The Day of March

Last week, Terry called it "The Day of March" rather than "The Month of March". How fitting! Yesterday my brother-in-law made mention that in just 3 weeks he would be in Tulsa at the Workshop, and I had to check my calendar to see if that could really be true. Just 3 weeks? Yikes! I better get back to work. And I'm even losing an hour tonight.

Seriously, though, to all who will be joining us in (less than) 3 weeks, we have been hard at work to make sure your time here is inspiring and challenging, refreshing and relaxing.

I'm excited for our times of worship together this year. The Memorial Drive team has been meticulously preparing for Wednesday and Thursday evenings. On Friday evening, we welcome back Allen French, who led at the Workshop for many years as my predecessor at Memorial. He and the Overland Park team will lead us in joyous celebration. And on Saturday we have something special for you: Workshop favorite Keith Lancaster will be back to lead joined by his son Anthony, who currently sings with Acappella, and a team of singers from several Tulsa-area congregations. It will be neat to have worshippers from all over Tulsa serving together, and to have two generations of Lancasters leading us. I'm not sure the Pavilion will be able to contain all of that enthusiasm!

New this year, we have added some smaller, more intimate times of worship at 11:00 each day in one of the upstairs classrooms at Central Park. Get there early...we can only squeeze about 100 people in there! These sessions will be "unplugged" (well, other than a projector...). On Thursday, my mentor, Gary Bruce, will lead us in considering how we can worship in the routine times of our lives. On Friday, Brishan Hatcher and Kyle Strickland will be sharing about worship in the glorious times of life. And on Saturday, Craig Hicks, John Dobbs and myself will consider how we can worship in the difficult times of life.

There is so much to experience, from Workshop Wednesday and the "Feeding of the 5,000" at Memorial, to the AIM flag presentation on Friday night, to the Acappella concert and bloggers luncheon on Saturday.

We're hard at work to make this a wonderful experience for you. Now, you just have to do your part by showing up and soaking it all in!

Oh, and we took a time out last month to take our new Memorial Drive Praise Team pics. What do you think? I work with a crazy group of folks!



(Thanks to our master-photographers Tammy Bowers and Jack Maynard)