Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Thankful to be enjoying the beautiful springtime on this resurrection celebration here in Birmingham. After two years without seasons beyond rainy or dry, I had forgotten how beautiful and renewing the spring is - even though I missed most of winter while in Peru! In honor of Easter, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite resurrection songs - which just happens to have been written by my teammate Eric McLaughlin! I would also highly recommend reading N.T. Wright's book "Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church." Through the unprecedented and unsurpassable transforming power of the resurrection, God continues to make all things new - and proclaiming and living that redemptive power and transformation to God's glory is the reason why we're still here on this earth. Read a summary of the book from our team blog here.

We Will Rise With You

(download)

There's a hope to which we hope within this night

Anchored in the morning death was put to flight

That this groaning of creation

Waits not vainly for salvation

He will come and will put all things to right

Our Bright and Morning Star is making all things new

Banishing the powers of hell he overthrew

And his kingdom ever growing

From the smallest seeds he's sowing

No dark corner left without the light shot through

We will rise, we will rise with you

When all the heavens and the earth are made new

And finally, to be all that you made us to be

And all that you've redeemed

We will rise with you

So we hope in that which we don't always see

It's broken in, but it's yet to be made complete

But this fractured world around us

Is not always the way it was

And it's not the way that it will always be

So we work and play under this sun and rain

Knowing that our labors in him are not vain

Working in us is his power

Holding us up every hour

Til in just an instant we will all be changed...

Sunrise over the Indian Ocean