Boom Outta Here!

The Veritas Kickoff was everything I hoped, and more.

During and after the service, I thought, "Yep, that's the church I'd want to plant. I would definitely go to that church."

There were over 300 people there; I would say at least 50 of them were visiting from out of town. It had a cool vibe, with a fervent atmosphere of worship and no first time awkwardness.
Last night I was talking to Dave Graber, our drummer, and he said, "This is a much better venue than where we kicked off Cornerstone. I was playing drums and Todd Wallace was on electric." When I realized that Wally was going to be at our kickoff, I told our worship leader (Mark Duvick) that we had to surprise Todd and pull him up for the last song. A bit reluctantly, Wally came up and rocked out on electric. Troy (Nesbitt) told me he held it together throughout the service until that point, then he lost it.

Just think- that was 1994. Now look at what grew out of that step of faith...

It was a great start. But looking out the windows of the hotel, one thing was overwhelming- there were more people not there than were there. There's a huge need in this city. On the way in, we were walking behind two hung over college aged girls who looked like they slept on the street- one was missing a flip flop.

The work has just begun. There's so much more to write, but I'm out of gas- slash- it's hard to write with some good NFL games on.

More pics and thoughts on our kickoff to come.