Well, it’s Sunday night after the first ever Outloud Conference. What a weekend it was…I’m so overwhelmed and speechless at how things went. I’ll do this behind closed doors as well, but publicly I want to thank my church for allowing this to happen. We had over 80 volunteers, an amazing office staff & worship team that willingly gave up it’s platform to allow others to come in, and a host of worshipers, intercessors, givers, and pastors who made all this possible. I’m so humbled people gave up their time and efforts to put this together.

The vision behind this weekend was to impact and connect local churches, go deeper in hosting God’s presence, and release impartation to those attending, and we succeeded in all 3. All the worship leaders, musicians, and speakers that came were not only amazing when they were in front of people and behind a microphone, but they were even more amazing behind-the-scenes. I got to host and hang with these peeps all weekend and I can say without a doubt there was no competition, territorial behavior, stand-offishness, or one-up-manship. And it’s not even about the absence of those things…it’s about what was present: genuine conversation, hospitality, and a true embrace and love of each other, our families, our churches, our ministries. Hanging with them made me a better man and made me want to be more like Jesus. I was so blessed. I thank God for friends. Iris and I are so rich because of them.

You know, in recapping a worship conference, the easy thing to do is to post lots of pictures with huge crowds, awesome lights, and cool musician shots. Outloud certainly had that…Friday night we had people worship in the lobby b/c the sanctuary was so packed. Hundreds of people dancing literally shook our building! But the corporate gatherings were just part of the experience for me. It was the meals we shared, the countless things we talked about driving around together, the little things between sessions and services that really ministered to me. I think that is such a fuller picture of what being a follower of Jesus is. Multitudes gathering before the throne of the Lord on one hand and genuine relationship and friendship on the other. Here are a few pics I took over the weekend…all the cool concert/crowd pics will come later. We had pros take those photos and post more entries later =).