In 1999, the first year Melissa and I were married, we lived in an apartment on Stella Street in Denton, which is in an area that everyone used to call "Cement City". That was the apartment we brought Anna home to when she was born. I was driving a delivery truck for Suburban Propane and serving with the music team of DBC's college ministry, College Life. As part of that, I had a Bible study that met on Sunday afternoons--a bunch of guys who were music students at UNT. They were all much better musicians than me, and, what made the study so intimidating to me, they were all smarter than me. I remember getting into some really interesting discussions about the justice of hell, predestination, etc. We were going through a study written by Ben Laugelli called Structure (which, sadly, no longer exists).
I'm extremely proud of all the guys that were in that study. One is now in Austin working for a super-cool web design company. One is in medical school. One is, along with his wife, emulating the heart of our Heavenly Father through foster parenting and adoption. One is doing graduate work at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia (and apparently continuing to jam while doing so). One is in a new Austin band that has a new CD out. Two of the dudes have been laboring faithfully to lead their local churches in the worship of the living God (and train others to do the same), one in Vancouver and one in Denton (who is also fixing to go to Argentina as a missionary). Four of the guys are in a band called Midlake, whose appearance on NPR started me on this trip down memory lane.
(Manny Rios, I didn't forget about you. I just don't know where you are. If you read this, give me a shout, bro.)
