Well, tonight was the last meeting of the crusade. It hardly seems like we should be done. This series has been one of the most interesting and different meetings I've been a part of. We began the first weekend of this month. Instead of the regular, grueling 6-nights-a-week schedule, we met only three nights per week, preaching twice each night. We also divided the preaching between Jeffrey, Jay, and myself. So as of tonight, we've only had 12 meetings with 24 sessions divided among three speakers (I didn't preach nearly as many messages as Jeffrey and Jay).

The drawbacks are that the messages have to be very succinct. We said two sessions, 45 minutes each, with a 15 minute intercession. But once you go through all the prelims, that's about 30 minutes per sermon. I'm still not convinced that it's reasonable to try and cover a topic like the mark of the beast or the state of the dead in 30 minutes. Not only is it a lot for those attending to assimilate, it's difficult to do it justice in such a short amount of time.

We've had two baptisms, and we're working with 6-8 more candidates that we'll continue studying with during the follow-up stage. In spite of the challenges we've faced, the change has been really good. I'm totally sold on the double-sessions. I'm not so sure about the multiple speakers...

I'm going to write a little more now that the meetings are done. I've gotta write about the Sun Run. But right now I'm just rambling, so I should go to bed...

P.S. I was going to upload a picture, but it's not working right now.