took the senior controller from harper collins to dinner thursday night at a nice fish joint a few miles away, and wayne gretzgy sat at the next table. we made eye contact. i think there was magic.

the ‘youth specialties leads to hell’ picketers are back again. i encouraged everyone to bring them starbucks from the stage yesterday.

kenda creasy dean knocked it outa the park in the opening general session. i’ve wanted to have kenda at our conventions for years, and she was everything i was hoping and more. i wish the mainline church grew more experienced wonderful female communicators. lots of great female youth workers, but most haven’t had the opportunity to hone a speaking skill in front of larger audiences.

family force 5 played the evening session. i think they just may be my favorite live band these days — certainly my favorite at our conventions (save my crowder buddies).

my wife’s here now. she was on the soulshaper retreat for these last three days. yeah. she presents her first-ever seminar today, and she’s really nervous about it; but i just know she’s going to be fantastic. she’s certainly more prepared than i ever have been in my life.

i’m wearing a name badge that says “pancreas boy”. it makes me smile. it’s my new super-hero identity.

met the drummer from lenny kravitz’s touring band tonite. lenny has been one of my all-time favorite musicians - so this was fun. he came up to my suite and we had a great chat (the drummer that is, not lenny kravitz).

i had dinner with my dear friend kara powell last night. kara’s a professor at fuller, and we used to work together on the staff of lake avenue church in pasadena. so good to get caught up.

hung out with some great youth workers yesterday– a group from elkart, IN; and a guy from warsaw, IN; and a buddy from north county san diego. nothin’ like being in the company of real peeps giving their lives every day to connect teenagers with the love of jesus.

i used to give out really strange and gross canned food to visitors in our junior high ministry, and i mentioned that in a seminar at a convention a few years ago. today a group brought me a can of ‘canned silkworm cacoons’, with a sticky label from their junior high ministry.

did the cbs evening news interview yesterday morning. i think it went well. the reporter attends bel air pres, and clearly has a sense of what youth ministry is, so her questions weren’t idiotic, which was nice. she actually set me up really nicely with a couple soft, slow lobs that i was able to swat at fairly easily. have no idea when it will air — i’ll post when i know.

here we go: day 2!