love wins!

i no longer live here.

2007-09-18T16:42:00.000-05:00

i've moved to a new site.

find me here, where love wins!

a funny

2007-09-14T14:29:00.001-05:00

calvin is my hero!

2007-09-13T15:36:00.000-05:00

great song from a new cd

2007-08-28T18:24:00.000-05:00

"as far as the east is from the west" ... do you forget that promise given to us? i do. do you have a graveyard of dug up "sin" graves? in other words, do you have the problem i do with digging sins back up after God has forgiven you? i do.

is it because we forget that God has already forgotten what we have done? ... or is it that we think that the sin is way to terrible for Him to forgive? hey, He died for your sins!! isn't that big enough? then why do we keep doing it? one day we will know.

my wife came home with a surprise for me today. she bought me the new casting crowns cd, the altar and the door. i also got a free t-shirt with it ... like i need another t-shirt, but i'm not complaining!!

she is so sweet to me. check out this video of east to west

Here I am Lord and I’m drowning, in Your sea of forgetfulness
The chains of yesterday surround me, I yearn for peace and rest
I don’t want to end up where You found me
And it echoes in my mind
Keeps me awake tonight
I know you’ve cast my sin as far as the East is from the West
And I stand before You now as though I’ve never sinned
But today I feel like I’m just one mistake away
From You leaving me this way

Chorus:
Jesus can you show me just how far the east is from the west
‘Cause I can’t bear to see the man I’ve been
Rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
‘Cause You know just how far the east is from the west
From one scarred hand to the other

I start the day, the war begins
Endless reminding of my sin
And time and time again
Your truth is drowned out by the storm I’m in
Today I feel like I’m just one mistake away
from You leaving me this way

Chorus:

I know You’ve washed me white
Turn my darkness into life
I need Your peace to get me through
To get me through this night
I can’t live by what I feel
About the truth Your word reveals
I’m not holding on to You
But You’re holding on to me
You’re holding on to me

Chorus:
...

stream 2008 is coming!

2007-08-10T09:49:00.000-05:00

you've heard me talk about it before ... well the '08 edition of stream franklin is on its way!

mark your calendars for the weekend of january 25 - 27, 2008!

mike cope will be the featured speaker, and bruce marchiano will be speaking as well. if you have ever seen the matthew videos, or the gospel according to john videos then you have have seen bruce. bruce was the actor that portrayed Jesus. if you never thought of Jesus smiling ... then you better get ready!

i am so excited! check out the links i have added to this post, and keep watch with the countdown widget on the right.

later!

what i did last week

2007-08-07T09:28:00.000-05:00

well, last week was fun. my work week was only two days long. can't beat that!

wednesday i headed to the ocoee river as part of a group of 9 rafters. there 3 adults and 6 kids. i think there were 2 experienced rafters. (if you call one trip down a river 3 years ago experience) needless to say it was my first time. it was a blast! i'd go again!

i was one of the lucky ones to have an air matress, sleeping bag, and tent to myself. i think the tent was a three man tent. it would be cramped in there, and i think they would have to be munchkins. one of the best things is that i didn't have to air the mattress up but once. there were no leaks!

the weather was nice. the first night was kinda warm until about 4:00 am. the second day was fun. our boating run was at 2:00 pm and after that i was bout ready for the bed.

the rapids that we did were class 3 and 4. our guide said, "... and you pick this class to start?!?!" she laughed at us, but she was really nice to us. she coulda tipped us a few times.

i was in a boat with all women ... just like the house i live in ... my lot in life. the guide was lady, and i had 4 freshmen/sophomores in the boat, too. it was a blast! since the girls were afraid to "ride the bull" on the raft (sit on the very front of the boat and hold the tow strap on the bow of the boat, here's joey our youth minister) i was elected to ride the bull. i fell back first time so i was "without a paddle" (insert laughing here for attempt at a pun), and then at the end of the rapids i got an opportunity to redeem myself, and i did. at least until the very final rapid, hell's hole, and then the writer of this post became the only one of the expedition to go overboard. it was funner out of the boat ... kinda. with the exception of the water in the lungs. i got go down the very final little bit of the rapids "whitewater swim style." that's with your nose and toes exposed.

if you ever get the chance to go up into tennessee i recommend you go to adventures unlimited and let them guide you down the ocoee. it was a blast!

do you know who's birthday it is?

2007-07-31T13:53:00.000-05:00

its his, and hers. read about it here.

2007-07-27T15:02:00.001-05:00

have y'all seen any pics of people after they have been simpsonized? here is a simpsonized pic that the site made of me when i used a pic of myself taken at the pool of my wife's best friend. what do you think?

it took me about a day and a half to get it finalized. i think about half of the u.s. were trying to simpsonize themselves along with me. it was really slow, and painstaking.

i guess you can see that i have used this version of me as my profile pic. i think it is pretty cool. i reminds me of a shirt that i just about wore thread bare when i was dating my wife. she still has it, and she plans to use it in a quilt in the future.

who is this? pt 2

2007-07-27T14:39:00.000-05:00

here is more of the pic that i cropped in my last post. it is a pic of david beckham in his first match with his new side, mls' la galaxy. david previously had played for real madrid, and after his contract he wanted to bring his kids to disney land. well, he has created a circus in the process. in the last post i asked if you could recognize who the person was in partial pic. i had cut off part of david's head to see if anyone could recognize the torso down of him.
david was not able to play as well as he wanted to in his initial match due to his recovering from an ankle injury ... if you have ever injured an ankle you know that they don't heal in a week. also in his first match he was playing the team that has the england's side team captain on it. david previously was the team captain for the national team of england. it just so happened that terry scored the only goal for fc chelsea, and it happened to be the game winner.

below is a pic of david and his bride, victoria.

who is this?

2007-07-23T17:05:00.001-05:00

wake up call

2007-07-17T15:32:00.000-05:00

i feel a little embarrassed to admit this ... what i read today on the nooma site for rob bell's videos. also, because i am about to do a series of classes that are against the way i still kinda feel about where i am.

this is what i read:

How much time and energy do we spend wishing things were how they used to be? We often think about times in our past when things were different and want our lives to be like that again. Some of us have even come to believe that our best days may actually be behind us. But if we’re in some way hung up on the past, what does that mean for our lives now? How are we and those around us affected if we’re not fully present? If we’re longing for the way things used to be, what does that really say about our understanding and appreciation of our lives today? Maybe we need to learn to embrace our past for what it is, in order to live our lives to the fullest, right here, right now.

i am guilty of what that caption speaks about. the film may be about something different, but i have longed to be back in texas for almost 4 years now. i think if i moved back there i could get back in the swing of some things, but it wouldn't be "like it used to be" now would it? people change.

also, i am guilty of not appreciating what God has done for me and my family right here, right now. i am guilty of not rejoicing fully in today. that is bad in so many ways. for one reason it is bad because i am about to start a discussion class on how "everyday deserves a chance" based on the book by max lucado. how is going to look if i don't truly apply myself to what i am talking about? how would that look if i were found to be feeling totally opposite to what we are going to be discussing? maybe, its what i need to really start rejoicing in each day, and giving it what it deserves.

are you having trouble with this, too? or am i the only one?

no title needed ...

2007-07-14T13:33:00.000-05:00

i wanted to put this video on my blog, but they have requested that embedding be disabled, so i can only give you this link. go to it and enjoy it. there are verses that you may not recognize on there ... but they are good!

here is mr. newton's original version:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!

Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promis’d good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.

John Newton, Olney Hymns (London: W. Oliver, 1779)

you may also notice that there may be a verse left out. there is a verse that most of us grew up singing ... well that verse was taken from a book that has been removed from the shelves of many book stores. the verse was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe who most of you know wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.

here is that verse that has since been added to most hymnals of today:

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.

i don't know what made me want to write this post today ... maybe it was just something that stirred in me after reading keith lancaster's post, and seeing the video by wintley phipps' rendition.

i hope you have enjoyed this song in the past, and i hope that the words of this song, and some of the verses you have read have given you a new appreciation of the grace that has been given to us.

cosby clips

2007-06-26T19:52:00.000-05:00

i hope you like these i laughed with my family growing up to this so many times. i think the last one here is the best. which one do you like?

if you missed it ... like i did

2007-06-23T08:12:00.000-05:00

if you, like me, missed the tulsa workshop, you can listen to a lot of the speakers at iTunes. wade hodges has placed them there, and i thank him. i am sitting here in my hotel room listening to randy harris ... you've heard that name here before, haven't you?

why do we connect with certain speakers? is it their sense of humor that you relate to? is it the language/jargon that they use that you relate to? or is it the Message/Messenger that we relate to?

i think the answer is "yes" to all of those, but especially that last one.

i wish i could've been there in person, but life sometimes gets in the way of our wishes, and there are needs that we have to attend to. i have heard great, great things about the workshop from a multitude of people. i have also talked about attending the different stream events in midland and now in franklin.

why do i like them? i think it is the praise services, and being with so many others that are thinking similar thoughts as mine. is that wrong? is that selfish? maybe, but we all need to charge our batteries, but we need to discharge our batteries on those around us.

i want you to read the top of this page again, and remember the 3rd and 4th comment that randy is saying. may God bless each of the two of you that have come and read this. may you be Christ so much that people will think you are strange, and may you see Him in all of those around you.

mls, new jersey, and soccer in general

2007-06-21T15:42:00.000-05:00

with the fortune of being in the d.c. area for two weeks, i am getting the opportunity to see d.c. united take on colorado rapids thursday night next week. unfortunately i will have to drive back to l.a. on friday. however, the good part about driving back on friday is that i will get to see my two ladies again! WOO HOO!!

have you seen the new jersey that the wnt will be wearing at the 2008 world cup in china? i'm not suer i like it. since when have we been this showy? yes, we are the best IMO, but we don't need to rub it in people's faces.

i love soccer. i played it from my 6th grade year all the way to my senior year in high school. it was so cool to be on the first team in the school's existence on my junior year, and then make it to the semifinals of the state the next year (senior year). i got two letters for playing, and my daughter passed me this year with her 3rd letter. she is awesome. she even has goals to show for her skills. she was given a great compliment by one of her team mates this past year. she would come off of the bench because she is not a burner in speed, but she can find the back of net about 99.9% of the time from the pk mark. she was told by that team mate that she was the best pk taker of the team. i had to pick my jaw up off the ground after hearing that. i was sssoooo proud for her.

well, i'm sorry for not posting lately, but i have been busy. i one good thing to end on is that i will get the pleasure and opportunity to lead the discussion of the adult class this fall. pray for me to get-r-dun. i will be using the book from the previous post. have you read it yet? well you better get started!

need a book to read?

2007-06-09T16:00:00.000-05:00

well i just finished this little easy read by max lucado called 'every day deserves a chance' and it is nice book. i was in the book store ... and i don't think i go as often as donna does and i found this book. i was really looking for a book by john mark hicks about communion. i think the name of the book is 'come to the table' and the store i was in did not carry it, but they would be happy to order it for me. do any of y'all have it and i could borrow it?

anyway, i thought i might do a class on this book by max, if hank can fit me in. it just some good stuff in it. nothing really comes to mind except the story about the mountain climber dumping his time on the peak of mt everest to save another climber that was crazed out of his gord with o2 deprivation.

well, get the book and enjoy it as much as i did.

back in 'sweet home alabama'

2007-04-23T09:18:00.000-05:00

well, we're back home after an awesome week and weekend! it all started on friday when we went to ... i hate to even admit this ... auburn. ugh!! this shows how much i love my daughter. we toured the campus and saw some of the town. the town would not be what it is without the university.

after that was over we went to my older brother's house and stayed 2 nights and day with him and his family, along with having a lunch with my parents.

then we met up with another couple from port city to birmingham. we went to crossbridge for service, and got to see wendi and dubb and their kids ... what a great family!

then we went to lunch and then on to the cedars of lebanon state park in lebanon, tn. after a week of lounging and trail walking and frisbee golf and a lot of eating we went into nashvegas for some site seeing.

we went to the country music hall of fame, saw rocket town cafe (michael w. smith's cafe) by accident, and sun recording studios. then we went to cooter's place. y'all remember cooter from dukes of hazard, right? then we went back to the cabin for the evening.

then on friday we went to lipscomb for a visit. that was cool. they were so nice there. unlike auburn, lipscomb really doesn't have that much to say if nashville succeeds or fails. that is to say if lipscomb closed, nashville would continue without much of an impact, but i don't think you could say that about auburn.

after the visit we checked into our hotel for the weekend, and met up with our fellow members of port city and went to 4th avenue church of Christ for the first evening of 'stream franklin'. let me say that i have been touting this conference with anyone who would listen to me at church, and steve made me feel good when when we were walking back to the car after the service and he said, "ken, this has already exceeded my expectations!"

the whole weekend was like that ... as God is immeasurable, He exceeds our expectations. what a great time of fellowship and praising God for a whole week to get away and think about Him and what He has done for us.

check in later to see more about next year's installment. they think it will be around january 2008. please consider this for yourselves, y'all.

greetings from franklin!

2007-04-21T07:30:00.000-05:00

i'm with my family and 4 other members from my home congregation, and about ... oh, i'd say maybe 500 more (that's a conservative guess) of our brothers and sisters in the faith here at stream franklin. this is the 2nd event of stream franklin, and i sincerely hope that it continues.

one of my friends that is here with us made a terrific comment. see i had been touting how much we had enjoyed stream in the desert when we were in texas. i was concerned that with this being 2nd year of stream franklin that it may not be like what i had been talking about, but he surprised me and said, "ken, this has already surpassed my expectations." what a relief!! i told him, "but this is only the first night!"

oh what i hope jeff walling does shares with us today will continue to remind us of how we can not really understand what we need to. does that make sense?

jeff reminded us of how where ever we are is holy ground, and God is there with us. jeff shared with us that sometimes people are talking about how great a service was, or when they were doing a service project or studying with a friend that it was so good that God showed up. isn't that funny? God showed up. isn't He right here ... right now? we just need to remember and notice that.

let me just say that i am having an awesome time here so far. it all started with a week in the woods with my family and another family. we were at the cedars of lebanon state park in ... you guessed it ... lebanon, tn. then we went to lipscomb university for a visit with them for a possibility for my daughter to go to in a year or so. i still can not imagine that my daughter is about to graduate from high school ... there is still another year yet, but i still can not believe it.

it was a great visit. we also went to the country music hall of fame. cool place!

well, i need to get off of here and get ready for the next session. thanks for reading trey!! this is for you trey, but you can still keep singing about being a rich man. you are a rich man with your family; wife and kids, but you already know that. thanks for visiting.

a song from one of my favorite movies

2007-04-07T08:22:00.000-05:00

have you seen fiddle on the roof? if not, you are missing one of the best movies.

here's another one that we laugh and sing when we watch the movie:

girls! this one is for you ...

2007-04-07T07:47:00.000-05:00

there is this woman with an amazing heart for God that came to speak the girls and 'girls at heart' a couple of weeks ago. she is one of the daughters of one of our members at port city, and a daughter of the Father, as well. wendi is her name, and she will gladly share her story with you. i'm not a girl, so i wasn't there, but my wife and daughter loved her talks!!

wendi is a teacher, a mother, a wife, a sister, and like i mentioned before a daughter. her family is awesome, (i have personal experience in knowing them) and they live in the birmingham area.

she didn't ask me to do this, by the way, but she is willing to come to your church and speak to your girls, too. just go to the link here, and set up a time, and place ... you will not regret it! her blog has some of the things she talks about, and testimonials, and info on how to reach her. check it out, girls!

its finally here

2007-04-06T10:59:00.001-05:00

well its Good Friday. a lot of thought goes into what is "good" about this friday compared to the other 51 in the year. why is the day that our Savior's murder considered good? ... i guess its because of our Savior's sacrifice we have our chance to be with Him when we finally go home to be with Him ... its a good thing.

i have been without my dr pepper now for 37 days. i'm looking forward to sunday. i'm looking forward to sunday, not because i get to have my dr pepper, but because i will be with my family remembering that it was a sunday more than 2000 years ago when my Savior rose from the dead, and defeated death, and satan for good! i will be having a dr pepper for breakfast, though.

how have you done this lenten season? i have had days that i so wish i had a dr pepper. days that i was dragging, and needed that extra umph. can you imagine going 40 days without food or water, and then being tempted to make a meal out of the rocks that surround you. the rocks that are there with your every step?

i have nothing to complain about, but i rejoice in what my Savior has done for me!

microphysists might like this one

2007-03-14T23:43:00.000-05:00

ok, who can tell me what this is? and who can tell me what it is a shape of? can you guess what it reminds me of?

alright i'll tell you. it is a diagram of a laminin molecule. now you're probably asking the question, "what is laminin?" well, from what i learned tonight at the chris tomlin concert, it is a protein molecule that is used to keep molecules stuck together. its the glue in our bodies.

the shape reminds me of a cross. the diagram also reminds me of the trinity. notice how it is made up of three things ... kinda like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?

this is a rather simple thing, but look at this passage about Jesus:

He existed before everything else began, and he holds all creation together.
Col 1:17

isn't that neat? i know simple things for simple minds. i really thought it was awesome to sing with thousands of other like minded people. chris is so talented ... its ... indescribable.

a smack upside the head

2007-03-10T09:19:00.000-06:00

i was reading a devo that i get e-mailed to me by max lucado. in this devo it talks about Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. i was getting the gist of the whole thing and then ... then max asked two questions and they smacked me upside the head. basically saying, "are you doing this?" here's what he said:

Do we object because we don’t want to see God washing feet?
Or do we object because we don’t want to do the same?

do any of these questions apply to you? what got my attention is that i'm not sure that the second one doesn't apply to me. i mean we're supposed to use Jesus as our Example. we hear that said all the time, but do we have a problem with all that He did? even to those that hate us, and want to kill us?

what's in a song?

2007-02-22T07:57:00.000-06:00

i hadn't heard anything about this movie until i read mike cope's blog this morning. have you heard anything about it? i think i want to take my family to see it. check out the trailer here.

do you recognize this man?

2007-02-02T12:05:00.001-06:00

do you recognize who this man is supposed to be, or who he is supposed to look like? last year there was a show on the discovery channel, i think, that did a special on what they think Jesus could have looked like. the picture seen here is what the 'experts' derived from what they believe a 'regular' jewish man looked like in Jesus' time.

i guess all of us have seen how there are people who can take a skull and they add clay to it to make it look like what they think the person looked like based on the shape of the bone structure of the skull. have you heard of this? well, they looked at skulls of known jews in that time period, and with the help of the 'claymation' people they constructed what they think they looked like. they think they looked a certain way since they didn't have cameras back then.

however, if you look at what they think Jesus looked like, with the larger crown size that the jews had at that time, He doesn't look like the shroud that they have of what they think might have been his death shroud.

with all this said ... "have you seen Jesus my Lord ... He's here in plain view?" do you see Jesus in people around you? more importantly, do people see Jesus in you? i have my bad days, but i try my best to show Jesus to all the people i see.

How Great Is Our God Concert

2007-01-24T12:16:00.000-06:00

well i just got back from the mitchell center for the tickets to see chris tomlin on march 14. some may say, "shame on you for not going to church on a wednesday night." my answer would be, "i can worship there. i'm sure that there will be worshipping going on there."get yours and we can go together.

have a great day!

just sittin' here

2007-01-22T20:23:00.001-06:00

hello again, i haven't posted this much in quite some time. i don't even know if anyone is reading this stuff.

well, i have been reading velvet elvis again. rob has a way of saying things that we have heard before and they sound like they make more sense when he says them. do you have someone like that? someone that says things that you have heard all your life and when they say them they sound like its the first time you have ever heard them?

while reading movement 3 (that would be like chapter 3 in any other book) rob is talking about a time when he and his kids and the neighbor guy and his kids are out in the yard seeing who can sled down the hill ... its september when they are doing this, and people are driving by and looking at them like they are insane. this made me remember when i was growing up in panama, and we used to use cardboard boxes as sleds, and slid down grassy hills. that was so much fun! is was even funner when someone had gotten a new refridgerator, and we would see how many of us could fit on the box going down hill, or families had just moved in, we would use their wardrobe boxes. man! that was so much fun!

i guess i am hooked on rob. i got two series of rob's sermons that i have down loaded and put on my podomatic site. if you want to go there and download them and listen ... i would highly recommend the one on community. if you go to my podomatic site, you will find other things there. among them is a series of randy harris' ... oh gasp! another one of my favorite guys to listen to. i hope you enjoy them too. if you have read the top of this page you will see the mantras of randy. the sermon that he talked about those is there. he also does a lesson on the Lord's prayer. that one was so good to me i played it over and over until i had it written out and i have it laminated in my wallet, and was one of my post awhile back.

i don't know what got me to want to write this post but i just wanted to share this with you. have a great day.

stream franklin!

2007-01-22T14:01:00.000-06:00

if you have never been to stream franklin (well there has only been one), or stream midland, then you have missed an awesome weekend of spiritual renewal. go to the site and see what there is to offer, and if you have any questions just leave a comment.

here is what is in store:

Friday Evening, April 20
5:00 - 7:00 Registration
7:00 - 9:30 Session I

Saturday, April 21
8:00 - 9:00 Registration
9:00 - 11:45 Session II
12:00 - 2:00 Lunch Break (local choices)
2:00 - 4:30 Session III
5:30 Dinner (local choices)
7:30 - 9:00 Echoes Praise Concert

Sunday, April 22
8:15 & 10:30 Morning Assemblies
Session IV

i strongly encourage you to go. i am going!

i have been tagged

2007-01-22T13:31:00.001-06:00

and if you are reading this ... standby because you will be tagged soon, too. (sorry donna, but i think you are the only one that qualifies that statement. just a heads up.)

this venture of taggedness (i just made that up) requires one to spill his/her guts on 5 things that others will probably not know about the author. i am adding onto to the original task by stating that you need to post your results in a comment of the person that tagged you, as well as making a new post on your site. well ... here goes:

1. i'm thinking ... still thinking, hold on ... when it comes to playing board games and such i like to know all the rules before we begin. this is an annoyance to those that i play with, because i will call them on the rules during the game, and they sometimes just stop playing right there, or will never play with me again. i'm not rude about it, but hey ... rules are rules!

2. i used to be deathly afraid to read scripture, or pray in public. (i put that in there because now i love it!)

3. i was born in izmir, turkey. i had to be naturalized when i was 6 (i think?), and i chose the u.s. as the country i wanted to be a citizen of. go figure?

4. i claim alabama as my home state, but had never lived here until i was in my late 30's. also, like jd, i hate greens, but unlike what jd confessed i dislike tomatoes, any melon fruit, or tea (iced, hot, or sweet). i have been told that i am not a real southern.

5. ~~my first car was a '78 ford fiesta. no forget that one. i need something better for my final and 5th thing~~ ... hm ... hhhhmmmm ... i've lived in 12 different places in my life time, and i was baptized in balboa, panama, at balboa church of Christ when i was 11. (those 12 places are turkey, texas [first time], panama, south carolina [first time], illinois, tennessee [first time], florida, south carolina [second time], tennessee [second time], japan, texas [second time], and now alabama.)

now i get to pick 5 people to tag. this ought to be fun. the winners are:

danny simms
donna
greg
soren
my sister in-law

we'll see who actually follows through. this was really fun. it made me think of myself and how introverted i am ... HA!

now i know ...

2007-01-21T07:25:00.001-06:00

i am really not as young as i think i am. yesterday i went with my daughter and the rest of the daphne girls varsity soccer team to camp beckwith. it really was a great time. i am sore from climbing poles and trees, but what we got to do after we got up on those poles and trees was worth it.

have you ever ridden a zip line? i got to ride one yesterday. have you ever jumped off of the top of a telephone pole and grabbed a trapeze bar? i did, and now i am paying for it. i now know that i am not 18 yearsold anymore. my hips are killing me!

well, the girls really bonded well, and i hope they get to take home some good lessons on succeeding and relying on each other and communicating to get things done.

it all started with some group games, and then we got put our buffs, no we didn't go to fiji island for survivor, but we did get these yellow bandanas to wear. we used the buff to make a blindfold, and covered our eyes. we then grabbed the sholders of the person in front of us forming a train. our sherpa lead us by only the sound of his clapping hands. he lead us through treacherous ditches and narrow passes through trees. we finished at a rope trail, but we had to keep our blindfolds on.

at the ropes, we had to keep our left hand on the rope at all times. at times the rope seemed to disappear. that made us feel weird. did i mention we were not able to talk? that made the difficulty factor soar. imagine 14 teen girls not allowed to talk? that didn't happen, but they did ok. i mean it was an impossible challenge to ask them to be quiet for an extended period of time.

after all of the challenges we ended with a surf and turf dinner and a bonfire. the girls got their soccer stuff, and we called a night.

i am so sore.

i can't believe that i didn't mention this sooner

2007-01-19T16:56:00.001-06:00

if you are a reader of this blog you know that i am a fan, (not sure it that is the right word) if not a fan, then someone who agrees with randy harris. last year (sounds like so long ago, doesn't it?) i got to attend the "last hour" experience with about 250 teens. 12 of which were from port city. well we were in panama city, fl, and we got to learn about the temple. or should i say we got a refresher of how life was for the jews before the death of Jesus.

randy lead us in the theology of how things were and ... their names escape me ... these other guys lead us in singing. it was an awesome time to remember how great it is now to have Jesus as our high priest and we can go directly to God through Jesus whenever we want to. that's funny. i said whenever we want to. it would be better if i said 'need' to, because we need to all the time. where would i be without Him? ...

wow ... well, anyway. randy did a great job. he just makes things good and easy to understand and ... make sense. that's redundant.

well, friday to sunday i was with my daughter and 11 others. we cried, and hugged, and prayed, and ate, and sang, and laughed, and ... all together. what a great weekend. what a great way to start the year, huh?

then i just about ruined it by thinking poorly of someone. AARRGGHH!!! satan you know how to ruin things!!! a misunderstanding got blown way out of proportion. see i was on this high, and satan can't handle that, so he said, "take this!" and he just messed me up for my drive home. ...

can't wait to finally get HOME!! home with Jesus ... He's got a place picked out for me. custom designed, and just'a waitin'. can't wait to get there.

how's it going?

2007-01-19T15:44:00.001-06:00

wow, its been awhile, hasn't it? what have y'all been up to? you know as i write this, i can't even remember if this is my initial entry for the new year 2007.

well, let's just say it is. my year has been pretty hectic, but whose isn't? i had the joy of having all my family at my house for christmas this year. my parents, my grandmother on my mom's side, my two brothers, and one of their wives and their two girls. what a great time. they only stayed for one day, but that was great to be able to host all of them at my house for the first time in all my adult life my immediate family was in my house.

then the next day after they were here, my wife's family was in our house. all except her sister were here. so her mom, her two brothers, and their wives were here for christmas.

what an awesome time of fun and fellowship. we opened presents from each family, and then on christmas eve my wife got a present she wasn't expecting, or desiring. she got the flu. so on chirstmas morning she was on the couch as kristin and i handed her presents and we opened presents.

so for about 3 or 4 weeks my wife has been recovering from the christmas present she got, and we have been living day to day until now.

recently i have been trying to get our worship computer updated at the church. we are using mediashout instead of powerpoint now for about 2 years or so, and we received the upgrade from version 2.5 to version 3, but we have not been able to run v3 because all the os software had not been updated for the 2 years the computer has been on the sound booth. this is because we do not have an internet hook up in the sound booth. now don't get this wrong, i am not angry, but it is just a hassle to get the computer updated. when i hooked it up and was getting the updates it said that there 62 security updates that were needed to be installed. that is not including service pack 2.

so last night i got all the updates done, and service pack 2 started (i say started, because 2 and a half hours later i was headed out the door with it still installing the updates) and this morning i found out from the youth minster that all the updates had been installed. i had him restart the computer, and he did that, and there were no errors after the restart. so we will see sunday morning if the updates have thrown any wrenches into the works of the v2.5 script that we have put together for this sunday (which happens to be my daughter's b-day).

so that's the update of k2's 2k7 to date. how's your life going?

i just read this and wanted to share it

2007-01-04T16:23:00.000-06:00

this is what i read:

Read your blogs.
Post your comments.
Do your day.
But don't forget to pray.
In fact, I challenge you to stop right now and just pray.

Pray.

Climb up in Daddy's lap.
Approach your King.
Storm the Gates of Heaven.
Have a little talk with Jesus.
Meet with your Maker.

Just Pray.

joel is a preacher in texas and he has some cool, and awesome stuff to share and this one stuck out. you know we can't pray enough. we have been told that in the bible that we need to pray without ceasing. ever wonder what that really means? how can you pray while talking with your buddy ... how can you pray while eating ... while driving ... while listening to your child tell you about their day?

in my opinion i think we need to pray before we do stuff. we need to keep God involved with our lives. if we did that, how do you think our days would go? yeah, i think the same thing. pray that i can live this out. i'll pray for you.

hey! check iss out!

2007-01-04T10:25:00.000-06:00

iss

answers to yesterday's post

2006-12-28T09:45:00.000-06:00

President Ford meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (left) and White House Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, April 1975.

thanks for answering donna. sorry that you missed it. you can see rumsfeld still looks the same, with the exception of his hair color. i sure didn't recognize cheney, though.

who are these guys?

2006-12-27T08:52:00.000-06:00

who can tell me who these men are?

hints:
one of them just resigned his post.
one just passed away yesterday.
one is still in office. (oops! the following is wrong!) even after being shot on a hunting trip. (it should read this) even after shooting his fellow hunter on hunting trip.

as they appear in the photo: President ??? meeting with his Secretary of Defense (left) and his chief of staff (right), April 1975. (click on the photo to enlarge it)

what a way to go ...

2006-12-26T11:24:00.000-06:00

i am sure most of you know that i am a sports nut/freak/whatever. my favorite sport rolls around for the world to participate in every 4 years. no it is not the olympics, although the sport is an olympic sport.

my favorite sport is futbol. aka, soccer. this year the world cup was held in germany. the u.s. team was ranked high, and got slaughtered by their bracket ... again.

what made start this post was not to talk about how poorly the yanks played in germany, but to talk about a man who will sadly be remembered by what he did as his last act on the professionaly pitch. below is an excerpt from espn's page 2 article. it about a great man. a great soccer player. no matter what you think of france.

ZINEDINE ZIDANE
"Zizou" ranks among soccer's all-time greats. He led France to its only World Cup win in 1998, and was named FIFA World Player of the Year three times while starring as the sport's premier midfielder with Juventus and Real Madrid from 1996 until 2006.
That's what European fans and American soccerheads will remember him for. But most Americans will forever remember him as the guy who delivered that awesome head-butt in the 2006 World Cup final. The instant his head slammed into Marco Materazzi's chest, his status went from obscure European athlete to household name in the United States. He also helped changed the "wussy" image many people have of soccer -- and maybe even of French people in general.
And while that may seem wrong or unfair, it's actually great for the growth of soccer in the United States. In a World Cup that saw Team USA bounced in pool play, Zidane had casual American sports fans talking about soccer.
Think of the two most iconic soccer images in recent memory: Brandi Chastain showing her bra and Zidane head-butting Materazzi. Sex and violence -- two of America's greatest loves. Perhaps we need more of both in soccer if it is ever truly going to become a major sport here. I, for one, hope it does, and that we soon see Zidane participating in ribbon-butting ceremonies at new soccer stadiums all across our great land.
-- DJ Gallo

btw, dj i second you on the comment that i hope soccer does become a major sport here in the u.s. it really is a great sport ... just ask someone who plays. what a way to be remembered. i even talked to my wife about him. she saw me typing this, and i described him to her. she didn't know who i was talking about until i mentioned the head butting incident. what a way to be remembered by.

what do remember about this year? what are some things that happened this year that you remember? some about alabama football come to mind ...

a suprise guest last night

2006-12-14T10:05:00.000-06:00

guess who we had stop by and talk to our youth group last night? he is the neighbor of one our members. still no clue?

this guy:
jake peavy. ace of the san diego padres.

he came and spoke to our youth, but i think i was the most excited one to see him. eventhough he set a franchise record 17 k's in one game against my braves.

he talked about the night he "got the call" to come up to the bigs. he had played in jackson, ms, and then the manager called him to his room and told him to pack his bags. 'mind you this was about midnight, and he was getting on a plane to fly to san dog to pitch against the new york yankees HAWK!! PUH!! (that's me clearing my throat and spitting out that wretched team's name)

not to mention he was pitching against future hall of famer roger "the rocket" clemens on his mlb debut.

he spoke about pitching to mike piazza and his first mlb strike out, which was derek jeter. he spoke about striking out barry "no i didn't take steroids" bonds. yeah right, and if i pumped weights for three months in the off season i would look like that, too.

it was neat to hear his experiences and how he shared that with our youth. he is not an eloquent speaker, but he is a real guy, and it was neat to hear him share those things.

have you ever met some one famous? how did you feel shaking their hand, and such?

did you know ...

2006-12-08T09:14:00.000-06:00

i was surfing this morning and while i was at a new site by one of my favorite band's site i learned that one of my favorite songs by them was derived from psalm 104. i'm sure that you have heard it if you listen to power 88 here in the mobile area, or on another christian radio station. here is the inspiration that they used:

Psalm 104

1 Praise the LORD, O my soul.
O LORD my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendor and majesty.
2 He wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
4 He makes winds his messengers,
flames of fire his servants.
5 He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
8 they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
9 You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.
10 He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
11 They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 The birds of the air nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
13 He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
14 He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for man to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth:
15 wine that gladdens the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine,
and bread that sustains his heart.
16 The trees of the LORD are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17 There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the pine trees.
18 The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the coneys.
19 The moon marks off the seasons,
and the sun knows when to go down.
20 You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
21 The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
22 The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.
23 Then man goes out to his work,
to his labor until evening.
24 How many are your works, O LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
26 There the ships go to and fro,
and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
27 These all look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
28 When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
29 When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
30 When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the earth.
31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works-
32 he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
who touches the mountains, and they smoke.
33 I will sing to the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
as I rejoice in the LORD.
35 But may sinners vanish from the earth
and the wicked be no more.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.
Praise the LORD.

here is video that someone made with the song in the background:

here are the words to the song:

How Great Is Our God

VERSE(1)
The splendor of the King,
Clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice,
All the earth rejoice
He wraps himself in light,
And darkness tries to hide
And trembles at his voice,
And trembles at his voice

CHORUS(1):
How great is our God,
Sing with me
How great is our God,
and all will see
How great, How great
Is our God

VERSE(2):
Age to age he stands
And time is in His Hands
Beginning and the End,
Beginning and the End
The Godhead, Three in one
Father, Spirit, Son
The Lion and the Lamb,
The Lion and the Lamb

CHORUS(1):
How great is our God,
Sing with me
How great is our God,
and all will see
How great, How great
Is our God

CHORUS(2)
Name above all names
Worthy of our praise
My heart will sing how great
Is our God
(x2)

CHORUS(1):
How great is our God,
Sing with me
How great is our God,
and all will see
How great, How great
Is our God

Then sings my soul,
my savior,God to Thee
How great Thy art
How great Thy art
(x2)

CHORUS(1):
How great is our God,
Sing with me
How great is our God,
and all will see
How great, How great
Is our God

have you ever heard this song before? do you like it? what do you think of chris tomlim? i have written some posts in the past featuring him, so you know i like him. did you know that the is coming in concert on march 14th? do you have your tickets yet? I'M GOING TO BE GOING!!

breaking news!

2006-12-06T09:51:00.000-06:00

at least to me it is ... well ... not really news, but i have never really read/heard it so concisely put.

well enough blathering, here it is:

"In essentials, unity; in opinions, liberty; in all things, love."

i read this on another blog. it just hit me as this is what we need to think of when we talk to others that have a different opinion than we do. there is another neat saying about opinions that i heard in the navy, but i will not share what it was verbatim. here it is cleaned up a bit:

"opinions are like armpits. everyone has them and they all stink."

what do you think of the line i read in that article?

the story about another song

2006-12-04T09:53:00.000-06:00

here is a short article to a song that i'm sure you have had to have heard sometime in the past, or maybe even this year, around this time of year. i'm also not too proud to say that it has caused a tear or two ... oh who am i kidding! this song has made me cry about how sweet it is. i also think of the gift that i was given, in the form of my daughter, and the first time i held her.

here are the lyrics.

its that time of year, isn't it?

2006-12-04T09:35:00.000-06:00

a lot of blogs that i read have their lists of their favorite christmas songs, and i just wanted to share two of my faves ... or maybe one more for good measure. ok, so three songs:

Christmastime
Michael W. Smith

Chorus:

Ring Christmas bells
Ring them loud with the message bringing
Peace on the earth
Tidings of good cheer
Come carolers
Come and join with the angels singing
Joy to the world
Christmastime is here again

Children gather around and listen
You'll hear the sound
Of angels filling the sky
Telling everyone
Christmas time is here

Chorus

Loved ones close to our hearts
and strangers in lands afar
Together share in the joy
Emmanuel
He has come to dwell
With one voice
Let the world rejoice

Welcome To Our World
Chris Rice

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You’ve been promised, we’ve been waiting
Welcome Holy Child
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that you don’t mind our manger
How I wish we would have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make yourself at home
Please make yourself at home

Bring your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven’s silence
Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around you
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy
Perfect Son of God
Perfect Son of God
Welcome to our world

Clumsy Fly Music (ASCAP)

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Refrain

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Refrain

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

Refrain

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Refrain

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

Refrain

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

Refrain

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

Refrain

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Refrain

let me know what some of your favorites are in the comments section.

saturday night

2006-11-20T22:07:00.000-06:00

well, this is late getting out, but we had a great time at the concert saturday night. wow, i know you wish you were there, too, but hey, you were invited.

they did this song that is a favorite of my family's, and i wanted to share it with you. they did 'come together' for one of their encore songs, and that is one of my favorite favorite's of theirs. it was awesome. words do not compare. i hope you enjoy this video of 'show me Your glory.'

THIS is great

2006-11-15T17:09:00.000-06:00

one cool movie

2006-11-06T18:50:00.000-06:00

have you seen the movie that this trailer is for:

i saw it when i was little when it came out, but i saw it again, about 5 years ago, and it seemed so much better. what do you think?

i got mine! you got yours?

2006-11-03T14:25:00.000-06:00

i just got back from getting my tickets to see these guys. if this concert is going to be anything like the one i saw them in when i was living in texas ... this is going to be great! wait a minute ... it will be better than great, it will be awesome!!

i can't wait! would you like to go? what is the best concert you have ever been to? what is the first concert you remember going to?

i remember when i went to see acapella for the first time. i was attending gateway coc in pensacola, and the group said that they were going to these guys and i had never heard of them. see i grew up in a conservative atmosphere, and we never heard of such stuff. boy am i glad i got to go! does anybdy remember randy singing bass? after i heard them there i wanted to sing like him.

thoughts from the past

2006-11-01T22:07:00.000-06:00

i was sitting here listening to music, and posting to my blog, and then i went to look for some more videos. i came across a video if a song from a group that i went to see in concert with chris tomlin, and steven curtis chapman. casting crowns was in the concert with them. the song that gets me is "if we are the body." i once read the words to that song at a small group that i was leading, and asked if anyone ever felt like those talked about in the song ... if they ever felt like the girl, or the man that wandered in to the church service. it lead a great discussion.

i really like casting crowns, and i hope you do too. however, i like their first album better than the last one they came out with. why is that? do you y'all ever feel that way?

any way here's the video

i just got a new cd

2006-11-01T21:48:00.000-06:00

i took jd's advise and got chris tomlin's new cd. not that i needed jd's advise, no offense to jd, but i was going to get it anyway.

here is a video of his single that is out now "made to worship" that was recorded at passion '06 (wish i was there), but i wish there was video for "everlasting God" i think i would put that one on here, too. i hope you enjoy this as much as i do! GO GET THE CD, Y'ALL!! let me know what you think of chris, and his music.

one of my favorite songs

2006-11-01T21:31:00.000-06:00

some of you may know, but some may not. i really like chris tomlin, and this song is one of my favorites. my wife really likes it, too.

something i read

2006-10-30T15:59:00.000-06:00

have you ever had a pity party? i will have to answer to the affirmative on that one.

have you ever signed up to work in a ministry, and then become the leader of that ministry, and then have some of the members of that ministry not live up to your expectations, and then think poorly of them? wow, that was a loaded question. i will have to answer to the affirmative on that one, too.

i need to get off my soap box and put what i was actually thinking about when i started this. sorry, i got thought hi-jacked. so to go along with the title of this post "something i read" i will show you it:

... The truth is that most American Christians
are looking to be served ...

do you qualify that statement? i admit i have had those feelings.

The Message of the Cross - John 19:1-27

2006-10-24T09:56:00.000-05:00

this post was taken from charles stanley's "in touch daily devotional", so don't think that i was able to come up with all this great stuff, but i wanted to share it with you. it reminded me of this sunday.

this sunday i had the great privilege to lead communion. along with that great honor, my wife told me that i did such a great job that it made her cry. some people might find that upsetting, but to me that was another great honor. "why?" do you ask. well ... it touched her, and it made her think of the sacrifice that God gave us through the giving of His Son.

i started it off by having a song played, and then i talked about what the song meant to me and why i used it. i didn't have the praise team sing it or song leader know this, because the intent was for the congregation to listen to it, and not think of anything else. i also had it played because i can never get through it without my eyes leaking. i can't read it, or sing it without that happening. the same goes for the song "come share the Lord", but that's another story. the song i am talking about is "how deep the Father's love for us". that song is just so appropriate for the situation to me:

How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the man upon a cross
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts no power no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

being a father myself, and no not to say i am like God, but for God to do this for me ... its beyond comprehension. this line says it well:

How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away

God's love for us was/is so great that He could not bear to watch His Son die. that line gets me every time. this line finishes it well:

But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

for God to redeem me with the giving of His Son, its just amazing that He would do that for me.

well, anyway, that probably shoulda been another post, but here we go.

read this quoted article and please mention in the comments your thoughts.

Rome used the cross as a brutal method for executing criminals. Through Jesus'sacrificial act, its message became one of hope and life for those who believe in Him.

The cross meant various things to different people in the gospel account. To Pilate, Judea's governor, it was the place where an innocent man had died. The Pharisees and Sadducees, on the other hand, saw the cross as the way to eliminate a problem—it meant that the radical rabbi was finished, and their position and authority were no longer threatened.

When Judas Iscariot heard that Jesus was condemned to die, he became greatly distressed. I believe the betrayer thought his actions would force Jesus to declare His kingdom, with Judas taking a high position in the new government. Instead, his error in judgment crushed any personal ambition.

To Mary, who knew the perfection of her son's life and His identity as the Son of God, the cross represented shameful crime. It also meant the fulfillment of prophecy. When Jesus was eight days old, Simeon had prophesied that a sword would one day pierce Mary's soul. (Luke 2:34-35) The cross brought that about.

To Jesus' disciples, the Crucifixion was the time when their beloved friend and Messiah died. Their intimate friendship with Jesus seemed to end, as did their dream of being freed from Roman jurisdiction.

What response would you give to the question, "What does the cross mean to you?" Is it the place where a good man lost his life, a troublemaker was eliminated, or the Son of God died to save you?

one more thing that i thought of as i was finishing this post, did you know that there was not even a word to describe the pain that the person went through on the cross while being crucified? can you think of the word? the word is ... excruciating. so if/when you here that word you can think of the kind of pain Jesus went through on the cross. just thought you might like to know.

questions

2006-10-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

why does it hurt the worst when someone in your own blood family questions you on things that you do?

i'm sitting here at my desk while at work, and i can't shake this feeling from something that is controversial to a member of my family that i grew up in. a member of my family will not attend church with me when they come to visit because when they visited in the past they heard women singing into microphones. (i may be opening a can of worms here that will just keep overflowing, but it hurts me really bad.) we talked about this, and my question was why did they not have a problem with it before when they came to visit us in texas. their answer was the we were already members, and they did not want to stir up anything. TOO LATE!!

so when we moved to l.a., they came to visit while we were still looking for a church home, and there was this one church that we liked. so we went to visit with them. when we told them that we placed membership, they basically said that they will never attend church with us when they come to visit. sad. very sad. it really upsets me.

then when we went and visited with them, their preacher preached three sermons (mind you we had visited three times since we had moved to l.a.) and they all were based on "if your church does not believe the way we do, you are going to hell." (coincidence? i don't think so.) needless to say we have not returned to visit that church. however, it is a moot point as he has moved on, and so have the members of my family.

sorry to unload like that, but it all resurfaced when the member attended a sermon/meeting and the subject was spoken on. they proceeded to write and say how "the truth" was preached, and how women should not sing into mics, and the next thing will be her getting up and leading a sermon. that is sad to me. we had come to an agreement that we would "agree to disagree" on the subject of mics. in my response i wanted to say that the recordings of the singings that they attend had women are singing ... into microphones, eventhough they were in the congregation, and were being recorded with mics there, too. that line of thinking and revelation would not have worked, because their way of thinking would be that the women were not holding the mics, ya' know? ... i'm so ... i dunno how to express it in words ...

pray for me to let this go, please.

check this out

2006-10-05T09:48:00.000-05:00

i got this from ben overby's blog. its really, really good. it talks about the way i view the church should be. we never, ever, ever get things right the first time (except for beginner's luck) and yet we are afraid to try because we may fail. i can say this to you because i am the world's worst at this. i feel that if i can't do it right then i best not even try. read this quote from ben:

A big part of what our churches ought to be about is forming Christ-followers into God-glorifying humans. Unfortunately our method has to do primarily with talking, giving instruction, assigning a few passages, or passing out a book. Whereas Aristotle had a school out of which he shared his philosophy, Jesus called men to follow Him, to become His disciples, to be with Him in order to become like Him. The school of Jesus was dynamic, interactive; it involved instruction, modeling, questions and answers, hands-on demonstrations, critiques, an expectation that the students would miss the point and make mistakes, correctives in the form of tough rebukes or encouraging words and forgiveness.

We visited Tennessee over the weekend. Our youngest son bought a tie that he intends to wear to church as soon as possible (it's a University of Tennessee tie--it's a good week to be a UT fan). Not knowing how to tie the thing, he asked me for a bit of coaching yesterday. I happened to be busy at the time and mumbled a few instructions. Tying a tie is really a simple feat. However, like tying shoes, it's not the sort of thing you learn by hearing instructions. Finally, I quit what I was doing, hung the tie around his neck, and showed him what I meant. He did what I did, making all sorts of mistakes, getting more instruction and modeling, until he understood the process. Then he went to a mirror and practiced over and over again until he'd tied the perfect knot.

It's much easier for any of us to learn anything if we're given a hands-on example. When I was in business, the best salesman I ever had needed to be trained, he needed to be shown how to sell the product. I began his training (like everyone else) by talking but progressed quickly to showing/modeling. I wanted him to have confidence when he actually stood before a customer and represented the business. The final phase of his training came when he actually engaged with his first few customers, trying out what we'd talked about, using some of the things I'd shown him, made plenty of mistakes, made necessary adjustments, and developed his own particular style.

Tying ties and selling products may not be as complicated as brain surgery, but both are learned the same way. We act as listening, learning apprentices, then under careful guidance we slowly take over, making mistakes, correcting our errors, until finally we are masters.

What's true of doctors and salesmen, a 13-year-old learning to tie a knot and an auto mechanic in training, a dog trainer or a florists, is true of Christianity. Christianity (which ought to mean authentic humanness) requires learning to be like Christ. A big part of what our churches ought to be about is forming Christ-followers into God-glorifying humans. Unfortunately our method has to do primarily with talking, giving instruction, assigning a few passages, or passing out a book. Whereas Aristotle had a school out of which he shared his philosophy, Jesus called men to follow Him, to become His disciples, to be with Him in order to become like Him. The school of Jesus was dynamic, interactive; it involved instruction, modeling, questions and answers, hands-on demonstrations, critiques, an expectation that the students would miss the point and make mistakes, correctives in the form of tough rebukes or encouraging words and forgiveness. Christ was reshaping humanity into His own image, and He did so not by merely sending a book, or opening up a three-year institution of higher learning, but by being the Master to a handful of unimpressive and unlikely apprentices.

Alex sought my advice on his tie because he knew I could tie a tie. We desperately need to be living Christ-centered, Christ-shaped lives so that as light we are sought by those who are in need. When the world sees true humanity, some will approach and say, "Can you show me how to deal with worry the way you do?" or "I'm confused and hurting and want to know how it is that you're so much at peace and full of joy regardless of the situation," or "I'm losing my wife--can you help?" The questions might come from the person in the office next door or the pew in front of us. When the question comes we are given a window of opportunity to enter into a relationship with someone who needs discipleship (whether they know it or not). At some point we have to just quit some of the other stuff in our lives so that we can respond, hang the tie around the neck of the one with the questions, and say, "Here's what I mean. Let me show you step by step." We all need instruction, but instruction must include not only the exchange of facts in a auditorium but more practical, hands-on modeling. If we're going to be effective in a world with too few master teachers, it is a must that we follow Jesus in scripture, continuing in His word so that we can become his disciples; that is, doing the things He says, trying His teaching out, making mistakes, being limber enough to receive correction from His Spirit, all as we grow into His likeness slowly but surely.

As an example, hear Jesus' instruction regarding anger, or lust, or retaliation as given in Matthew 5. Prayerfully listen to what He has to say. Memorize some of His words. Get your system soaked in His instruction. Next, watch how He handles Himself in those situations that might typically manifest broken humanness in the form of contempt, using the opposite sex for personal gratification, or resisting any form of vulnerability--e.g., always getting the last punch in. Finally, after hearing Him, prayerfully watching Him through scripture, go out and try what He says; that is, train to be like Him. We will make mistakes along the way. Don't hate your mistakes to the point that they cause you to come undone. Going the wrong way often becomes the catalyst, the experience we need to finally go the right way (remember Peter?). Jesus' school is still dynamic, interactive, inviting our toughest questions, and producing authentic humans. All that remains for us is to decide whether or not we are going to take Him seriously.

Ben

byron's greatest win

2006-09-29T05:19:00.000-05:00

this is how the article about byron nelson ended at pga.com:

To put it in match play parlance, Byron Nelson believed his sin put him 1-down, the blood of Christ made him all square, and that someday, because of the Resurrection, he would even 1-up death. Game over. Nelson wins again.

did you know that byron attended richland hills c.o.c.? i didn't. i visited rhcoc many times while i lived in arlington, but didn't know that he went there.

i am starting to like grant's articles. a few weeks ago he wrote a nice piece about d. clarke, and the passing of his wife. he is a gracious writer.

favorite lines in songs

2006-09-17T16:31:00.000-05:00

a very dear friend added this to her e-mail:

Ryan mentioned how he wished we could all stand in a circle and share our favorite lines from our favorite hymns.. I know mine!

My sin...
oh! the bliss of this glorious thought..
My sin, not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross
and I bear it no more!
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, oh my soul!

If you'd like to share yours.. I'd be glad to pass it along. It could be fun to do a kind of email circle and put together everyone's favorite lines.

here is what i wrote back:

this one immediately came to mind:

Love one another, for love is of God
He who loves is born of God and knows God.
He who does not love does not know God,
For God is love, God is love.

or this, greg could do it justice:

It is no secret what God can do.
What He's done for others, He'll do for you.
With arms wide open, He'll pardon you,
It is no secret what God can do.

or there is this one that i have never been able to get through without my eyes leaking:

He joins us here, He breaks the bread.
The Lord who pours the cup is risen from the dead.
The One we love the most is now our gracious host.
Come take the bread, come drink the wine, come share the Lord.

greg is another dear friend, and he is related to elvis somewhere down the line, and he does a great job on some songs that elvis is known for doing.

what are some lines of songs you like?

and now its over

2006-09-13T16:00:00.000-05:00

From Sid Bream to Andres Galarraga to Adam LaRoche, from Lonnie Smith to Gary Sheffield to Jeff Francoeur, from Steve Avery to Greg Maddux to Tim Hudson, the Braves always found a way to finish on top at the end of the regular season. They were the team that had the dash beside its name when the final standings were posted. Leave the numbers -- as in games behind -- to the other guys.

And now it's over.

The Braves won't finish first this season. That's been a given for several months now, ever since they went 6-21 in June while the Mets were pulling away in the NL East. It only took this long to officially bury The Streak. Atlanta was mathematically eliminated from the division race Tuesday night when New York beat Florida.

the preceding is excerpt from yahoo sports. this is a sad time for me. the braves are out of the post season, and i lost last week in the opening weekend of fantasy football by 1 point. now i have to play jd this week. can it get any worse?

and then depression set in

2006-09-06T23:14:00.000-05:00

that is one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite comedies; stripes.

i am depressed because the braves have not even made it close in trying to win the nl east. they are 20.5 games back. that is sad.

i never thought it would get this far

2006-09-06T10:06:00.000-05:00

i never thought that i would get over 5,000 hits/visits to this blog. does anybody remember what my first post was about, and what the name of my blog was then? well, here's a hint.

why did i change the name? i thought that the new name was cool and i had heard it in a sermon, and i thought it really worked for what i was trying to share.

God is love. i'm sure you have heard that. who will win in the end? God. so the name of my blog is a reaffirmation of what is going to being the end result. GOD WINS!

i have also shared some weird times, and hard times. there have been some really rough times. katrina comes to mind. heard of her? she really made a name for herself, huh?

thanks for stopping by. leave a comment if you don't mind.

we got him!

2006-08-31T16:18:00.000-05:00

great news!

joey and callie have accepted the offer that the shepherds gave them! joey will be the new youth minister here at port city! that is so cool!

can you tell i am excited? he is from new orleans, and callie is austin. another good one from texas!

we finished

2006-08-30T11:52:00.000-05:00

jerre and i finished our class on tony evans' book 'free at last' this past week. i was tired, and i wish jerre actually did the last class, but his time has been taken by a more important job; supporting his wife during the health problems of her parents. i love jerre and his huge heart! jerre is one of the reasons that i am still at port city. he is such a supportive man! he has a way in his classes that makes you feel that you are the only reason for him to be there, and he is there to tell what he learned this past week and he wants to talk to you about it.

port city is an awesome church, but there are things, IMO, that could be done differently. the truth about God and His Son are always proclaimed there, and their need and importance are taught there. i think, IMO, that the congregation could be more ... i don't know ... enthusiastic?.?. (that's not really what i mean, but i can't think of a better adjective) i wish that our prayer for the Holy Spirit to just engulf and penetrate our lives and our worship has not been realized and we have not allowed Him to work in our lives totally. ya' know?

we are in a transitional period right now. we are interviewing and having prospective youth minister candidates come and try out for the spot on our team, since the departure of chris, when he left to take the pulpit of a church in hotlanta. this past weekend we had joey and callie come and see us.

the weekend started off with a dinner on friday night at a member of the search committee's house. we met joey and callie face to face after hearing about them through correspondence.

then they attended a get-together with the youth group and some parents at the house of another member of the search committee on saturday. their house is on the water, and there was skiing, swimming, and laughing and an all around good time. however, i was sweating some pounds off while running around and reffing five soccer matches in pace, fl.

after the those festivities, joey taught the teen class on sunday morning, of which i did not hear one bad comment. our teen class is usually between 6 and 20. nothing firm on any given sunday, mind you. however, this sunday there were 26! it was SRO in that room. i'm glad the fire marshal was not around!

then the whole congregation got to hear him preach. his sermon was very interesting. he talked about the comparison of superman to the original Superhero, Jesus. that was cool! i will share more about the sermon if you want. just ask about it in the comments. it was so good that, no offense is intended here, even some of the grey hairs said, "don't let him get away. we need to hire him. that was good!" i have been to places where the older members just do not care for the younger generation's views of culture and our walk.

then we happened to visit the same life group in the evening that he was visiting. i bet he thought we were following him. we visited the life group because our group was not meeting since the leaders were the ones who hosted the teens the day before. it was a great time sharing and learning.

well, that was the weekend. i will post later about the fun in pace and reffing.

favorites

2006-08-17T16:48:00.000-05:00

i have seen and read of people being tagged out here in blognation, but let's go this way. i am going to create an interactive questionaire. listed below are questions to find out what or who is your favorite "?". answer the questions in the comments section please.

who or what is your favorite ...

... color?

... ice cream flavor, and topping?

... sport?

... bible verse? why (if you want to share)?

... season?

... day of the year?

... bible character?

... celebrity?

... vacation spot you have been to, or would like to go to?

... car?

... genre of music? ... group?

... childhood friend?

... childhood toy/game?

... mac or pc?

... website?

... soda?

this is just a few to get the ball rolling. please don't feel like you have to share family secrets, or personal info. thanks for stopping by.

I'VE BEEN TAGGED!

2006-08-16T22:22:00.000-05:00

i have been tagged by my good friend JD. i'm kinda glad he did, because i haven't updated my blog in awhile. this is a great excuse to do so:

1. One book that changed your life:
romans, paul

2. One book that you've read more than once:
the firm, john grisham

3. One book you'd want on a desert island:
a very, very thick one for more than one reason.
the hunt for red october, tom clancy

4. One book that made you laugh:
velvet elvis, rob bell

5. One book that made you cry:
i don't think that i have cried during a read. i may be wrong, but i can't remember.

6. One book you wish had been written:
things you wish you knew when you were a teen, A. Smart Alick

7. One book you wish had never been written:
the great gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

8. One book you're currently reading:
narnia, C. S. Lewis

9. One book you've been meaning to read:
Seeking a Lasting City: The Church's Journey in the Story of God, Doug Foster, Randy Harris, and Mark Love

10. Tag five others:
chris lockhart
greg foster
donna
danny sims
brandon scott thomas

i'm a ussf referee!

2006-08-08T09:35:00.000-05:00

to the right you will see the patch of a united states soccer federation referee. mine looks like it, but the only difference is that the year is on the bottom of the patch to signify the year of which my qualification expires. that year will be 2007.

i am very excited about getting to referee the soccer games here in the united states. i am qualified to ref in any state that the ussf refs in. i don't know of any that don't have refs, but i am only qualified to ref in the united states. make sense? weird, huh?

the class was two days long and very intense. there is more to reffing than just making a call and getting yelled at. you know refs always make a bad call, at least in the eye of the team the call is made against.

well, before i get to do the center ref job i will be doing the lines as an assistant referee for quite awhile until i get some experience under my belt, and wouldn't you know it. the week that i would get to start, i have to go out of town for a week on business! that bums! oh well! there will be games when i get back, but the other new refs will have a few games on me, but i will be there when i can.

guess what movies these lines are from

2006-08-04T21:58:00.000-05:00

what are the movies these lines are from:

1. "we'll take the lot."

2. "hello! my name is inigo montoya! you kill' my father! prepare to die!"

3. "yee-haw! jester's dead!"

4. "good sabbath, mottel."

5. "you know how to dance?" "i should. i took a lesson every day of my life until 2 days ago."(?)(maybe a paraphrased line, sorry. but a good movie.)

this is a good start. add some of your own memorable lines.

favorite movies and lines from them

2006-07-29T07:01:00.000-05:00

here is my list:

princess bride "i don't think that word means what you think it means.", "i am not left handed.", "stop rhyming. i mean it!" "anybody want a peanut?"

fiddler on the roof "you could die from such a man!", about wealth: "may You smite me with it, and may i never recover!"

a few good men "are we clear! ... are we clear!" "crystal."

the hunt for red october "submarines don't react well to bullets."

o brother, where art thou? "i'm for your's truly." "well i'm for your's truly" "well, i'm with you fellas."

tron "do you think we can merge with this memory bit?" "no."

shawshank redemption "i need a rock hammer.", "do you trust your wife?"

vision quest "i like men's hands."

the breakfast club "you mess with the bull. you get the horns.", "i'm not that prestine!"

ferris bueller's day off "hey, battah, battah ... suh-wing battah!"

top gun "i have a need." "a need for speed!", "i'm gonna take a shower. do you mind?" "yes! i mind! i'm hungry!", "goose, take me to bed or loose me forever!" "show me the way, honey!"

gone with the wind "you need kissing ... and real bad.", "it ain't fittin'! it just ain't fittin'! humph."

so what are some of your favorite movies, and lines from those movies?

things we really need to pray

2006-07-28T11:10:00.000-05:00

i was reading a devo sent to me by my lovely bride, and it had a prayer of sorts in it. i want to share it with you, but i am going to give it to you in two parts, and not in the order that it came in the devo. i am going to give you what i think is the "real" part of the prayer first and then i will give the first part. let me know if this fits you, too:

And thank You for the things I don't want: the track marks on the carpet that remind me of loved ones who live here, the never-ending laundry that reminds me how you have provided for my family, the high power bill that reminds me I have a warm home, the taxes that need to be filed because it means we have income, and my exhaustion at the end of the day because it means I am alive and well. Please give me a contentment that is separate from my circumstances and my stuff. Please give me a want for what I have.

here is the first part:

Lord, thank you for the gifts you have given me: my family, my friendships, my church, my ministry, my home, my health, my time. Thank you for the opportunity to serve with You; the honor of serving You. I am grateful for the favor of your grace, the freedom of your forgiveness, the unconditional love and acceptance that I long for and the promise of your presence. Give me a "want" for the things of God.

does this sound like the real you, or does it sound like the you that you want to be, or is it not even in the ballpark?

i must be crazy

2006-07-21T13:38:00.000-05:00

i say that i must be crazy because i have signed up to be a willing subject of horrible name calling, and my faculties are going to be questioned, and i am doing this willingly. however, i am going to be paid for it, so that will bring some consulation.

do you go to sporting events? who gets yelled at most? who gets questioned all the time no matter what they say? the officiating person, right? well, i will be attending a class to become a certified soocer referee in a couple of weeks. what am i thinking? i must be nuts, right?

well, i love the game, and i have done my share of yelling and questioning of refs in the past while attending my daughter's games, and i have always said to myself, "i could do a much better job than what they are doing." so i will be going to learn how to become blind, and unsmart. i won't have to work very hard at that last one.

so, pray for me to absorb and put into use the knowledge that i will be gleening.

do you have a favorite sport that you like to watch? have you ever been a ref, ump, or someone who makes the call before? what was your experience, if you did?

a prayer

2006-07-19T07:28:00.000-05:00

Our Father, Who dwells in infinite light, above everything, we proclaim You as Holy, and we pray now that You will reign here in every human’s heart, even as You reign over the heavens.

We pray that You will give us what we need to survive today, and we’ll count on You to do that again tomorrow.

We pray that You will forgive us for all the ways that we fail to be Your children, even as we compassionately forgive those around us.

We pray that You will not lead us in over our head, but, by Your power, will deliver us from the one in control of this world.

So that in the fullness of time You should crush him, and every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess You, Who is now Lord, as Lord. In Whose name we pray.

Amen.

wouldn't it be nice if you were taught to pray like this?

Baptism: The Place Where God Acts

2006-07-18T11:11:00.000-05:00

i thought this was so good i wanted to share it with you.

Baptism: The Place Where God Acts

(Good News from Lipscomb University, Vol. 1, No. 2 October 1998, p. 2)

Few doctrines have elicited as much debate and emotion through the centuries as baptism. Ironically, baptism was meant to be a mark of unity among believers (Ephesians 4). How sad that what God intended to be a beautiful symbol of one's participation in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Romans 6:3,4) has often been neglected altogether or - at the other extreme - emphasized as a work that we do to merit salvation.

Let me point out two concepts which must be emphasized to have an adequate doctrine of baptism.

First, baptism is part of the faith response to God's saving work in Christ. Consider Ephesians 2: 8, 9: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast.

When some brethren respond, “but faith is not enough," they miss the point and role of baptism. This response positions baptism as some kind of "work" and fuels the arguments of its critics. Baptism is not a work of righteousness which we do; it is the God-ordained faith response to His grace- Titus 3:5 makes this point very' clear: He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. Baptism obviously is part of the faith response God mandates for accepting the mercy He offers on the cross of Jesus.

It is a mistake to let a human define faith and its response. Much of Christendom has defined “faith” as “belief.” While belief is the core of faith, God has defined the way that belief is culminated or enacted. Consider the faith response God demanded at the wall of Jericho (Joshua 6), or when the Israelites were being bitten by poisonous snakes (Numbers 21) or when Naaman approached Elisha about the cleansing of his leprosy (II Kings 5). In each case, God dictated the faith response to release His power. In each case, the response was simple and powerless in and of itself. In each case, God demonstrated great power.

Likewise, baptism is part of the faith response God desires for accepting salvation. It is critical enough to be tied to the forgiveness of sin (cf. Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16). Because it is God's decree, it is not optional.

As beautifully stated by one writer, “Baptism is the initial and immediate step of obedience by one who has declared his faith to others. So important was this step that, as far as we know, every single convert in the New Testament was baptized.”

Second - and most important - is that baptism is where God acts. Far too frequently the focus is on what the convert is doing rather than on what God is doing. Baptism is not portrayed in scripture as a work one does. Rather, baptism is something done to the subject, not by the subject. Thus, the focus of a baptismal scene is not what the subject does but what the passive subject has done to him or her by God. Baptism is not self-administered. The human being's role is to present himself or herself as available to God's action. Thus it might be more profitable to think of baptism as the place where something happens rather than as a work one does,

Baptism is so often thought of as a work that those who affirm its crucial role in God's saving work are accused of believing in "water salvation" or "works righteousness." Perhaps thinking of baptism as the place of God's action rather than focusing on the means would help. There is no question about the importance of the place of God's action throughout scripture.

The water of baptism no more washes away sin than the River Jordan cures leprosy or the pool cures lameness. God is always the active agent, and the human being merely places himself or herself at God's behest.

In summary, baptism is both the human being's response of faith and the place where God acts-where He cleanses our sin and gives us the Holy Spirit. To emphasize God's action without the response would lead to justifying infant baptism (in which there is no free response on the part of the one baptized). To emphasize the response without God's action in the present leads to seeing baptism as a mere sign of something that has happened in the past. Both miss the mark.

Baptism is the unique moment where humble, obedient faith yields itself to the cleansing and empowering grace of God. It is not meant to be a focal point of debate, but the focal point of celebration as one is "clothed with Christ" (Galatians 3:27).

--Randall J. Harris, Instructor in Bible (Harris is now on the Bible faculty of Abilene Christian University)

free concert

2006-07-13T10:47:00.000-05:00

a couple of days ago port city hosted new reign for a free concert. it was cool to have them here and give us a fresh look at what is going on in the college arena. i have a friend that goes to ocu (oklahoma christian university), and he, jeremy williams, knows caleb. its a small world, isn't it? speaking of small worlds, i have an awesome story to share later, but for now we will stick to the story about new reign.

we had visitors from pascagula's central coc (thanks for coming jd), and inner city coc. the total for all who came was near 100 or so.

please click on the link to their site and listen to their stuff, its good! we had a great time singing praise, praying, and fellowshipping!

do you know this guy?

2006-07-12T16:12:00.000-05:00

have you seen this guy in public, or at a conference lately? some think he is like a church of Christ monk, because you can almost always find him wearing black. his name is randy harris, (no relation, but he has a great last name) and he is a professor at abilene christian university. he also teaches classes with mike cope at times there at highland church of Christ in abilene itself.

well, i am trying to get our shepherds to allow him to come and speak at port city. i don't know what subject to ask him to talk about, but everything i have heard him speak on was great. randy has a knack of making things sound logical to me. he also gets you to think of things in a different way than you had thought of them before he started.

i have quoted him on this blog before. i have really enjoyed what i have heard, and i have tried to apply it to my own life, as well.

song leading to communion

2006-07-09T21:49:00.000-05:00

have you ever heard this song?

Broken Things
Ken Young

Verse 1
My father's father worked this land
For many years I took my stand
But the plow is heavy and I can't hold on
To the legacy of the farmer's song
I'll remember the days
With the sun on the land
Wiping sweat from my brow
With a rough calloused hand
And the smell of the ground
Freshly broken and clean
Made by the one who still gives
Broken hearts new dreams

Chorus 1
O Lord who uses broken things
Who through broken clouds
Gives us sweet sweet rain
Who gives us bread from broken grain
O Lord make me stronger through broken things

Verse 2
Give me what I need not what I demand
Send me heaven filled hopes Not earth made plans
But the plow is so heavy and I can't hold on
O Father who cares fill my heart with this song

Chorus 1
O Lord who uses broken things
Who through broken clouds
Gives us sweet sweet rain
Who gives us bread from broken grain
O Lord make me stronger through broken things

Chorus 1
O Lord who uses broken things
Who through broken clouds
Gives us sweet sweet rain
Who gives us bread from broken grain
O Lord make me stronger through broken things

i plan to use it as a segue into the communion service i will be leading in a couple of weeks. do you think it fits? i chose it because of the comparison of how Christ was broken for us to give us the chance of being with Him and His Father one day.

the inevitable

2006-07-09T07:40:00.000-05:00

(click on the image above to go to a more readable image)

so this is what happens when you don't keep up with your blog. this is what happens when all you do is read other people's blogs. sorry folks. i hope to do better like chris always pledged, but i hope to really mean it. i love you my brother!

what's been on my mind

2006-07-08T20:47:00.000-05:00

wow, its almost been a month since my last post.

i have been thinking lately of how i wish i had known that ken young had scheduled the stream in franklin event for the weekend of the 2nd of july. i would've been there with my family if i had known.

see, i used to live in texas and for about 7 of the past 10 or so streams in the desert events in midland, texas, i had been there, and enjoyed the fellowship, singing, sharing, and the lessons form great men of God like rick atchley, jeff walling, lynn anderson, and the like.

if you have not ever attended stream in the desert, you have missed something great, and you would not have forgotten it.

this would be how the day would be at a stream event:

wake up, and head to the stadium for breakfast.
sing great praise songs with hallal and ken young for awhile, hear an awesome lesson, go to share groups filled with those like yourself just coming to see what they have heard about and what the church of Christ could be like every week, and then go to lunch and share still with your lunchmates.
come back for the afternoon session of singing, hear the speaker, go to share groups, and then go to dinner.
then the option is to either study with your friends that you came to the event with about the events of the day, or attend the evening event. the evening events were usually a concert of a singing group, or a comedian.
then go to bed and repeat the next day.

some say it is a couple days of church, but for me it was spending time with friends and praising, and praying. i really like it.

this was the first year of the event in franklin, and i sure hope that i hear about the next one. y'all want to go?

when i was growing up ...

2006-06-09T07:28:00.000-05:00

... i used to ride my bike everywhere! i mean, to school, to the pool, to baseball, and soccer practice, to my friend's house and then go riding around the neighborhood or riding trails in the woods. i have a bike now, but its tires are rotting from lack of use.

... i used to go bowling, i forgot to add that in the previous list, on saturday mornings. i bowled in a league growing up, and then when i joined the navy. my ball, shoes, and bag were stolen when i transferred back from japan to the u. s. of a. almost 15 years ago. a friend of mine who owns a bowling alley (some may know who he is) has bought me a new ball, and has ordered me new shoes and bag ... as a gift. he said he is doing it because he likes to help when people enjoy doing things, but can't. after the ball had been drilled, and fitted, i was practicing with it, and 4 out of the next 9 balls were strikes. they were also in succession. too bad they were not all in the same game. my daughter and her friends were playing pool, and left their games on the lanes so i finished them.

... i used to go to the pool all summer long. i would get a pool pass to the base pool. i don't think i ever used sun screen. now i don't leave home without it. i even swim in a t-shirt now.

what are some things you did while growing up? these are just a few things that i did.

stuff and things

2006-05-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

wow, what a great experience in leading my first adult sunday morning bible study! i was so anxious. yet excited. i was worried that i wouldn't be able to get my points across. i enjoy classes and studies where there is a lot of interaction between the leader and the audience. at one point i asked a question (one of four) and we were like 5 or 10 minutes into the 45 minute class, and i said, "this is really going to be a short class if y'all don't start talking." or something like that, and the class just busted out laughing.

this sunday i will not be here in mobile, because i am driving my daughter to arlington to do something awesome. she is sacrificing time with her friends on her first week out of school to go and work in the hot texas sun and work on houses and do yard work for people who can not do it on their own. i am so proud of her.

however, mrs. k2 will not be going because she is the church secretary and there is no one qualified to take her place. she runs the church office by herself, and God forbid if she get sick. she gets calls asking, "where are you? and why aren't you at the church? i need you to do this." i better stop before i get myself into trouble, but anyway, her best friend is even more upset than me, because she will not get to see her, either.

i will return after being gone a week, and teach two sunday classes while jerre is out of town, then we will take turns on teaching this awesome class.

so its like this, i leave tomorrow for a week in texas, then come back for a week and then go out to lucedale, ms, to sleep in a cabin for a week with some boys and make sure they don't burn the place down, and maybe share some stuff with them, and they with me. i also get to learn and maybe teach and worship with some great people, my brothers and sisters!

what do you got going?

sunday morning class

2006-05-16T18:19:00.000-05:00

well, i'm back from my business trip for awhile. this sunday i begin co-leading a class with one of our shepherds, jerre. the discussion will be over the book "the case for a Creator." i get to leadoff with chapter one, white coated scientists versus black-robed preachers.

have any of you read this book by lee strobel or any of his other works? i like his perspective on things being as though he was an aethist, and now he is 180 the other direction. here is a quote from chapter one that basically might be able to be said of most of us:

But there was also an undercurrent of something else: an inchoate fear of the future, of change, of new ideas, of cultural transformation. I could sense a simmering frustration in people over how modernity was eroding the foundation of their faith. "Many of the protesters," wrote the Charleston Gazette, "are demonstrating against a changing world."

this quote reflected how some of the citizens of west virginia felt concerning the changes in textbooks in the schools. the schools were going to have textbooks that supported evolution. do any of you remember when this started? i was in second grade so i don't remember what the textbooks looked like before the changes were happening. i was going to school in south houston until my 3rd grade year. then i had to go to school in the DOD system in panama where my dad was stationed.

could some of the feelings that were being shared by the citizens of west virginia be compared to how some members of churches feel about how things have changed in the past 10 years in churches of Christ?

d.c. times

2006-04-30T19:21:00.000-05:00

well, i looked for a geocache, but the distances on my gps must've been off. when i got out of the car it looked like the 'cache was about a couple of hundred yards a way, but when i got on the trail and started walking ... that winding trail started to add up to at least half of a mile, and i am out of shape. plus, it wasn't a flat walk. it was up and down hills, and up and down hills. needless to say, i did not get to the 'cache.

i got back to my room and got ready for the game. i met michael about 3:00 and then we headed to springfield where we got on the metro. we had the option of taking the blue line all the way to the stadium station, or transfer from the blue line to the yellow line and then back to the blue line to save some time. we stayed on the blue line and stopped at the arlington cemetary. have you ever seen the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknowns? its a part of living history, in my book. i find it very awesome.

after that we got back on the metro and went to the united game. wow! that was so cool! the united have this section of cheering fans with drums and horns and cheering and jumping. its so cool, it must be like being at a game in europe. the stands of rfk stadium were shaking. if i make it back for business and the united are in town ... i'm going!! the score ended in a 1 - 1 tie, but the refs disallowed a goal because of an offsides that would've put united ahead. in my opinion there was no offsides. the ball came off the post and a united player slammed it into the back of net. bad call. oh yeah, ado had an AWESOME misdirection and faked a fc dallas defender out of his boots. it was cool!

then today i went to church at springfield coc, and they remembered me from wednesday night. it was neat. then i went to quizno's for my first time ever. that sandwich was great! then i walked around best buy for a couple of hours, and bought 2 u2 cd's; joshua tree, and war. then i drove by mclean bible church to get my bearings so i would know how to get there for their evening service. then i went to some stores around the church to waste some time.

i then went to the church to do some reading, and get a snack, and wait for the service to start. the service was like i mentioned in my previous post. i walked away stoked. the guy, todd, talked about the future release of the da vinci code, and how it is a book of lies, and total fiction. i got a neat hand out that will give some great ammunition to fire back at people asking, "what about this? and what about that?" from the book. the singing at the service was great, and i just had a great time. very freshing.

now i am back in my room blogging, and preparing for the week, and watching one of my favorite movies: forrest gump (imagine that, another tom hanks movie. i like tome hanks.).

wow, its been awhile

2006-04-29T06:34:00.000-05:00

what makes this kinda funny is the comment from my buddy and friend chris. he left a comment on my last posting asking if i was "still there." i think that is funny, because i think he has posted less than i have lately. however, he's right. i have been slacking.

here's what has been going on lately for me. well, i'm in the d.c. area for business for the next week. one of the good things about being here is that i am planning on going to see the d.c. united play fc dallas at rfk. i am going with a co-worker.

wednesday night was cool. i went to church at the springfield church of Christ. mike cope blogged about it a couple of months ago, and i went to visit them wednesday night, and i plan to be there sunday morning, too. while i was there i think just about every guy i spoke to went to harding university, and some of them said that they thought they might know my cousin's husband (greg), and ryan.

then sunday night i plan on trying to link up with some old friends from arlington. they go to mclean bible church. i have visited with them in the past when i have been in the d.c. area for business. everytime i visit that church i come away stoked. there services are awesome.

what's been up with y'all? i might even try to get in a geocache before i head to d.c.

mantras, pt II

2006-04-16T21:54:00.000-05:00

today (in this God soaked moment of life) ...
... i will be incompetent.
... i will be fully present to the person in front of me, and to the Lord over me.
... i will be Christ to others.
... i will see Christ in others.

these are the mantras i like best. here is why:

today (in this God soaked moment of life) ...
... i will be incompetent.

i will not rely on what i think i know. i will rely on what God has given me.

today (in this God soaked moment of life) ...
... i will be fully present to the person in front of me, and to the Lord over me.

almost self evident. don't you think? give the person that is talking to you your attention. give them your time.

today (in this God soaked moment of life) ...
... i will be Christ to others.

we need to be Christ to others. now that one is self evident. we are to show the world who Christ is by living as Christ would live here on this earth, because we may be the only Christ they have seen. now i am not saying that i am Christ, but we are to live as He would.

today (in this God soaked moment of life) ...
... i will see Christ in others.

we are to see Christ in others, because we are to treat others the way we want to be treated, and we are to love them the way we want to be loved.

i just wanted to share these with you. this may sound like a re-run (i've posted on these before), but i wanted to share them again.

mantras

2006-04-13T09:20:00.000-05:00

do you know any mantras? do you go by any mantras? here are some that i think are good to go by. let me know what you think they mean, and i will share with you later what i think they mean.

today (in this God soaked moment of life) ...
... i will be incompetent.
... i will be fully present to the person in front of me, and to the Lord over me.
... i will be Christ to others.
... i will see Christ in others.

these are my favorites. btw, i can't think of any others, so that is where you come in. how would you define the mantras above, and what are some mantras that you know?

tradition

2006-04-09T16:18:00.000-05:00

... tradition should be allowed to be itself; that is, the living voice of the very human church as it struggles with scripture, sometimes misunderstanding it and sometimes gloriously getting it right.
Taken from: N. T. Wright's
The Last Word, pp. 117ff.

i read this in mike cope's blog this afternoon. i was privileged this morning to precide over one of the greatest traditions that our tribe follows; communion.

i love communion! i think that it is the central act of our worship service, and the honor to lead the congregation in something that Jesus did for His disciples, to me, is awesome!

i remember the first time i took communion. it was minutes after my baptism. i was a little confused by what it was, because i had never partook before, and brother howard (fyi, i don't call people brother or sister so-and-so because i think we are who we are. that is my opinion.) served me. i don't remember his first name, that is what everybody called him, so that's how i remember him.

i also remember taking communion once on a saturday. what do you think about that? it wasn't sunday, and i didn't die from a lightning strike afterwords. come to think of it, Jesus served in on a thursday, if memory serves me right.

the communion i remember was served individually to all those participating. the servers stood at the front of the sanctuary, and we came up one by one from a line formed leading up to them. the server handed me the piece of bread, and looked me in the eye, and handing me the bread, said,

"ken, this is the body of Jesus Christ, broken for you."

tears welled up and fell from my eyes. then another server handed me the wine, and likewise, looked me in the eye, and said,

"ken, this the blood of Jesus Christ shed for the remittence of you sins."

WOW!! what a Savior!! what a tradition!!

we did a communion service similar to this at park row one year, and can you believe it, some people who you would think that would be against it said, " ... that was very nice. why haven't we done that before?"

what are some traditions that you can think of that if they were not done the way remember doing them they would not be legitimate?

are you desperate?

2006-03-27T07:38:00.000-06:00

have you ever been desperate? what were you desperate for? was it ever for your health? more specifically, was it a life or death thing?

last night my wife and i visited a small group meeting with our friends paul and pam. i didn't have any preconceived notion other than having a great time of sharing and fellowshipping. i got more than that.

the discussion centered on these verses:

When Jesus went back across to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him on the shore. A leader of the local synagogue, whose name was Jairus, came and fell down before him, pleading with him to heal his little daughter. "She is about to die," he said in desperation. "Please come and place your hands on her; heal her so she can live."

Jesus went with him, and the crowd thronged behind. And there was a woman in the crowd who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors through the years and had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she was worse. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched the fringe of his robe. For she thought to herself, "If I can just touch his clothing, I will be healed." Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel that she had been healed!

Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"

His disciples said to him, "All this crowd is pressing around you. How can you ask, 'Who touched me?'"

But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and told him what she had done. And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. You have been healed."

jairus is desperate as we begin reading the verses, and he gets to talk to Jesus! he shares the story about his daughter, and Jesus is going with him to heal her. imagine ... imagine Jesus is coming to your house to heal your child who is sick, and you're sick with grief over you child. jairus must be excited!

then Jesus stops. i can only imagine what is going through jairus' mind. maybe something like this, "hey! Jesus, we're not there yet! why are you stopping?" however, Jesus stops and asks, "who touched Me?"

remember Jesus is gaining popularity, and He has crowds where ever He goes, and He asks, "who touched Me?" imagine what the disciples are thinking, "well, everybody. anybody could've touched you Jesus."

now to backtrack a little here, there is a lady (and remember how high in society women were) who has been hemorrhaging for 12 years ... 12 ... years. that's a long time, y'all. not to mention how women were treated while they dealt with something like this thing on a monthly basis. remember women were not able to socialize during that week, if i'm not mistaken, and then there was a time that they had to go through before they could come back into society. so this lady has been out of society for 12 years. she's out of "touch". she was an outcast. do you think she was desperate. darn tootin'!!

think of this too, have you ever given blood before? can you go out and play basketball, or softball, or whatever after you give blood? well, you're not supposed to, because you may pass out, and cause yourself harm. this lady has been "giving blood" for 12 years!! you think she might be sapped? even with her condition, she braves the crowds, and pushes through, and thinks, "if i can only touch the hem of His robe ... i can be healed." WHAT FAITH!! WHAT PERSEVERANCE!!

now back to the story, this lady has touched Jesus. how many other healings do remember the person being so bold as to touch Jesus? she is desperate, y'all. she thinks He wouldn't do it, or the crowd would shew her off. i think she does it on her own, because she feels she has to.

now jairus is thinking, "who does she think she is stopping Him from going to heal my daughter, and Jesus even calls this lady his daughter?!" come on, do you really think jairus is just standing there patiently? i think not. the group last night didn't read the other verses that followed where jairus learns that his daughter is already dead. its too late. now how do you think he feels? i don't know, but i am pretty sure he is not happy, but Jesus takes care of that.

this story makes me think of the leper. who says to Jesus, "if you want to heal me ..." what was Jesus' reply, remember the answer is the same in all three of the synoptic gospels that have this story of the leper, at least its the same verbatim in the version of the bible i use. it reads, "I want to."

that is Jesus' answer to all of us. we have to want it. we have to ask. He wants to. what did He say to the woman He healed? it was her faith that healed her. why didn't the others that were crushing around Him get healed? they didn't have faith. they probably wanted to have the feather to put in their hat, so to speak, of having been with Jesus. He tells her that her faith has healed her. what a great faith. don't you want that kind of faith? i do.

oh by the way, the scripture was mark 5:21-34 nlt.

i miss my friends!

2006-03-25T10:50:00.000-06:00

i'm sitting here in the church office after preparing the media shout presentation, and while my wife and daughter, and some of the other ladies prepare for 2nd annual "Sale To Save" yard sale, i am thinking about all my friends we left in texas.

its been going on two years since i moved my family to l.a. the move had so many good things going for it, though: i got a raise, kristin got a new chance to meet new friends at a new high school, we got to live closer to family relatives. i can't think of anything else right now, but i'm sure there are some other good things about this move.

however, the move ripped the close relationships that dorothy and i had created, with the grace of God, apart. i can't drive down the road 5 minutes to see greg, or ryan. i don't get to play basketball on monday nights with earl, chris, and my great hawaiian friend (some friend if i can't even remember his name, huh?). dorothy doesn't get to see her best friend deedee anymore.

i miss giving them big hugs, and worshipping with them, and studying with them.

i traded a 45 minute drive to work, and a five minute drive to church for just the opposite. please pray that i will be comforted. i'm sure that i will be alright later.

pray that i can build similar relationships here at port city, but i need some of those relationships to be right down the road. e-mails and blogs are just not the same.

i can't think of an appropriate title

2006-03-21T07:42:00.000-06:00

this post is of no real concept, or idea. it will be about things that are bouncing around in my noggin, and why i do some of the things i do (not all of them).

can i first make a blanket statement (let me know if this doesn't really apply to what a blanket statement should be). i am so, so selfish. just ask my family. i do things, and most of the time, i don't even consider what the affects may have on my family. any of you like that? i wake up, and i sure hope there is hot water for my shower, or you are going to hear about it if you are in earshot. i sure hope that my clothes are clean, and preferrably in the closet or the dresser, too. now don't get me wrong. i'm not a tyrant, and i don't take it out on people, and i don't carry a whip or beat anybody up or anything. now i am not going to leave, and go off and live by myself, and i'm not going to divorce my family. i'm sure i'm not the only one that has things like this happen in their lives. i'm really not that bad, but i do need to soften my feelings and actions and words and thoughts to what the new name of this blog is all about.

what do you use the internet for? i use it to check on communication with friends and family with e-mail. i also like to read what others are doing through their blogs. i linked to another blog after reading about it in another blog that i read while using my subscriptions on google reader. this blog that i linked to made me think of why i blog, and why i read blogs. one of the interesting points he makes is about community. can you think of the first community that is written about in the bible? its not adam and eve, or the animals. can you guess? i also use it to get directions to places and find out where things are located. i have started using google local more and more. have you noticed a theme on what services i use, and who provides it?

community was spoken of in the sermon i heard this weekend while visiting with my good friends in birmingham, while on our way home after attending the funeral of my last living uncle over the weekend. dub recently joined the ministry at cross bridge after a seperation from the congregation he was with. i will not talk bad about the congregation from where he left, because they are still my brothers and sisters, and dub still loves them, too. community was first written of in the trinity when God said "let us ..." i don't know about you, but i have a hard time being by myself. i don't work very well by myself. i much rather work with someone as part of a team. don't you?

can you remember when was the first time that God said something wasn't good about his creation? it goes to the point of what God thinks, in my opinion, about community. remember when He said that it was not good for man to be alone? see what i'm talking about?

see what i mean when i said "i can't think of an appropriate title"?

my daughter has gotten me thinking of doing sudoku puzzles. do any of you out there do those, too? they are pretty hard, and frustrating, but addictive, too. the 6 number ones are much easier than the 9 numbered ones.

this past week has been a pretty hard one for my father's side of the family. his last living brother went to live with their parents and the rest of his siblings, except for a sister that is still living, in heaven. i made a comment on one of the blogs that i read, that her family has gained 3 precious ones, as my family has let one go back to live with God and the rest of the family. congratulations donna!

a great thing was witnessed by me and the rest of the ones at the funeral on saturday. my cousins asked all of milford's grandkids if they would be the pall bearers of their father. this may not sound very significant to you, but it was to carla, and fran! they are the two granddaughters of milford. when they were asked they both just broke down in tears for the honor. see ... in the mountains of alabama a lot of things have not changed, and to see that two young ladies were asked to do what is normally reserved for men ... well that is significant to me. they were so honored and excited and humbled to be asked. it is something they will cherish for the rest of their lives.

also, a great comment that really meant a lot to one of the grandkids was when ronald, the oldest son, told jacob, "thanks for carrying my daddy." (tears are forming as i type this) that was just so cool.

abide in me

2006-03-09T09:20:00.000-06:00

John 15:4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful apart from me.
Communion with Christ is a certain cure for every ill. Whether it be the woodworm of sadness or the smothering impact of earthly treasure, close fellowship with the Lord Jesus will take bitterness from the one and excess from the other. Live near to Jesus, Christian, and it is a matter of secondary importance whether you live on the mountain of honor or in the valley of humiliation. Living near to Jesus, you are covered with the wings of God, and underneath you are the everlasting arms. Let nothing keep you from that hallowed communion that is the unique privilege of a life hidden in Christ. Do not be content with the occasional meeting, but always seek to retain His company, for only in His presence will you find either comfort or safety. Jesus should not be for us a friend who calls us now and then, but one with whom we are in constant touch. You have a difficult road before you: Make sure, pilgrim, that you do not go without your guide. You have to pass through the fiery furnace; do not enter unless, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you have the Son of God to be your companion. You have to storm the walls of your corrupt heart: Do not attempt it until, like Joshua, you have seen the Captain of the Lord's host, with His sword drawn in His hand. When you meet with many temptations, do not rest upon the arm of flesh. In every case, in every condition, you will need Jesus, but most of all when the iron gates of death shall open to you. Keep close to the Captain of your salvation, lean upon His strength, ask Him to refresh you by His Spirit, and you will stand before Him at the end, without spot or blemish and at peace. Seeing you have lived with Him, and lived in Him here, you will abide with Him forever.

taken from "Morning and Evening,"
written by C.H. Spurgeon,
revised and updated by Alistair Begg

i think this was my favorite line of the devotional:

Living near to Jesus, you are covered with the wings of God, and underneath you are the everlasting arms.

it makes me think of how much care and love God has for Jesus, His son, and if we have become adoptive sons and daughters of God, then we will be afforded the same care and love that God gives to Jesus. just like how Jesus mourned for jerusalem:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me.

that's the kind of protection God wants to give us!

Darwin Award Winners for 2005

2006-03-07T16:33:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's that magical time of the year again when the Darwin Awards are
bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us.

Here then, are the glorious Darwin Award Winners for 2005:

1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim
during a holdup in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot
did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel
and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting
machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his
insurance company. The company expecting negligence, sent out one of its
men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger.
The chef's claim was approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car
during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his Vehicle to find a woman
had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver
found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting
from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his
incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone
waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental
hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and
prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious
head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received
the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how
close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the
counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer,
the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which
the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and
fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he
got from the drawer...$15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you
money, is a crime committed?)

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that
he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some
booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his
head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be
thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was
made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, man grabbed
her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was
able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within
minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car
and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and
told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes,
officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a
Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, and
demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't
open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion
rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man,
frustrated, walked away.

A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER!

10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on
a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived
at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near
spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying
to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's
sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press
charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

In the interest of bettering human kind please share these with your
friends and family ... unless of course one of these 10 individuals by
chance is a distant relative or long lost friend. In that case be glad
they are distant.

i've been away for awhile

2006-03-06T20:02:00.000-06:00

i've been busy lately doing a lot of other stuff, other than blogging. so if you have been missing my weird, crazy take on life, and stuff like that, thanks.

i've been busy taking my daughter to soccer tournaments for her varisty soccer team, and studying, and reading.

i've also been fighting some unwanted stuff on the e-mail side of the house, too. i've been getting something that was meant to be a luncheon meat, not unwanted e-mails. have any of you ever gotten e-mails that were unsolicited? have you ever gotten more spam than messages from friends, and legitimate places you wanted to receive stuff from? well, i have, and it was just getting me down, and i didn't want to get back on the computer.

i'm trying to fight it by changing my e-mail address, and just trying to make a clean break. how have y'all been doing? i've missed hearing from you all.

possible name change

2006-02-25T18:50:00.000-06:00

many of you may be readers of different blogs. i, too, am a blog reader. a list of blogs that i follow with the assistance of google reader is to the right in the sidebar of this blog.

fajita has recently changed the name of his blog, but kept the same address. i had been thinking of changing the name of my blog, too. here is the leading contender:

love wins!

with the description of the blog changing, as well. i am thinking of using a quote of a writer from years past. i am currently reading two of his works, one being a compilation. the quote is as follows:

Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.

-- C. S. Lewis

what are your thoughts on the name change? what are some names that you might suggest for my blog?

may they be one

2006-02-25T18:30:00.000-06:00

its all about unity.

here is an article from new wineskins about the subject. i just noticed how funny it might've sounded to here paul say what he said in 1 corinthians.

FOOTPRINTS...A New Version

2006-02-22T07:34:00.000-06:00

Imagine you and the Lord Jesus are walking down the road together. For much of the way, the Lord's footprints go along steadily, consistently, rarely varying the pace.

But your footprints are a disorganized stream of zigzags, starts, stops, turnarounds, circles, departures, and returns.

For much of the way, it seems to go like this, but gradually your footprints come more in line with the Lord's, soon paralleling His consistently.

You and Jesus are walking as true friends!

This seems perfect, but then an interesting thing happens: Your footprints that once etched the sand next to Jesus' are now walking precisely in His steps.

Inside His larger footprints are your smaller ones, you and Jesus are becoming one.

This goes on for many miles, but gradually you notice another change. The footprints inside the large footprints seem to grow larger.

Eventually they disappear altogether. There is only one set of footprints. They have become one.

This goes on for a long time, but suddenly the second set of footprints is back. This time it seems even worse! Zigzags all over the place. Stops. Starts. Gashes in the sand. A variable mess of prints.

You are amazed and shocked.

Your dream ends. Now you pray:

"Lord, I understand the first scene, with zigzags and fits. I was a new Christian; I was just learning. But You walked on through the storm and helped me learn to walk with You."

"That is correct."

"And when the smaller footprints were inside of Yours, I was actually learning to walk in Your steps, following You very closely."

"Very good.. You have understood everything so far."

When the smaller footprints grew and filled in Yours, I suppose that I was becoming like You in every way."

"Precisely."

"So, Lord, was there a regression or something? The footprints separated, and this time it was worse than at first."

There is a pause as the Lord answers, with a smile in His voice.

"You didn't know? It was then that we danced!"

You Might Be a Member of the Church of Christ

2006-02-13T19:54:00.000-06:00

isn't it sad when you can't come up with something original for your blog posts?

YOU MIGHT BE A MEMBER IF ...

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy of “Redneck” joke fame, you might be a member of the church of Christ …

• If you know exactly what song I’m talking about when I ask you to turn to number 728b.
• If you could recite all the books of the Bible before you could even read them.
• If you know the first and third verse of nearly every song.
• If you actually know what a “ready recollection” is and have been thoroughly “guide-guard-and-directed” all your life. (If you’re really a member, you know that “guide-guard-and-directed” must be followed by “and-bring-us-back-at-the-next-appointed-time.”)
• If you think “progressive” refers to those in the church who want a sound system and PowerPoint.
• If you can actually read shape notes.
• If you recognize any of these ministers by first name alone: Landon, Reuel, Prentice, Rubel, Norvel, Flavil, Furman or Batsell.
• If you think your chosen pew is “sacred” and no one else should sit in your spot.
• If you think the Bible questions on Jeopardy are way too easy.
• If you decide which Bible translation to use based on how Acts 2:38 reads.
• If you immediately reach for your wallet when you hear the phrase, “Now, separate and apart from the Lord’s Supper … ”
• If “chosen frozen” refers to your early worship service that resembles a country church 50 years ago, and “happy clappy” describes your late service that the chosen frozen are deeply concerned about.
• If you know all the words to all the verses of Trust and Obey.
• If you’ve ever ridden a JOY bus. (And, of course, you know that JOY stands for “Jesus” first, “Others” second and “Yourself” last.)
• If, when you’re happy and you know it, you clap your hands, stomp your feet and say “Amen!”
• If you’ve ever carried your Bible in an empty casserole dish.
• If you brought that casserole dish to the last fellowship meal, and the main ingredient in it was cream of mushroom soup.
• If you’ve ever heard a rambunctious young child yell “Pray for me! Pray for me!” as his mother whisked him down the aisle to the foyer.
• If you’ve ever wondered who Ebon Pinion was.
• If you think the term “church of Christ humor” is an oxymoron.
• If you’ve ever heard an announcement from the pulpit about a missing puppet.
• If you think the Chronicle is way too liberal.
• If you’ve ever prayed for those “who are sick of this congregation.”
• If you’ve never been to a church that wasn’t named after the street it was on.
• If you think the Chronicle is way too conservative.
• If you’ve been to a wedding or a funeral where “the invitation” was offered.
• If you’ve stood for 13 verses of Just As I Am with the last stanza sung softly.

a favorite of mine

2006-02-09T05:29:00.000-06:00

do you have a favorite thing? ... favorite bible? ... favorite pair of jeans? ... favorite album? (showing my age there) well, chris is not my favorite, but he is one of my favorites. i remember listening to klty on my way home from work one day when i lived in arlington, and telling my lovely wife that i heard a "cool song" on the radio. she said that she heard it too.

that's when it all started. do you remember the song? if you listen to contemporary christian music then i'm sure you have. the song is 'deep enough to dream' and it happens to be the title track of the album with the same name.

i remember eating at wednesday fest before church one wednesday night and talking with my buddy ryan, who was just the youth minister at the time. ryan has since graduated to be the senior minister position at park row, and that is so cool to me. he such a great guy. anyway, i am getting off topic. what i meant to say is this, we were eating, and he said he went to see this guy in concert with his wife and her parents. he asks if i knew who this guy that used to be a youth minister, too, and is now an entertainer. (now that totally opens a can of worms. entertainer. i don't see chris as just an entertainer, but i can't think of another word to use.) ryan says, "his name is chris rice. do you know him?" we almost lost our friendship right there. no! just kidding! i was like, "who doesn't know him?" ryan just shot me this look like, "you know who chris rice is?"

anyway, i got chris' most recent album this christmas, and one of my family's favorite songs is "love like crazy." its not the title song, tho. the name of the album is "amusing." one of my favorite lines in the song is:

What the world needs now is for love to spread
As fast as the rumors do

wouldn't that be so awesome? read the words of the song, and see what you think. if you want, leave a comment about one of your favorite artists, or songs. thanks for visiting!

LOVE LIKE CRAZY
Chris Rice
I heard a rumor that love will make you crazy
Well is it true?
Well that’s no rumor, look at the crazy things that love made Jesus do
The friends he chose were thought to be outrageous
And you could even find him touching the contagious
And the craziest is how he chose to save us
He gave his life away
Then he had to go and say
“Gotta love the same way that I love you!”

Love like crazy
We gotta love like crazy
We gotta love like crazy
The way he loves you and me
‘Cause if the world’s ever gonna change
We gotta love like crazy

What the world needs now is for love to spread
As fast as the rumors do
But to make it, we gotta take this thing from another whole point of view
We can start by keeping our vows, and not brreakin’ promises
And bring hope to the women at the well, and the doubting Thomases
And you kids, you gotta cheerfully do what your pops and your mama sez
He gave his life away
Then he had to go and say
“Gotta love the same way that I love you!”

Love like crazy
We gotta love like crazy
We gotta love like crazy
The way he loves you and me
‘Cause if the world’s ever gonna change
We gotta love like crazy

Well I’m tellin’ you boy, you got a lot to learn
I think you’re crazy all right to love for nothin’ in return
You’ve lost your marbles, got a few loose screws
And if you count your cards I’ll bet you got less than fifty-two
But now you got me thinkin’, you sorta planted a seed
‘Cause you know this might be just the kind of love that I need
Naw, your train’s off the track, you’re from the loony bin
You know that brain that you ordered? Well it never came in
Or else you’ve fallen on your head and all your brains leaked out
‘Cause your lights are on, but ain’t nobody in your house
Your elevator doesn’t quite reach the top floor
I think you’re out in left field, and I could say a lot more
But you don’t care what I think, it doesn’t matter what I’m tellin’ you
You got the love of Jesus, and he’s the one compellin’ you to love
Like he does
You gotta love like he does
You gotta love like he does
‘Cause if the world’s ever gonna change
We gotta love like crazy

Copyright 2005 Clumsy Fly Music (ASCAP)

I is in college

2006-02-07T17:09:00.000-06:00

this was taken from a greg's blog. read what he wrote about it:

This was taken directly outside my window. I work in the Administration Building (home to the President, numerous Vice-Presidents, and pretty much most of the academic staff) of your friendly Church of Christ-affiliated institution of higher education located in a West Texas town not named Lubbock!

I Like Churches of Christ

2006-02-06T18:22:00.000-06:00

this post is a copy of the body of a blog. the blogger that i copied it from is a grad student at acu. his name is greg kendallball. i copied it because it is kinda the way i feel about the way churches of Christ are headed, have been, and are today. i second what the title of this blog says. i welcome your comments and thoughts.

I like our congregational autonomy. There is wisdom in not having a central governing authority to make decisions for each and every congregation. While the lack of a magisterium (official teaching office) can be a drawback, the freedom and agility our current structures give to each body of believers, in their context, is a good thing. What “works” for a church in Manhattan probably doesn’t “work” for the church in Brownwood, Texas. And vice versa. What it means to “be” the church differs from Miami to Seattle. Each of our congregations has a story that has shaped it, and it is a good thing to trust the work of the Holy Spirit in each of those places to continue that story. Unity, hopefully. Uniformity, no way.

I like our a capella singing. Most often we hear arguments AGAINST musical accompaniment, but rarely do we hear an argument FOR a capella music. Or, if we do, it’s basically the “This is the way the early church did it, so we therefore have an example from Scripture. Also, Scripture tells us to worship this way, so we have the command. We also don’t read of pianos in the early church, so we can necessarily infer that we should only sing.” What about the arguments for the beauty of the human voice, lent to the beauty of the music and words written by great theologians and poets? What about the simplicity of it all? In an age where the world tells us bigger, faster and louder is better, how great is it to step into a church and have a period of rest, of simplicity, of quietude? To me, a capella singing is a sort of refuge from the world. I’ve been to high churches and the bells and organs can be beautiful, but it’s not simple by any means.

I like our emphasis on baptism. While our emphasis may sometimes be wrongly placed on the mechanics of it all (when, why, how, how old, by whom, etc.), I am so glad our heritage is one that stresses the importance of baptism. It is something that can be redeemed and built upon. We can do a better job of teaching the significance of it. But, at least we have it, and we don’t have to try to convince people of the importance of it. Some people may be embarassed by our preoccupation with this “event,” but I like it. How can making this sacrament, in which one dies to one’s self and puts on Christ, becomes a new creation, is cleansed and made white as snow, a central part of our faith be a bad thing? We just need to work on it a little.

I like our “Twice on Sundays, and Wendesday nights” mentality. Sometimes we may have thought of this in legalistic terms, as some sort of reference to not forsaking the assembly, but it shows that there is an underlying commitment to community. Couple this with our many potlucks and dinners and family nights and other community-focused events and you see that as a movement, we take community very seriously. While I don’t attend a church three times a week now, I still love my church. It feels good to be among people who are committed to the way of Christ, to building up and lovingly correcting and supporting and challenging each other. No matter how “right” another church may get things, I would not want to be a part of a church that did not emphasize community, or didn’t care if you came three times a week or three times a year.

I like our potlucks. I bet I have eaten more spaghetti casserole or fried chicken than a person has any right to.

I like our future. We cannot escape our past, nor hide from it, not disown it. We have come to where we are today because of things that have happened. Personalities have shaped our thinking on pretty much everything, and we stand on their shoulders. But, we are not limited by our past, either. We are not locked into certain legalistic tendencies. Just because we have been exclusivist doesn’t mean we are doomed to forever think this way. Our future is bright. We have a lot to offer the Christian world. I have met some very bright, very promising people who make me hopeful for where we’ll be in 20 or 30 years. I think we’ll be in a good place.

For all its warts and pimples and scars, I like Churches of Christ.

need a book to read?

2006-02-06T08:54:00.000-06:00

this one that i recommend. it is a great book on the prayer of Jesus . we, the wife and i, met the author in a little bookstore in granbury, texas, not far from danny's place . ken signed our copy we bought and another of his books that i will blog about in the future.

(this is a recreated post. the original is lost in cyber space somewhere.)

some more history for ya'

2006-02-06T08:44:00.000-06:00

He started his professional career as radio host in Iowa, served in the Army Air Corp during World War II, and became an actor, appearing in over 50 films. He was President of the Screen Actors Guild, switched from Democrat to Republican, and became Governor of California. At the age of seventy, he was the oldest person elected President of the United States. In 1981 he survived an assassination attempt.

Who was he? Ronald Reagan, born this day, February 6, 1911. President Ronald Reagan stated at Reunion Arena, Dallas, Texas, 1984:

"If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under."

a neat piece of history, and an example of unity

2006-02-03T09:40:00.000-06:00

On the frigid night of February 3, 1943, the Allied ship Dorchester plowed through the waters near Greenland. At 1:00am, a Nazi submarine fired a torpedo into its flank, killing many in the explosion and trapping others below deck. It the ensuing chaos, four chaplains: a priest, a rabbi and two protestant ministers; distributed life jackets. When there were none left, the four chaplains ripped off their own jackets and put them on four young men. Standing embraced on the slanting deck, the chaplains bowed their heads in prayer as they sank to their icy deaths. Congress honored them by declaring this "Four Chaplains Day."

can you believe this?

2006-02-02T22:11:00.000-06:00

can you believe this? especially since it just a few days since we lost the wife of fallen civil rights leader mlk jr. this just amazes me. i can't believe it!

NAACP chairman compares GOP to Nazis
Bond delivers blistering partisan speech in North Carolina
Posted: February 2, 2006
1:00 p.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Civil rights activist and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond delivered a blistering partisan speech at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina last night, equating the Republican Party with the Nazi Party and characterizing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell, as "tokens."

"The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side," he charged.

Calling President Bush a liar, Bond told the audience at the historically black institution that this White House's lies are more serious than the lies of his predecessor's because Clinton's lies didn't kill people.

"We now find ourselves refighting old battles we thought we had already won," he said. "We have to fight discrimination whenever it raises its ugly head."

He referred to former Attorney General John Ashcroft as J. Edgar Ashcroft. He compared Bush's judicial nominees to the Taliban.

The talk so infuriated at least one black family in attendance among the 900 in the auditorium that they got up and walked out in protest.

"He went on and on name calling," said Lee Wilson. "I walked out in the middle of his speech with my wife and three kids"

The harsh partisan rhetoric from Bond should not have surprised anyone who has followed him in recent years.

In July 2001, Bond said, "[Bush] has selected nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics, appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing, and chosen Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection."

a prayer

2006-02-01T08:59:00.000-06:00

i carry this in my wallet. i typed it up on a card and laminated it. does this sound familiar?

Our Father, Who dwells in infinite light, and above everything, we proclaim You as Holy, and we pray now that You will reign here in every human's heart even as You reign over the heavens.

We pray that You will give us what we need to survive today and we'll count on You to do that again tomorrow.

We pray that You will forgive us for all the ways we fail to be Your children, even as we compassionately forgive those around us.

We pray You will not lead us in over our head, but by Your power You will deliver us from the one in control of this world.

So that in the fullness of time You should crush him, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess You, who is now Lord, as Lord. In whose name we pray.

Amen.

fyi: i transcribed this from a "lecture." can you guess who the speaker was?