Vacation and More
The last week has been a great one. I traveled home to see family and surprise my mom for her birthday. It was a great visit with catching up with them and friends. I also visited my last church and was so encouraged.
I flew into Atlanta on Sunday night and spent a few days at the North Point Ministries family reunion known as n*rich. These couple days are SO valuable as all the partners gather round and share and pour out our knowledge into each other. Still processing a ton of the information, but each one of these makes a great impact on the way I do things.
Another announcement came out of the North Point world today. This one was bittersweet and has a bigger story…
In March of 2005, I was returning from a vacation to Florida with a friend and stopped in Atlanta for the night. We checked into our hotel then traveled up GA-400 to NPCC. I can still vividly remember the giant line of cars that were turning into the parking lot and the overwhelming feeling of pulling over the hill and seeing full parking lots of this church on a Tuesday night. 7|22 was the program that put North Point on my map. I loved every moment that we were there and was just blown away by church being done in that manner.
I began watching the stream online and loved the communicators and especially the worship. I have continued to be impacted by 7|22 over the last three years. It’s been great to visit in person here and then. Last night, Jarret made the announcement that the time to close 7|22 had come. (The YouTube video is at the bottom of this post.)
The bitter part is that I know a few people who have been impacted by 7|22 and know that despite a dwindling number that 7|22 was still having a “good” impact on the Atlanta community. I can’t imagine what the staff is going through right now, but please know that your work was not in vain.
The sweet part is that it’s nice to see, as Rich said today, that there are no “sacred cows” at North Point. It’s encouraging to see an organization realize that the time has come to regroup and change. 7|22 could have gone on, but NP would rather shut it down and develop something else.
I’d like to publicly thank the 7|22 staff, past and present, for all their work. It’s impacted me and quite a few of my friends that live in the northeast. Many of them never even made it to the building. Thanks for all of your sweat and tears that you’ve poured out for 7|22.
Thanks also for being bold enough to shut down. I have no idea how long this has been discussed, but I’m sure that it has come with great discussion and many doubts. Thanks for going through anyway. I’m praying for your continued impact in whatever form comes next.
