Thunderstruck

 

Summer Xtreme Nights started tonight, the first of several nights we're doing this at all seven of our campuses.  The theme is "Thunderstruck," and here's just one of the message descriptions I came up with a week or two ago:

     What’s it mean to be Thunderstruck?  Imagine walking along, and suddenly being knocked to the ground with a blast of blazing light!  Now picture hearing a voice that changes everything, including your very identity!  Whoa!  That’s what it’s like to be thunderstruck - completely surprised, shocked, astounded, rocked, and absolutely blown away! 

     If you look to Acts, chapter 9, you’ll see that a guy named Paul was completely thunderstruck.  Sometimes that’s the only word that can describe an encounter with the powerful love of God.  And you know something?  God is totally ready to step into your life and bring you to a whole new level of awesome!

We had something like 961 kids registered to come, so that's what we had to plan for with the food.  Ultimately, it was closer to a little over 600 kids that came I think, although it could have been higher than that by the end.  But we did have a great turnout, and it's going to be bigger as the week goes on.  We basically just did a KidPak service upstairs, and that decision was made at the last minute because of the quantity of kids.  We simply don't have room for 900 kids downstairs!  So we raced to make adjustments and suddenly we have this epic service upstairs with the huge screens, floating clouds, and super loud volume.   It was neat doing the skits upstairs, bringing the cast up there.  Mom made these t-shirts with the logos of the different tries on them.

The kids loved it. Though we were a little late getting them to the auditorium (feeding that many kids quickly was a challenge!), the service itself was great, from worship to the skits and games to the videos on those large screens, and finally the message.  

Afterwards, the kids went outside where there were all kinds of rides and inflatables.  It was a pretty full night!  The weather was threatening, just like at every Summer Xtreme, but it never rained on us, and everything turned out so much better than we could have imagined. It's a lot of hard work, and it's tiring, but it was a fantastic night.  Tomorrow, we'll do it again.

Maddie had taekwondo tonight, so Mom and Nana went over with her for that.  It turns out that Maddie will be testing soon, although it's not for a new belt.  They just have tests periodically, all part of their advancement as they move to a second degree belt, or a third degree and so on.  But Maddie is definitely advancing to a second degree.  She's just enjoying the journey though, not moving forward at any frantic pace. 

I was tired, but we still made time to read - and then time for prayer.  It was a great night.  Sometimes you fret over things (how many is too many?), and then here we are after all is said and done, and it really wasn't that bad at all.  In fact, it was pretty awesome for the kids.