day 3 of the NYWC

I started the day off right--I slept in! I planned on dropping in on Chris Folmsbee's book discussion, but when the wake up call came, I decided to bag it. I had a good conversation with my friend Cowboy Joe as we walked to the convention center, though, so it was worth missing the book discussion.

I had a chat planned with Mark Riddle this morning, and I got to share a little more of my story with him. I am so blown away and blessed by the great people God drops into my life. Mark listened, asked insightful questions, spoke some truth into my life, and asked me a couple of spot-on questions aimed at helping me hear from the Lord. He'd never push his consulting group, but if I ever have the chance to bring in a professional group to work with our church, it'd be the Riddle Group. There was a whole lot of wisdom, understanding, passion for the church, and grace sitting across the table from me this morning!

I missed most of Doug Fields talk, but caught the last 5 minutes, which was enough to know that he nailed it. I'll have to pick that talk up. Crowder and Co. remain my favorite worship leaders. My friend Kim remarked that he manages to blend a whole bunch of silly into the mix with some incredible songs of worship, and it comes out dee-lish.

Phyllis Tickle was the popular choice for the first seminar this afternoon. That is one stinkin smart woman. I want to adopt her. Seriously. My friend Matt agrees, and wants to take her to his family reunions so that the conversation will be better. I don't know about that, but I know that I'd love to spend some time sitting with Mrs T. She's a peach...

We took an extended break this afternoon, trying to catch the Steelers game. They lost to the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets in overtime. We have had a rough weekend of football.

Tonight's set consisted of Leeland, who was new to me. Very talented, very original songwriting, led us well. Same thing with Steve Fee, although I knew some of his songs. It's good to hear from some new voices in worship, and with Fee following the speaker, we had a chance to sing some new songs, hear some fresh voices, and worship.

My guess is that most of the convention attendees are white and suburban in terms of demographic. Sometimes I wonder if the folks who aren't in that demographic feel a little out of the loop when we go to worship and the music is a different style than what they're used to.

Tonight's speaker was Marquis Laughlin, who presented a dramatic rendition of Genesis 12-22. It was stunning--funny, poignant at times...he had us in the palm of his hand most of the way, except for when the cameraman fell from his perch and took the camera/tripod with him. Mr. Laughlin paused, I think to make sure the guy was OK, then carried right on with the Word.

We passed on the late night options, but are very grateful for the finger rockets.

It turns out that I missed an opportunity to hang out with Roogles today. He posted a comment that I didn't see until we got back to the room tonight. Bummer, my loss...