I’m still a little bit in awe. Or a lot in awe. And I’m not sure how fully I’ve processed everything yet, so we’ll see what words end up coming out.

This weekend I went to Georgia. (And I will devote an entire blog post to The South And Why I Love It, so keep your pants on.) Why did I go to Georgia? Well… um… it’s a long story. I’ll give it to you in one nutshell run-on sentence. Ready? Go.

My friend Daniel became friends with an amazing musician and worship leader, Travis Cottrell, a couple of years ago, and through the magic of the world wide interwebs I started semi-stalking him and slowly became acquaintances and ended up meeting him at an event he was leading worship at in Vegas, and I pick on him all the time and am not very nice but luckily he’s the kind of person who can take it (and secretly loves it) so we became buddies, so when I heard that he had invited Daniel and Christy to go to Atlanta to be in a 300 person choir for his live concert (which was also a CD/DVD recording), so I decided to be ballsy and ask if I could come too and he totally said yes so I flew to Georgia.

So I was barely able to get the time off work because it was right in the middle of our busy season, but I managed to swing it and took a red eye flight. After sleeping for a couple of hours at the Best Western near the airport, Leanne and I drove up to Woodstock, checked into our hotel, and went over to the church. We ended up in a little conference room, running through music with Travis, his worship team, and D&C. We all went to dinner later, and the waitress spilled an entire tray of waters on Leanne. Good times.

Saturday was rehearsal. It was an absolute blast – and I made some new friends. Janice and Lisa, y’all are awesome. Janice even taught me a new Southern phrase. When something is really amazingly good, you say “It makes me want to slap my momma.” Saturday made me want to slap my momma. (Just kidding, mom…) On Saturday night we did a dress rehearsal so that Max Lucado could record his segments, since he couldn’t make it to the concert on Sunday. Then we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner, which I will talk more about in the aforementioned/not yet written blog about the South.

But it was in Cracker Barrel that we got some news. Apparently the sound people were having some trouble getting a clear choir sound out in the house (which was a problem both for the concert and also for the recording), so Travis decided to have 10 people from the choir sing on microphones to fix that problem. Here was my face when I was told that I was one of those 10 people:

Um... say what?

I mean, I still don’t really get it. There was this choir of 300 people, and here I am, just along for the ride. Only there because I dared to ask to be included. And all of a sudden, I get to sing on mic? I don’t know what it was. Maybe he heard me and Leanne when we were running through music in the conference room and knew we could carry a tune? Maybe he’s just an incredibly trusting person and went on faith? I HAVE NO IDEA. But, my friends, it was incredible.

The concert was more amazing than I could have imagined. I’ve been reading lots of comments of Travis’ blog and facebook, and people have been saying it was the single greatest worship experience of their lives. I can’t quite say the same, because although I worshipped my socks off, I was still focusing on singing the right part (hello, being recorded on a freaking microphone). But I will definitely put it in the top 5 of the best worship experiences of my life.

The church could seat 7,400 people, and that building was FULL. Full of people standing, raising their hands, singing along, and experiencing the presence of the Lord.

You know what? I’m not even going to try to describe it. I’ll just say that God was there and I was so, SO blessed. Lici (girl from the worship team) actually summed it up best when she said “I’m scarred.” It’s not just a blessing that’s going to wear off in a few weeks. It’s an imprint on my soul that God is GOOD and I am changed.

I can’t wait for the CD and DVD to come out.

Enjoy some pics from the weekend…

A view from the stage at First Baptist Church Woodstock

Um, yeah. Pretty nice setup, eh?

I think this captures the feeling in the room so well

Yay-yus!