WOW! - family birthday CELEBRATION

Whoa… Last night was absolutely amazing! No words can describe how cool it was. I’m not sure why I’m even trying to blog about it. I guess just to let you know that you REALLY should have been there if you missed it!

Last night was our 1^st ever Family Birthday Celebration – we celebrated 4 children from Upstreet putting their faith in Jesus and being baptized to let everyone know about it! I don’t know what you were doing Sunday night, but I’m pretty sure I was having more fun celebrating with these families. Basically Upstreet took over the adult stage. So, the Upstreet kids & adults celebrated together.

Andy & the band kicked off the night by rocking Happy Day – starting off with the old school gospel version & then sneakily kicking into the shouting version. I saw a lot of “O”s going up around the room… then they kicked into a song we love to rock out in Upstreet = Spin… “makes me wanna jump up, spin around, get up, get down…” didn’t see as many peeps jumping up & spinning around as I saw of the “O”s. But we decided that’s OK, because there’s just certain things you can’t do anymore when you get “old.”

I did a short talk about baptism & about the significance of this night of Celebration! From up on stage I couldn’t really tell if everyone had fallen asleep or if they were tracking with me because of those insanely bright lights right in my eyes. (Props to Brandon btw, & welcome back… he did some phat lighting stuff throughout the night. Love to have that in Upstreet every week.) I’m hoping it was pretty cool though – I was really excited just to explain the whole celebration!

Next we all got to see some awesome videos that Rusty made while off in the far away country of San Antonio. Really funny stuff @ 1^st with the kids talking about what superpower they would want to have, what subject they hate in school, what sin is, etc… And then before each of them were baptized we saw a short video of each of them talking about putting their trust in Jesus, why they wanted to be baptized, & thanking their families for telling them about Jesus! Pretty powerful.

The pool area was DEFINITELY powerful with some teary eyes as well. Our lead pastor, Chris, baptized his son, Brayden. Pretty amazing to watch! Can’t think of many things more special than getting to do that. Last night Gabby Esposito, Logan Kingsmore, Susie Robinson, and Brayden Brown told everyone that they trust in Jesus and are going to follow Him (through their baptism). Pretty awesome!

One of the coolest moments was when the kids walked back in with their parents to the front of the room and everyone cheered! So awesome. I got choked up which was not all that good at the time because I was standing on stage talking again. It was all good though… no breakdowns.

Then we did one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. (If you haven’t picked up on it already, we did a lot of cool stuff!) I just asked the families & close friends of each of the children who were just baptized to come up in a circle with that child. Since baptism is celebrating the just the beginning of these kids’ spiritual journey… the people closest to them gathered around to pray for the next 50 years of their friendship with Jesus. I think & hope it’s a moment they never forget. Then…

WE PARTIED! In my talk I had mentioned Jesus’ story in Luke 15 & how the angles party in heaven every time a person turns to Jesus. I'm sure the party in heaven was unbelievable when each of these kids put their faith in Jesus... but we did our best to match it. Everyone stayed for some cake & ice cream. We gave each of the kids some pretty cool gifts too - since it was their birthday party and everything. The environment looked AWESOME too! 

Thanks largely to Angie Brown who was the brains behind all the balloons, cake, round tables, and decorations. It was a great team effort too = I saw at least Tiffany & my wife helping Angie and there were probably others. + my wife took these amazing pics you see & many many more that I'll try to put on facebook soon. Thanks Matt, Anne, Shawn, Marla, Danielle, Natalie, the band, everyone at the production table (David, Brandon, ++?) and the whole staff who jumped in to pull this off excellently! thanks guys!

Thanks especially to the Robinsons, Kingsmores, Espositos, and Browns for letting Ridge church partner with you to help lead your children into a growing relationship with Jesus. This night was a perfect picture of why we started church! 

**(I'll post some videos when I get back to Charlotte - the funny interviews with the kids, their baptism testimonies, and maybe some videos from the night... Should have been more pics on here, but something is "amiss" here at this podunk library... can't get them to load!)

Crystal & I are on vacation all week & celebrating our 3rd Anniversary tomorrow (August 5th).