This past weekend was glorious. 4 times, we packed our worship room and we said 'goodbye' to Carrie. I will miss her. I will miss her love for worship, serving, creativity, encouragement, her voice, her worship, her amazing strokes of the keyboard.... I will miss her friendship and her love for God and for social justice and for His glory and for the needs of those around her. I will miss working together and dreaming together and thinking that God just might use us (EBC) to impact this world and to elevate the name of Christ.

Colossians 1.18 reads that Christ is the head of the church.... the sole purpose of the church is to make loud declaration of the supremacy of Christ. I watched the church this past weekend and we were loud and beautiful and glorious and Christ received SO much glory. You fed and loved and served and played and showed up and sang and cried and you made loud declaration of God's great glory in the midst of pain and sorrow. It was beautiful! I love you guys and I love being a part of this amazing deal called the 'church', which has the incredible role of lifting and lifting and lifting the supremacy of Christ. Christ supreme. Christ alone!

Jeff, Carrie's hubby, wrote the most amazing note Monday morning early. I thought that you would enjoy... Here it is:

Mark,

Please forward this to the staff and praise teams. Thanks man!

I have to tell you (again, I know) I love Carrie and am so thankful and blessed to have had her the time we did. One thing that is particularly cool about the blessing she heaped on us is our involvement with EBC. I didn’t want to come here when we moved back to Florida. We had established relationships at 1st UMC, her parents went there and I just wasn’t comfortable with all of EBC’s “wackiness”. It took one service to see Jesus present and one service to see what being here meant to Carrie. Getting to lead with Johnny was the second biggest reason Carrie wanted to be here; the first, Christ! Emmanuel Baptist very quickly became our home! Thank you!

Carrie cherished her “job” and the people she “worked” with. The depth of her faith was just expanded immeasurably by you guys and gals, ALL of you! I almost found myself jealous of her time with Mark. Her friendship with you is priceless! Carrie lived to sing and do music! The fact she got to do it with these teams of EXCELLENT and still growing musicians was most special to her. Carrie loved you ALL!

What all of you (staff and praise teams) did for her/us yesterday was awesome. It so much more than just about Carrie; just what she would want! People were touched by God yesterday and you all lead them to Him! Whether it was on the stage, a hug, spooning food, or just being a welcoming church to everyone; just what Carrie would want. Thank you!

Carrie loves you, I love you, Nate, Xander, and Maggie love you and we so very much THANK YOU for all you did! It was just what Carrie would want!

Jeffy

I love you guys! Enjoy this week and may God find much glory in and through you.

By Grace... for Glory,

Mark