FredMcKinnon.Com

It’s FRIDAY!

For us, it’s not just Friday, but it’s the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL for the kids.

We kicked off the morning with our traditional family breakfast at Sweet Mamas on St. Simons Island.  Hard to beat a morning starting off with coffee, chocolate cheese danish, and pork pops.

Fridays are our “day off” from the church, so I’ll spend my morning doing some business bookkeeping and I’ll make a sincere effort in cleaning my office.

After lunch, we’ll get the kids out of school and after a few hours, head off to the baseball fields for a ballgame tonight.

Joy and I hope to get a babysitter and catch a movie this weekend.  I want to see Thor and Pirates for sure.

So how ’bout you?  What’s your Friday & Weekend plans?

I recently had the honor of working with the production team from Dr. Charles Stanley’s “In Touch” Ministries in their creation of a new promo/commercial.  The commercial is for Dr. Stanley’s upcoming book, “Turning the Tide”.  As a New York Times Best-Selling Author, this book will be sure to be selling like crazy.

My cousin and great friend – a fellow “creative”, John McKinnon, was the Director and asked me to help them secure a beach location here and some kids to be the “extras”.

I watched them race the sunlight and the quickly approaching tides on Jekyll Island’s driftwood beach for 2 days of filming.  The commercial is now produced, and though I’m biased towards my cousin’s work, I think it’s incredible.

See for yourself – and pickup the book, which releases in July.

HOORAY!  After waiting a couple of weeks, my iPad 2 shipped from China and just arrived yesterday.  (Apparently, mine just left the factory in time before the factory exploded – that was a close call).

I blogged about why I finally caved in and spent the $ on this luxury a couple of weeks ago.

Well, I spent most of the evening ignoring my wife and kids (Problem #1) as I drooled over this new-found piece of electric glory … so my question to you is, “what now”?

I definitely want to get the app that allows me to control Ableton and Logic.  The Comcast Xfinity app is super cool as well, allowing me to watch TV and movies through my Comcast login.

I wasted no time downloading a good “Texas Holdem” game and of course, “Angry Birds” for the kids.

What am I missing?

Well, the cat is out of the bag — officially.  I posted on Monday about our event, “Refuge” to be hosted here on St. Simons Island in October.  I’m so thrilled to hear and see the positive response to this idea of gathering for 3 days of sabbatical – leaving our stress and face-paced schedules behind to worship, pray, hear God’s voice, and yes … have a lot of fun!

I’ve spent a good bit of time casting vision for the retreat on the site at RefugeSSI.Com.  Today, I wanted to list 4 things that “Refuge” is NOT:

1.  “Refuge” is not an equipping, how-to seminar.  You won’t learn how to build a better praise team, preach a better sermon, lead a better business, or create a dynamic flow in a worship service.  The only how-to we’ll focus on is “how to care for your soul and spiritual state”.

2.  “Refuge” is not an exhaustive series of sessions.  The point of “Refuge” is to give you some space and time – we have just as much unstructured, “unhurried” time as we do sessions.  See our schedule.

3.  “Refuge” is not a budget-breaker.  $99/person does not come close to covering our actual expenses.  Through Worship International, our nonprofit, we will be buffering the budget through donations and sponsorships so that attending is accessible.

4.  “Refuge” is not a parade of Christian celebrity.  We may have a well-known guest or artist pop in … you never know.  But, our intention is not to attempt to draw people in with a big list of speakers and artists that are famous.  (Here me now – I have nothing against them, and have absolutely no issue with conferences that do have a huge lineup of celebrity-level bands and speakers – I quite enjoy hearing and seeing them, and most have been elevated to that level of influence for a good reason) … Refuge is really a vision I had to provide a space in a beautiful location for spiritual awakening.  The vision has been shared by many here in our South Georgia tribe … folks you know from twitter and blogville, like Russ Hutto, Mandy Thompson, Shannon Lewis, Chris Moncus, and Travis Paulding.

Pray for us as we endeavor to kick off our first event.  Consider joining us.  Follow the event on Twitter @refugessi and the event hashtag at #refugessi
Thanks for your support!

I’m thrilled to officially announce a dream that has been years in the making.  That dream is called:

Refuge.

On October 23 – 26, right here on beautiful St. Simons Island, GA, we will have a gathering of worshipers, leaders, and friends who share a deep need — the burning desire to enter into a 3-day sabbatical retreat so that we can draw closer to God, hear His voice, and find rest, renewal, and restoration.  One glance at the schedule for Refuge and you’ll quickly see this event is unlike most conferences or seminars.

Details will be coming throughout the Summer.  Space is limited, so take advantage of the early registration and come join us.

Please visit the Official Site and subscribe to the blog updates at:
www.RefugeSSI.Com

I’d also be grateful if you’d consider following our updates on Twitter:
Twitter ID:  @refugessi
Twitter Event Hashtag:  #refugessi

Lastly, you can “like” us on Facebook.

Right now – I’m excited, nervous, and overwhelmed – all at the same time.  I can’t wait until October.  Hope to see you there!