Every so often we dip our toes into a series called Danny Recommends:, posts that tip you off to the stuff that I…you know. The recommendations might be products for use in your ministry, resources that will help you develop leaders around you, or just fun stuff that you need. Want. Whatever.

We’re about a month in to the new site redesign (don’t forget to subscribe, kids!), and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

You should know that as a web designer, I’m an excellent blogger. In other words: I can’t do web design. I Frankensteined my old site so many times over the years that it was made up of more WordPress plugins than actual WordPress assembly line parts. (And do I know what any of the words I just said actually mean? No. No I do not.)

That’s why I was intrigued / amazed / exclaiming What is this witchcraft when the team at Margin approached me a few months back with some ideas on how to rebuild my site. Margin is the side gig of my friend Jeremy McKnight and – full disclosure! – my son Austin Franks, who have combined powers to create a tool for leaders who like to create, but lack the tools to showcase what they’ve created.

I don’t think I’m betraying the behind-the-scenes magic when I tell you that Margin harnesses some pretty spiffy AI tools to create sites in a fraction of the time of the older ways. But it’s not just our robot overlords who were helpful. Jeremy spent countless early mornings and late nights and Sunday afternoons listening to my insane ravings, and – before I could finish my irrational logic – would say, “Okay, refresh your page. I may have just come up with a solution.”

And boy, did he ever.

I told you on the debut post that the new site is intended to be less of a blog and more of a resource hub. The Margin team took nearly two decades worth of material (Jeremy: “Brother you have a lot of content!”) and put it into easily-accessible and easy-to-search lists. They were able to take my headaches that would’ve me taken days to figure out (usually resulting in me abandoning ship) and came up with a cleaner process in minutes. They took my bad idea that had the makings of a good idea and made it a great idea.

I had a vision for what the site could be, Margin catapulted it into what it should be.

So it’s no question that if you are looking for a little help with your company or church website, your personal site, or even your very niche annual retreat schedule, I recommend you check out Margin.

As an incentive from an extremely satisfied customer, the Margin team has allowed me to make this offer: send them your current site, and they’ll return a mockup of what it could be: completely free and no strings attached. This offer is limited to the first ten people to respond, and it only extends until the end of this month: August 31, 2026.

Get started:

• Contact Margin
• In “Project Details,” tell them Danny sent you

You have nothing to lose and so many things to gain, including a little – wait for it – margin in your too-busy life.

This is the next installment in our ongoing “Large Church” series, which looks at guest services through the lens of the larger congregation: those with an average attendance of 800 or more. While any church can deal with these issues, they seem to especially be true of larger churches.

See the entire series here.

Pick a church. Any church. And I’ll show you a church that is built on the backs of volunteers.

Volunteers are the life blood of our ministries. Without them, staff take on a crushing burden of trying to do it all. Without them, worship services and kids’ environments and local outreach programs screech to a halt. Without them, ministry stops.

And within every group of volunteers, there is a special cadre called the High-Capacity Volunteer (HCV). You may not have labeled them as such, but I promise that they’re there. And those HCVs are the ones uniquely wired to help you take your ministry further down the road.

But if they’re there, and if they’re so great, how do you identify them?

1. Open your eyes.

Seriously. I’m not trying to be pedantic here, but the best HCVs are usually right in front of us. Who is the person who shows up early and stays late? Who is the one who seems to sign up to help with everything? If you walk out of your house this Sunday morning and all four tires are flat, who is the person or two you call to take on your responsibilities? That’s your first round of HCVs.

2. Watch for the heart.

Outside of sheer “get it done” power outlined in #1, who are the people – either in your ministry or not yet in your ministry but in your church – who simply get it? I’ve told you before about my oldest son Jacob who has been in the Chick-fil-A world for nearly half his life. As an Executive Director of a store, he’s constantly on the lookout for the gas station employee, the neighborhood teenager, or even the frequent guest who has that CFA spirit, but not yet in use at CFA.

3. Install a fishbowl.

This has become our number-one secret weapon over the years. I’ve told you about our Guest Services Collective and High-Capacity Volunteer Cohort, two tools we use to invest in great leaders. I wish I could tell you that we create the great leaders, but I’m more convinced that we simply create an environment (i.e., the fishbowl) where we can observe the gifts, skill sets, and interest of those inside. The Collective and Cohort allows our volunteers to bubble to the top (this is where the goldfish analogy breaks down…you generally don’t want to see that), and allows us to say, “I’ll be dogged. They’ve been here the whole time.”

4. Ask for a show of hands.

Whether it’s opting in to the Collective or saying yes to additional opportunities – like serving at a special event or taking on leadership of a project – we often have not because we ask not. We want to be careful of getting one more yes out of people who will say yes to everything and therefore risk burnout, but making the opportunities known is a gift to you and to your vols.

5. Be careful of the “like me” syndrome.

One final point here, and this is not as much of a tip as a warning. We often gravitate to those volunteers who are like us or like us (or we like them). There’s value in chemistry, to be sure. But just because someone has strengths different than yours does not mean they’re a liability. In fact, I’ve found that the people that aren’t exactly the easiest to strike up a friendship with are often the ones who are blast to build a ministry with. The reason? Their strengths are often my weakness, and vice-versa. Our difference make the overall picture better.

You may already have high-capacity volunteers in your ministry. But I’ll bet you could use a few more. This weekend, open your eyes and see who’s around you.

photo credit

We live in a world that values speed.

Our maps app tells us the fastest route to work. Our internet provider touts the fastest downloads. Our home delivery services guarantee the meal / groceries / gadgets will be on our porch in a jiffy.

And speed is fine, in some cases. But if there’s an area where speed is neither appreciated nor helpful, it’s in helping our first-time guests acclimate to our church.

Think about your church from the perspective of a first timer: no matter how small you might think it is, it’s big to them. No matter how outdated your ministries, they’re new to them. Your old friends are complete strangers to them; your muscle memory path to the bathroom is the awkward question they have to ask.

And certainly, there’s something to be said for not letting grass grow under your assimilation process: immediate follow up counts. Regular newcomers events matter. Easy next steps mean something to our guests.

But for the fragile first-timer who is navigating a new building, meeting new faces, and learning new names, speed is not a benefit. In fact, guests often interpret speed as being rushed. Or not being heard. Or being just another part of another process. Or an interruption.

For those of us who are leading the guest services process, slow can communicate value:

• Slow down enough to notice the unfamiliar face on the other side of the lobby.
• Slow down when meeting them and learning a few facts about them.
• Slow down as you’re walking them to their destination and point out landmarks along the way (like those bathrooms!).
• Slow down after the service, making sure their questions are answered and their next steps are clear.

I love an anecdote my friend Mark Waltz shares in book First Impressions: Creating Wow Experiences In Your Church. He tells of Dr. George Soper, a senior vice president at Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana. Dr. Soper is known for ending every conversation with a guest with this question: “Is there anything else I can help you with today? Because I have time.”

Because I have time.

Those four words turn a throwaway question into a declaration of value: you’re important enough that I’ll set aside my schedule for your comfort.

Let’s not possess such a need for speed that we miss the power of slow: slow conversations, slow walks, slowly building a relationship.

Because when it’s all said and done, that type of slow is the fastest way to connect.

photo credit

Every single one of us has experienced it.

Let’s say you’re dropping by a coffee shop. Or a restaurant. Or an oil change joint or Target or the deli counter at your grocery store. The venue doesn’t necessarily matter, but the experience is coming for us all at one point or another.

Your encounter with the barista / waiter / mechanic / cashier / deli owner doesn’t leave you with the sense that anything is wrong. There is nothing really wrong. They greet you when you walk up. Your final order or service is accurate. Your wait is average, maybe even shorter than normal. The workspace is clean, the change is correct, and the experience is – all things considered – fine.

So if nothing’s wrong…what’s wrong?

And then it hits you: there has never been a single ounce of warmth in your interactions. The person on the other side of the counter is technically proficient in her job. She accomplishes all the goals that her employer has for her. She’s probably never run off a customer.

But there’s no warmth.

Warmth can be an overlooked intangible. It’s hard to measure, and you don’t always notice it when you have it, but you know something’s missing when you don’t.

The transaction could’ve been flawless. The encounter had no problems. Yet the experience didn’t make you want to come back.

In the church world, that intangible warmth factor matters so much more than in the retail world. If guests feel like your church is fine but they didn’t feel a connection, they won’t be back the next week.

So how do you create warmth when it comes to serving your guests? I think there are a few “baseline minimum” ways:

1. Make eye contact.

It seems simple. But it’s amazing how often people fail to do this. Guests can tell when they’re really being seen or are simply being processed.

2. Smile.

Just a little. Don’t be the weirdo who pastes on a plastic grin for your full Sunday morning, but curve the corners of your mouth up just a touch, just to let people know you’re glad to see ’em.

3. Be proactive.

In everything. Be the first to greet, the first to speak, the first to give instructions when something might be otherwise confusing (“Right through that door.”, “May I help you find the kids space?”, “How can I help?”)

4. Make small talk.

I get it. Our guests get it. They know we’re often doing it just to do it. They know that you could’ve commented on the weather to four dozen people before them. But still…say something to fill the blank spaces.

5. Make room in the circle.

This is a biggie in our world. We can be proactive, smile, make eye contact – in other words, have all the ingredients of warmth – and still never include others. Make sure they know they’re not just tolerated, but invited.

Maybe you noticed that there’s nothing heroic, earth-shattering, or insanely inventive on any of those five. They’re all common sense, and common skills that people use with people. The only problem: it’s not all that common. Where can you bring a little more warmth this week? How can you apply these five things to the people you’re engaging?

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Let’s start this post with a 30-second timeline cleanse, featuring all that is good and right with the world:

[Sound up. And if you’re reading via email or RSS feed and can’t see the video, click here.]

That moment of cuteness is brought to you by one of my grands, Haddie Nell, who recently overcame a major obstacle in her tiny two-year-old life: that of getting onto her swing by herself.

In case you can’t make it out, here’s the transcript:

Summer / Mommy: Do you need help?

Haddie Nell: No. I … [toddler-speak]

*grunting commences*

Haddie Nell: Yay! I did it!

Summer: You did it!

Haddie Nell’s triumph – and Summer’s restraint – holds a lesson for all of us as leaders:

Sometimes, the best way to help our people is not to help our people.

If we’re the keeper of all of the answers…if we have a Superman complex…if we are trying to be someone’s functional savior out of pride or pity or ego…we will stifle their growth, their learning, and their ability to do harder things later.

In their phenomenal book The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath talk about the beauty of struggle, especially when it comes to teams:

Imagine the bonding that emerges among people who struggle together at a task that means something: Activists fighting to protect a forest from clear-cutting. Start-up cofounders scrambling to meet the next payroll. Religious missionaries, in a distant part of the world, enduring daily rejection in the service of their faith.

What’s the practical lesson here? Should we foist hardship on our employees for the sake of creating defining moments? Not quite. But it’s worth observing that people will choose to struggle – not avoid it or resist it – if the right conditions are present. The conditions are: The work means something to them; they have some autonomy in carrying it out; and it’s their choice to participate or not.

So let ’em struggle. Let the winds blow. Refuse to be the solution. Don’t rob them of the victory. And when they finally make it to the top of the swing, cheer ’em on like crazy.

That’s exactly what this Pops did.

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If I were still in school and someone asked the inevitable first-day-of-class question, “What did you do on your summer vacation?”, everything could be summed up in one sentence:

We waited on grandbabies.

With all three daughters-in-law pregnant at the same time, the waiting game is a given: wait on the next OB appointment. Wait on the text. Wait for the phone call.

And so it was that on a recent Monday morning, I waited at my dining room table for the call we knew would come. Our daughter-in-law Summer was headed to her now-weekly appointment, and based on everything they were tracking, we were fairly certain we’d be driving down I-85 later that morning. I’d planned to work from home as long as I could, then hop in the car when the call came.

As the self-imposed deadline passed, I told Merriem I was going to head to the office for a 10 a.m. meeting. At 10:03 (of course), the call finally came.

It’s time.

I rushed back home, we packed up the car, and took off for Concord. Our drive during one of the driest summers on record was punctuated by a monsoon of epic proportions. The interstate slowed a crawl, the streets of Concord became a lake, and the rain threatened to make us miss the birth of grandchild #6.

Finally, we arrived at the hospital. I spoke to my son Jacob, got Merriem and Haven settled in, and then met up with my fellow grandparents to take over with the soon-to-be big sister. By this point it was nearing 4 p.m., and my assumption was that Haddie Nell and I were settling in for a long night of seek-and-find books, mac and cheese cups, and Alexa playing the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song on repeat.

Like most assumptions, this one was incorrect.

At 4:10, Jacob sent a text to the grandparents’ text thread: “Contractions ramping up really quick.“

Ten minutes later: “Ummmm. She’s here. Summer just delivered a baby with no doctor in the room.“

The nurse – a long-time friend of Summer’s family who clocked in just for the occasion – performed a one-handed catch of my impatient granddaughter, while pushing the doctor call button with the other hand. My superhero daughter-in-law delivered with no epidural, a tiny push, and zero time to process what was happening.

And just like that, 13 days after her cousin was born and in a span of two short weeks, the fab four briefly became the fantastic five and quickly pivoted to the sweet six.

Annie is the tiniest of our peanuts, clocking in at just over six pounds (1/3 of which has to be hair). She’s beautiful – like all of them. Adored – by all of us. And fretted over and petted over by her big sister (see the pic below for proof.)

When I finally made it into the room, toting hibachi takeout for the new parents, what first caught my eye was not my granddaughter but my daughter-in-law, strolling around the room looking like a lot like someone who had not just delivered a baby. “It’s amazing how good you feel with no epidural and barely any pushing,” she should say to no other mother ever.

But then: Annie. In the arms of my eldest son. My unflappable, always-calm son. Who – according to his Mom – had exited the delivery room earlier looking very much flapped and not so much calm (seeing your infant being caught one-handed tends to have that effect).

I assumed the familiar pose I’d taken five times before in just four short years: cradle the head. Stare at the face. Whisper the words: Hi sweet girl. I’m your Pops.

And then came the dance of intense inspection and spoken statements: Man, this is some hair. She’s the spittin’ image of Haddie Nell. Y’all did good again.

We helped with the move from the delivery room to the regular room, toting bags and drinks and half-eaten hibachi. The grandparents and the aunt playfully fought over who was monopolizing Annie the longest – I’m sure the aunt won – and we finally slipped away so the new parents could get on with their night of no sleep.

One more fun fact for Annie’s birth day: she was born into a Chick-fil-A family. Her Daddy is the Executive Director of a brand-new freestanding store, so it is fitting that she was born on the eve of Cow Appreciation Day. (Merriem, Haven, and I had already planned to be in town to be extra sets of hands, so we showed up the next morning to take our position as door greeters, food runners, and dining room cleaners.)

Annie is the first of our brood to be born in a different area code. In this new normal of long-distance grandparenting, we are quickly learning what it looks like to watch grandchildren grow up from afar. Granted, “afar” in this case is less than two hours, for which we’re thankful. But drop bys have been replaced with FaceTime. Big sister relief runs have been replaced with planned weekends. The rapidly-changing face of an infant has become more pronounced, the rapidly-accelerating maturity of a toddler has, too: why does she look so grown up?!?

We’ve prayed for our kids and grandkids to live sent lives. Jacob, Summer, and Haddie Nell’s move earlier this summer was the first big declaration; Annie’s birth brought a new realization. This is part and parcel of what it looks like for them to live on mission, to follow God’s call, to put their yes on the table.

Annie will be the first that we’ll get to know and love primarily via phone calls and video chats. We’ll be the grandparents who are over the river and through the woods. And I trust that won’t weaken the bond, but will make it all the more stronger.

We’ll get to watch her grow not in sentences, but in chapters.

And even as I type, a weekend trip is on the horizon. I’ll soon be snuggling a snoozing two week old. We’ll ooh and ah an infant, hear the excited stories in the broken English of a toddler, and hopefully offer an afternoon nap to deserving parents.

I love you, sweet Annie girl. Welcome to our growing crew.

Have you ever walked into a room and immediately felt like you were interrupting something?

Maybe you entered a store to find employees huddling rather than helping. Perhaps you wandered over to a co-worker’s cubicle to chat, only to have them continually bounce their eyes from you to the spreadsheet they were working on. Or for you husbands: maybe you wandered through the living room right as your wife’s Bible study was getting to the juicy prayer requests.

We all know what it’s like to feel like an interruption.

While it’s a tiny less obvious in the church world, it’s no less real. Our behaviors – overt and covert – every week will send out tiny signals that make our guests feel like they’re an interruption:

• Little to no signage or volunteers to help them navigate a new space
• Lots of people talking to each other, but no one making space in the circle for them
• A kids team that seems caught off guard by a new child, scrambling for check-in forms and name tags
• A worship service that seems uniquely designed for the insider: if you can catch up with us: great. If not? Not our problem.

We don’t mean to do it. No church worth their lampstand ever sets out to do it. No pastor or staff member or volunteer ever wakes up on a Sunday morning, cracks their knuckles, and says, “Time to exclude these losers.”

But without intentionality, without care, without attention to detail, without a plan…we can make our guests feel like they interrupted something sacred, and if they’d just move along we could get back to business as usual.

This Sunday, see them first. Be alert. Kill your own comfort. And do it all for the sake of your guests. Make it clear they’re not an interruption, but an expectation. Let them know their presence is a gift that you’re delighted to receive.

photo credit

I am a massive fan of leadership pipelines: those intentionally-structured, progression-oriented, clearly-stated levels of growth that can make or break a volunteer’s ongoing development. A solid pipeline not only communicates that you have a plan for growth, but it allows volunteers and staff to see where they are on the pipeline, and gives them the opportunity to be equipped for increased ministry roles.

Our Guest Services leadership pipeline has four areas: our monthly Guest Services training, which is the onboarding process required for all of our volunteers, our Volunteer Headquarters, which is mostly a fellowship opportunity but occasionally serves as a time for brief training or vision-casting, and then our Guest Services Collective and High-Capacity Volunteer Cohort, both of which I’ve written about extensively before.

But in a multi-site church, a natural question emerges:

Who owns what?

Does the Central Team own the pipeline, or does the Campus Team own the pipeline?

The answer, of course, is yes.

Each level has shared ownership. Shorthand, the Central Team builds the environment, and the Campus Teams fill the environment.

Here’s a visual breakdown of how Central and Campus work together to own each level:

As you can see, there’s a handoff from level to level, with different teams taking on different responsibilities. But here’s the key: at every level, both teams own it. Both teams have to own it if it’s going to be successfully executed and actually helpful for the volunteer.

• Both the Guest Services Training and Volunteer Headquarters are concepted centrally but executed locally.
• Guest Services Collective and High-Capacity Volunteer Cohort are planned and executed centrally, but with heavy support and participation by campus directors.

The goal of our pipeline is not to give our campus directors another part time side gig, where they have to come up with all the ways to equip their people. Certainly we’d expect that they’re doing things beyond this pipeline in their context: coffee meet-ups with key leaders, a quarterly lunch with team leads, etc., but on our end, we want to build an environment that they get to fill and feel when it’s all said and done.

A leadership pipeline communicates that growth is expected, possible, and supported. In a multi-site church, clarity around ownership determines whether that pipeline becomes a catalyst for growth or a source of frustration.

header photo credit, pipeline graphic created with the assistance of AI.

Earlier this spring I announced our fall slate of One-Day Workshops: three targeted topics on three back-to-back days in October.

If you want to lock in Early Bird pricing, the time for thinking about it is over. This is not a drill.

Early Bird rates end tomorrow (Wednesday, July 15).

The 2026 lineup:

• Tuesday, October 6: Guest Services. You’ll learn how to build a thriving Guest Services ministry, create a culture of intentional hospitality, and navigate the systems and challenges surrounding first-time guests, parking, seating, and more.

• Wednesday, October 7: Guest Services 2.0. Take your hospitality beyond Sunday mornings into every layer of church life, from staff culture and hiring practices to volunteer leadership, communication, and member engagement. (Previous attendance at our Guest Services One-Day is a prerequisite for 2.0.)

• Thursday, October 8: Volunteer Culture. If you struggle with finding them, training them, keeping them, motivating them, or even firing them, you’ll discover some new ways forward as you equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

All One-Day Workshops are 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., and held at The Summit Church’s Capital Hills Campus, located in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Pricing:

• Through July 15: $99 per person, per Workshop
• Beginning July 16: $129 per person, per Workshop
• Groups of five or more receive discounted team pricing

Rates increase tomorrow, so if these Workshops have been sitting on your “I need to get around to that” list, consider this your friendly reminder.

photo credits: Austin Franks, Tally Schiro, Charlie Martin

As Monday nights go, it wasn’t all that unusual.

Merriem was at a book club. Haven and a friend were concocting some sort of DIY lotion at the kitchen table. I had finished up dishes and was just settling in to get a jump start on the following day’s schedule.

The garage door opened and Merriem walked in earlier than expected, a grin on her face:

“They’re heading to the hospital.”

We’d been on high-alert baby watch for several days. With all three daughters-in-law pregnant at the same time – two due within weeks of each other – our phones had become pocket-sized emergency broadcast systems.

So on that particular Monday, it looked like the season three premiere of the Franks Family Fun Fest was about to drop.

We each grabbed a change of clothes and a toiletry bag, hustled Haven off to her friend’s house to spend the night, texted a neighbor to ask if she could let the dog out once more before bed, and we were off.

The strawberry moon hung fat and heavy over 540 as we drove to Raleigh. If old wives’ tales and OB nurses are to be believed, that big moon meant this was not a drill. A baby was imminent, so we needed to hustle.

(I use hustle lightly. By grandchild number five, you know that there is always time for certain things. A pre-celebration Cook Out milkshake felt like one of them.)

We went straight to our son and daughter-in-law’s house, taking over for our fellow grandparents who live a bit closer. Mimi and Oma went over the plans and scenarios and contingencies, and we said our goodbyes, knowing we’d all meet up again in a few hours.

Merriem barely dozed – either due to my snoring or her obsessive checking of text updates – and finally at 2 a.m. she said “I’m going to the hospital.”

She had a specific role, her first in this new season of being a Mimi. Our daughter-in-law had invited her in to the delivery room experience, and nothing was going to keep her out of it.

I too had a role: I was the night watchman over grandchild #1 and #3, the older siblings of #5. Armed with a baby monitor and an unfamiliar pillow, I was to get them up, get them breakfast, and get them to the hospital when summoned.

At 7 a.m. my fellow granddad arrived to assist. At 7:09, the text came: about to push. We were still taking our time with yogurt bowls and sippy cups refills, but at 7:21 – twelve minutes later, mind you – another text: She’s here.

Strawberry moon, indeed.

Opa and Pops – aka Abbot and Costello – assembled the requisite Best Brother Club and Best Sister Club t-shirts. Double-checked diaper bags. Triple-checked lists. Quadruple-glanced at the sorry-can-you-grab-one-more-thing texts from our wives. We loaded the minivan with all of the grace and dexterity that two middle-aged grandfathers can manage – and made our way to the hospital.

It’s funny how roles and postures change with each additional grandchild. At the birth of the older siblings, it was all about them: when will they arrive? Who will they look like? How much longer?

And when their baby sister was born, it was still – at least for the moment – all about them: when will we get there? When do I get to see her? How much longer?

Skylar – our oldest grandchild, the eldest granddaughter, the first to call me Pops – was smitten as we knew she’d be. If allowed, she would have held her baby sister all through that day and into the night. (Later when looking at a photo on her Mimi’s phone, she said “I’m gonna hold this picture forever.” Melt me.)

Eli – our only grandson for now – is a bit too young to take it in. He was far more interested in the hospital room divider curtains, the chocolate chip cookies in the snack basket, and the basketball his baby sister had inexplicably brought with her as a gift for him.

But finally: it was my turn to meet Brenna.

Perfect, as all babies are. Bigger by weight than her siblings, but still impossibly tiny, terribly fragile, inconceivably fresh.

You barely earned your middle name, kid. I thought to myself. Fitting that the fifth in line would arrive on her schedule, in her timing. Still earlier than her due date, but later than the sibling precedence and family guesses had predicted.

I took her to the window so my ancient eyes could see this new creature in morning sunlight. Her already-closed lids tightened. She squeaked slightly. The faintest hint of a frown creased her tiny mouth.

“I think it’s time for her to eat” I heard my daughter-in-law say softly behind me. She was taking it all in: exhausted from a sleepless night, glowing as only a just-delivered mother can, but watching out for her brood of three, and the tiniest was hungry. The squeak said so.

Before I handed her over, I was reminded of my quiet time earlier that morning from Colossians 3:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

How fitting for a day of new life. How appropriate to help build a prayer of thanksgiving, of dedication. How desperate as a grandparent to beg God that Brenna’s life will be one of putting off and putting on:

Put off anger, wrath, malice. Put on kindness, humility, meekness.

Put off impurity, passion, evil desire. Put on patience, forgiveness, love.

Put off the cares of the world, the works of the flesh, the lure of Satan. Put on the design of the Creator, the fruit of the Spirit, the peace of Jesus.

Put off what harms you. Put on who loves you.

Welcome to the world, our little Brenna June. You are cherished. You are adored. You are loved. We can’t wait to watch you grow!