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How cool is this?! You can see head, body, arms, legs...
Baby Barger #2
Saturday Night Reflections
It was a great kick-off to Advent tonight. We're taking a different look at advent. Specifically looking at major events throughout scripture and how they each serve to prepare for the coming of Jesus.
Tonight was about Creation. God's initial preparatory step.
We used Genesis 1 in a readers theater, interspersed with instrumental statements from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Our Music and Drama teams were awesome! I hope that we were able to help people see creation anew. And I hope that we will all remember the importance of Advent - the importance of preparation for Christmas.
The more we can remind one another to inspect (and clean out) our lives, the better we'll be able to come to God in true worship.
Looking forward to see what He has in store between now and Christmas...
Ken
My friend Ken is a great guy. He's funny, he appreciates a fine burger, he is an aficionado of electronic gadgetry.
More than all these, Ken is truly creative. Prime example: Last Halloween Ken decided to go as Billy Ray Cyrus. But this was no ordinary costume. Ken decided on a course of action that many would shy from. Ken boldly went where only the reddest of necks has gone before. For many months, if not an entire year, Ken began to grow his hair - in order to more perfectly emulate the King of the Mullet. So that by the last day of October, Kens hair was truly Cyrusian in nature.
However, despite recent attempts, I have as yet been unable to obtain the photographic evidence needed to validate the year-long hair adventure.
So this post will serve as a calling-out, as it were.
Ken, we NEED the pictures. Please...
I'm Thankful...
for so many things.
I have an amazing wife! Our daughter is the smartest and cutest girl I've ever met. I work at an awesome church with a great ministry and with some of the best people ever.
Today I'm especially thankful that our family will be growing by one in July. What looks like a little grain of rice is our baby about two weeks ago.
God is good!
Birthday Time!
Today is my beautiful wife, Regina's birthday! We're heading out for Mongolian BBQ for dinner. Yummmm...!!!
Post some Birthday wishes for Regina
Time Off?
I'm taking a couple days off this week.
That was the plan anyway.
But I ended up at the Management Team meeting on Monday night and I went in for staff meeting today. I'll probably end up making a video for this weekend's services sometime this week.
So, does that really count as time off? Or am I just fooling myself??
I'm starting to think the later.
2" of Snow
It snowed about 2" this morning at my house.That's not such a bad thing. Except that it was only 2".
If it's going to snow, I'd rather it be enough to pull out the new snow blower...
...I shoveled...
Weekend Recap
It was a busy weekend.
Ray (R-Kaid)'s CD release party was Friday night at Harvest.
I helped the Young's move to a new house on Saturday morning.
With a guest speaker this weekend, I focused in on Thanksgiving. So, we covered Caedmon's Call's "Thankful". It went quite well. And I was surprised at how many people knew the song. I guess I shouldn't be surprised...it's a great song from some great musicians. Anyway, the rest of the set helped us focus in on God and His provision. Setting the stage for our Thanksgiving...
Hope your weekend went as well as mine.
Almighty $$$
We're all trying to save money now, right? Some of us are willing to go to greater lengths than others.
Regina and I have an on-again-off-again relationship with saving. It's moving back to on-again. And I'd like it to stay that way. But it's hard to balance the desire to live like we have for so long with the desire to live beneath our means.
Have you been successful at this?
How?
Life Soundtrack
I'm sure I'm not the only one who uses my music to provide a soundtrack for life.
Each day the music that is called for is slightly different depending on what's been going on. Sometimes there's no rhyme or reason to why a certain song/artist/genre is appropriate. Sometimes it makes absolute sense.
Today it really doesn't make sense to me, but Mutemath is the artist of the day. The groove is perfect. It's just enough behind the scenes. Not too much lyric. And just enough random noise. Perfect.
Tomorrow may be something completely different, like Chopin or The Black Crowes, Derek Webb or Foo Fighters. I won't know till it cues up and starts to play.
What's in your soundtrack today?
Too funny
I needed something to start the day off right today. Thankfully, John Voelz from Westwinds had the post of the day.
If you've ever sung in a choir, led a choir, seen a choir, or know someone who has - you NEED to check this out!
: )
Amelia woke up...
...and I can't get back to sleep. I hate it when this happens. Thankfully it is not that often. But when I have to get up out of bed, I have a hard time falling back to sleep. And tonight my brain is going strange places...
Weekend Recap
- We've put a hold on getting Amelia into a Toddler bed. Not sure what I was thinking... this IS just about the busiest time of year. Sleep is at a premium.
- We had a great weekend at Harvest. Child/Family dedication at the 10:30 service was nice. We borrowed an idea from John at the Vertizontal blog. They do some mad-creative things at Westwinds. The idea we stole in a nutshell: we are all connected. Even before we know it. We are connected to the children and families who were dedicated to God on Sunday. To help highlight that, Helen, our Children's Pastor, explained the idea. Then each person got a string and we spent some time greeting one another and helping tie strings on wrists. These were to help remind us to pray for the families and children. Hopefully it will stick with people...
- We had an extended leadership meeting after the service on Sunday. I thought it went well. Props to Byron and his team for putting it together. BTW, thanks again for the cornbread. I miss southern cooking!
- Went shopping at Target in the afternoon Sunday. Always a fun time. Looking at the toys and thinking toward Christmas.
- It's stinking COLD. High of 36 degrees today. THIRTY SIX. I fear I'll be using the new snow-blower soon...
Big Girl
We started Amelia in a toddler bed yesterday. Naptime and last night.
Both were a struggle. She ended up back in her crib last night - after many attempts to get her back to sleep in the bed.
We are tired.
You Deserve a Break Today!
This is undoubtedly the busiest time of year for just about everyone. At Harvest this is absolutely true.
I was talking with Julie about this fact this morning and she told me how overwhelmed she was feeling. I said
"You know what we should do?"
she said "lock myself in my office and ignore everything else?"
I said "no. We should all go out to lunch!"
Perfectly logical to me.
We were all feeling overwhelmed. So... I convinced everyone that we needed to go out to Chipotle for lunch.
It took some serious guilt tripping, but I accomplished a very difficult feat. Everyone who was here in the office went to Chipotle for lunch today.
We had fun. We laughed. We enjoyed the sunshine. It was good.
So, the moral of the story? Sometimes you gotta get out and take a break!
Live, Laugh, Eat some really big burritos.
Peace
My little girl
She's growing up so fast! It's really cool. But it's a little sad at the same time...
Life is good!
Advent
I'm planning Advent.
Not Christmas. Advent.
This is something that I wish people could understand. Christmas starts on Christmas. STARTS.
Advent is before Christmas. ADVENT = BEFORE.
Advent is about preparation and I'm really excited about the intention that we're putting into this years Advent celebrations. It's my goal to help people understand that we need to prepare spiritually for Christmas just like we prepare physically (shopping, decorating, singing the same 12 songs 8 billion times...)
We have to prepare our hearts for the miracle of Jesus birth. And for the reason for that birth. We have to look past the straw and manger to see the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. If we're not prepared it's just singing songs and buying presents.
This year - it's time to get prepared!
Otherwise, you may as well celebrate with Chewy.
Why I love Guitar Center
There are way too many reasons to list. I mean, you get to test-drive awesome gear. And they know you're just playing - not buying. And they don't care! That is awesome!
But today I met one of my drummers, Mike, at GC to pick up some gear and try to trade in some faulty equipment. One of the broken items is a DW snare stand. We bought it over 2 years ago. I can't find the receipt. The manager spent a good 25 minutes looking up our old purchases and sorting through the receipts (there are many!) to find the specific one we were looking for. All this so we could return a busted stand.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is service.
They went out of their way for us when they didn't have to. And what's more, the manager was apologetic that it took so long to find the receipt that we didn't have. From two years ago.
Thanks Guitar Center! You guys rock!
My Site
So, I've been putting a little time toward a website for myself. I guess maybe that's where some of my blogging time has gone. Still a little bit in the works...
Here it is
Ecto spacing test
Having trouble with Ecto putting extra spaces between paragraphs
So, this
Is a
Test.
New blog tools
I'm trying out two new tools with my blog.
Ecto and Image Shackle.
The first is a lot like Mars Edit which I've tried in the past. Basically it's an offline blog editor/composer. Seems to work well. If it keeps doing what I need, I wouldn't have to log in to Blogger to post. Free trial. Don't know if I'll buy it yet.
The second is an image sizing tool that resizes and converts to .jpg. Runs in the Mac dashboard. So it's always available and easily accessible. This one's free.
What I would really like that I haven't found is a way to copy the style of my website onto my blog. I'm sure the ability exists out there somewhere. Hopefully I'll find it!
Coffee and Chocolate Milk
I got Amelia ready this morning and I asked her what she wanted for breakfast. She said we should go get coffee and chocolate milk. Which meant we should head to St.Arbucks and then go to the park by the lake.
So that's what we did.
Chocolate milk and Coffee
Southshore Park
I'm Back!
Yes. I've been out of the country, in outer space, under a rock, in a coma...
I guess it's just been a time I didn't particularly want to share the expanses of my deep thoughts with the www. Oh, yes. I've got some deep thoughts from time to time. But I've been feeling rather introspective. So, the deep thoughts have remained deeply hidden.
On Monday, my cousin Kevin chastised me for having not posted for so very long. I told him I'd get back to it. So, thanks Kev. You got me up off my bloggin butt.
So, what have the deep thoughts been lately?
How do we treat the last part of Mark 16?
What is the scriptural relationship between salvation and baptism?
Will we always live in the frozen north?
Why can't I seem to finish the remodeling project I started 2 plus years ago?
Why does motivation take so much work?
Can a minivan be cool?
Will Obama pay my salary next year along with my healthcare costs?
Those are a few of the questions that are rattling around in the attic today.
So, Kevin, I'll do my best to keep things moving here "where the action is."
