Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Here's another hymn that warms my soul:

->Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love!

->Here I raise my Ebenezer,
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

->O to grace how great a debor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for They courts above.

Let that grace now, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to thee... What a great thought....that God's grace causes us to be bound to God in an unbreakable way...that our freedom as people of the way doesn't mean we're free to do whatever the heck we want, but that we are bound to the righteousness and love of God...that we are free to be the people God intended us to be...freed from sin so that we may be bound to God. I like it.

Green Feather

Here I am as Green Feather. The mask holds all of the powers of Green Lantern's ring, with the added bonus of magic feathers so I can fly...Dumbo style. I made the mask at the superhero party at Montreat on Monday night. Good times.

Zombie Party

This is a picture of me and my new friend Cameron Kuntz. As you can probably tell, she's a zombie. Despite all of my efforts as Green Feather (you know, all of the powers of Green Lantern, with the added bonus of Dumbo-like magic feathers so I can fly), I was unable to prevent her from turning me into a zombie. Good times at Montreat.

Week two

Hey folks. It's Sunday afternoon and we're about to begin our second week of youth conference here at Montreat. the first week went swimmingly. Keynote was powerful. Worship was awesome. As far as I can tell, recreation was great, even though it had to be inside a lot. Our music leader, John Lee, did a fabulous job. I'm a big fan.

I was hoping to include a picture from another blog, but couldn't find it, so I'll just explain it. the blog is www.postsecret.com. It's a place where people put up secrets in the form of postcards. It's pretty wild stuff. Anyway, the one I was going to post says, "Everyone who knew me before 9/11 thinks I'm dead." Can you imagine that? Can you imagine having no contact with all of the people in your life after a certain date? It makes me sad just to think about it. I imagine this person had a life they weren't so excited about, or people in their life who kept them from feeling like a real person. Still, it made me sad when I saw it. One more time when I felt extremely grateful for all of the wonderful people in my life...a family that loved and loves me, friends who allow me to be me, a church community that constantly reminds me that I'm a child of God. Thanks to all of you out there who have been people I would never want to lose or be separated from.

Darth Vader-Columbia Style

I just couldn't resist taking this picture as Dan Stephens was putting on his costume for the opening night skit here at Montreat. The Dark Side is strong with Columbia Theological Seminary graduates. Thankfully, the great Jedi Napoleon Dynamite was present to defeat the dark lord (See below).

Me and Katie in Ft. Collins

This is me and my awesome friend, Katie Jeffries. We're sitting outside Mugs coffee shop in Fort Collins, CO near the end of our half-week of fun...kind of like a nickel bag of funk, but different. Anyway, I had a great time hanging out with her for a few days before heading over to Colorado State for the Montreat West Conference.

I'm currently in Montreat, NC getting ready to implement two weeks of youth conferences. The planning team is hard at work, and our leadership showed up yesterday. Today I'm thankful for an awesome innie team that's rockin' and rollin' with little or no supervision. God is really good...All the time. Called By Name-The Theta Version is on it's way.