The church directories are supposed to be out soon. We actually had our pictures made at Christmastime, but somehow it took this long to get them. Anyways Kevin Bass gave me a CD from Olan Mills which contains pictures of the all the families at church. Sorta sad looking through this because some of the people have since stopped coming. Church is a revolving door of people. Just as some leave, more come in. Makes this directory out of date before it is even published.
I am afraid of change. Before being laid off I was pretty confident with myself and my abilities. Now, afterwards, I am not very confident with myself. I am somehow apprehensive about changing jobs…or actually going out on interviews. All of these job descriptions seem so overwhelming….

Today I talked to my minister, David Shannon, about my job situation. He gave some good advice. He told me to make as many contacts as possible. He gave me the names of some people to talk to at church. David is a very sincere person and is a good listener. I guess that’s why he is the preacher.
I’ve got to prepare a devotional for the pre-teen youth devotional this Sunday night after church. I’ve selected the topic of “Looking for Good Examples and Being a Good Example.” Hopefully I can get one prepared and be able to practice it several times before actually doing it. I’ve been told the kids requested that I give the devotional.
They played a new song on Lightning 100 called “The Last DJ” by Tom Petty. Pretty awesome song. I hope it will get some airplay on some of the mainstream stations.

Last night I overheard one of the kids in Bible class bragging to another kid that he had in-school suspension. The way this kid was telling it, he almost was proud of what he did to get punished. I’m not sure what exactly he did, though. This particular kid had just become a Christian just a month ago. Not to sound judgemental or anything, but it makes me wonder if his change of heart to follow God wasn’t just lip service. Anytime in-school suspension is used, you know it a relatively serious offense…ie knowingly doing something wrong. In any case only time will tell if he actually grows out of this behavior and if he truly decides to follow God.

“The things you believe in
Are the things that’s worth keeping
Make a promise, stand right by your word.”
Better Than Ezra – Circle of Friends

The Today Show lead news story was Who Won American Idol. Note to the major news outlets: I don’t care about American Idol. I have never watched an episode. I didn’t like Star Search and I’m sure I wouldn’t care for this resurrected version. Why is this news?
That front page picture has not been changed in 3 weeks. It’s due the possiblity that #1 It is a cool nondescript picture….and #2 I haven’t done anything significant since that picture was taken. Don’t worry. I’ve got a few church activities coming up, so the picture will change soon. In fact I guess you can tell by the mood of this weblog, I don’t do much at all. Mostly these stories are of church activities. Sorry to sound so monotonous, but it is what I do. The anniversary of September 11th is coming up, so I’m sure I’ll have something to say about that.
Has anybody noticed that Jerry Lewis has really let himself go? Yeah, yeah, blame it on the medication.
FYI: You can’t name your baby Osama Bin Laden in Germany. Take note.
Letter with “Grama in the Blue House” written on it gets delivered to the right person.

Found a cool Bible verse the other day.

“He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.”
Micah 6:8

Not that I’m into Bible thumping. But it is a cool verse. Probably should underline it.
I was promoted to teaching 5th and 6th graders at church tonight. 18 kids in all plus 3 teachers. Tonight’s lesson was review. Blah. The class was mildly chaotic, but never completely out of control. Yes folks, there are Bible questions which I don’t know. Such as who was John the Baptist’s father? So I was in the dark for part of the time…and so was part of the class. Half the class had been promoted, so they had no idea what we were talking about for the review. It could have been planned differently.
In retrospect I don’t remember half the stuff I was taught in elementary Sunday school….which is probably why I was so interested in Old Testament stuff when I got to Lipscomb. In any case I am going to take this teaching duty seriously. Isn’t there a verse in the Bible about discouraging young Christians? Matthew 18:6.
Today I saw a commerical for a kids CD called “Kids Bop 2.” I missed the original Kids Bop CD, so I will have to settle for this mediocre sequel. Basically it is a CD of a bunch of kids singing covers of their favorite pop songs. What drew my attention was one of the songs featured was Uncle Kracker’s “Follow Me.” Anyone who has listened to the song knows that it is about adultery. It’s pretty clear in the lyric “Don’t worry ’bout the ring you wear just as long as no one knows. Then nobody can care….” It’s not just this song. There are a few other questionable songs on this CD. Do the record promoters recognize this? Do they care? Probably not. Neither do the parents who buy this CD. I just find it amusing that this CD is in the “Kids and Family” section of CDNOW.com.

Something funny happened at church Sunday. I’ll share it here. During the church service my family and I were setting somewhat parallel to the baptistry…meaning we could see into the baptistry without any problems. So we had a baptism that morning. After the baptism we could see the preacher getting out of the waders. It just seemed funny at the time since seeing someone change in the middle of church service is not the usual Sunday morning activity. And please note: The preacher was just taking off the waders. He had regular clothes under it. So stop thinking those dirty thoughts, you pervert!
Still it is kinda funny to even see the preacher in waders. It’s like they’re going fishing in the middle of service. Seems so absurd in a logical sense. Full suited preacher in the middle of waist deep water getting ready to dunk someone? I couldn’t come up with that one if I tried. Yet, it is a normal occurance at church these days.
Rarely do you see kids at church baptized by their father. I wonder why. Sometimes the father is not church going. Sometimes the father is just not outgoing enough to perform the act publically. If possible, I would strongly encourage it. Preachers come and go, but fathers are forever.
The bands Goo Goo Dolls, Matchbox 20, and Gin Blossoms are all actually the same band. Think about it. Have you ever seen these bands play the same show together? I didn’t think so. These bands could trade lead singers and play each others songs and you probably won’t know the difference. On a side note I really enjoy the Goo Goo’s new song “Big Machine.” I’m almost embarrassed to admit it since the Goo Goo Dolls are such a girlie band.

I think I figured out that I really prefer David Shannon over our old minister. David is very personable. His sermons have feeling and honesty. For example, our old minister, when focusing on the subject on abortion, would center his sermons around the horrors of abortion without showing much compassion for the hard decisions that some face. By contrast David realized that there are some in the audience who might have had abortions in their past. He didn’t focus on condemning them, but urging them to make things right.
I’ll be one of 3 teachers who will be teaching the 5th and 6th graders at church on Wednesday nights. I am excited about it, but I feel as though it might be overkill having 3 teachers in there. Last year they got by with just 2 teachers. I feel as though I might have strongarmed my way in there by implying that I’d rather teach that age or nothing at all, which isn’t entirely true. I was going to wait and see where I was needed and then consider what was available. I know that it is difficult to find Sunday school teachers and usually try to help out when I can.
Phil loaned me his negatives of pictures from camp. I’m getting 3 copies of all of them. 1 set for myself; 1 set to distribute to friends at church; 1 set for the photo album in the church library. They’re probably many pictures of people who I didn’t know that well at camp. But they still are pictures. Having a digital camera means I don’t fill up my albums as quickly as I did before. Instead my hard drive is filling up.
I’ve got poison ivy from my hiking trip last Saturday. It’s right around my feet where the line of my shoe was. I guess the leaves bled through my socks. I remember walking through some green stuff. The outbreak is only spotty. I’ve been getting by without any medicine.
I’ve discovered the song “Send Me on My Way” by Rusted Root. Great song. One of the few songs makes the pan flute sound great!

My dad says he is thinking about going on a mission trip to El Salvador. He had his passport photo made recently. My gripe is at church they never let the congregation know about upcoming Central American mission trips. They always wait until the last minute and don’t give much advanced notice. If they really wanted to have new people along on the mission trips, they would keep us informed of it. The only problem is that I think they are perfectly happy having the same clique going year after year.
Every preacher has dedicated fans. Unfortunately once the preacher moves away, so does the fan’s committment for church attendance. I’ve seen it happen more than once. It’s unfortunate that people tend to follow men.
I did spend some time tonight trying to convince a friend of mine to go on MJ’s church retreat. But they would not even consider it because they don’t know anyone going. It is frustrating trying to bring people together in a sense of Christian harmony, when they won’t even consider it. I am through trying to bring visitors to retreats.

Am I writing this weblog for myself or for you? Sometimes I can’t tell.
I probably won’t be teaching 4th graders at Sunday school at church once they change classes in a few weeks. We already have a lady teaching in my old slot. They don’t usually like to have men and women teaching Sunday school classes at the same time. Usually it is 2 men or 2 women, but hardly ever mixed, unless the couple is married. So now I’m on standby to teach 5th and 6th graders on Wednesday nights. But who knows if I’ll get it. Probably what will happen is that I’ll be teaching, but not the grade that I first requested. We definitely need teachers….having a difficult time filling positions.
I’d much rather teach on Wednesday nights. There are not very many interesting adult classes to go to on Wednesday nights. I’d much rather use my time wisely and try to help at the same time.
Steve Hale is back with us at church for a Gospel Meeting this week. Steve was our old preacher from about 1987-1998….a very long tenure for preachers these days. Mostly preachers stay for about 7 years….am I right? Interestingly enough I never sat down and had a conversation with Steve. I guess in my own mind I considered him difficult to approach. I wasn’t sure if I could even joke around with him.

The trip to Barren River Lake State Park would have been better if more kids from church had gone. We only had 4 kids, even though 15 signed up. I don’t know why more people didn’t show up. Maybe they woke up, saw it was overcast and decided not to go. It rained when we first got up there, but after about 45 minutes it dried up. We hiked; the kids rode horses (at $12 each, this was too expensive for me). I had a good time, although I felt it could have been much better. Better planning, better weather, better timing….
I should have called some friends from Scottsville to make it more interesting. I didn’t know many of the people who went very well. I did get to know them better, but some of them are on a different wavelength than I am.
The official name for this place is “Barren River Lake State Park.” Is it a river or lake? More of a lake which once was a river. It should have been called Barren Lake just to make it easier on everyone.

We had another baptism at church tonight. It was another kid who was in my cabin at camp. Somehow I guess this revival we’ve been having at church has influenced him.
We had a slight mishap during church service. One of the audiovisual guys (not me) knocked off a clock on the wall. So there was a loud thud during the songs right before the baptism. Everyone thought that someone might have fallen off a pew or something.
I really wish I had something profound to say. But I am out of ideas. Or maybe I have a case of writer’s block. Stay tuned.
Finally had time to put up the camp pictures from Maury Christian Camp online.