Earthquakes? Hurricanes?

Within the last week or so, we have experienced a small earthquake, a hurricane (Irene), and a hail storm. The earthquake was kinda cool, since we've never really experienced that. We thought it was someone's washing machine shaking upstairs (because that usually shakes the ground, right?). We also had a hurricane come through on Saturday, which ended up not really doing much for us. It got pretty windy and rained, but it didn't get scary. Our lights flickered once. Today, as CaryAnne was coming home from work, a huge storm popped up. It was much more intense, I feel like, than Irene was. It hailed for about five minutes. It's been an eventful week.

We started meeting in our building for church on August 21. We've had two weeks of mainly just the Core Team meeting and trying to get in a routine for set-up and tear-down and worshipping together. We have also had some visitors coming in. It is a very exciting time for us all.

This coming Saturday (9/3), we are having a fish fry at a park near the school (which is where we meet on Sundays) to reach out to the community. There is a group coming up from Temple Baptist in Hattiesburg to cook and help us out, so we're very grateful for them. Sunday, we're going to have a "soft launch" service where we invite people to come, but it's not advertised and what-not. Our official launch date is 9/11.

CaryAnne had a birthday last week. She turned 22. She old.

Last Saturday, which happened to be the day Irene came through, Matt Papa and Shai Linne had a concert at one of Summit Church's campuses. We went with the Britts and met up with the Sigmons (one of our elders). It was a great night. If you haven't heard Matt Papa's new album, This Changes Everything, I strongly recommend you buy it.

We started our Growth Groups this week. Ours met tonight at the Sigmons' house. We had supper together -- poppyseed chicken -- and discussed the passage from Tony's sermon this week. CaryAnne and I are both excited about this time of community with our new friends.

Donnie and I are playing pretty much every weekend this month.

We're having a blast here. I wish you all could be up here with us. Obviously, that's not an option for most of you, so you should just come visit! We also appreciate any and all prayers, just so you know.

Oh, I almost forgot. The Browns are here now! Seth and Lauren moved up last week. We're super excited to have them up here. Our Mississippi crew just keeps growing.

I'll end with a quote that is said a lot around Imago Dei --
"Christ lived the life we couldn't live, and He died the death we should have died."