Has it been 12 days yet? I’m too stubborn to cry uncle, but I really want to. I’m getting pretty sick of myself, so I can only imagine how you must feel. 🙂

Well, anyway…

I’ve been praying for what’s going to happen at 4 PM on Saturday since we were holed up in that dreadful, snowed-in, Eagan, Minnesota townhome a year ago. I have no idea what possessed me to start doing it, but every day in the shower I would pray for God to bring hundreds of people to Advance Church on Christmas Eve 2011. It was of no concern to me that Ryan and I were the only members of a church that didn’t exist, in a city we weren’t living in yet, or that the Christmas Eve service I was praying for would only be a preview experience since Advance wouldn’t officially launch until April 2012. I just felt like I was supposed to pray for something big, so I did. And then we got to work.

***

Today Christmas Eve at Advance is no longer a dream. It’s tomorrow.

I can’t believe it. Any of it. Whether 30 people or 100 people show up tomorrow is irrelevant. The fact that there is a place to show up to at all is beyond anything I could’ve asked for or imagined. The last 11 months have been one grace, one answered prayer, one miracle after another, and tomorrow’s final preview experience will be, above all, an expression of our thanks to the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace who decided in advance to to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through a baby they named Jesus.

“This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”

So if you are in town, stop by. If you need a ride, tell us. Someone will come pick you up. When we say we can’t wait to see you, we really mean it. You are the reason we dreamed and prayed and packed up our lives and got to work…because we wanted to give you a place to belong on Christmas Eve in Las Vegas,  a place where your life could be…altered.