I had an awesome weekend

It's not all that often that I write a post that focuses heavily on something spiritual, but this is going to be one of those posts. Consider thyself warned.

I just returned from the weekend men's retreat for my church. About 60 of us spent two days at the Mountain Top Retreat in southern Oregon. The retreat center itself is unbelievable. As the name would imply, it is on top of a mountain. You can see for miles and miles around. The view is breathtaking. The center is built in a way that makes it very enclosed, quiet and peaceful. Being there just naturally made me want to relax and focus on God.

But here is the interesting part. Two of my old friends from high school came to the retreat with me. These two guys have just recently started coming to our church, Calvary Chapel of Corvallis. They are the most normal, down-to-earth guys you could ever meet. One owns a construction business, the other is training to be a police officer. In case you can't tell, I am framing the story to show you that these guys are not weirdos, because they are going to look a little weird in about two paragraphs.

Both of my friends have been through some very hard times. The stuff of life - marriage problems, financial troubles - things that all of us experience from time to time. They have both had reasons to be angry and confused and disillusioned with God and the whole "church scene." And yes, I agree, the whole "church scene" can be pretty disillusioning sometimes.

But something amazing happened to my friends this weekend on top of the mountain. On Saturday night, these two normal, average-Joe working guys were on their knees, hands raised in the air, worshipping God with everything they had. These are the last two guys in the world that you would ever expect to see doing this. They are the type of guys you would normally expect to make fun of weirdo Christian types.

It truly amazes me that they did this. I expected them to stay in the corner of the room and draw as little attention to themselves as possible during the retreat. After all, that would have been the easier thing to do. To drop to your knees in the middle a room, lift your hands and start singing to God - when the most emotion you normally show is a hand shake or maybe a pat on the back - that takes some guts. Something has to be happening to you. Either you are losing your mind or God is touching you.

They were both so excited to go home and tell their families what happened to them, to see God work in their lives.

To quote one of them directly: "Everything is going to be different now."

I was so privileged to see this happen. Yes, I am little bit of a weirdo Christian type. But on weekends like this I wouldn't want to be anything else.