I guess my mind was constipated earlier this week so the mind dump is a tad late. Sorry for that.

·      Looked to be another record attendance Sunday at Impact! And the people who came were treated to a real pleasure when my favorite speaker on earth—Michelle Singleton—brought a special message to mothers!

·      Don’t forget your Mother’s Day portraits! We had about 60 families get their pictures taken with mom today! If you didn’t get yours at the end of the service—than you can pick it up next week at Impact.

·      Are you a high school student? Here’s an update on Word of Life Camp for July 14^th – 20^th. First the bad news — which really isn’t all that bad as you’ll see. The (semi) bad news is that we can’t fit all the kids and luggage in the two 15 passenger vans that we were going to take to W.O.L.. And the good news is we got a brand-new Mercedes luxury bus at an incredible deal! It’s a  55 – seater! That means even more kids can go! We did have a limit of 30 (which we’ve already reached) now we can take about 10 to 12 more kids (leaving room for the adults)! So if you know anyone that still wants to go on this incredible opportunity let us know right away and we will see if we can get him a spot. Contact either Kitty Hinkle or Tim Rayburn.

·      Will (our brand new worship director) and Charis Retherford are going to be with us in less than two weeks! Will first (next Thursday) and Charis about a week later after she finishes being maid of honor in a gazillion weddings! I spoke with Will today and the U-Haul is almost completely loaded—guess they needed a few sets of cloths and a bed to sleep on—other than that they are all packed to go!

·      This week we’re going to continue our journey through the in Gospel of Luke with the message entitled, “Divine Ultrasound!” If you’ve missed any of the first four or five messages in the series you can get them on the iTunes podcast under “Rob Singleton,” or by clicking here.

·      As always, Sunday can’t get here quick enough for me! God always has something special for His people at Impact Church!

·      This past week I saw the Christmas story in an entirely new light. We saw that at least five times Mary (the mother of Jesus) is called either “Blessed of God” or “Highly Favored” in the first chapter alone. And yet God didn’t take away her bumpy road as a result of having the coveted blessed moniker placed upon her. In fact, if anything, her future got a lot tougher once she was highly favored of God. So why is it we can only attach (so many of us) health, wealth, and prosperity to the idea of being blessed by God? Is there really no other sense of the word? Let me give an example, I would consider it an honor if I was chosen to be a Navy seal — but the truth is, I’m not very well positioned to have that honor bestowed upon me. I mean, I can swim fairly well, have a brown belt in Tae Kwon Do, and can hit more skeet than I miss with a shotgun, but that’s hardly Navy Seal material. In other words, I would have to get in shape to be chosen for position myself. Maybe this is where the confusion comes in for some believers. We know that salvation is free and there’s nothing we can do to earn it but, so I guess we consider everything else works the same. Think about this for a moment. Paul talks about being careful to remember that you can’t earn salvation in the book of Galatians. Be careful once you have it not to go back to thinking you have to work to keep it. Obviously this is needed — and this is true blessing. Being highly favored is not salvation. If it were, every single believer who truly trusted in Christ would also do incredible things for him. Truth is, the majority of “Christians” don’t do a lot of anything for the Lord. Most of them get their out of Hell free card” and live their life with that security and little else. And so I think this week’s study on what true blessing is probably threw a lot of people off. But we’ve baked in that now we are forever going to live the abundant life. So I encourage you, if you missed this last message to get the podcast here and then hold on for dear life.

·      I absolutely love seeing all the college age young people joining the mission of Impact! And they aren’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill college kids (if such a mythical creature even exists). These 20 somethings are absolutely sold out for Christ! On fire! The kind that will no doubt make impact! Again, so glad to have them!

·      If you missed yesterday—here’s 3 surefire ways to receive God’s blessing

1.     Blessed are those who take risks for God. This has everything to do with faith and nothing to do with skydiving without a parachute.

2.     Blessed are those who suffer well for his namesake. Not having a good attitude when getting a speeding ticket that we received because we were, well, speeding, but the kind of pain that the world often doles out to those trying to love them in Jesus’ name.

3.      Blessed are those best positioned to receive a blessing. Not because of your religious resume, but because of our humble and meek reliance on the King of Kings and our commitment to making His name famous and advancing His agenda rather than our own.

·      How you doing on reading through the Gospel of Luke? Remember just 10 or 15 minutes a day and you can get to this whole gospel read in a week. You’ll find this study much more enriching if you read through this on your own as well as hearing the messages on the weekend.

·      VERY PUMPED about this coming weekend for several reasons but first and foremost because my favorite speaker on planet Earth is speaking — my wife, Michelle! Yes, she will be giving a very special Mother’s Day message so bring you and all the mom’s you know! There will also be something special just to honor moms—you won’t want to miss it!