One of my favorite things about my time living in Dallas was attending The Village Church. My roommate/friend Amanda and I drove about 45 minutes from Dallas to Flower Mound (or Flo Mo as it is referred to) every Saturday night to attend one of their 6 services. The Lord used the pastor Matt Chandler's preaching of the Gospel to really grow my relationship with Him. At the time Matt wasn't well known widespread, but since then he has become well known across the country and is now the President of the Acts 29 Network of churches taking over for Mark Driscoll.
I follow Matt on Twitter and in February he tweeted about his upcoming book tour for his book The Explicit Gospel. They were coming to Atlanta and since Amanda lives in Atlanta now I immediately emailed to let her know that we would be going.
So on Friday April 20, I headed to Atlanta to meet up with Amanda and go hear Matt preach. Although I have listened to many of his sermons via podcast since living Dallas, it had been about three years since I had seen him preach live. I had forgotten about how much movement his arms do during his preaching!
Afterwards there was the opportunity to wait in line to get Matt to sign your book and take a picture with him. Now, this whole concept of a pastor going on a book tour and then people waiting in line to take a picture with him was a little strange to me. When Matt opened his preaching, he had stated that the publishers had approached him about doing this, and he agreed because this was another opportunity to preach the Gospel. My current pastor several times has mentioned that frequently well known pastors are idolized. And to me, this whole situation of waiting in line to meet him was an opportunity to idolize Matt. But, I waited in line anyway.
I got to chat with Matt for a few minutes and informed him I had gone to The Village while I lived in Dallas. He was incredibly nice and was quite interested in the fact that I had done an internship at Baylor since he spends so much time there now. We also took a picture which made awkward by the fact that 1) Who goes up to their former pastor and is like hey we never met because there are thousands of people in your congregation but lets take a picture and 2) He is like 6'4" and I'm maybe 5'2 so naturally I was standing on my tip toes.
Stone Mountain
JP was in Atlanta for work for three weeks. So, between weeks 2 and 3 he stayed in Atlanta over the weekend since I was going to be there. After staying Friday night with Amanda and eating lunch with her Saturday, I headed over to meet up with JP who stayed Friday night with his friend Daniel. We immediately headed to Stone Mountain.
JP lived super close to Stone Mountain until he was about 10 years old and his family moved to Arizona. We checked out every possible thing at Stone Mountain and he talked about what he used to do at each thing as a child. Our most favorite parts were the hike up the mountain- which he said he used to run up as a child and play at the top with his brothers- and the hike around the mountain. This hike didn't just go around the mountain but around the lake as well. We tend to start trails without knowing there distance. This one ended up being about 6 miles long.
After finishing the trail we caught the laser show- which started 30 minutes later than it was supposed to- and then headed back into Atlanta. We checked into the Loews Hotel where we were staying for the night. After showering, we finally made it to dinner at Tap around 11:30pm. We were quite hungry since we had walked over 10 miles that day at the park but had yet to have anything to eat since before noon. I ordered a burger which was quite tasty!
The next day we slept in super late and then enjoyed some of the Dogwood Festival in Midtown- which was where we were staying. We wished we could have seen more of the dog show! It was fun watching them do tricks with frisbees!
This weekend was so much fun- one other perk of the weekend. I didn't have to drive to and from Atlanta by myself. My sweet sister Sarah rode with me and spent the weekend with her friend Caroline.
I got to chat with Matt for a few minutes and informed him I had gone to The Village while I lived in Dallas. He was incredibly nice and was quite interested in the fact that I had done an internship at Baylor since he spends so much time there now. We also took a picture which made awkward by the fact that 1) Who goes up to their former pastor and is like hey we never met because there are thousands of people in your congregation but lets take a picture and 2) He is like 6'4" and I'm maybe 5'2 so naturally I was standing on my tip toes.
Stone Mountain
JP was in Atlanta for work for three weeks. So, between weeks 2 and 3 he stayed in Atlanta over the weekend since I was going to be there. After staying Friday night with Amanda and eating lunch with her Saturday, I headed over to meet up with JP who stayed Friday night with his friend Daniel. We immediately headed to Stone Mountain.
JP lived super close to Stone Mountain until he was about 10 years old and his family moved to Arizona. We checked out every possible thing at Stone Mountain and he talked about what he used to do at each thing as a child. Our most favorite parts were the hike up the mountain- which he said he used to run up as a child and play at the top with his brothers- and the hike around the mountain. This hike didn't just go around the mountain but around the lake as well. We tend to start trails without knowing there distance. This one ended up being about 6 miles long.
After finishing the trail we caught the laser show- which started 30 minutes later than it was supposed to- and then headed back into Atlanta. We checked into the Loews Hotel where we were staying for the night. After showering, we finally made it to dinner at Tap around 11:30pm. We were quite hungry since we had walked over 10 miles that day at the park but had yet to have anything to eat since before noon. I ordered a burger which was quite tasty!
The next day we slept in super late and then enjoyed some of the Dogwood Festival in Midtown- which was where we were staying. We wished we could have seen more of the dog show! It was fun watching them do tricks with frisbees!
This weekend was so much fun- one other perk of the weekend. I didn't have to drive to and from Atlanta by myself. My sweet sister Sarah rode with me and spent the weekend with her friend Caroline.
