This Sunday is going to be amazing. Ted and Gayle Haggard will be live at Elevation on stage with Pastor Steven. I hope this Sunday will for some begin a time of healing in their lives and for others be a time of strengthening against sin. Sin creeps in one step at a time, and gives birth to something much bigger. Many people will be showing up just to hear the story, but it is my prayer that the application of Ted and Gayle Haggard’s story will speak loudly to everyone that comes. It is my prayer that this will help people catch sin in the first step and get rid of it before it gives birth to something bigger. Read more about this on Pastor Steven’s blog. Come this Sunday to hear the story of Ted and Gayle Haggard.

Check out this worship element we used this past week. This cartoon was built as a support element for our bands to the tune of “Another Way to Die” off the 007 soundtrack featuring Jack White and Alicia Keys. Jeff our White Envelope Award winning motion graphics artist built this cartoon. Enjoy… we all loved it. Give me your feedback.

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My wife loves national geographic. We watched hours and hours of PLANET EARTH (a documentary about life on earth shot by national geographic) when it came out. Amazing footage! Now I’m not one to normally name drop, but I just Met Jared Hogan! The creative team got to eat lunch with him on Tuesday! We often look for people who have achieved amazing things in order to pick their brain about how they have gotten where they are and where it all began!

Did you know that the filming of National Geographic’s Plant Earth was in production for 5 years, shot over 2,000 days in the field, in 200 locations and all in High Definition! If you haven’t watched it check it out!

Oops… Jared has nothing to do with National Geographic, I just realized that i was telling you too different stories at the same time. Sorry about that. Anyways… lunch with Jared was nice.

Laci and I are at Panera. Tonight has been nice. We don’t always have a lot of time to hang out together. So… tonight we decided to come to concord for a Panera-Computer-Hangout-Plan-Christmas-Gifts-and-Travel Extravaganza. Translated… what that means is… she thought of cool and creative gifts to give people while I wrote this blog and watched the Florida vs. Alabama game online.

Our heat is out at the house so we came to get some soup and be warm… go figure that they would have the air on. Whoops.

Me and Laci

A couple of weeks ago, Elevation gave $100,000 to one of our partnerships through the form of scholarships and laptops! It was a really cool event and moment as Pastor Steven Furtick spoke to the girls who were graduating from the program. Here is a video we showed in our services to give Elevation a view of what happened.

I have been off from work since Thursday at 5:30. As staff, we had this Friday off, and I am taking the first Sunday off since January. Laci and I are celebrating our 1 year anniversary (gifts welcomed) (just kidding) (sort of). I had every intension of relaxing around the house and just hanging out with my beautiful amazing wife. However, I figured out something very disappointing. I figured it out after telling Laci everything I was about to do. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I had an epiphany. Or… maybe Laci just came right out and said it, “you suck at relaxing.” She was right. Whoops. I got caught.

Not sure if it is just my personality, or my job, or if i am just use to going, going, going. So… I put up everything that i could possibly be doing, and went to the pool to layout with Laci. It was nice. I fixed my problem. We went on a relaxing date. Yay, everything solved! But then… When we got home, I looked down at our sidewalk and noticed some weeds growing, told laci that tomorrow we should work around the yard together… whoops again… i still suck at relaxing. To be continued…

So today, Mack and I went to MOE’s after helping some friends move in to their apartment. We were super excited about drinking a lot of sweet tea. We went through the line talking and ordering not really paying attention to anything that was going on around us. Mack gets up to the register first and the lady starts ringing our meal up together. I say to her, “mam, my meal is separate.” To which she replies, ” no the gentleman in front of you guys left money to pay for your meals!” Mack and I looked around to see who it was but there was no one to be found. God is awesome. He has blessed all of us with so many amazing people. So… if you are reading this, and you paid for our meal… thanks! You don’t know how much of a blessing it was.

This past summer i was blown away by something my father shared with me. While in africa, the missionary there told him a story of a man he saw walking down the side of the street carrying something precious. As the missionary drove by him in a car, he decided to stop and offer the man a ride. The man walking down the street (who appeared to be exhausted) declined the offer for a ride. Confused, the missionary asked him again to make sure he understood. Once again, the man declined. Intrigued, the missionary asked the man why he didn’t want a ride… the man replied with something that was life changing. He said, “I am headed to a wedding many miles away and I am taking this gift. What you don’t understand is that the journey is part of the gift.”

So many times we get caught up in looking toward things in the future that we often miss out on the blessings of life that happen a long the way.

Do me a favor would you?… Take a look around at all the amazing things God is at work doing around you. Then jump in a be a part of the blessing. You never know… God may be using you to be that blessing for someone.