That's not only the name of the ice cream I had tonight, it's also the taste of it. I would agree with the comments on the Question post. Cold Stone is definitely the place to go for some yum ice cream. Our friend Heidi was in town, so we took her to Moe's for some good supper, and then followed it up with some ice cream. I've got to start getting healthy again soon.
Word Wednesday is posted every Wednesday. Each week I post a scripture that I've read that week that has spoken to me in a fresh way. I believe that if we read God's Word every day, He will give us at least one scripture every week that will impact us. My hope is to see others comment and share a scripture that they have read.
Every worship leader who leads with a guitar has at least commonality. We all have broken a string while leading worship. It's a weird situation, because you are thinking different things, like "I need to find a second to tune my other 5 strings." Today that happened to me at the end of the first song. Obviously, I should have changed my strings this week, because I had used it a lot more than I thought the last couple of weeks. When I first started leading worship, I led without an instrument a lot, but I haven't done that for 4-5 years. I decided to do that today to keep somewhat of a flow in the worship. Long story short, it turned out to be a really cool and fresh thing, and I felt a lot of freedom. Our church really engaged with the songs, and I could feel their hearts as they sang this morning. Today's focus was patience, so I ended the set by singing "Everlasting God" and our pastor ended his sermon by quoting the scripture in Isaiah, "Strength will rise..." He then called me up to sing the song again at the end of the sermon. It was a really nice way to close out the sermon. Here was the set list:
Some great students from our college class at church and Jennifer and I went to Universal Studios today. We had a lot of fun. Here's a couple pics.
It was fun, but it was really, really hot and crowded. We waited in line for the new Simpsons ride for 90 minutes-that's an hour and a half by my math, and we all agreed it wasn't worth the wait, and for that matter, no ride is worth an hour and a half wait. After this long, heated wait in line I think I discovered a new type of sweat line. I call it the "strap sweat". Only pictures could describe this phenomenon. Here you go...
We also discovered the "Child Swap" area on the rides. If you have a young child that can't ride, you can have one person from your party wait next to the line with the child, and when your party comes back from the ride, you can swap out one person to watch the child, and then you and your party can get right back on the ride. Your friends will love you for it.
They just posted one of my new songs this week. It's called "May Your Kingdom Come". It's been a great song for our church this year, as we've developed more of a heart for the homeless and needy. Click here to check it out.
Word Wednesday is posted every Wednesday. Each week I post a scripture that I've read that week that has spoken to me in a fresh way. I believe that if we read God's Word every day, He will give us at least one scripture every week that will impact us. My hope is to see others comment and share a scripture that they have read.
Today was family picture day. These can be brutal, but it went really well, and we're excited see how they came out. We had two really talented photographers, Mikey Edde and Jason Scroggins
After my gas & guns blog the other day, this kills me (no pun). A Baptist church is giving away a gun to a lucky student as a way of building attendance at their youth rally. The gun, from what the article stated, is an AR15 assault rifle, which I have pictured here. I normally don't like to criticize, but again I just blogged about guns and I ran across this. Suddenly, swallowing gold fish and giving away cars doesn't seem so bad anymore thanks to these guys.
I slept in today again. It was great. I've been loving going to bed with out setting my alarm on my phone. We started off the day by making a Target run. We love some Target. When we dated, we used to go to Target when were bored. I can't remember the last time we were bored. Then we went to a great Mexican restaurant called Jalapenos for lunch. I love living in Melbourne, but there's not a real, real great Mexican restaurant there. Savannah has a plethora of them, and I think Jalapenos is my favorite. After that, my Dad, and Jennifer and I went to an outlet mall. I don't know why, but I cannot stand outlet malls. I dread going to them. Maybe cause they're spread out. It just seems endless. It exhausts me. Anywho, after that I went on a daily walk with my Dad and then the whole gang got together and went to Larry's Giant Subs. This is one of me and Jennifer's favorite sub places.
This is a contribution to Creative Chaos//19 over at Ragamuffinsoul.Word Wednesday is posted every Wednesday. Each week I post a scripture that I've read that week that has spoken to me in a fresh way. I believe that if we read God's Word every day, He will give us at least one scripture every week that will impact us. My hope is to see others comment and share a scripture that they have read.
I am officially on vacation. I'm in Jacksonville, FL tonight at my in-laws house, then on my way to Savannah, GA for a week with my folks. We rented a car for the week. We got a Chevy Impala. I'm enjoying driving it, and it gets good gas mileage. We used barely a quarter of a tank of gas to get to Jacksonville. This has got to be my most thrilling post yet...or not. More to come tomorrow.
So, I went to gas up my car today, and I happened to be in a "rough" area of town, and I got a taste of reality. I had my son with me in the car, and as I was finishing and getting in the car, I noticed a couple of guys and girls yelling at each other, and it was escalating. Next thing I know, one guy reaches in his car and points a towel at the other guy's face. The other guy backed away quickly. Now, either this guy had a certain linen allergy, or there was a gun under the towel. I started making my way out of there quickly, because it was way too intense. I looked back at my son, and he said, "those boys were yelling at each other", and I said "yeah, those are bad boys." I was frightened at the thought of the potential violence in front of me. My first thought was to get out of there, because I could just imagine a stray bullet killing my son or myself. What an awful thought, but that's the kind of stuff that people face on a daily basis in a lot of inner cities across the land of the free. With all of the debates over guns, and the Supreme Court decision, one thing that cannot be debated is that America has a problem. We are littered with gun violence. I'm not going to be against someone owning a gun in general. It's our constitutional right, and I'll support that, but I hate guns. Some people believe that if everyone owned a gun, there would be less violence, but I don't want one. They scare the crap out of me. I always tell people that I will never own a pet that could physically kill me, and that fuels my fear of guns in my house. Again, I'm not against people owning guns. I respect their decision, and there are a lot of people who have the know-how and skill and common sense that it takes to take on that responsibility. What I saw this morning is what scares me, but freedom has a cost. When you give everyone freedom, you're going to have people who will abuse that freedom. I can think of a couple of movies that show the ease of killing that guns have brought to our world. Indiana Jones takes out a gun to end a potential sword fight before it started. The machine gun mowed down the honor of the samurai sword in "The Last Samurai". Guns can kill with ease, and actually the only purpose a gun has is to hurt, harm and kill. Not very positive, and it makes me wonder what our world would be like if Rodger Bacon never invented gun powder in 1249 and the first gun wasn't invented in China in 1250 (I googled it).
So, I am a huge proponent of daily Bible reading. God's Word is powerful and life=changing, and we've got to take advantage of it. It can be a lifeline for us. Whenever I teach about this, I always say that if you read the Bible everyday, you should have at least one scripture or verse a week that sticks out and sticks in your heart. So, I thought I would bring this idea to my blog world. Every Wednesday, I'm going to post scripture(s) that has helped me, and I hope it encourages whoever reads this. If you read my blog regularly at all, I'd love to hear from you every week what scripture has helped you. I give you "Word Wednesday".
I've had another song picked for song of the month at Worshipsource.com. They picked "Holy Reign" for the month of July, so people will get to hear it for the next month. I am honored that God continues to use these little songs outside of our church.
Today, I filmed for 3 hours straight. Not because it was adlibbed or messing around. We had a script, a plan, props, lighting, and a camera. We're doing a new sermon series at our church called "CSI". It's about the fruit of the Spirit. We're doing a little spoof video series on the CSI shows investigating the fruit of the Spirit. This is a 9-week series, and we're showing a new video before each sermon, so we shot everything today. It took a while, but we had fun, and got everything shot, except for one more segment, which we have time to shoot. The actors and myself have a new appreciation for people who do this kind of work day-in and day-out. We were definitely fried by the end. I think it turned out great. We actually did some lighting, so this should make for some great-looking footage. Editing starts tomorrow. That's the funnest part for me.
