I’m sorry that I’ve been a bad blogger for the last few weeks.  I forgot to take my computer on the road for our Christmas travels.  And, this is a long story, but I don’t know how to get into my blog from other places…..as in other computers.  I know, stupid.  But it’s true.  So that’s my excuse.

We traveled a good bit for Christmas this year.  It was so much fun…but pretty exhausting.  The first leg of our trip was to Nashville.  Danielle, Eden and I (picture 1, Eden asleep in car seat, not pictured) traveled with our good friends James and Callie (picture 2), and Ben and Lindsey (picture 3) to go see the Behold the Lamb of God concert at the Ryman.  It was one of the most amazing nights of music I can remember in a long time.  

While we were in Nashville, Brody and Kristin were kind enough to let us stay at their place.  It’s funny that Brody and I had met only once in person before this weekend, and yet he still let us come crash at their house for a few days.  They even gave us their master bedroom and slept on the floor in the office… who does that?  They were such gracious hosts.  We had such a fun time hanging out with them and their family.  We spent most of our time with them just sitting around talking…it honestly felt like we were getting back together with old friends.  

The only picture I took from our time with Brody and family was this one…picture 4.  The picture was totally unfair because Danielle and Kristin were the only ones who knew I was taking the picture.  Despite the look on brody’s face, I promise he was having a fun time that night…haha.

From there we drove over to Huntsville to spend time with about 30 family members.  My parents were gracious enough to drive Bennett down with them from Charlotte. Seven hours in a car with a two-year-old makes you an awesome grandparent.  We had a blast in Huntsville with everyone.  From there, we went back to Charlotte to celebrate Christmas with Danielle’s family.  Good times. 

This is a little video I made from Christmas.  Danielle told me that I couldn’t post it unless I prefaced it by saying that she had bronchitis on Christmas day and doesn’t normally sound like a transvestite….my favorite line is “Hey Eden, do you have daddy’s….”

Hope you all had a great Christmas.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Luke Mundy has an EP out for Free download.  Free, friends.  That’s a fantastic deal during our little recession.  I love Luke’s voice.  It’s got this interesting viby/vibrato texture….it’s so cool.  You’ll love it too.  So go download the songs.

Also, last year Mike, James, Shelly and I all teamed up with the amazing Joel Cameron, and recorded our version of Angels We Have Heard On High.

Angels We Have Heard On High

I’ve been really interested in churches lately…  How they use their money and resources, how they organize their ministries, etc.  You can usually tell what’s really important to a church when you analyze these types of things.  I think, in particular, what a church chooses to do when they worship together is extremely revealing.  

I came across this quote today on the topic of why believers should weekly gather together as a church.  I thought it was so interesting, and really kind-of counter -Christian culture these days.  This is taken from D.A. Carson’s “Worship by the Book.” In this quote, D.A. is giving an evaluation of David Peterson’s book “Engaging with God”:

“New Covenant worship terminology prescribes constant ‘worship.’  Peterson therefore examines afresh just why the New Testament church gathers, and he concludes that the focus is on mutual edification, not on worship.  Under the terms of the new covenant, worship goes on all the time, including when the people of God gather together.  But mutual edification does not go on all the time; it is what takes place when Christians gather together.  Edification is the best summary of what occurs in corporate singing, confession, public prayer, the ministry of the Word, and so forth.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this – what do you think about this definition of why we gather on Sunday mornings?  Agree, Disagree?  Why?

Tomorrow is a Long Time- Bob Dylan live in Italy 1987.

Hope you all had a great weekend.  I was in Atlanta for the Alabama vs. Florida game.  Kind of a bummer ending, but great game.  Wooo, it was a long trip home that night.  We started driving to Charlotte at 7:45, got in around 11:45, picked up my wife and girls who were hanging with my parents while I was gone, and then left for Raleigh….we got into Raleigh at 2:15AM.  Friends, it has been a long time since I have willfully seen 2:15 AM.  So I was pretty tired yesterday.

Anyways, here are a few things that I’ve thought were funny/interesting.

1. One of the pastors at Providence sent this to me the other day.  From a Burger King in Arkansas….so funny.

2. The White House is on Twitter….Here.  Interesting and Funny.  That executive branch is always thinking ahead.

3. Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek) and Jon Foreman (Switchfoot) are coming out with a CD on January 20th.  Their band is called Fiction Family.  You can go to their website and pre-order the CD, or get one of the songs for free.  There’s even a video about why they made the CD….pretty interesting…and this picture is funny.

My friends Mike Passaro and Shelly Moore are releasing a CD this Saturday night.  If you live in or around the Raleigh area you NEED to be there.  It will be amazing.  The band they have assembled for playing said songs will nock your socks off.  And by nock your socks off I mean that they will all sound super. 

Here are the players for saturday night: Dale Baker (Former Drummer for Sixpence none the richer), James Childs, Pat Downing, Tom Innes….and of course Mike and Shelly.

The CD is called a Hymn Project.  I haven’t heard much of the final product….but I’m sure it’s great.  You can buy it digitally here at itunes.  Or a physical version here at their site. 

There you have it…great music, only 5 bucks….you can’t beat that.

Happy Thursday to you all.

Here are some of the pictures from our day at the BGEA