Chicago

Last week I had the pleasure of traveling to Chicago for a few days. As it turned out the weather was perfect (by Chicago standards) with clear skies and a reasonable temperature.

We flew in directly over the city and then did a big u-turn out over Lake Michigan. This was the view from my window seat. Not bad!

I went to Chicago to see my friends Jay and Helena McNeil, who are both worship leaders at Willow Creek Community Church. They have lived in Chicago for the last 4 years. (Previously they were at Careforce Church, on the outskirts of Melbourne in Australia).

I've known Jay for 21 years and have played alongside him in numerous different bands and settings over this time. (He was usually playing drums in those days.)

This time Jay was leading worship and I was playing guitar in the worship band for Willow's Wednesday evening "New Community" service. It was a great privilege to be on the Willow stage, and a lot of fun as they had assembled a killer band for the night.

Jay gave me a whirlwind tour of the Willow facilities and I was blown away at the scale and scope of it all. It's been very well thought out and executed, with every possible need covered. All the technical and creative aspects of the facility are world class. I felt very blessed to have been able to see the behind-the-scenes workings of one of the world's great churches.

The next day I was coming home but first we took a couple of hours to record some guitar on a project Jay was working on. That was fun (I love recording!).

So it was a great trip and it was especially cool to catch up with old friends and continue where we left off. Hopefully we'll get to do it again.