Crap-its been awhile

I'd love to pretend to catch you up on my life over the past...while...but i will give you the re-cap.  Friday night nicole and i spent our second friday night at home together since late May!!!!  It was great to say the least.  It's been a rough season for both of us losing loved ones and dealing with the family grief that goes along with that.  Of course this had to happen in the busiest season of student ministry EVER.  I'll hit the highlights of positive things to end a crappy season of pretending to have a wife.  Family-as of last monday the 18th i am a new uncle to a new niece Addison.  Finally my brother broke down and had a kid and luckily it was a girl because he is the most deserving in our family of such heartache.  Addison was born healthy but spent the weekend in the hospital before coming back home.  Nicole and I look forward to seeing her soon.  Ministry-wow-we started small groups on wednesday nights for students.  This took a lot of vision casting and meeting with key leaders to work out details.  To say it has gone amazing would be an understatement.  I'll fill in the details of how we have transitioned our bring in element to our ministry to be small group minded (it was as crazy as it sounds).  The guys i have been mentoring are now mentoring other guys.  Female leaders are mentoring other female leaders and students are being mentored by the likes.  Leaders are doing baptism for students that have walked through their small groups, leaders are writing small group curriculum based upon weekly messages, leaders are getting it.  There is an excitement in the air.  We started a 5th and 6th grade ministry partnership on the weekends with our childrens ministry.  First week almost doubled the amount of 5th and 6th grade students we were reaching, but this involved recruiting, training and empowering new leaders to run a complete ministry.  This also meant re-designing a room and creating all the elements that go into a ministry (worship, messages, games, small group curriculum).  This past week we started our school year off with involvement in schools monday, tuesday and wednesday mornings before school-im already ready to take a break!  All in all its been a hectic season of ministry but with some amazing results!!!