Mike Edmisten

I’m spending today and tomorrow with my family as we wrap up the holiday season. With a new baby in the house, we’re hoping to ring in the new year doing something very precious to us…sleeping. Yeah, we’re party animals.

Have a great ‘08!

What a night! Last night Nicki and I were given two tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I have always loved TSO and it’s long been a dream of mine to see them in concert.

One of Nicki’s teaching colleagues, Tammy Ratley, called yesterday afternoon and said she had two tickets for the concert that night. Needless to say, we rearranged our plans for the evening. Thanks Tammy!

The concert was better than I could have ever imagined. The technical side of things was unbelievable. The lighting was mind boggling. The pyrotechnics were huge. Our seats were so close that we could feel the heat from the flames!

And the music…TSO rocked my socks off! The variety of styles was so cool. From orchestral strings to melt-your-face arena rock! The Carol of the Bells was hands-down the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen at a concert. So cool!

Something else I noticed: the message of Jesus was everywhere in their music…and no one was offended. TSO is not a Christian band. It was not a Christian concert…and yet I heard the name of Jesus a lot. Even if they’re not Christ-followers, a lot of people are intrigued by Jesus. They are drawn to Jesus. The church would do well to remember this. The story of Jesus is so winsome and attractive. If we just communicate the story, people will come. When we get so caught up in meaningless debates and distractions, people will go elsewhere.

I can’t even find the right words to communicate how much I loved the experience last night. It really helped to cap what has been the best Christmas season I can ever remember.

I’m stoked about this new series of messages that starts Sunday at ACC. It’s called Letters to Brock. I love being a parent, but it is also the most challenging and difficult thing I’ve ever had to do.

In this series, I’m simply going to open up and share my heart for parenting with you. It’s especially difficult in our culture, but I’m absolutely sold out on the fact that if we do it God’s way, successful parenting can still happen. We’re going to have some very straight talk about the kind of parents that God has called us to be.

Can’t wait until Sunday!

We had a dynamite Christmas in our family this year. I loved it! Because I devoted all of my time to my family over the last few days, I’m just now able to process some the following thoughts.

-Our Christmas services at ACC were stellar! The atmosphere on Sunday was absolutely dancing! I loved being able to celebrate in such an upbeat and exciting atmosphere. The drama was phenomenal, the music was rolling, and the hot chocolate surprise was the icing on the cake. It was a great day.

-Our Christmas Eve service blew me away. Seriously, it exceeded our expectations in every possible way, including attendance. We had more than double the number of people that we expected. We said that moving the service to 9:00 pm was an experiment. Safe to say that the experiment was a success! A big thanks to Yance and Joe (and anybody else I missed) for setting up chairs like madmen at about 8:55 pm!

-Here’s an Andrew Peterson video of the song, Gather ‘Round, Ye Children, Come. It’s the song that our band played on Christmas Eve. Man, I love this song!

-It was so awesome to have Jim Willison back from Iraq and in attendance on Christmas Eve! I actually knew that he was coming home, but I was sworn to secrecy. Trust me, it was not an easy secret to keep. What a Christmas present for that family! Welcome home, Jim!

-I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Nicki and I are blessed to have families that can actually enjoy being together. So many people don’t have that blessing.

-I love being a dad…especially at Christmastime. Nothing like it.

-Can’t wait for Christmas ‘08!

Hope everyone had a spectacular Christmas. It was a great one for my family.

As a public service, I thought I’d pass this along for anyone who opened a gift and said, “You really shouldn’t have.” If you’re considering regifting something you received this Christmas, check out this website for all the regifting info you’ll ever need.

regiftable.com

Had a great Christmas morning in the Edmisten household…albeit a little early.

Hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas holiday.

Man, I loved our Christmas services yesterday. It’s gotta be great when the band plays Feliz Navidad and we hand out hot chocolate to everyone in the middle of the service!

Don’t forget about our Christmas Eve service tonight at 9:00 pm. It’ll be a slow, reflective time of worship. I’ve got a great story ready for all the kids. It’s gonna be a brief but beautiful time to remember why we do this Christmas thing in the first place.

See ya tonight. In the meantime, I’m heading out to the country this afternoon for the second of our family Christmas gatherings.

I’m pumped about our services this week. Christmas Sunday is always an awesome day. We’ve got some great stuff up our sleeve. ACC is the only place to be tomorrow morning.

Our Christmas Eve service will be Monday at 9:00 pm. We shifted to a later start time to try to accommodate people who have family gatherings. It’ll be a soft, reflective time of worship. We’ve also got a cool story for the kids, so be sure to bring ‘em. You can even bring them in their pajamas if you want.

And if you need a little holiday fun to tide you over until tomorrow, check out this Christmas song quiz from the Chicago Tribune. 25 questions to test your knowledge of holiday songs. I aced it. I even got the one about Hanukkah right. I’m actually not bragging, though. The fact that I know so much about Christmas music is probably more of a sad commentary about me than anything else.

Just read that the Reds traded Josh Hamilton to the Texas Rangers for a couple of minor league pitchers: Edinson Volquez & Daniel Herrera. These guys aren’t chumps. Volquez was the Rangers’ minor league pitcher of the year. But man, I hate to see Hamilton go. He’s not only a great player, but his witness for Christ is unparalleled in major league sports.

This old quote from J.I. Packer is rocking my world.

“All Christians are at once beneficiaries and victims of tradition—beneficiaries, who receive nurturing truth and wisdom from God’s faithfulness in past generations; victims, who now take for granted things that need to be questioned, thus treating as divine absolutes patterns of belief and behavior that should be seen as human, provisional, and relative. We are all beneficiaries of good, wise, and sound tradition and victims of poor, unwise, and unsound traditions.”