I just attended the story conference in Chicago. We had such great times. Chi-town was on one of our goals for this year so I was happy to mark it off the list. It was my first time spending time there. I have always just flown through and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Chicago is big, clean, and a sole provider of all types of meat. I thoroughly enjoyed. In fact, one day we had a progressive lunch and ate at four different places. Crazy I know but worth the experience. That was a really long intro to say that I have been challenged lately with telling the right story. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and he began a story that is beautiful, glorious, full of love, grace, and everything good. He began a story that is majestic and wonderful and it is our job to tell that story. Here is what I have been chewing on lately in my readings. All stories have themes. We derive themes from the big idea, the priorities, the consistent points of the story. The Bible has a theme, Jesus' life has a theme, and your life has a theme. The question to ask yourself is, "What is the theme of your life?" Now, the answer should parallel with that of Jesus' life theme. So, what is Jesus' life theme? Well, as you read through the Bible and look at the life of Jesus and the Words of scripture one can see that the central theme is HUMILITY. Jesus' life was such a pure example of humility and the Words of scripture reveal to us how much God hates pretense and arrogance. Here is the deal...If your life's theme is not humility then you are telling another story, not the story of God. Ten times out of ten the story is about you. We need to take heed to this and constantly remind ourselves to clothe ourselves in humility. Here is a good way to protect yourself from falling into the death trap of pride- continually ask yourself, "what is my motivation for what I am about to do?" It is very easy, too easy in fact to fall into a cyclical pattern of doing ministry or performing our responsibilities only to satisfy our need of self-grtification. One day we received praise for doing something in our particular jobs or responsibilities and people thought highly of us or made something of us and so we decided to make a career of it. Now every time we write that article for work, make that video for church, give that presentation, preach that sermon, write that blog and steadily check that hit counter, post pics or update our status on FB and anxiously hope for comments, or perform any task at all, the main motivation is us hoping people will like it and talk about it for days to come so we can feel great about ourselves and what we accomplished. The only thing missing in that is....the story of God. We have to guard ourselves from this cycle of self-gratification. It is good for nothing and it leads to death. My heart is challenged by this and I want to embrace this tension all the days of my life and lean towards humility. Are you with me?

We are launching campus alpha tonight for round 2. Tonight we will be giving away a Nintendo Wii, playing cornhole, and eating lots of pizza. If you don't think that is spiritual, think again? It is going to be a great season. We have been praying for this day. A lot of prep has gone into making this a reality. I am so thankful for our team. What is even more exciting? There are 6 Universities across the nation that will be using our Alpha videos on their campus this fall.

We are meeting with the National Director of Christian Alliance for Orphans today on Capitol Hill. We are so excited to have this opportunity to connect with Jedd Medefind. We are praying that this could give New Rhythm a larger platform for the #orphansnomore initiative.

I hung out with the FCA Leaders on the East Coast this morning. I love connecting with FCA. They are good people. Love what they are doing to reach youth and developing leaders. I had a great time leading worship with them. They booked me for next year already for the entire week!

We have a few things on the radar the next few weeks. This coming Tuesday I will be leading worship at the Regional FCA Conference in Baltimore MD. I always love the opportunity to connect with the FCA guys. I love their ministry and what they do to raise up leaders. This coming Thursday through Saturday I will be leading worship at the PYM District Youth Leaders Conference with Jeff Deyo in Williamsburg. The following week I am heading to Chicago to connect with Willow Creek's Orphan Director to talk about partnerships with New Rhythm and attending The Story Conference. The week after that Shelly and I will be meeting President Jimmy Carter as we work together to build a house for Habitat for Humanity. So excited to meet President Carter and give our time to invest in home that will bring hope to a family in need. Finally, that weekend we head to Atlanta for the Catalyst Conference. We go with our entire staff at NCC. It is one of the best conferences I have ever been to. I always walk away from it with a few things that stretch my perspective and challenge my heart towards change. It is going to be good. After all of this we will be getting ready for my second surgery at the University of Maryland Hospital. Not so much looking forward to that one but I trust the Lord as we walk through it. He has been faithful and never ceases to amaze us as we walk in obedience to Him.

We have had some great meetings this week about making New Rhythm Inc. official. We met with BitterSweet Creative Group on Monday to talk about Logo and Branding for the organization. That was fun thinking about all the creative ways that we can market and function as the face of a company. Then last night I met with a lawyer to go over all the warm and cozy details of paperwork for a 501c3 status. It doesn't look like it's going to be too bad but I am not the type that enjoys details and paperwork. But these are all necessities in bringing the vision to reality and accountability. We are so very excited as you can imagine. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers for us as we continue to journey through this process.