WHAT'S HAPPENING? (w/Foghat Story)

Happy Wednesday!  Looking forward to CHILL-OUT tonight at 7PM at CROSSROADS!  No agenda other than Hang time, Ice Cream, Frozen Yogurt and Tons of Toppings!  Hey, this past Sunday at Crossroads was an AMAZING day!  here's a few of the many things that stood out to me:

• People made life changing decisions to trust Christ for the first time, to renew their relationship with Christ, or to go public with their faith through Baptism!!  That's the REASON we are here, and hearing about it NEVER gets old! Woo-hoo!!
• Heard about one sweet 9 year-old boy in our main service Sunday, visiting from Germany with his parents.  He spoke very little English, but asked his parents and their friends to hold hands at the end of the service as Nic was playing and I was praying and giving an invitation to receive Christ.  They did, and grinning ear to ear, he told them, "I not understand, but I feel something!"  That one response opened the door for Christ as that story went out to dozens and gave friends of that young boys family opportunities to share Christ with MANY people including him!  We're believing God for 100 people to receive Christ by 9 October.  It is HAPPENING NOW in ways we could not have predicted, imagined, or pretended to control!
• The past Sunday was a CRAZY service.  Breaking down a piece of the account of Nehemiah from the Old Testament, we looked at what it would be like for Nehemiah to come into our "Jerusalem" and take inventory of our "rubble".  We said, "The RUBBLE in our lives reveals the TROUBLE in our lives".  If you were not at Crossroads Sunday you HAVE to see this message.  Watch City of Progress 02 HERE.
• Had several people make similar remarks like, "It was like Saturday Night Live", or services at Crossroads are "like a comedy show".  Look, the Bible says in Proverbs 17:22 that, "A merry heart does good, like a medicine, but a crushed spirit dries the bones".  I BELIEVE in the power of joyous laughter to lift our spirits and make us receptive to receiving the word of God.  Too many sermons crush our spirits and dry up our bones.  I choose laughing over drying up!
• FOGHAT!  Woo-Hoo!  Almost forgot...I got to sit in with the band and bludgeon Max's drumkit to the tune of "Fool for the City".  That was an AWESOME good time!  Thanks for letting me play guys!!   

I shared with you on Sunday that back in the "bad old days" before I trusted my life to Christ, I was in a band that opened for Foghat at a college in Western Colorado.  I remarked that it was "the only time I was ever thrown out of an entire town".  We hung out all night and hit clubs and parties with Foghat, and as the night wore on, we got out of control.  Foghat went back to their bus, but we went to the hotel.  It was after 3 o'clock in the morning as we rolled into the hotel.  The band, the roadies and tech guys and several "hanger's-on".  We were rowdy, and then a couple of fights broke out and things were broken and the guests we woke up were mad and the cops came.  One real big cop with a badge and a gun looked at us and said, "Which one of you losers is the least drunk?"  I looked at the guys and decided it was me.  I told him so.  He said, "Then you", pointing at me, "get in your car - or whatever that thing is" (we rode in a 26 foot long Checker Aerobus), "and get out of my town and don't EVER come back!"  They escorted us to the city limits of Gunnison and turned around as we headed down the road.

Yeah, it's a cool story...I get that.  But I don't share it to sound cool or to glorify playing rock and roll and living out of control and hurting other people and being in trouble with the law.  There was nothing about that lifestyle that helped anyone.  It was 100% self-motivated, self-serving and self-driven loser, and it cost me - and others - dearly. 

My point in sharing that story is to reveal the dramatic difference between darkness and light, between death and life, between a relationship with our heavenly Father through His Son Jesus Christ, and eternal separation from God.  God cleared the rubble from the destruction I wreaked in my own life, took those stones, and put them back together again in a way that glorifies Him.  He took me from dark to light, from death to life, from self-serving to Christ-following.  And he will do the same in your life as you allow Him to.  Give your heart to Christ - without reservation - and watch as he creates in you a BRAND NEW spirit.  A new life.  

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.  2 Corinthians 5:17