When Charles Lee asked me to participate in the Idea Camp I was honored. With people like Brad Abare, Greg Atkinson, Dawn Nicole Baldwin, DJ Chuang, Mike Foster, Scott Hodge, Dave Mahanes, Dan Portnoy, David Ruis, Cynthia Ware, (click here for complete list) there had to be a mistake. I mean who would ask a loud mouthed guy like Hardy Normal to speak! Crazy!

Then today Charles announces the secret surprise guests and it wrecks me. I mean wrecked into tears. Not because Erwin McManus and Scott Harrison will be there. Both of whom I want to meet and it is like a crazy WOW, but Matthew Barnett is going to be there.

What hit me is all the pain of my past and my current crisis seems to now make sense. If you don’t know Matthew Barnett and the vision of the Los Angeles Dream Center is what God used to pick me up out of homelessness. (click here for a short video)

I have over 14 years of history with Pastor Matthew and I NEVER thought we’d be speaking at the same event. That just blows my mind. Truth is I probably shouldn’t be surprised. Years ago when my rock band played the Whisky a Go Go Matthew took the stage and told all the people in the club that not only would he pray for them, he’d fight for them because as he put it, “I wouldn’t want anyone praying for me that wouldn’t fight for me, too”. I still get chills thinking about him saying that to a secular crowd in a Hollywood nightclub. That is just one of many crazy stories of life at the Dream Center.

Please know what I felt this morning was not ego or pride. I was completely overwhelmed and honored. It’s not about me or Matthew Barnett. It’s all about what God continues to do in so many of our lives.

Too me there are two kinds of spiritual moments. There are the “lightning bolt” divine experiences that don’t happen often enough. And there are the little realizations that you’ve changed for the better that are far more common. This is almost impossible to put into words. If you look at my homelessness over 14 years ago and then walk through the last two years of crisis after crisis it’s a miracle that I’m even typing this. I moved to the Midwest 6 years ago and to be candid coming back to LA was never a plan. Neither was invisiblepeople.tv and working in homeless services. Now I’m a facilitator at the same event as the visionary that helped get me off the streets talking about poverty and homelessness! That rocks hard!

One of my homeless peeps came up to me last week with a joke. He asked, “Want to know how to make God laugh? Tell Him YOUR plans for YOUR life”. God without a doubt has a plan. There is no way any human could have made this happen and knowing that is what wreaked me.

Some of the greatest people I know will all be hanging out in the OC next weekend. Why not come and join us!

The Idea Camp

a free hybrid conference for idea makers (Feb 27-28, 2009 in Irvine, CA)

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 9:20 pm and is filed under My Big Mouth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.