Last night, we went out with a bunch of people to church to see a Wilmington Blue Rock’s game (the local minor league team).  Definitely worth the ticket price…even just for the pictures we got!  Aiden even got up on the big screen since it was his first game!

Well, Faith and I survived another District Youth Retreat!  It was a blast to spend the weekend with all the students!  Rockbridge camp is amazing!  It’s always great when God gives a front row seat to watch Him work!  He did some cool stuff in the hearts of our students.  Many of them came to the realization for the first time that this whole Christianity thing isn’t about doing a bunch of stuff but about being in a love relationship with Jesus!  It was awesome to see them recognize how much God loves them!

Click the picture to see more shots…

Well, its official.  I’m a Reverend!  Its still weird to say that but as of Saturday’s service, I’m now ordained through the Christian and Missionary Alliance.   The service was held at our church over the weekend and I can’t begin to tell you how meaningful it was.  It was such a special time for my family and I.  Especially since my Dad gave the ordination charge during the service.  I was even blow away by how many from the church gave up their saturday evening to attend!  The love and support I felt from everyone was incredible.  Lew Coles, one of our church elders, took some great shots so I figured I’d share them with everyone!  Click any of the pictures to see the whole album!

Me cracking some stupid joke.

My Dad giving the Ordination Charge.

All the Pastor’s laying hands on me and praying for God’s annointing and equipping!

So, I had another trip out to Colorado a few weeks back.  I was in Denver for a week, starting the planning process for the LIFE 2010 Conference.  Its always fun to hang around with fellow youth pastors…needless to say, I was able to get out and do some fun stuff with the guys.  Actually, the first night I was in Denver I decided to drive all the way up to Boulder to visit a bouldering gym called The Spot.  I had seen the gym before but only in a youtube video with Chris Sharma.  I had no idea how close I would be to it until I arrived in Denver.  It was a spur of the moment thing but it was totally worth it! The gym had two freestanding boulders that you could top-out on!

I went to The Spot by myself, but was able to take two other guys on my planning team to another gym in town.  This gym was much older but was really sweet because it used to be an old movie theater.  Not as clean but still fun…there’s more pictures if you click on them.

Man I love Colorado!  Every time I go I just want to stay and never come back.  I went out last week for Engage ’08.  Engage is the conference for all the Alliance Youth Point-People.  It basically means that I got to spend time with about 40 other Alliance youth pastors from every corner of the country.  One of the nights was sweet because we got a free Trace Bundy concert!  He was fun to meet and talk with and he was definitely an amazing guitarist!  Much of our week was spent in the hotel conference center but we did get some “mountain” time!

A bunch of us went on a short hike up to the top of Mt. Herman which overlooked CO Springs.  It was nice but the best part of the trip was the extra day Rick and I spent driving to the Dunes and to the Royal Gorge after the conference was over…

We drove south through Pueblo, west to the dunes, north to Salida and then east to Canon City and eventually Colorado Springs again.  The dunes were amazing!  I really can’t even describe the feeling because I’ve never been able to run around in mountains of sand before!  It was almost surreal, like I was on a different planet!  Still haven’t been able to make it out to see the Maroon Bells but that trip is coming!  Click on any of the pictures to check out the whole album!

God is good…even when we don’t deserve His goodness! Faith and I moved into the church parsonage at the beginning of the month and have been absolutely loving it! The church is graciously allowing Faith and I to live in the house rent free! All we have to pay is utilities! We’re super excited because it frees us up to pay our loans off so much quicker! The other big plus is that we have a lot more space now to have the youth group over and the backyard is great for doing games and stuff. Check out some of the pictures to see inside!

Faith and I have been practically living at church this week for our soccer VBS! We’re pretty tired but it’s been a blast to see our whole church come together to serve our community in such a cool way. I’m sending this from my phone so this post is also just a test to see if it works.