Flex '08

TEL_0824, originally uploaded by Thomas Lester.

Wow! It's hard to put this experience into words. Celebration Church of Jacksonville's annual mens conference, called FLEX was held this weekend in Jacksonville, FL. Over a thousand men (a guess... uh... a guess on the number... not a guess that they were men) worshiping, having fun, hanging out, and learning about how to Godly men.


TEL_1063, originally uploaded by Thomas Lester.

A look around the place and you quickly realize that in attendance there are strong men of God, new Christians, sons and dads, lost friends that were dragged their by a loving friend, Grand Fathers, and best friends. There was no denying that God met us in His house as he promises in Matthew 18:20. Lives were changed. Thanks Celebration for doing this every year with excellence!

Starting A Car With Jumper Cables Attached To Your Nipples

Don't Ask, originally uploaded by Thomas Lester.

Are you manly enough to jumpstart a car by attaching jumper cables to your nipples? Check out these super many guys with all their manly chest hair (and nipple rings).

Tonight was the first night of the 2008 Celebration Men's conference, "FLEX". Brian and I arrived at Celebration Church Midtown at around 5:30 PM. We checked in and made the rounds seeing who was there. Brian signed up football, paint ball, and video games for during the after party. We got some barbeque for dinner and hung out with friends.

I ran into Erik, a friend from Bank of America. I had invited him to visit Celebration Church when he first moved to Jax from San Diego. That was about a year ago. It was good to see him still going to church. I got all caught up on my old team at BoA.

After dinner and socializing, we had some seriously great worship (I'll post some pictures on Flickr later). Pastor Joe Champion taught from 2 Kings (the book to the right of 1st Kings) 5:1-14. This was awesome and really spoke to me. Naaman was a man of great stature, he had much power, he was revered among men... BUT... he had leprosy. Despite all those great things, and how admired he was on the outside... when Naaman came home, he knew he was still a Leper.  Naaman was able to get past his "but".  Check out the scripture to find out how.