It's a brand new year, with tons of brand new possibilities. Delta will have more activities to offer this year than ever before, with opportunities, challenges, and something completely different for every student in our ministry.

We continue our partnership with Walk on Water this year---Pastor Perry had asked us to come back for three services and dinners this year, but he has been so impressed with our students and their hearts for the hurting and homeless of Athens, he altered his schedule so that Delta would be in charge of six visits in 2007. Our first trip of the year is Tuesday 1/9---we'll leave Riverside at 5:45PM to meet with our great friends at Walk on Water. Everyone is invited to attend and serve!

This spring, we'll head to Atlanta and Hebron Baptist Church for the Student Life/Clarity Tour, featuring speakers David Platt and Jeremy Kingsley, plus worship led by Leeland (one of the best new bands I've heard in a while) and Passion's Kristian Stanfill---You can check out links to both artists on our Delta Music page, or on their Myspace pages. We'll also do a Six Flags trip in April, where Carly and I will probably fall asleep on a bench, and we'll undoubtedly hear the girly screams of Mark Christopher Lawson, Jr., echoing throughout metropolitan Atlanta once again. We've got a second conference set for July at Gwinnett Arena, featuring Hillsong United (the greatest worship band on the planet) and Ed Young, pastor of the second-largest church in America, and absolutely the most creative guy you'll ever encounter in mininstry. All of our teenagers --- 6th-12th graders --- are welcome on these trips. See our "upcoming events" page for the Delta Calendar, where you'll find dates for our trips and deadlines for students to turn in money for them.

For our summer mission trip, and we're anticipating several of our Delta high schoolers and H2O folks participating. We'll be travelling to Cusco, Peru for 7-10 days in June with Spirit-Led Expeditions. We'll spend the first couple of days doing street evangelism in Cusco, which the ancient Incas considered to be the center of the world. From there, our group will travel into the jungle to care for the kids and staff at an orphanage for Quechea indians. The folks from SLE tell me that we're guaranteed to meet people who have never seen white people before (don't worry, moms---no one's going to eat us). This promises to be an incredible adventure for all of us, and an opportunity to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the very ends of the earth. Eric Lovin with SLE tells me to warn our participants that if they're afraid of falling in love with Peru and her people, then they better not go! Again, see our calendar on the "upcoming events" page for some planning details about the trip.

Finally, our students and adults in Delta have been challenged to read the Bible in chronological order in 2007. We've given our students a plan to follow, and we're going to do something that will stretch them and me---I'm going to go through the entire Bible with them this year, and I'm praying that our students will follow the reading program, so we can make our time together a conversation instead of just a sermon---In Connections, during Sunday night's Deep End services, and on Wednesdays during Flood, we're going to cover the entire Book! It's a daunting task, but my prayer is that our students will know God's word better than any student group around by the end of 2007!

Our students and adults in Delta have made a committment in 2007 to love God and love people (Mark 12:29-31), forgive each other(Colossians 3:13), be peacemakers (C0lossians 3:15), obey (Colossians 3:20-24), do everything as if they were doing it for God (Colossians 3:17, 23), and as an end result, become part of something legendary (Philippians 2:14-16; Daniel 12:3). That something legendary is the amazing story that God is writing, a story that compels us to make an eternal difference in the lives of of people, because we are so moved by the Savior that has made an eternal difference for us.

Peace...