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- i'm sure you've all had this experience...an old friend, someone you once were really close to, moves away, or you move away, or you both move on to the next thing, and communication becomes more difficult and you don't see each other more than once a year, and after a while you still have this sense of what the other is up to in life, but the closeness that was once there is there no longer. and then something happens...you see them at a wedding, or a group of old friends gets together for whatever reason and next thing you know, in that moment, it's like nothing has changed.

this is how i've experienced the new caedmon's call album, "overdressed." i used to love this band. between 1998 and 2002 i probably saw them play 10-15 times. they would have been a no-brainer choice for favorite band. but then derek webb left the band (and to be honest, the real reason i loved them so much was for derek's songs), they did some less than great worship albums, and i just moved on to other bands and other music. i sort of kept track of what they were doing...for example, i really admired their passion for india and the subsequent album that came from that experience...but i just wasn't feeling the connection anymore.

"overdressed" is not a great album...but it feels like that moment with old friends where it seems as if time has been rolled back and nothing has changed. derek's songs are once again amazing...coupled with andrew osenga's songwriting skills, about half the tracks are excellent (the rest leave something to be desired)...but the bottom line is that it's been nice to get reaquainted with this old friend. (the most excellent song, if you are in to downloading, is the last track "ten thousand angels")

- this week i finished the final Harry Potter novel. it was excellent...it took me a while to get into the series (and i started with a lot of skepticism), but the last three books, in particular, are so fantastic, it's worth slogging through the first half of the series just to get to the payoff!

- last, but definitely not least, our farmington campus kicks off this week...please pray for that amazing group of people as they pour themsleves into this new adventure!