Fire Up Part Two

Two weeks ago today we were getting back from Troy, Illinois and the Fire Up Conference there.  The conference ran from Friday night to Sunday noon.  My part officially was to lead a seminar on Saturday afternoon, perform my Kermit the Frog impression accompanied by Tim Price on banjo after dinner on Saturday and then I got the chance to preach three services on Sunday morning.

Tim's dad is the pastor of the church and has been there since 1988.  I believe that is some kind of record for a United Methodist Church!  As the church has grown spiritually under his leadership, the church's facility has grown physically as well.  The original sanctuary is now dwarfed by all the additions.  I got to preach to the regular Sunday morning crowd while the Fire Up Conference was wrapping up in the gym. 

Tim's keynote speaker for the conference was an amazing preacher from New York named Tom Richter.  I don't know much about the guy, but he sure can hold a crowd's attention.  He is one of those rare preachers who can be both funny and deep at the same time.  And although he was speaking to 300 teenagers, he had full attention from Dats, The Drama Queen (AKA Belle) and Ida too. 

Meanwhile, The Princess got very attached to Tim's six year old daughter, Ruby.  And, apparently, Ruby knows me as "Old Steve Gross".  During father/daughter time, Tim likes to tell "Old Steve Gross stories" to Ruby.  Some of them are true and some are made up.  I imagine that even the true ones are mostly fiction. 

I've got one more story to share from our weekend in Troy, but I want to devote an entire post to it, so for now I will post some more pictures:

We got to set up our official "One Mission Society" table for the weekend.

Tim and the Harvest Ministry Team do some last minute practicing before the start of the conference.

The Drama Queen and The Princess play Legos with Ruby behind our table.

Tim with his younger daughter, Macy. 

The Princess with a spooky looking clown.  In the afternoon, there were various activities for the teens.  Inflatable games were set up in a local grade school gym.  My kids exhausted themselves on this slide and the bungee run...

It's Dats verses Ida, who are tied together with a bungee cord.

Drama Queen also competed against Dats, while The Princess watched.

The Troy UMC sanctuary where I got to preach Sunday morning.

We headed back to Indiana after some chili for Sunday lunch and The Princess was heartbroken to leave behind her new friend Ruby.  She bawled!

And she was asleep within ten minutes!