So they picked Andrew Phillips as our new education/involvement minister, beginning in May. That’s cool. Andrew’s a nice guy and should do well. I know a few men inside of the congregation tried out. The only awkward position you put yourself in when choosing a new staff member….trying not to hurt others’ feelings when choosing. Andrew has been trained properly. Using that knowledge will make him a good minister. Even though technically he’s outside of the congregation, he is known by many inside of the congregation since he was youth intern in 2000. This should put him at an advantage over someone brand new to the congregation…..(i.e. how can one get someone involved in church activities if they do not know the congregation).
I don’t know Andrew well. My fault. I was busy with China and other things during the Summer of 2000.
So anyways I’ve setup a referral thingy to try to show me where vistors are coming from. Specifically it shows me what URL (web address) is linking to me. I know of a few friends who are linking to me. And I don’t mind that. What is troubling to me is people who are mere aquaintances or just plain strangers who are reading this. Why are they here? They are probably getting the wrong impression of me simply by looking at my online self. That’s the same reason why I was forced to take down my archives. Some people take this journal way too seriously. I wouldn’t want whatever I wrote in 2001 to influence someone in how I feel today. What’s past is past. I look forward to the future. This journal thingy revolves each day I write in it. You’ll get something new everyday. If you dwell on the past you are doomed to repeat your past mistakes.
So anyways my referral thingy holds 50 URLs. And I don’t know 50 people who link to me. I don’t even know 50 people online with webpages. Sure, my AOL buddy list is full with 200 friends. But none of them bother (or even need) webpages.
So these anti-smoking ads from TheTruth.com are getting on my nerves. Yeah, we know that smoking is bad….even worse than that, it’s politically incorrect. This is what they use the tobacco settlement money for. Stupid slickly produced MTV-esque commericals. How about some ads fighting underaged drinking (which is more of a problem than smoking)? How about some anti-marijuana ads? Whoops! I forgot….MTV thinks smoking marijuana is a personal decision and shouldn’t be bothered with. MTV gleefully plays pro-drug bands and rappers…but at the same time plays anti-smoking ads. What’s the deal with this hypocracy? Which is the biggest evil? Smoking or illegal drugs? Somehow I wish that marijuana would become politically incorrect.
I’ve been made a part of Josh’s movie review page. Dr. Whittle’s Can-tankerous Movye Rating Systeme. I feel so honored. Came up with the idea of the rating system. How quaint. Maybe the world likes me after all.
It snowed last night and I didn’t even realize it. Watching cable TV keeps you out of the loop sometimes. It’s all gone now. Kids will go to school tomorrow. At least around here.

It’s that feeling you get when you get some sleep, yet you feel as though you haven’t gotten enough sleep. I’m pretty tired. Slept from 7:30AM til 1PM, but I don’t recall ever getting into that deep sleep that revigorates you.
So the lock-in went well. The kids let me listen to Lightning 100 when driving the van and I was happy. They didn’t understand Lightning 100, but then again no one does. I’ve heard anything from Willie Nelson to Newsboys on there. Here is just a small sampling of songs I heard last night:

• Counting Crows – “Big Yellow Taxi” – Cover of that Joni Mitchell tune. The funny thing is that it is a hidden track on their latest album. Yet it’s become a hit for them. Imagine that. A song which was sorta an afterthought for their album, becomes the biggests hit from the album.
• Jars of Clay – “Unforgetful You” – I had heard this song before, but never actually realized that it was Jars. I like Jars. I like them despite their participation in Winterfest. They do preach Christian themes without getting too preachy….not shoving the Gospel down my throat.
• Ben Folds Five – “Battle of Who Could Care Less” Good song. It was a semi-hit way back when. That’s what makes Lightning 100 different from 107.5 The River. While the River handicaps itself by playing ONLY top 40 junk, Lightning 100 is still cool enough to pull a hit from 1995 and play it.

At one point the kids did change the radio to 102.9 The Buzz, Nashville’s Angry Young Man station (actually the correct label genre is “Modern Rock.”) Plays stuff like System of a Down and Nine Inch Nails. The NIN I can take. The rest of the songs I haven’t heard of. I felt lost listening to that. Still it was better than any of the junk the River plays.
Anyways back to the lock-in. After Lipscombland we went skating in Brentwood. Author’s note: Has skating and Brentwood ever been used in the same sentence? But I digress. Skating was good. Carpet on the walls to prevent bruises. “I can’t skate” was the cry of many of our people. But they DID skate and had a good time.
I found refuge in a “party room” nearby. Amongst the party hats and birthday favors, was a bench to lie down on. The room was dark. That was enough. I could have done without the DJ and his sound system urging everyone to do the hokey pokey. But otherwise I did get some rest.
At 4AM we left and went to a bowling alley “Strike and a Spare,” in Bellevue somewhere. It was more than a bowling alley. It was part of some kinda a Circus World arcade. Made bowling fun. They had cool little computer animation for spares, splits, and strikes. And it told the speed of the ball traveling down the lane (fastest ball I saw was 20MPH – thrown by Phil). Anyways they turned on the blacklight and everything glowed. Everyone was happy.
I was too tired to bowl. All I wanted to do was sit around and watch the sideline TV show “Bosom Buddies” – a topic which aludes many of our youth. “Tom Hanks!” I scream from the comfort of my sideline chair. This was his first big break. Kinda like seeing George Clooney on “Facts of Life” or Leo on “Growing Pains.” Kids don’t understand this. Kids haven’t heard of Bosom Buddies. I soon grew tired of saying “See that guy in the pink dress, well he’s the guy in “Saving Private Ryan.”
They played Nelly’s “Hot in Here” over the speaker system. At that point I had to ask myself if it was hypocritical for us to allow them to play what is obviously a sexual song when we had just preached against. Whoever picked that song made a mistake, whether it was the bowling alley staff or someone from within our own group.
Anyways Crieve folks were nice and friendly. I thanked Tim for allowing us to tag along on their activity. Well organized. Everyone knew that they were doing and did it. There wasn’t too much confusion about it.
It has been raining seemlingly for days now. Flood watches are everywhere. On my way back from getting lunch I saw a guy with a sign in front of the local Wal-Mart. The sign advertised Kmart’s going out of business sale. It was raining pretty steadily, yet the guy did have on a poncho. I feel pretty sorry for this guy. What a miserable job.
Anyways I decided to come up with a list rain inspired songs for floor watches.

• Led Zeppelin – “When the Levee Breaks”
• Jars of Clay – “Flood” – and yes, I did realize this is the 2nd time I’ve mentioned JoC in this entry.
• Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”
• Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Who’ll Stop the Rain?”

There are tons more.
Well that’s it for now. Bye bye kiddies.

Well here I am at Lipscomb University – Bison Room. It’s located in the basement of the Students’ Center. They have really spruced things up since I left. They always do. I remember when they built a Sonic Restaurant right beside my high school…the year after I graduated.
Anyways here at the Bison Room, they have Laser Tag, large screen TVs, pool tables, video games, foosball, etc…. They also have a computer lab with 5 computers. I had to wait for someone to stay logged on before I could get this computer. This would have been great to have when I was here. Maybe this is what they used my tuition money for. This had to have cost quite a bit of money.
Phil has me driving Ole Blue church van. Drives like a tank. Accelerates like a tank. I think it was used in the Gulf War. Man, this van has alot of memories in it. If these walls could talk. It’s been around since my sister was in the youth group at church. It was a big deal to them to get such a van in 1989. First used in some kinda mission trip to Valdosta, Georgia.
Lock-in is going smoothly. No one missing. Everyone having a good time. I’m not sure how sleepy I’m going to get. I’m already sorta tired. And I drank a Mountain Dew at the church before I came here.
There’s a huge number of people here. Mostly from Crieve Hall. They brought about 4 of those big church vans. I think they outnumber the MJ people 5 to one or something. We have about 20 kids here from Mt. Juliet.
Next is bowling somewhere in Hillwood. The state’s 2nd largest bowling alley (or so I’m told). So it will be a site.
That reminds me. I was told that Knoxville was hosting some big bowling convention for several months. There were signs up saying “Welcome Bowlers.”
Anyways I don’t have much else to say. Maybe somehow I’ll stay awake through this. Ryan V. already went home. Sick I guess. So it’s just me and Phil and the adults from Crieve to keep watch. And what am I doing? Writing in this stupid blog. Well gotta go, kids…..

So I’m doing the lock-in tonight. I’m not sure if I’m up to staying up all night, although I have been staying up til 1AM lately. Maybe that and caffeine will help.
Phil has us going all over the city. Bowling, Lipscomb, Crieve Hall Church of Christ. You name it, we’ll probably be going there. We’re starting at 9PM, which makes me think that some of these semi public places that we’re going to might have special arrangements to have us at 1AM. I don’t know for sure. I just drive the church van and count kids.
You know, I haven’t bought any duct tape or plastic sheets to make a safe room yet. This whole orange terror alert is based on false information. “What me worry?” I don’t really have time to worry if smallpox is going to be released at our malls. Worrying shortens my lifespan in the longrun. Plus I hardly think that Nashville or anyplace in Tennessee is relatively high on the terrorists’ list of targets. Unless they have something against country music or Elvis, but then again, who doesn’t have something against country music? So why bother worrying about this? Safe rooms? Might be good for somebody in Manhattan. But not in Mt. Juliet.
So today is what they call Valentine’s Day. More than likely the Olive Garden will be packed with couples staring at each other in dim candlelite. Me, I’m doing a church lock-in. Not that I would have done anything anyways. Valentine’s Day has always aluded me in a way. Yet I am sorta glad of that. Girlfriends would be expecting chocolate or flowers or some other meaningless thing like that.
Still, CBS did give me some good eye candy to look at when they showed Survivor Amazon last night. Heidi. Man, is she cute. And a P.E. teacher. My P.E. teachers were never that beautiful.

Because I am such a big nerd, I decided to go through all the 100+ sermon articles on the church webpage and automatically link the scripture references on them to the appropriate scripture references on the Bible Gateway webpage. I found a cool plugin for Movable Type which helped me out tremendously. It’s terribly nerdy for me to do this, and I don’t think anyone really is loosing any sleep over this. But I figure, why not make this the best looking church webpage which no one looks at?
In any case, I think the church webpage is up for an overhaud. A redesign just to keep everyone interested. David Shannon’s theme for 2003 is “Taste of Thee in 2003,” so I might incorporate that into the design banners.

So we finished up Acts 7 tonight in Bible class. The kids seemed lethargic. I fumbled and stumbled through the chapter trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about. My only salvation is that my co-teacher helped me out tremendously during class by giving relavent comments. I’m not sure if I am doing any good. All teachers wonder this at some point. Are they actually learning anything? Am I getting through? Do I have the talent to do this?
The Nebraska Bias on Jeopardy.

“We’re not allowed to bring the Bible to school.” That was a quote from tonight’s King of the Hill episode (in syndication on WUXP). It was something about a Kid’s mock court. During the swearing in ceremony they used a Harry Potter’s book instead.
Anyways during my day, kids did bring their Bible to school. Some were quite showy in making sure everyone saw their Bible. Find the biggest Bible you can find and bring it to all your classes. Of course, I never actually saw them reading it. Just carrying it around. Maybe they did. I don’t know. My memory is foggy on that. Not necessarily a slam. Just an observation that some people may have brought their Bible for the wrong reasons.
Me? I never really had time to read the Bible during school. (Maybe that’s the wrong attitude to have). I guess I was too busy studying for my next test. It’s just that if I were to bring a bible, it would be one of those Gideon Bibles which would easily fit inside my backpack. Doesn’t the Bible say don’t be showy about your religion? Pray at home, not in the streets in front of everybody.
Then again there was that weird time in 5th grade when the Gideons did come and gave us all Bibles. They didn’t really just force it into our hands, they just said “Here’s some Bibles. We hope you’ll take one and read it.” That was it. Still makes those ACLU folks cringe.
Then I moved on to Lipscomb, where bringing a Bible to class was not only expected, it was required in Bible class. Some of the Bible classes started with a prayer and song. Tom Seals was good about that. Those Bible classes helped me learn how to actually study it. Never actually studied it before, except to do those 2 minute quizes during Sunday School classes.
Anyways students should be allowed to express themselves religiously by being allowed to read the Bible to oneself in school. I just hope they’re doing it for the right reasons.
Fear Factor. I suspect this show might be on its last legs. I can’t imagine this show lasting longer than 2 seasons. No one really wants see people eating disgusting foods on a weekly basis.

Like I said before, I am planning on going to El Salvador on a mission trip in April. At the point I decided on it, the biggest worry on my mind was whether or not I would have a job at that point…and if I could get out of work for it. That’s it. The biggest worry.
However from talking with a friend of mine (who is also going on this mission trip), I see that there are other worries that I hadn’t thought about. Such as war with Iraq. If a war starts are we going to be overrun with terrorism? Will we have a catastrophic day like September 11th? My biggest worry would be the plane ride to and from El Salvador. The country of El Salvador is not exactly a hotbed of muslim extremism. So I doubt that we’d be in much danger while down there.
I guess there are some things which you have to put in God’s hands. There are some things I can’t control. War with Iraq is one of them. So I choose not to worry about that. I can control if I go to El Salvador. I’ve made my choice to go and intend to stick to my choice.
I used to worry alot. Sometimes about tornados. Sometimes about germs. I’ve learned not to worry about that anymore. I still worry too much. I worry about what people think of me. I know I shouldn’t, not as much as I do. But I still worry.
What I’ve got to continue to tell myself is to leave it in God’s hands. God loves me so much. He has blessed me. Why would He put me into a situation that I can’t handle? He brought me in and out of China twice without any problems. Why would El Salvador be any different?

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”
Luke 12:25 NIV

As far as the war with Iraq is concerned, it may just happen pretty soon. Who knows? I suspect it will be a short war like Afghanistan. However it could drag on for months. Who knows?
I suspect Saddam Hussein can and will use chemical weapons on our troops. I’m not excited about war. It’s a bad thing. I certainly don’t trust Saddam at all and strongly suspect he is arming terrorists. Can we afford to let this happen? Can we afford another September 11th? I suspect GWB knows more than the average citizen about Iraq. They could have a bomb and would sell it to the highest bidding terrorist in a heartbeat. Maybe the time for war is urgent. I’m glad I don’t have to make decisions like that.
Catch me if you can: Man sneaks into 33 Super Bowls without a ticket and he’s going to try again.
Nell Carter is dead. I remember her well. Watching “Gimmie a Break” over at my grandmother’s house in the summer. The episode I remember her for is the one where she accidentially killed Joey’s fish by sticking her vacuum drape attachment in the aquarium. How brutal. Then they showed it at the beginning of each episode during the credits. This was insensitive to aquarium enthusiasts. But I got over it. And it was a pretty funny show. I just closed my eyes during the opening credits.

For Wednesday night Bible class I’m teaching the rest of Acts 5 past the Ananias and Sapphira part. Apparently during the last class, they only got through the first 11 verses about Ananias and Sapphira being struck dead. The part about God striking people dead is a hard concept to grasp, not just for 6th graders, but for everyone. I read that part when I was 11 or 12 and began to really fear God at that point.
Anyways the rest of the chapter can be summarized thusly: Apostles preach the Gospel, get put in prison, then get released. And that’s pretty much it. Oh yeah, there’s more to it than that, which I will dwell on during class. But it certainly isn’t as interesting as the Ananias & Sapphira part.
Last time in class the kids were pretty active and seemed to ask alot of questions. We got off on what happens to you when you die… pretty philisophical and definitely couldn’t be thoroughly answered in the brief time in class.
It is official. They are closing the Hermitage Kmart. How sad. Maybe we’ll get lucky and a Target will move in there. But I don’t think we’ll get that lucky. We already are going to be getting a big giant Super Walmart in Hermitage. Ugh. Walmart. Is anything worse than that? Crowded aisles. Jumbled merchandise. By contrast Target’s aisles are nice and wide and organized. Walmart has us all fooled into thinking their prices are always lower. They aren’t. Since they are so crowded, their customer service is terribly lacking. When America realizes that is when Walmart goes out.
Let me just note this. Freed Hardeman University’s website ( www.fhu.edu ) is terribly annoying with the flash plug-in. Being annoyed by an animation with music is not exactly what I want when I surf the web. I especially don’t want to hear it each time I go back to the main page. “Flash” is just that – all flash and no substance.
I am still trying to figure out why the American Music Awards had the Osbournes hosting it. Do the producers of this awards show want to trash any bit of legitamacy that had by doing this?
Speaking of music, I seem to have been listening to Bruce Springsteen alot here lately. While I was getting my teeth cleaned at the denist’s office “Glory Days” was playing on the radio. While I drove back from lunch I listened to “Dancing in the Dark.” Remember when Tom Petty came along and critics said he was the new Bob Dylan? Then Springsteen came along a few years after that and people said he was the new Dylan. Just who is the new Dylan? Petty has put out a bit more albums than Springsteen. Most people remember Dylan for “Born in the USA” while Petty has several hits under his belt.

I had volunteered to do the 4th-6th grade devotional this month. Originally it was scheduled for the evening of January 26th. But mysteriously it was moved up to this Sunday, January 12th. I’m skiing this weekend and will have some trouble getting a devotional together. I like to practice the devotional several times so I don’t look like an idiot in front of a bunch of preteens.
For a while, I was bewildered as to why the devotional was moved up all of a sudden. Then it hit me: Super Bowl Sunday. No one wants to think of God on Super Bowl Sunday. We might as well cancel evening services all together since our football gods will be playing in the game of a lifetime.
It is amazing how much emphasis we, as a society, place on sports. We pay homage to the endzones of salvation. Miss a game? Never. Miss a church service? Well, God will understand.
Football fans around here are just like that fake patriotism you saw in the weeks following September 11th. Where were the flags on September 10th? And where are the Titans paraphernalia when they are on a loosing streak? Fairweather fans. Just ask the Bengals where their support is. Is anyone wearing a Bengal striped shirt in the vicinity of Cincinatti? The same thing can happen here should our beloved Titans have a loosing season.
Since Yahoo Internet Life magazine’s untimely demise, I’ve received my first issue of “Entertainment Weekly,” which is apparently the next best thing to YIL. I would have preferred a subscription to Wired magazine, but I guess Wired wasn’t under the magazine umbrella-conglomerate which YIL was under. Enterntainment Weekly is alot of fluff. Not once in an article about a new reality tv show, “Surreal Life” did they mention what time the show aired. Just this bit of pernitent information would have been helpful. Needless to say, once this subscription is up, I won’t be renewing it.