August 18-24

Monday - Another day of "staycation". I woke up early and was going through all my "readings" for the 30-Day Spiritual Journey. The reading in the Richard Foster Book "Seeking the Kingdom" was on the "Discipline of Silence." He explains it as allowing the Lord to "fill you in the silence". It has become a much needed discipline in my time with the Lord.

Later we hung around the house, went to Tyler's football practice and then the Ray boys all went to a movie.

Tuesday - Holly had a meeting at the school and after it was over the boys and I picked her up and we went down to the Galleria area to pick up tickets for "Men at the Cross." We thought about going to the mall, but decided to head back home.

Wednesday - The last day of my "staycation" - didn't do much all day. Went to eat dinner with a couple in our church and played "Phase 10". The boys went to church, but left early so they could come play "Phase 10" with us.

Thursday - I hit the ground running at the office. There was a lot to do to get ready for the "Men at the Cross" event in Houston as well as prepare for our Sunday services. Also had a lot of detail stuff to get ready for our FBC University (Adult Discipleship) which begins September 7th.

Holly was told about a home school football team in Conroe that Austin could play on and they were desperate for more players. So she and Austin and another boy from MCA went to their first practice in Conroe. All of his equipment was provided by the team except cleats and we had to buy a size FOURTEEN cleat for this child!

Friday - Finalized details for the "Men at the Cross" event in Houston. We had about 40 men planning to go, 18 of those in the bus and staying overnight at a church in Houston. Made hospital visits after lunch and bought snacks for late night after the event.

Austin had his first football scrimmage (after only one practice!) way down in south Houston. Holly kept texting me to tell me how he was doing. Austin is on a junior varsity team and they were playing a VARSITY team. Austin played on defense and was going up against a kid who was about 300 lbs. and 6 foot plus. He said he would just bounce off of the guy when he would hit him. But the guy was nice and would help Austin up off the field!

Men started showing up at the church about 5pm and we were able to leave the church at 5:40. We arrived at the Toyota Center just a little before 7pm and got to our seats just as the opening speaker and conference organizer Joe White began his talk. He walked into the arena carrying a 12 foot "beam" on his shoulder and doing a "monologue" of the man who made the cross that Jesus died on. He huffed and puffed with that thing on his shoulder all the way to the stage, laid it down and began cutting into it with an axe to make a place for the cross member. It was a pretty dramatic monologue and one I've heard him do at least once at Promise Keepers. He extended an invitation and the floor filled up with men either making a first-time commitment or re-committing themselves to the Lord.

Max Lucado spoke in the next session and had an amazing message about David and how he succeeded in so many things, but really failed in the area of his family. He ended his life basically alone with at least one of his sons trying to kill him. We left the arena and drove over to Sharpstown Baptist Church where we unloaded and found places to put our air mattresses and bedrolls. It was a little rough sleeping, but I managed to get probably 4 hours of sleep before waking up.

Saturday - Saturday morning was filled a couple more speakers and an appeal for the men to commit to discipling a "Timothy" for six months until he's ready to disciple another "Timothy" and so on. It was a powerful ending to the event. We ate lunch on our way home and I tried to make it for the tail end of Tyler's football game, but they had just finished when I got there. They won their first game!

I went home and took a nap and then I had to go to the church at about 5pm to run sound for our Spanish Language church which was holding a revival. I finally left the church about 10pm.

Sunday -I'm always a little more nervous than usual when coming back to lead worship after having been gone the previous Sunday. But everything went well. There was a Parent's meeting for the youth, so we ate lunch there and then I just stayed at the church to prepare for Worship Team auditions that we were holding from 3:00 until almost 6:00. Made for a really long day, but it always feels good to know that I have Monday to recover from those days.