4th quarter!

Last week we had the keynote concert on Sunday and it was a huge huge success. Keynote is basically a summer project like ours but its a touring band that goes to other summer projects and puts on an evangelistic concert for them and their guests. They play secular songs, and when they've "earned the right to be heard" they share the Gospel through one of the band members testimony. That night we had almost as many of our friends and coworkers from Santa Cruz as we did project members, we had over 100 in attendance if you include us and we cleaned out 30 boxes of pizza :) BUT most importantly that night decisions were made, we had 3 new brothers in Christ that night!!! We also had 7 people who asked to talk with someone about knowing God, and lots of spiritual conversations happened after the show, it was a huge success and God showed up and moved and the Peter Pan was definitely full of his Spirit. So people reading this celebrate with God in heaven and with us here in Santa Cruz that we have new brothers in Christ!

So, the reason for the title of this post being 4th quarter is because that's the speech I gave today to all of project. We have a week and a few days left here in Santa Cruz before we all go to Yosemite as a group to cap off project. It would be SO easy to sit here and say its been a fantastic summer, we did a lot of great things, God's really moved. We're worn out. Let's take this last week and relax, let's call it a summer and say we've planted seeds and anything we haven't done yet lets leave for next years project. But I challenged project NO! This is the 4th quarter, and if you've ever played a sport then you know 4th quarter isn't the time to relax. 4th quarter is when both sides bring the most intensity, its when you hit the hardest, its when you make the big shots, when miracles happen. It's when you leave everything on the table, so that when all is said and done you know you gave everything you had and you have no regrets. It's when comebacks are the most likely, because the other team gets desperate and in our case that's Satan. He's desperate, he wants a comeback, he knows fatigue is setting in on us, and that we want to relax and hes waiting for us to get complacent so he can wreak his havoc on everything we've done this summer. So, tomorrow we are having a big Christmas in July theme party that we spent a junk ton of money on and we're inviting all of our co-workers to where the Gospel will be presented and testimonies will be shared and fun will be had. Sunday we are staging a giant gladiator battle on the beach to draw in a crowd, and the last man standing is going to share the Gospel with the onlookers. Monday we are having our biggest Monday Night Live of the summer and its going to be praise and worship night, with tons of prayer incorporated in between 15 songs. Tuesday we're re-running the day laborer outreach that I said was such a success last week. Wednesday we're having a Hawaiian night theme for dinner to attract more co-workers again to hear testimonies and just to come hangout. Thursday we're re-running the international outreach from last week. I didn't get a chance to blog about it but it was also a huge success and the internationals are so fun to interact with. Most of them are blank slates, no religious upbringing, they hear the Gospel and they get these big grins and ask things like "He really died for ME?" They are all really interested and many of them have been coming to our dinners and events since we went and had our outreach over there. Some have even come to church with us. Friday we're having pick up soccer with our co-workers after lunch which is always a lot of fun. Saturday we're having another themed dinner night, mismatch night. The cook is going to make a bunch of food that just doesn't go together, and we're gonna dress tacky and its gonna be awesome, and hopefully lots of coworkers will come. And with all of these dinners and stuff, we've built trust and relationships all summer with our co-workers and the international students and from past project we've heard that the last 2 weeks is when most people will make decision to trust Jesus Christ so for a lot of our co-workers we haven't had that heart to heart yet but we really feel like they are ready to have that conversation and so we're going to be having it if they come to these dinners or parties or soccer games or whatever. So it's the 4th quarter, we're hitting hard, we're bringing the heat, and the devil is going to hate it, and God is going to show up and I am SO PUMPED!