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7 Weeks.

In 7 weeks I’ll have a degree in my hands.  I’ll officially be out of college.  In 6 weeks, classes are over, the following week is exam week, and the week after that I get married and will be magically whisked away to Destin, FL. to chill on white sand beaches for a week.  I’m SO looking forward to being married.  We’re going to have so much fun living together.  Besides the obvious, married life is going to be a blast…. I know it’s going to be a ton of work, involve a lot of sacrifice, and be harder than I imagine now, but I can’t wait…  To live with my best friend…  To be with Sarah through the night…    Fun fun.

The honeymoon should be fun too… we’re going to go parasailing and snorkeling…. and ….. uhhh…. play cards…

Anyway, here we are, back at school from Spring “Break.”  I didn’t really have much of a break-ish time.  I worked 62 hours that week.  Unfortunately on a salary of 20 hours a week too…. ::sigh:: Oh well, it’s all a means to an end.  I’ll be full-time in June.  We installed a $75,000 upgrade to our video system at church.  We now have 5 screens and projectors and two switchers to change images from the cameras, computers, etc… The center three screens are angled and retractable so they can be put away when not needed and used when they ARE needed (like during worship) for showing everyone in the 1,400 seats a good view of the lyrics, verses, etc…  And the side two screens are on the walls next to the stage and are always on to magnify the images of the stage for those who sit in the back sections.  I’m just glad we got it all working in the short amount of time we had to do it in!

Friday night was New Community.  It was one of the coolest New Community services we’ve ever done.  It was just four people on stage.  Mark Bernard on bass and bongos, Chad Sattler on congas, Kyle Gray on accoustic guitar and vocals, and Lauren Miller on vocals.  All four were sitting on stools up on the front of the stage.  There was no massive stage setup, no super cool lighting, no outrageous videos…. just accoustic worship.  They took turns telling about how they wrote some of the songs we sing, how God influenced them, how they came to CedarCreek, and other cool stories about how God has moved in the music team at CedarCreek.  It was such a great night of worship and calming down before God to hear the meaning behind the words we often take for granted.

God is so freaking cool.  I remember six years ago praying for God to use me.  I didn’t know how.  I just knew that I wanted to be used to impact the world for Him in a way so big that it had to be from Him.  I wanted to do something so great, that it couldn’t have been from me no matter how hard I could’ve tried…. I wanted to see God use me… a 15 year old kid… my only desire was to serve a purpose worth serving.  My legacy…. I wanted my life to be one that when I was gone, people would say, “Man…. I knew what he was about.  If it wasn’t for him… I wouldn’t have ever have known God in that way….. or learned this about life…. or been able to impact the world for God in this way…”

Funny how after 6 years I find myself looking back on the ways God has used me.  I see the tremendous multimedia setup we have at church…. I see the volunteers we have laying down countless hours of their lives to serve others… I see the videos being played impacting thousands… I’ve been able to be on stage in a drama that has had multiple people come up to me in tears and tell me how it hit home with them… I’ve been used by God in ways that I never imagined possible.  There I was, a punk 18 year old kid when they brought me on staff and said, “Your job is to learn this equipment inside out… and then make our ideas come to be a reality.”  I was cocky, prideful, lazy, and still struggle with a lot of those same issues today, but I’ve grown SO MUCH through this job… this priviledge…. God, it’s so amazing to see how You love me…  The team I get to work with is great, the job is so rewarding, the work is fun…  I love it.  If it wasn’t for school and a conscious effort to NOT live at work…. I’d never leave!  Thank You Lord…. for giving me such a great opportunity.  God rocks.

Currently Playing:
CedarCreek Live Unplugged
“Broken”
Kyle Gray