easter at the river center: when all is said and done...

what a day. what a week. for some of the team, what a few months.

for me, it was different than any other big hpc thing i've been a part of in my 11 years of being here. i've always been heavily involved in making it all come together, working the tech stuff, coordinating designs, communications, etc. and i loved it every time. this time around, lance leblanc was the general - he took over the creative team at hpc about 18 months ago when pastor dino rizzo pulled me onto his team to work with him on research, writing and message prep (as well as whatever else).

anyway - lance has been doing a slamming job with things the whole way but this was a huge undertaking and he and the team around him pulled off some great stuff tech-wise, some great designs and some really cool production elements. but the coolest thing about it i saw today in him was what i knew was behind all of it for him. in the green room just after service, we prayed (pastor dino, mike haman, earl rentz, jeffrey rentz, lance and a few others). when we were done praying, i could just see it in lance's face - tears - but more than just tears, an honest-to-goodness grateful heart for what God had just done.

i think that's what made this day so great for us. it wasn't about us. it was about Jesus Christ - and about what He did in people's hearts today. just before we prayed that prayer in the green room, pastor dino was spilling over with thankfulness, and he told us how he had felt God's spirit take things up a notch a couple times as he had preached. one in particular was during the altar call - when he had the choice to ease up and kinda just let the service end or to throttle it up and really cast out the net to encourage people to come to Jesus. as he told us about it, i remembered the 150+ altar response cards i'd just seen perry morrow holding and i thought about how there are at least 150 people who right now are glad the Holy Spirit notched it up.

and when you think about the families those 150 people represent... the children, the brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers of those who prayed a prayer today to give their lives to Christ - what a huge impact.

i'm so glad for the 7,000 people who came today. but the real reward is in those 150 cards representing changed lives.

if there is any regret for me today it was that my family wasn't able to be with me. tori came with me early, but the twins (rhett and rhodes) have both been sick this week - i mean sick like there's no more clean rags around because we've cleaned up more vomit than we have rags to keep up with. and it's been like they've been on a mission to drain our supply of diapers - going through them at a record pace. i'll leave the details to your imaginations - there's no way you'll overestimate the nasty.

anyway - so the twins were sick, jd was sick friday night and still kinda off-kilter all day saturday. and just this evening, lincoln finally got sick enough (he's been feeling queasy for a few days now) to hurl.

nice easter topic, huh?

well, it's what easter was for us. you're getting the whole picture. the good news is that the twins have gone about 5 hours now without a hurl, and lincoln is sleeping well.

so, when all is said and done, i'm thankful for my family. especially for my wife who is such an incredible mother for our five kids. and for tori, jd, lincoln, rhodes and rhett - the five best kids any dad anywhere ever had.

and i'm thankful for my friends - especially my best friend and pastor, dino rizzo. and my family both here in baton rouge and all over the world - in swaziland and iowa and texas.

thank you, Lord, for blessing me so much. thank you for loving me and for putting me where i am. i love this church.