What a weekend!  If you haven’t heard the whole story, here goes:

• return from Philippines went incredibly smooth UNTIL we landed in the USA (literally) – sat on tarmac for 45 minutes before we could get to our gate-
• then discovered our connecting flight from Dallas to Chicago was delayed by 70 minutes (which I guess was actually good, since the tarmac delay would have caused us to miss the flight otherwise)
• waited in baggage claim for a long time only to discover than half of our baggage was left in Dallas
• spent over an hour at AA’s Customer Service counter in baggage claim with the most incompetent rep I’ve ever encountered in all my years of travel (ummmm, dunno how else to say this, but you wouldn’t been proud of your pastor as I did lose it a few times with her…..my only excuse is that we’d been traveling for 29 hours at this point, and she pushed all my buttons)
• finally got on the Tri-State, only to run into a gridlocked traffic jam at 11pm!
• eventually got to bed by 1am before rising at 4:50am for our 3 services in Tinley Park today-
• I’m not sure if it was jetlag, adrenaline or anointing, but I was pretty pumped today in preaching about “THE Sign: Israel” – if you weren’t there, check it out on our website later this week.
• The 9:30 folks were just as hyped as I was, and their response only made me more hyper!  (thanks!!)
• Wonderful worship and altar response and rumor has it the opening number in all 3 services was an original composition by our own Mr. Jon Jones!
• seems like many CLCers were visiting their father’s church today, at least in Tinley Park & Shorewood, where attendance was down, but perhaps they brought their dad in South Bend, as Pastors Doug & Shanna report an attendance of 162, with a great response to the message and 1 person baptized!

The interest/response to this series has been terrific at all 3 campuses…and for those who’ve asked for additional reading, I highly recommend these resources: Inside the Revolution by Joel Rosenberg (great insights into the whole Middle East situation); Standing with Israel (a free newsletter from Strang Communications); Christians United For Israel (a great group/website); and Elam Ministries (focused on reaching Iran).

I’d love to hear from you – what part of today’s teaching was most impactful? What part made me curious to know more? Please leave a comment below-

Meanwhile, my jetlag still hasn’t kicked-in…I’ve been up for 46 of the past 50 hours, and I’m still feeling pretty good – but gonna call it a night soon just to be safe.