Some Christmas Weekend Thoughts

• What an amazing weekend!
• Someone said once, Tell God your plans and watch Him laugh.  Even though we started talking about Christmas and doing preliminary planning back in July, the last 24 hours were a blizzard of rushing, stressing and ultimately trusting God.
• Our former worship leaders, the Hodges, were to be in town this weekend to do worship and some creative stuff for our two Candlelight Communion Services and our Sunday morning Christmas service. Got a call this week, Beth had sprained her ankle and Gary was sick as a dog. They were stuck in Orlando where they had been raising support for the missions field...  and so they were not coming.
• The Hodges are so faithful, so I knew they were really sick, but what to do? 
• Sooooo Friday became a blur to me as we went to work completely redoing all our plans for the weekend... and guess what happened?  God showed up!
• Our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services were special, and powerful and Christmas was alive in our hearts... especially the idea that "God IS with us!"
• By the way, the Hodges are still under the weather, but feeling somewhat better, if you want to find out more about them and their ministry, go here.
• Somewhere between services we opened presents and stockings.  I am blessed with an amazing wife, a beautiful daughter and an awesome future son in law.
• After church, we had lunch with great friends.  I can't tell you how amazing it is to have the friends I have... people that I love laughing with, and hanging out with, and generally just enjoy doing life with them.
• Our Coast Dream Team, our volunteers, pulled out all stops to make today amazing, from our office staff, to our Splash Zone and Surf Factory Children's Ministries, to our First Impressions teams, our tech teams, our worship team and so many more.  We have the BEST folks... and I am blown away by their servant hearts.
• I ate too much this weekend!  Not complaining, not apologizing... just stating the facts!
• The family did our traditional Christmas trip to the movies and saw the movie, "We bought a zoo."  Highly recommended.  Written by Cameron Crowe... His stuff is always great!
• By the way, if any of you know Cameron Crowe... would love to sit down and talk with this guy. :)
• I am some kind of tired...  I think I may be in hibernation the next couple of days!
• Pastor Scott worked his fanny off this week to make this weekend happen, and so did his wife Sherri... They are an inspiration!
• I love our Coast Family!
• Just in case I didn't get to tell you... Merry Christmas!