preparations for “the view”

wednesday's plan
above is my “cat scratch” dry erase board drawing of the flow of the worship service wednesday, april 27, 2005. we’re going to be dealing with being on journey with GOD – an abraham experience. the way we are doing this is to turn the entire service into a physical journey. here’s what will happen:

  • everyone usually just walks into the the student center auditorium in preparation for the service. wednesday they will start outside and begin walking around the building as a part of the service.
  • this first leg of their walk around the student center will be surrounded by reminders and symbols of beginning a walk with JESUS – these are being developed by a student within the youth ministry.
  • the second leg of the journey around the student center will be surrounded by reminders and symbols of hardships we sometimes face while walking with CHRIST – these are being developed by a student within the youth ministry.
  • the third part of the journey will be surrounded by reminder and symbols of times or refreshing within our walk with our LORD – these are being developed by a student within the youth ministry.
  • the students will then enter the building and walk a labyrinth – to calm their thoughts down and focus on conversing with GOD. i have two students who are setting the labyrinth up.
  • the teens will then enter a room that is full of shoes. for the past three months i have been collecting shoes from individuals who had profound experiences with GOD while wearing those shoes. they have written down a summary of the experiences they had and those experiences will be attached to the shoes. the students will be able to enter the room and browse through the shoes and written testimonies.
  • the students will then enter the auditorium for singing and a message that focus on being on journey with GOD.

if you click on the above picture it will take you to flickr where you can view an image that i marked with the flow of the view. i’ll post pictures after we finish the service.

beware of totzilla

totzilla - large
a few weeks ago i was reading a blog and ran across a description of “totzilla“, the world’s largest natural tater-tot. in the description i found out that “totzilla” was being sold on ebay. i may be a cheap guy but i still know an opportunity when i see one. so i thought i would go and see how much “totzilla” was selling for. when i reached ebay the monster tot was only selling for $3. at that price i had to get this gigantic tot. of course, i wanted to see how much shipping would be before i bought thing – i mean transporting a giant tot can’t be cheap. it was going to cost $15 to ship “totzilla” in dry ice. with shipping in mind i figured i could spend about $25 total. i guesstimated that i could get at least $25 worth of stories and jokes out of possessing the world’s largest tater-tot. so i bid a maximum bid of $10 on the supreme tot. for one day i was the lead bidder on “totzilla”. that day was a glorious days, it’s a day that i will remember always. unfortunately the dream wasn’t meant to last. i was outbid. the problem was that i determined that i could only get $25 worth of enjoyment out of “totzilla” so i had to stick with my bid. in the end his supreme tot-greatness went for $12.01 – a price that was simply too high for my blood.

still i miss the prestige and pride that i might have had from being the owner of the largest natural tater-tot in the world.

you should kill alan

today i found out that alan wrote my real cell phone number in a bathroom stall. now you may be asking yourself, “how did robert find out this information?” well the answer to that question is that i received an anonymous phone call from some strange guy who had seen my number written on the bathroom stall at barnes and noble and decided to give me a call.

next time you see alan please kill him or just email him and tell him he’s a jerk. 🙂

the greatest practical joke ever

the following story was done to me which should make it not funny (because i’m such a nice guy and no one should ever do anything bad to such a nice guy as me) but it’s so good that even i think it is funny. therefore, for you’re amusement i will tell how i have been abused.

i received an anonymous homosexual proposition today on my cell phone. this afternoon i received a phone call with a “724” area code. my usual habit is to ignore phone numbers that i don’t know and wait for a message. so i ignored this phone call until the message arrived. the message said, “i found your number at barnes and noble in the bathroom and was wondering if you would like to get together tonight i’ll be staying at the marriott and if you are interested in getting together tonight call and let me know.” it sounded homosexual to me and i asked a few other people what they thought about a random guy calling and asking me to get together. they all agreed that it sounded gay.

of course, the real question was how did my cell phone number get in the bathroom stall of the barnes and noble book store?

that’s when i remembered having a discussion with alan a few months ago about phone numbers in bathrooms. i need to admit something here. i’m fascinated by “bathroom poetry.” i can’t help it. when i see something written on the stall i just want to read it. i was discussing this with alan a few months ago and we both started wondering if anyone actually ever calls the numbers that are so often a part of the writings found on bathroom stalls. i suggested then that it all might just be a practical joke that friends pull on each other. we both thought that would be a great joke – leaving your friend’s real phone number on the bathroom stall for people to call. apparently, alan thought it was too good of a joke to pass up because he went to barnes and noble and wrote my cell phone number on the bathroom stall.

alan admitted to the whole thing tonight when i confronted him on it. the problem is that i think the whole thing is hilarious. i mean it’s really hard to get mad when i think it’s simply a great practical joke. of course, i’m going to write his phone number in the bathroom of a sleazy truck stop now but i still admire his vigor in getting the first attack.

julius caeser?

julius caesar?
while i was up at church today printing directions to get to sherwood baptist church i went to the bathroom only to run into the above scene. these guys from parkview high school were filming in the bathroom – something i thought was very odd. they told me that they were filming a remake of william shakespeare’s “julius caeser”. this was the scene where the senate meets together to discuss killing caeser. i thought the whole thing was quite funny. my personal favorite is the guy in the sombrero and mask.

thanks for the invite

fca crawfish boil - laurafca crawfish boil - lauren
laura & lauren invited me to come speak at a crawfish boil that their f.c.a. was putting on. ultimately they decided that they didn’t really need a speaker for the event but i still got to eat crawfish. so anytime any of your school’s have a crawfish boil and you need someone to just show up and eat “mud bugs” let me know. i will be glad to help.

summer calendar backgorund

summer mine copy
here’s my first attempt at using photoshop to create a background for our summer calendar. the photo was mine so i don’t even have to pay for that. i think i’m going to have to goof off with some other photos but i do love the idea of using a “pineapple” within the calendar because it is a traditional symbol of welcome.