After a Long Long Long Vacation

Thanks for all the well wishes during my long, long, long vacation! I signed off of blogland right before heading to the Outer Banks. During my two week vacation, I knew in the back of my head that August would look somewhat of a blur to me. It really was just that, a blur!!

Almost a year ago, we began praying for God's leading in developing an alternative service at Baldwin Community. Back then, I thought September 9 was a long way off! Wow, how time flies right by. After a year of prayer and preparation, The Asbury Alternative, http://www.asburyalternative.com/ got off to a most blessed start! Yesterday, we had our first worship service and there was no greater sense of thankgiving by seeing many chairs being added to the existing chairs already in place five minutes before the worship began.

The band rocked, the crowd was in tune to the leading of God's Holy Spirit, and I was just floored by the level of excitement this worship brought to God and to all of God's people.

We faced many obstacles in the week prior to the first Sunday. Our lead keyboard, had to take on many more responsibilities at work and had to resign from playing, our lead guitarist, was in the hospital for a potential heart attack, equipment was not in on time, as it was backordered. Satan had a real desire to thwart this opportunity. But the prayers to our God kept coming. We were not going to give up, even if it meant me and our drummer. By week's end, we had a full band. All positions were filled! Our lead quitarist did not have a heart attack! Praise God! We even found (after a year searching) our bass guitarist by mid-week. This group bonded together in such a most awesome way. All equipment was in and installed by Wednesday!

Thank you all for praying for the start of this new service. Your prayers were certainly answered. It was a true joy for all to be a part of something so new and fresh yesterday. After a year of planning for September 9, 2007, I told the band, "Yes, we do have worship on September 16th!"