Great day at Focal Point

Man it felt good to be back. It was about 14 days between messages. That was amazingly refreshing and crazily nervewracking at the same time. I loved the time off and the conferences I went to but man it was great to be back with my peeps.

The music today was on and the message was one of my better ones. Give me 14 days between talks and I come back fired up. Today's message was a mixed bag of thoughts that have been in my mind for most of this last two weeks. The point was that we have to know the Jesus we follow or else we aren't following Jesus (I don't care if that's the name you use... if you follow something that isn't biblical but call it Jesus, you're out to lunch.)

Our stage layout was 10 times better (and it wasn't bad before). Earlier this week I met with our sound/drummer/lead setup guy... Jon Capparelli and we mapped out a new way of doing our stage (before Ed Young talked about that same thing at Buzz) and when I walked in today I was pumped. It looks great. We also added curtains to the left side of the stage so everyone can enter and exit without being seen. The band and any on-stage people can go out the back hallway instead of coming back into the crowd directly. I LOVED it. We also brought one of our staging platforms forward into the seating area and shot our lights a little differently (better angles). This got rid of shadows and glare on the theater screen behind me. Made a huge improvement. It also put me out a little closer to the audience with less equipment and wires around me. Did I mention that I loved it? Thanks Jon, Calvin, Josh and friends.

In addition to the great setup, I felt great about the delivery of the message today. I got a TON of positive feedback and I walked off of the stage feeling like I hit a home run. I even had some emails this afternoon... so I know it all connected... Josh (our in-house Ultimate Fighting Navy dude) asked me at lunch "So, do you always drink Starbucks before you speak?" I'll take that as a positive!

Man it was a good day.

Some thoughts from the past two weeks that found their way into the message:

- Mark Driscoll's image of Jesus from Rev 19. (well, God's image but Driscoll pointed it out to me through his books and message last week)

- Bob Franquiz made it in twice (not by name) when I referenced a conversation we had as well as my story of almost getting killed. (Mark Rodriguez gets some of the blame/credit there as well)

- Ed Young's interpretation of NSync's Bye-Bye-Bye made it in somehow (complete with dance moves, don't ask)

Honorable mention:
- Gary, I have a navy guy who fights in the UFC style mixed martial arts... He's fighting on June 3rd and we're going to see him. Anyway... he loved hearing about you and your redneck boys about to rumble with the movie patrons as well as your reference from the theater church forum.

- Our church is primed for a run. Today we were on. Attendance was up and everyone was clicking. I like where we are right now. Good things are on the way.

- I had the honor to sit in on one of our small groups that got kicked off tonight. This is a big deal for us as we've been without a significant group presence for a while now. Finally we're back to some stability there. I've already gotten positive feedback from two different people who attended tonight. One emailed and one called. People are pumped. I can't wait to start my group in a few weeks. Because of my move next week, ours will start on the 21st.

Okay... my quick brain-dump is over. Thanks for checking me out.
I've noticed the traffic spike from Buzz... so if you're a new reader, give me a shout... I'd love to "meet" ya.

Wilgis- Out.