So you probably guested it… this isn’t Rusty, it’s his wife who is sick of checking this blog everyday and all I keep seeing is that crazy Wii post below… So, I’ve hijacked his blog to fill you in what he’s been up to!

Right now he is running camera for the Church of God’s 72nd Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas…. and I’m sitting behind the curtain spending way too much time on the internet!! Rusty flew in on Thursday night and worked Friday and Saturday setting up the LED wall.. then he flew home for church on Sunday and then we both flew out Monday morning for the 6 days of the convention. All the days seem to be running together. It’s been interesting sitting in the worship parts of this conference…. needless to say, it’s slightly different then the services we are used to! Lots of “talking in tongues and being slain in the spirit” have really opened the door for Rusty and I to share with the production crew that he’s working with (some are believers and some are not) why Ridge does church the way we do… It’s a pretty awesome thing to explain why and how we “do church” to a non-believer and have them go, “cool, I’d love to see that in action!” Makes us so grateful for our Ridge family.

A picture of the Convention Center and part of the RiverWalk below

Hopefully, Rusty will have the morning off tomorrow and we’re gonna go check out the Riverwalk, the tower of the Americas and the Alamo.

A shot of a piece of the LED wall that Rusty's been working on

My brother-in-law brought up his Wii while they are visiting. He also brought up Tiger Woods Golf 08. In the game you can customize your own character. It is pretty amazing all the adjustments that you can make, from hair styles to shoe size. So what do you think? How close did I get?

So here I am, back in Atlanta, this time at the Forward Conference. It’s a student conference run by Free Chapel.

This is a picture of my view of the stage.

If you look close you can see Chris Tomlin’s guitar rack on stage. The blue thing is the center screen from behind.

This takes me back to youth group in Clewiston. I look out and see all the charter busses and remember those summer trips. Most of the time the trip was more fun than the destination. I think our journey of faith is like that. The trip is more important than the destination. Maybe we focus to much on making heaven and missing hell that we forget that God has a plan for us here and he wants us to be part of the story. HIS STORY!

OK it has been a while since my last blog. I just thought that the last one needed to stay at the top for a long time.

So we went on a little vacation to Florida a few weeks ago and got to see a lot of old friends. We also worked on our house in Ft. Myers and went to the beach.

While we were there I saw this beer bottle and thought it was interesting.

It is called HE’BREW Messiah Bold and the caption is “The Beer You’ve Been Waiting For”

I know funny, and that’s funny.

This is a post that is long overdue! It is the post that I should have started with.

It is about the girl that makes my world go round. The girl who keeps me going. The girl that keeps me in line. The girl that makes sure I don’t leave the house looking like crap. The girl that never gives up on me. The girl that loves me no matter how much I procrastinate. The girl who saw something special in a band geek. The girl who is my inspiration. The girl that has a heart for children. The girl that never complains about watching Deadliest Catch with me. The girl that buys me Zero bars, when she finds them. The girl that lets me eat ice cream on the couch, even though she knows I will have a stomach ache after. The girl that keeps the lights and the gas on. The mother of my children. The girl who 18 years ago, accepted my glass of water and rocked my world.

It is the post about my wife, without whom I would be nothing.

Well, I know I didn’t tell you I was going… but I went to Florida last weekend to work the 22nd Bi-Annual International Gospel Industry Retreat hosted by Dr. Bobby Jones. Wow that is a mouthful! I really enjoyed being able to take the whole family this time. The event takes place at the Westin Diplomat Resort on Hallandale Beach. It’s a high end hotel right on the beach. The family enjoyed the pool and the beach while I worked the show. It started on Saturday with a partial load-in and banquet and went till Tuesday night with load-out ending at 2:00 AM.

The hotel has two pools, one on top of the other. The one on top has a glass bottom which the kids really enjoyed. This is a picture of them from below.

I heard a great talk today about creativity and how we are all born with it but we lose it over time. The guy in the talk also talks about Education and how we have slipped into a system that requires everyone to fit a certain mold in order to learn. We even medicate the ones that don’t fit that mold. I have two of them. I know that we can’t change the system for each child but I do think we should maybe do a little more.

You can hear the whole talk HERE

This will be a month to remember. Went to Drive in Atlanta, started a new series at Ridge Church, listed my house again in Florida, 13th Wedding Anniversary to my beautiful wife Tina, traveling to Florida to work IGIR and the kids are finishing their first year of school in NC. Wow, this month will and has flown by.

Things have been going so fast lately that I really haven’t even had a chance to think about what to blog about.

So in the words of the great philosopher Ferris Bueller…

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it.”

Well, we are back from DRIVE!  What a great conference. So many great things there, it is hard to put it into words. I am so glad to be a small part of NPCC. Here is a picture of the awesome group from Ridge Church that went this year.

Tonight was a great night at Ridge. We had an all star band for worship and a top speaker on stage. First the band. Leading was Michael Johnston, former lead singer of Small Town Poets. Next is Todd Olsen who recently toured with The Waiting and is a session musician in ALT and Nashville. On Drums was John Hogan who toured with Matt Redman and Passion. On Bass was Brett Banks, one of the best bass players I know.

Next the speaker. Chris Brown, our lead pastor, did an amazing job. Take a second and head here to listen to a great message on personal evangelism, and why we should leverage our relationships for eternity.

The set was pretty simple. Styrofoam cutouts of silhouettes with our six LED pars on them. Looked great. Another set by “Thirty Foot Productions”