Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

The idea of loving God with everything is simple but not easy. In conjunction with this series we encouraged our church to grab a copy of Mark Batterson’s book “Primal” which focuses on these concepts. I’m not preaching out of the book but some attendees have shared that this series is a great compliment to their reading. Check out some pics from this past Sunday (click to enlarge).

We baptized one and saw another come to faith in Christ.

My favorite part of Captivate is seeing our crowd go nuts when people come forward to receive Christ. We’ve been fortunate to hear these celebrations 29 times in our first 3.5 months.

Photos credit: Ben Ritter

One of the reasons I love my city is that it has so many neighborhoods with their own unique personality. In general, people in Baltimore are not pretentious. They tell you what they think and they don’t care what others think about them. By and large this city celebrates life and overcomes life’s hard knocks on a daily basis. Life circumstances that rock people from other parts of the country just kind of roll off the shoulders of Baltimoreans. We’re quirky and we don’t care.

One of the unique things that happens each year in Baltimore happens over in Hampden on 34th street. “The Miracle on 34th Street” is an all-out community light display that covers a block (34th St.) in the city. It’s a funky and friendly eclectic mix of lights and Christmas creations. It’s Griswald times 50. What I like about 34th street is that this isn’t a light display of off white lights and manicured lawns. It’s a mix and match display of everything under the sun and very little is ‘new’. It’s good old fashioned lights and winter creations by people who care about keeping tradition and putting smiles on the faces of perfect strangers. We had a great time checking out the display this year.

Check out the display from a week ago. Photo credit: Ben Ritter