God is exhausting!

I am feeling pretty drained today, which makes me a little short-tempered, but the events of the past 2 days have been awesome.

On Sunday, we had Awards Night for Upward Soccer. What is so amazing about my experiences with Upward Soccer is that God is teaching me that the personality traits that I think are required for running a smooth, successful soccer league are not necessarily the ones that I am supposed to be utilizing. I know that doesn't make much sense, but the more that I let go of things (particularly when it comes to things being done the "right" way), the more I feel like God is working through me and the families that are coming to our church are being impacted more than I could ever do myself. I don't mean to go all rose-colored glasses, but everything worked out so well on Sunday evening that I'm still in shock about it. (Believe me, there was every opportunity for something to go horribly wrong. In fact, any number of things may still go wrong.) The success of Sunday night was due in large part to Jared Hall, who is a fantastic Christian illusionist and very ministry-oriented. I'm just so excited to see people have a positive experience with a church. If you've been keeping up with the soccer saga, please keep praying that our church will not drop the ball when it comes to follow-up. Thanks.

And then, last night, a concert that has made the years of waiting totally worth it. Having been a Switchfoot fan literally since the beginning - I remember the release of The Legend of Chin - it is a sad state of affairs that last night was the first time I had ever seen them in concert. (Yes, I saw them at Festival con Dios, but that doesn't count because it wasn't their own tour.) But it was worth it because we had 2nd row seats. That's right, we could make eye contact with the band members. (And now I am completely ruined - those seats were so amazing that I don't think any other concert will ever be that good.)

The concert opened with Augustana, who is a great new band, and everyone who reads this needs to go buy their album. Why? Because their van broke down in Georgia and they had to fly in for the concert missing part of their band and most of their instruments. And it gets better - during their 3rd or 4th song, the lights went out. Completely dark on the stage, they just kept playing. So everybody pulled out their "Christian lighters." They were just good. The environment at this concert was so great - it felt like we were just sitting in somebody's living room hanging out with these bands. And it felt like that the whole night.

After Augustana was Eisley, which was a pleasant surprise for me because I didn't know who the openers were going to be, and I like Eisley. They were awesome - they have an unfair sibling advantage because their voices blend so well. As they are from Texas, they had a large contingency in the audience, which was cool. Both bands were really good openers for Switchfoot, which I think is unusual in most concerts - for whatever reason, most openers shouldn't be within 10 miles of the band they're opening for, but that doesn't stop them. (Like Rilo Kiley for Coldplay - terrible!)

And then, of course, the main event - Switchfoot! They opened with Lonely Nation, which I kind of expected (not that that's bad or anything). I was pleasantly surprised with the number of older songs they threw into the set. What was great is that Jon Foreman recognized the fans who have been around since the beginning, and they dedicated More than Fine to those fans. Then later in the show, they did Company Car for those fans. I thought that was awesome because I've been wondering for a couple of weeks if they would pull out any old school songs, and I was thinking it would be cool if they did Company Car, and they did! The only thing more old school would've been for them to pull out Chem 6A or Might Have Ben Hur or something. Apparently, Jon is writing a song for every city they stop in - of course the song for Stafford (where the venue is) had to have a line from "The Stars at Night." I was pretty impressed that he managed to stick a line from that song in another song - Stars, I think. I may have to tolerate that song now that Switchfoot has done it. During On Fire, Jon made a trip into the audience, and there was a ledge, basically like 1/4 of a wall, in front of the first row. He walked along that wall and stopped right in front of us to do the bridge to the song. It completely rocked! The show ended (the real ending, not the pretend ending) with Stars and We Are One Tonight, which is a great way to end a show.

And this post is way too long, so I'm ending it here, but I'm sure I'll find a way to talk about Switchfoot in everything for at least the next week! And I wish you all could have been there too!