Meeting one of my heroes: Tony Dungy

This past Wednesday morning, I got to attend the Minnesota Prayer Breakfast at the Hilton in Minneapolis with some of the Pastors from Grace Church.  The prayer breakfast brings hundreds of people together for a gathering to pray for our state.  There were a lot of heavy hitters at this breakfast.  Football players, coaches, Governor Pawlenty and a number of other State Leaders were present at this event.  As you can see from the picture above and below our table for the breakfast was incredibly close to the podium.  In fact, there wasn't anyone closer to the front than us.  Travis, the junior high pastor, and I kept feeling like we were in seats we had no business being in.  We were sure that we were supposed to be in another room with a video feed of the event.  Nonetheless we felt blessed to be able to attend.

Table 39 - Can you get any closer to the front?!

The thing that I will remember the most from this event was the opportunity to meet one of my heroes, Tony Dungy.  Tony was the keynote speaker and spoke for about 15 minutes on his new venture from being a prolific NFL coach to building into the lives of young men who don't have fathers and are on a life trajectory towards pain to themselves and others.  Tony has always been someone I've respected as I and many others have watched him take his national platform as a NFL (Superbowl winning) coach as a way to influence others with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is evident in how he carries himself and how he communicates where he get's his strength and wisdom.  He definitely strikes me as a man of character who lives his faith out loud.  As a Tampa Bay Buccaneer fan, I see a lot of the turnaround from the Buc's of old to the Buc's of today came from Tony's leadership in the organization.  I am grateful for the privilege to be able to meet Tony and will always be a fan of what he is doing to further the Kingdom.