i'd like to talk to you more often. we'll see if that happens! Here's some stuff i've been involved in:

I'm at a Holy Spirit Youth Conference today. It's sweet! Young people are hearing God's voice and acting on it. I led worship this morning and it was nice. Then, i got to teach a seminar on Prophetic Song Writing; which included some practical application time in which the kids began writing their own songs. Such cool stuff is coming through these people!

A friend in watching my kids today: Susanna is on a women's retreat! She got hooked up with this great Women's group at a church near us. I don't remember the last time Sooz got away with NO children for a couple days. I think that memory is repressed. I had the fab five by myself for half a day yesterday. I was so tired! But it was fun. God is doing something really cool in me as a dad. I have struggled with impatience and frustration with my kids. Recently, the Lord has been addressing that with me. I've had a friend praying for me and i've been amazed how the Lord is helping me. Sooz shared a revelation she had: we don't have to get upset! We can stay calm! This simple realization has really been helping me.

Here's one thing i shared with the youth, that i'd like to share with you...

Priming the pump: my parents have an old hand-pump well in their front yard. In order to get the pump working, it must be primed. You have to take a bucket of water from another source and pour it into the pump. Seems kinda backwards, huh? The water causes a leather seal to expand, create suction and enable the pump to draw water from underground.

We need priming too. Creative people, hey: even simply spiritual people. We benefit from inspiration through other sources: other people's writing, music, thinking, artwork. This inspiration can pour into us and cause the creativity within to expand and draw up the deep waters of unique expression that God deposited in us.

I encouraged the young people to take in inspiration, but to pour out the unique expression that is in them. Don't try to write like someone else, play, draw, paint, dance like someone else, think, speak, act like someone else. You can be encouraged by them, but what the world needs is the one-of-a-kind expression of God's image that comes only through YOU. I'd encourage you to do the same in your art, your life.