Element Church Insider

— Got back from camp last night at 12:15 AM. We were locked out of our house. I had taken our extra set of keys with us and we could not find them anywhere. The kids where all in the yard crying (since they were awaken from a deep sleep) and we had our luggage in the driveway going through it looking for a key. Thankfully one of our windows was open and I put Jonah through there to go unlock the front door.

— Saturday we had about 4 hours to kill before a wedding we had to attend. We were in Thermopolis, WY and needed to go to Ten Sleep, which is 59 miles. We decided to go “a long way” through the Wind River Canyon, which is a SPECTACULAR drive. Our Rand McNally Atlas showed that Wyoming State Highway 434 connected from Ten Sleep South to HWY 20 which came out of the canyon. We decided to take the detour and go on 434 up to the wedding. To make a long story short, 47 miles of the highway was just a ranch dirt road. And when I say “ranch dirt road” I mean a ranch dirt road. On some of it, it was just 2 tire ruts to follow. We were literally driving through people’s ranches on a dirt road. In one Clark Griswold moment I had to honk the horn at a dead stop to get a cow off the road so we could keep driving. We were low on gas, ZERO cell phone coverage and in a part of Wyoming that most Wyomingites will NEVER see on purpose.

— We had 44 at Unplugged today with 6 brand new people. It’s amazing to see the new faces each week and hear how they found out about us. People are inviting friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc. Over lunch we counted how many “could have” been there by counting our regulars who were gone. We “could have” had 71 people today. That’s crazy to me. Our next preview is in 2 weeks.

— I am very tired. Preaching every night this past week and then getting home late last night, up early this morning to freshen up on my sermon and then off to Unplugged. Been a long week.

— We are volunteering at the Thunderbirds Airshow this week. That will be cool. They were practicing today over Cheyenne and you could hear them flying over our house. Frontier Days is this here this week and the Thunderbirds come every year.

— Preview is in two weeks. We have lots to get done before that happens. Adam is speaking this week at Element on our core value of Worship. Excited to hear him speak. He’s doing a fantastic job with worship. Again, so nice having someone you trust leading the music.

— My heart swelled with pride yesterday as my kids were asking for a certain worship song on a cd to be played in the van. They were singing right along. It was cool seeing them sing a worship song. Had to make God smile.

— Got some stuff I want to blog about this week that I’ve found in my devo’s. Stay tuned for that. Thanks for all your prayers and for those who are following along.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Service went awesome last night! Really challenged the kids to have a world changing love. “I can’t change THE world but I can change MY world and when I change MY world THE world changes.” HA clever little statement I made up. Kids are really connecting to the messages. Had lots of comments from the small group leaders about how kids were responding. Tonight we are ending with “What Will Your Story Be?” That we are responsible for the story of our lives. We only get one shot to live it. What would be said about me at the end of my life? Anyway, it’s going really well. We are going tubing down a river today with Jonah and Mariah. That should be interesting. Get us city slickers in a tube in freezing cold water. lol See how that goes. We’ll be taking off tomorrow morning for Thermopolis. Looking forward to that. Then we get to go to Cody Thomas’wedding (kid who came through our youth ministry at HPCC). And we’ll get into Cheyenne late late Saturday night/Sunday morning. Go to Unplugged and we are 2 weeks from our next preview. WOW! time goes fast. Thanks for your prayers. They have been felt.

Following Christ

Jeff