What a great moment of prayer and reflection at Vision Night as we gathered some of our first year heroes.

The last 2 days I’ve been able to sit back and really drink in our recent trip down memory lane - with HPC’s 15th year anniversary. This past weekend was all about honoring and valuing the journey God has had us on, while looking forward to what is ahead. I tried to blog on Monday, but wasn’t ready and still didn’t have it done yesterday. Reflection of the last 5,505 days have been on slow cook, but today all I can taste is a big thank you. To Jesus. To my wife and family. To the first year faith giants (pictured above).

J. John - a great new friend of ours.

To J. John - what a weekend message! One of the top 3 messages I’ve heard in my life, given on the clear, precise presentation of the Gospel - with some slammin’ British humor. Thank you to the 91 people who made decisions for Christ. Your boldness to walk down the aisle - wow. 9 people at our video campus and countless others at other campuses. Thank you to our team, staff, volunteers, leaders and to everyone who is a part. I am a blessed man because of the people around me. You are the nectar of this place. What a weekend. Just think - there’s more to come.

Sunday the 27th, 630pm at Highland Campus, Childcare & Dinner for kids 0-11 will be available

I want to extend a big ol’ invite to everyone for this Sunday night’s HPC Vision Night. We’ll be celebrating fifteen years as a church and thanking God for His faithfulness. And it is going to be so much more than a birthday party. It’ll be a time for us to be reignited by the Spirit of God to burn for Him - a time for Him to touch us again so we can touch those to whom He has called us.

Our hope is that He shows up Sunday night and sends us out from there to be Kingdom builders until His return.

You so don’t want to miss this night: Sunday, January 27, 6:30pm at the Highland Campus

Also - don’t forget to vote for your favorite funny HPC video. The winning video will be announced at Vision Night. Click on the picture below to vote.

Quite possibly the fullest the HPC Annex has ever been - Monday night’s Chick Night

There is a ton of momentum rolling HPC into 2008 and a big part of that is HPWomen. Monday night’s service was evidence of that. There were so many women in the Annex auditorium it looked like a group of college students trying to see how many people they could stuff into a VW Beetle. And God showed up in the midst of the craziness.

A huge salute goes out to DeLynn and the team who worked so hard to pull it all together. There is such a great sense of expectation among the women of HPC - but it isn’t just the women. There is also a huge momentum among the men of HPC.

Last Wednesday morning, nearly a hundred men braved the cold and showed up at Frank’s early while it was still dark - for the first installment of the MANdatory men’s bible study and breakfast. Then on Friday morning another bunch of men did the same thing at Vitality.

Talk about expectation - there is tremendous expectation around here these days. Our best days are still ahead of us.

I’m proud to announce the release of Mike Haman’s new book, The Second Mile. Mike has worked long and hard on this project and God has blessed it and now it’s out - ready to challenge you and bless your life.

Get a copy for yourself, for your friends and coworkers - and help spread the word - there’s a lot of stuff at secondmilebook.com to help you out. And don’t forget to post your own story - what God shows you through the book when you read it.

The Second Mile is going to be another win for the Kingdom. Thanks, Mike, for writing it - and thanks for living it out every day these last 20+ years that we’ve served together. You were the right person to write it because it is how you live. Love ya, Mike.

Craig Groeschel announced on his blog (swerve.lifechurch.tv) that LifeChurch.tv has decided to join the Association of Related Churches. I’ve posted about ARC many times - it is a church planting organization that I was privileged to help get started several years ago and God has blessed us - over 50 churches planted already, and tons more on deck for 2008.

It has been an honor getting to know Craig Groeschel and Bobby Gruenewald over the last couple years. The LifeChurch.tv team is loaded with God-loving, gifted and talented and anointed people who are doing some crazy good stuff in the Kingdom. This is one more really cool thing they’ve decided to do and we’re humbled to welcome them to ARC.

Check out Craig’s post announcing it - and leave a comment welcoming them to ARC. This is a great day for church planting!

As I was pulling out from the MANdatory Men’s Breakfast bible study at Frank’s yesterday (where nearly a hundred men showed up at 6am - glory to God), I thought about how much fun we have around here at HPC and it reminded me of the funniest video contest we’re having right now.

What is the funniest HPC video of all time? On January 27 we are going to announce the winner of the contest - your votes will decide which of the videos the HPC team has produced over the last 15 years is the funniest.

The list has been narrowed to just ten videos (there were literally dozens to start with):

01. Saturday Nights @ HPC
02. Song for Mama D
03. MANdatory
04. Office Linebacker
05. What I Love About Sundays
06. Heroes
07. If you build it, they will come
08. New Man on Campus
09. Real HPC Heroes: Parking
10. HPC Classic

Click here to cast your vote and vote as often as you like.