change right in front of your eyes...but God never changes; He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Plans will fail and what you thought was going to be, won't be. I just need to set my heart and eyes on the eternal, on things heavenly (because everything else is temporary and will be shaken). I need a little more of the intimate God right now. I need to be led by the still waters so He can restore my soul. I am moved and quieted by this, "I am my Beloved's and His desire is for me."

Hey trees, get out of my way!

Grace and peace.

Thomasville Disciple Now

This past weekend I had the priviledge to help lead worship at Thomasville, Ga's Disciple Now. Our 5-person band consisted of Elliott DeJarnett leading, his college roommate Bryan Fox playing lead guitar, Anthony McPhail on the base guitar and Caroline Darnell singing with Elliott. I can speak for all of us when I say we had an incredible weekend. D-Now was put on by 2 local youth pastors, Bobby and Floyd - sorry don't think I ever got their last names. Floyd is Cory Hallett's brother-in-law by marriage (Anne Marie's sister married Floyd). Do you even call him a brother-in-law? I don't know. I've never understood the nomenclature of family bonds by marriage. Maybe somebody can help me out? Anyway, we led worship for a group of students from all over the Thomasville area. About 7-8 different youth groups were represented, from all kinds of different denominations. I think in years' past only the Baptist churches were involved with the D-Nows. It was amazing to witness the unity that's present amongst all the different churches down there...which is something we are praying for here in Marietta.

We arrived in Thomasville about 4:30p Friday afternoon and began setting up at Thomasville First Baptist Church. The production came close to what we typically use at our summer camps; full of lights, smoke machines and a kick-butt sound system. That night we led worship for around 400 or so students and about 100-150 adult volunteers. I'm not going to brag...wait, yeah I am...the worship was pretty dang good. I could tell that they weren't quite used to the intensity of worship God brought through us. Don't get me wrong, there were more than a few people that had their hands raised, but a majority stood and just sang the songs. I will say that I couldn't see everybody from all the smoke that was around me! : ) After worship, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Barberitos (so good) and headed to our hotel. Elliott and I shared a room, as did Anthony and Bryan. Poor Caroline had a room to herself. Saturday we woke up and went and ate lunch at the First United Methodist Church with their youth. Floyd is the youth pastor at this church. He kind of reminds me of Cory, except he's funnier...sorry Cory! After lunch we all (we being the band) took a leisurely stroll down Broad St in downtown Thomasville. We stopped in a few shops, including the very sketchy Wig and Accessory store. There is a music store in downtown Thomasville that is the oldest music store in America. It's been open since 1904! (You could tell by the limited amount of inventory they had...). Also, if you've ever been to Athens you have noticed the different styles of Bulldogs (excuse me...Bulldawgs) that decorate many of the street corners. Well, here in Thomasville they have random small animal statues, including dogs and beavers...yes, beavers! Elliott thought it would be funny if I took a picture with all of the dog statues (see below).

Doing an examination... Playing peek-a-boo w/ this one

Such a good dog... I see what your pointin at there fella...

After goofing off downtown, we went back to the hotel for a little nap time. We headed back to the church that evening to get ready for the night's service. Saturday night was such a good time of worship. There were about 800 or so people there that night! We led worship for about 45 minutes. The students (and adults) were much more engaged than the night before. There was a dramatic difference in the response of the body. The students were right on top of the stage. They had never heard of Marvelous Light before and it became one of their favorites! The Lord definitely reigned on the praises of His people that night! The intensity of worship reminded me a lot of the worship that goes on at summer camp. I do have a random, but stinkin' funny story that happened while we were practicing for the Saturday night service. We were running through Jesus Paid it All and you know the part where it says, "Sin had left a crimson stain..."? Well, Elliott thought the song would sound better if it went, "Jen had left a clemson stain...!" We all stopped playing and were like, "did you just say, 'Jen had left a clemson stain?'" We were laughing... (sorry, Anchorman quote there). You may not think it is that funny, so I guess the right thing to say now would be, "I guess you had to be there." Anyway, the speaker was a college pastor from Prince Avenue Baptist Church in Athens, GA. He spoke from the passage in Matthew 16 (vs 24-26) where Jesus talks about what it means to be a disciple and truly follow Him. I was definitely challenged when it comes to the things I have in my life as a priority over God. Can I truly say that I am able to deny myself of everything in this world for His sake? It's tough...

That night after worship we went to the fabulous Waffle House then went back to the hotel for bed. The next morning we were to lead worship at the morning services of 2 different churches (8:45am service at First United Methodist and the 11am service at Dawson St - not to be confused with Dawson Creek - Baptist Church). At the first service we played with the whole band and at the second service we did a little acoustic set with a djembe. This second service was rough. The students stood and the adults (where the average age was about 60 years young) stayed seated, blank stares and all. We plowed through that service and then headed back to our respective destinations (Marietta via Macon, and Athens).

All-in-all, the weekend was great. We got to meet a lot of great youth, youth pastors, pastors and adult volunteers. God showed up in worship, as He always does, and lives were changed. What more could you ask for?

I've included some more photos from the two nights of worship. Feel free to take a gander...

Grace and peace.