worship tomorrow

mortuary last supper #3i figure i would make sure y’all new that the youth praise band (those who shall remain nameless – a name that i gave to them because they never would figure out a name and one that i now like) will be playing in the old gym service tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. does anybody have in worship songs that they absolutely want to sing? now would be the time to suggest – though there are not promises that we will sing it.

pride & prejudice

i am very prideful. for me much of that pride comes in the form of wanting to do things at a pretty high level. i want the things that i do to stand out as original, creative, and quality. i believe that allot of people don’t see this because i try to do the opposite of what my prideful self wants. my prideful self wants to do things that i receive the credit for so instead i try to be laid back and pass credit towards other people. this doesn’t always work and therefore allot of times i do things for my glory rather than for GOD’s glory.

i tell you the above to set up the following – i had a very prideful moment tonight. i try to walk montana, our basset hound, every other day or so. i love walking montana. it is a very peaceful time during which i can either just enjoy the quiet or take my ipod and listen to music or messages. tonight i decided to listen to a rob bell message on community when my prideful moment happened. during the intro bell talked about what he had discussed during his previous two week’s messages. apparently during the previous weeks before this message on community bell had talked about about the concept of “journey” within the scripture. i hadn’t heard the message but all i was concerned about was how similar his message was to my message from this past week at “the view.” all i was worried about was that anyone hearing my message might think that i stole ideas from rob bell.

how stupid is this? first, rob bell is an amazing speaker. i have taken ideas from him before (though i ask permission via email first and give him credit during the message when i do). if i had known that he was speaking on journeying before i spoke on it you better believe that i would have listened to the message and gladly used ideas if they fit. second, the only reason i was worried about rob bell messages was that i simply didn’t want anyone who heard my message thinking that i had not come up with the message myself. it was entirely about me wanting the credit from what others considered a good idea. this is pathetic. finally, i continually forget that everything is dependent upon the HOLY SPIRIT and not me. it’s not my skill (of which there isn’t much) that reaches people and brings healing. nope it’s the power of GOD. this is why sometimes messages that I think are great don’t seem to move anyone and other times messages that i thought completely sucked end up with people running towards GOD. HE does all the work i am merely a very poor instrument and therefore HE should get all the credit.

so part of my healing is telling y’all how prideful i am.

my name is robert and i am a very screwed up human being.

it’ll make your tongue stand up and slap your brain silly

friday is my day off which means that i stay home, wash clothes, watch another dvd of the third series of 24 (i only have two more discs left to watch before i’m completely caught up) and do some reading. i had accomplished the first three of these tasks and was about to start reading when i received an email from a friend concerning “emergent church” thought. so i wrote my thoughts down concerning his question, asked him what he thought, and then decided that i felt a little hungry (lunch for me today was a weird combination of peanut butter sandwiches and chips & salsa). i went to search through the kitchen for something snack-able only to realize that we are at the end of the grocery cycle and therefore all the good snack food is long sense history being consumed by the two little snack garbage disposals that live in my house. yet i was desperate and i went on a search of the cabinets hoping to find some small tidbit to satisfy my craving.

that’s when i found a bag of lowrey’s microwave pork rinds. i was a little worried because sticking chunks of dried pig skin into a microwave seems chancey to me. you just never no how it’s going to turn out when you do something like that. so i placed the bag (which looks like a bag of microwave popcorn) into the microwave and set the timer. after three minutes i opened the bag and decided to take the risk of eating the microwave pork rind.

my risk taking behavior was rewarded by the wonderful taste of warm pork rinds. oh boy, were they good. it’s really odd to think that fried pig skin could taste so good.

last night

i thought the ladies and gents who helped set-up and arrange the view last night did a great job. it was a fantastic night and a large part of that was because of your labor and concern. i am continually amazed by what you guys do.

the crosshandship
refreshmentthe walking labyrinth
shoes #2

SIDE NOTE – here’s the powerpoint presentation just in case you want to see it again.

shoe testimonies

even the (shoes) will cry outi figured i would post a couple of the testimonies that were given with the shoes that we used as remiders of journeying with GOD. these testimonies were written concerning shoes that people donated to be a part of our worship service.

    At first glance, they seem insignificant, even useless. They’re just a beat up pair of running shoes, not even fit to be given to Goodwill. When I was little, my mom would call them “grass cutting shoes” because that’s all they are good for. But listen closely and hear the story they have to tell.

    Where did I get these shoes?
    I bought them in San Francisco, Ca. The whole family lived there for a summer. Just before that trip, we paid off some major debt that had stacked up over the years. For Susie especially, it was a first sense of financial freedom. She accepted the summer of fun in the California sun as a blessing from God, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. These shoes were the first thing that I purchased for years that didn’t make Susie cringe when balancing the checkbook. Why is that relevant now? Without freedom from debt, following God’s call to be missionaries would be impossible.

    Why did I get these shoes?
    Over the two previous years before staying in California, I lost 70 pounds. A lot of that is attributed to a rigorous, daily exercise routine in which I wore out my shoes. These shoes were bought as part of a continuing physical maintenance program. Why is that relevant now? Without freedom from obesity, following God’s call to be missionaries would be impossible.

    Where have these shoes been?
    Frankly, they’ve been all over the world, but no place as important as Chattanooga, Tennessee on June 05, 2004. What happened there changed my life. Very few would be surprised to know that I was at an Audio Adrenaline concert. Very few would be aware that for a month before that concert, I’d been dealing with a call to foreign missions. I was (and am) working with Audio Adrenaline to raise funds to build an Orphanage in Haiti. The mission work was called “The Hands and Feet Project” after AudioA’s hit single. While pondering and praying over the logistics of a national fund raising plan, God was calling me to a more permanent position on the foreign mission field. During the Chattanooga concert, I accepted the call. I cried the whole way through “Hand and Feet” and have at almost every concert since that day.

    Why are these shoes here?
    These shoes are here because I have pretty feet. There’s nothing special about my feet. They stink; they need Desenex on occasion; I get an ingrown nail from time-to-time. But I am the Hands and Feet of Jesus. I bring the Good News to others and it’s my feet that make that happen. According to God’s word, that makes them pretty.

another one:

    My name is Susie Austin and these are my shoes. I remember when I bought them. They looked awesome in the store and I got a great deal on them. The first time I wore them to work though, they HURT my feet so bad. I had blisters on my heels and it felt like a vice had been clinching my toes for hours! Luckily, I am not one to give up or waste money, so I was going to do whatever it took to break in these shoes. Many days and many miles down the road, they have become a staple in my wardrobe, a part of me. It just comes natural to pick up these shoes and wear them almost on a daily basis.

    Last year, God began preparing me for a new challenge in my life. He began gradually breaking me into an uncomfortable area that He wanted me explore. Throughout, these past months as I’ve walked in these shoes, I have experienced “blisters” as my plans have been put on hold. I have felt the vice clinch my heart as I have had to make life changing decisions…I have had to learn to walk an uncomfortable walk in order to go where God is leading.

    The funny thing is, kind of like these old shoes, I am not exactly sure when God “broke me in” to the peace and comfort of knowing that He is in control….but I know that He is. I now thank God for the assurance that all the uncertainty, all the searching and all the breaking in it took was worth it.

    Now it’s time for a new adventure with God, I am ready to break in another pair of new shoes.

the view – april 27, 2005

it’s kind of weird how things work out on worship services. tonight we did our service on journeying with GOD. as i discussed in a previous blog entry we setup the whole student center to teach the message. i figured it would take students and adults about 15 minutes to go through what we had setup. the first three people to go through it just walked straight through without considering any of it. truthfully i was hurt and ticked. we had spent allot of time on the whole things and they just blew through it. i’m such an idiot. the remaining people spent 50 minutes going through what was supposed to take 15 minutes at the most. they just kept on praying and praying. it really put me in my place for getting all pouty about the first few people rushing through.

anyways i posted pictures of the night below (it was dark in some rooms so the pictures are kind of grainy) and here’s the powerpoint from the evening.

the crosshandship
refreshmentthe walking labyrinth
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IMG_0067_edited-1

amaztype

journey
this has been around for awhile now and thus many of you have probably seen it already but amaztype is incredible. i’ve goofed off with it before but i finally put it to use for a graphic for a powerpoint presentation and it looks wonderful. i first heard about it from youthblog.

you put in any word you want and the website makes a flash image of the word out of book covers that contain the word. you can then click on any of the book covers and it will give you the information on the book. of course, you can also just take a screen shot of the word and convert it into an image for use in anything you want.

in this case, it is the title for our worship service tomorrow night.

typogenerator does basically the same thing using any phrase you type in and composing an image from various images it finds from google images. here’s an image i made with “typogenerator” from the phrase “not all who wander are lost.”
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