north point & the blue collar funny man!

so, the Drive conference ROCKED! (read here to catch up.) we all loved it. we not only learned an insane amount about our model of ministry, but also had a lot of fun!!! North Point really knows how to have some fun. I'll get to all the learning & millions of takeaways & post them on here later, but for now let me just tell you about tuesday night!

we went to the Browns Bridge campus about 20 miles north of North Point Tuesday night after Andy's session. we knew there was some BIG surprise & I was calling it the whole time = Jeff Foxworthy (several other peeps were calling it too).

Pretty cool atmosphere when we got there - 2,500 pastors & church leaders just hanging out eating burgers, ribs, cotton candy, funnel cakes... kind of like the fair or carnival or whatever you call those things. We checked out the Browns Bridge facility for a while and it was PIMP! UNBELIEVABLE!!! their children's environments were definitely some of the best I've ever seen!

so, then we go into the worship center for the "surprise" & some lame blue grass band came out and played & i was like "ok, Jeff Foxworthy's gotta be next to make up for this!" Then a little red car pulled out on stage and... (drumroll please) - JEFF FOXWORHTY stepped out of the car! we were all goin' crazy. I love the guy & have maybe 60% of his material memorized... yeah, I'm a big fan.

I've listened to Jeff Foxworthy hundreds of times on CD, my iPod, DVD, etc... and he's pretty funny. But, there was a totally different dynamic seeing him live in an audience of 2,500 people! for over an hour he was busting out his redneck monologue bits. a few times i laughed so hard i though my diaphragm or lungs (or whatever is there in the middle of my torso) was gonna pop out of my body! Then i was getting really cracked up at my friends sitting around me laughing! my boy Travis has a laugh like a horse & 8th grade girl mixed... pretty funny. One time Marla got really tickled & it made me laugh during the complete silence. He even busted out some redneck Bible jokes - pretty funny, but he should stick with the regular redneck stuff.

Of course, they bring Jeff to these things a lot - Big Stuf camps (hopefully he'll show up when we're there in July!!!), Orange conferences, North Point events, etc... Lanny and Andy and those guys are great friends with him + he attends North Point on Sundays. The next day at the conference Andy told us this story & I'll leave this abbreviated version with you...

I was in Wal-Mart in the bathroom & there was a guy at the urnial BAREFOOT!!! pretty gross. When i got back to the car I immediately texted this to Jeff thinking this would be great material for him. Within 30 seconds he texted back - "oh, tell my Uncle Ed he left his boots in my truck!"

That's a pretty funny & quick-witted man right there! (stay tuned for some unbelievable takeaways from Andy Stanley's talks at Drive.)