I’m at the national conference for youth ministries this week. I’m speaking in just a couple hours and boy do I have to bring my A game! Rich Little, Chris Seidman, and Jonathan Storment have already spoken to the assembly and they were absolutely fantastic. Rich is from Napierville, Il (Chicago) since 2001. He is Australian so there is a bit of a Battle of the Accents going on between him, me, and the folk from Arkansas. He gave a talk on “Traveling Light” that was very powerful. I heard several youth ministers say that they were convicted so powerfully that they had decided to make some major changes in their lifestyles, attitude, and ministry.

Chris Seidman is one of my favorite people. He has been teaching the early morning classes (they knew better than to ask me. I’m not a Christian for the first hour or two of each day). He is one of the most humble — and most skilled — teachers of the scripture around.

Then I finally got to hear Jonathan Storment. Jonathan works at Richland Hills in Fort Worth, Texas. He came up to Rochester Church and did a young adult retreat and then preached on Sunday but I missed him. I was away speaking elsewhere. When I got back, everyone was raving about this young man. Today, I learned why. He is intelligent, witty, powerful, and convicting. I am now a fan.

Dudley and the crew at NCYM have outdone themselves again with all the planning and taking care of the thousands of details it takes to make something like this hum along. I can’t organize two pencils in an empty drawer, so I must confess I am in awe of them.

It has been colder here than it has been in Detroit this week, which is weird. Now they say that we will get 2-5 inches of snow starting Wednesday afternoon and continuing through Thursday. I’m not sure how much snow they get around here during an average winter but no one seems panicked by this news. In Nashville, if it flurries, the stores run out of milk, bread, and eggs within an hour or two. Amazing.

I am playing my Breedlove guitar. Yes, I brought it along and kept it warm. It is the best way I know to calm me down and get me ready to speak. My subject tonight is “Pardon.” While Jonathan spoke of the pardon we receive and its affect on our lives, I will be speaking about the mission we have been given to be mobile temples of God, dispensing grace and pardon as we journey through our daily lives. God will do something good with my talk, I’m sure. He always does.

Gotta get back to work. After one more tune…