Here are my Monday thoughts coming to you on Tuesday. I would have finished this last night, but I chose to go out on a date with my wife and complete it this morning.

  • It was cold for the MLK parade today. I love the people we pastor, they braved the cold to show our city a multi-racial expression of Christian community. When we came to Wilmington almost 20 years ago, there were NO multi-racial churches in our city. Dad was a revolutionary pioneer for racial unity in the church when he said, “We are not a white church” on our first Sunday. When he said it, everyone in the crowd was white! Leaders, don’t be afraid to speak things into existence.
  • Jeff and Daryl over at Lifepoint had the privilege of baptizing a guy in the ocean last Saturday! They went all “polar bear” on us and did it with wetsuits (Jeff pointed out my error - there were NO wetsuits involved). I feel like such a wuss.
  • I think Abs summed up my feelings about 2008 at The ROCK. We are going to bring it this year. In fact, we have a surprise for this Sunday that will make you glad you came. If you have been waiting to invite someone to church, do it this week.
  • I made an email connection with a pastor in Canada that I believe will give us some insight to fulfilling our destiny this year. He has been where we are headed. I will share more soon.
  • On that note, who would you want to meet this year? If you haven’t you started putting the connections together to make it happen, get on it today. Wisdom comes from a lot of good counsel. Find someone who has successfully been where you want to go and learn from them.
  • This year, I want to personally meet and learn from quite a few people. They include Scott Hodge, Steven Furtick, Perry Noble, Carlos Whittaker, Tony Morgan and the top secret Canadian pastor. I would tell you who he is, but it would give away why. Rest assured that I will share with you all soon.
  • I am getting excited about the Unleashed and C3 conferences this year. I hope to meet some of the guys on my list at these events. I’m pretty sure that Scott, Steven, Perry and Tony will all be at Unleashed.
  • Mom is having surgery this Thursday at Duke to remove some painful lymph nodes under her arm. Before she can do that, she has to go up on Tuesday to have her heart checked out. Pray for her.
  • Jen is having surgery next Tuesday to remove two cysts on her ovary that together are larger than an orange! She has been working with pretty intense pain for the last several months and still shows up on time, works late and has taken Kid’s ROCK to a whole new level.
  • Did I mention that Jen brought the new Kid’s ROCK website online this last week? She and Carolyn have done an amazing job on this site. Go check it out!

See you next time. Same Bat time! Same Bat channel!