Weekend Recap

On a surprising note, the highlight of my Saturday was not the incredible game at Kyle Field, although I'll get to that in a moment; by far, the highlight of my day was Saturday morning watching NEHBCers set up our new worship center. I had to keep from crying. It is only by God's grace that an eight year old church that strives to be New Testament, works hard not to be program driven, does not engage in modern church growth movements, and has sound financial practices is opening this kind of worship center. There is no human explanation for it. It testifies to what Jesus Christ can do thorugh a congregation that seeks to be New Testament and to what His plans are for NEHBC's future. Our greatest days for the Kingdom are still to come. It was awesome to see NEHBCers buzzing around setting up. Here's a shout out to the man who would kill me if I publicly acknowledged him, but who sat in our worship center all Friday night until morning, by himself, screwing bible racks onto chairs. Unbelievable. May your tribe increase.

And then there was Saturday night which actually began for us back in July or August. Each year we try to pick one conference game at Kyle Field to attend as a family. Back in July or August we reviewed our personal Fall schedules and the Aggie football schedule and realized the only conference game we could attend was the Nebraska game on Nov. 20, at 2pm. The season had not even started when we picked this game, so how could we know the Aggies would come into the game on a four win game streak including a win over a Top 10 team and play against another Top 10 team? But, the Lord knew and set this all up to bless our family. We are grateful. Kyle Field was slammed full of people, setting a new attendance record of 90,027 and set the record for the most students at a game in college football history. The environment was electric and somehow the Ags found a way to pull it out at the end. Our kids loved every minute of it which only made it even more exciting for Nicole and I. The only downer? Because the Ags came into the game as one of the hottest teams in the country and were playing a Top 10 team, ABC changed kickoff to prime time (7pm) which meant we got home at 2am. Folks who knew we were going to the game were worried about me having to preach three times on Sunday morning, but the next time I am able to sleep more than 3-4 hours on Saturday night when preaching Sunday morning will be the first time. My pregame jitters are terrible. We had a blast at the game and hope the Ags can get past the Longhorns on Thanksgiving night.

Yesterday morning was emotional for me also as it was the last Sunday, at least for a while, in three services. I'm ready to not preach three times on Sunday mornings, albeit nowhere near as ready as my doctor, but I will miss it because it was a great chapter in the life NEHBC. Preaching on courage when I feel like I need more of it made it a strange experience for me. Sitting on the blue seats and preaching from the new stage was awesome! I can't wait for 12.5.

Last night, my father's church had their annual Thanksgiving meal together and invited us and so we got to have Thanksgiving dinner round 1. It was fun to be around their congregation as their guests.

I hope and pray that as we roll into the Thanksgiving holiday that you will plan to have meaningful time with the Lord to express your gratitude to Him beyond your normal expressions of gratitude.

Jesus is Lord.