I mispell things!
I was just reading a letter that J.R.R Tolkien wrote to C. S. Lewis concerning Lewis’ book Mere Christianity and this section stuck out for me
And wrong behavior (if it is really wrong on universal principles) is progressive, always: it never stops at being “not very good,” “second best”—it either reforms, or goes on to third-rate, bad, abominable.
I thought it was good point that seems to be true.
When I was much younger and the Youth Minister at Parkview Baptist Church I was blessed of God to have the most amazing suite-mates ever. Really, I loved and still do love these people. Jessica Lawrence, Megan Kelly, T. Alan Lusk (I still don’t feel cool enough to just call him “T”), Clint Barron, Josh Causey and most, important of all, Jonathan Whilmore were the main ones but there were other interns that also a part of the room for shorter time periods that I also loved (that right I am talking about you Lauren Joyner, Scott Brignac, and Chris Mouhot). My study was connected with theirs and so I spent a great amount of time with them all.
These are people that I madly respected at the time and they have just grown in my respect level in the years that I have been gone from Baton Rouge. Not only were they amazingly creative, incredibly faithful, sacrificially loving, and great risk takers, but they were also just plain fun people to hang out with. It seemed like we were always taking a break from work to do something interesting. I loved working with them and hanging out with them. There was a reason that Pam would often drop by the suite and it wasn’t me … she liked hanging out with these people too. Most surprising of all is that in the midst of the fun of working with these amazing people we were actually able to get a lot of work done at the same time. Not the brag but I believe that as a group we led one of the most amazing youth ministries ever known and I got to work along side quite possibly the best college ministry ever.
One of the things that I liked (and still do like about them) about the suite was the fact that I could use them as critical ears. When I was working on a message my suite-mates were generous enough to allow me to interrupt their work and ask them questions and run things past them. They were always a huge help. They helped me to see things with different eyes and hear things with different ears. This was huge for me and truthfully it still is. I need to bounce ideas off of other people. I need people who I can trust to think critically and deep on subjects. My suite-mates were just such people.
Unfortunately I don’t have the suite anymore. I miss them often for their friendship but I also miss them for willingness to let me pick their brains. Thankfully I have a new group of people who are generous enough to allow me to run things past them. If anything I do it even more now than I did when I was at Parkview and with a greater variety of people. It is just that now my questions are directed at my friends at Emy J’s and people in Tapestry. For example, I just quizzed the barista that I know the best concerning what comes to her mind when she hears the words “antichrist” because this Sunday in Tapestry’s Sunday night worship gathering we will be discussing 1 John 2:18-29. I am so thankful that I still have a group of people that are willing to lend me their eyes and ears. I am even more thankful that some of my new lenders of eyes and ears aren’t a part of any organized religious practice and yet still aren’t afraid to help me with my sermons.
Now if I could just convince the people at Emy J’s to go “reverse Halloweening” with me then everything would be great.
SIDE NOTE – “reverse Halloweening” is something the suite did on Halloween that started because we were worn out and needed a break. We dressed in costumes and visited every office in the church (this was a large church) and gave them candy. Really a ton of fun.
Nothing specific to blog about. Just thought I would post about a few random things basically just to post something.
That is all for now folks.
A while back I wanted a bluetooth keyboard for use with the various bluetooth enabled tablet like devices I use. Of course, while I wanted the keyboard I didn’t want to pay the actual retail price for said keyboard. I wanted to find a deal. Eventually I discovered an excellent deal on a Motorola keyboard. Regular price was $65 but I found it on sale for $9. Why was it on sale? Well because it is a British keyboard.
This means there are slight differences between this keyboard and a normal US keyboard. This isn’t usually a problem. I can pretty much do everything I need to do with it without any difficulty. Unfortunately every now and then the Brits mess things up for me by making the British key placement slightly different from the US key placement. Come on Brits. Get with the program! Argh!
Even though he and his bride moved up to the Pacific Northwest this past Summer I still blame Henry for this. Darn you Henry and darn all your tea-swilling countrymen too. 🙂
I think this quote fits in with what I talked about tonight at Tapestry.
The reduction of faith to practice has not enriched faith; it has impoverished it. It has let practice itself become a matter of law and compulsion.
Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, page 8.
It is very important to know the “why’ of what you do. Your “why” should determine what you do and how you do it.
SIDE NOTE – here is the entire video from which I only used a segment tonight during the message.
This Summer Noah and I are on an adventure. We are trying to find a favorite local hamburger. Each week we are eating a hamburger at a local place and rating. The scale is 0-10 with 10 equaling “as good as Riverside Patty or Whistler’s.” You need to understand that we had amazing burger places in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Carthage, Missouri. Both places are very different from each other and both places had amazing hamburgers.
Noah and I realized a few weeks ago that we really hadn’t found a burger in Point that we thought was as good as either Riverside or Whistler’s. So we decided to become more purposeful about searching. So today we tried the Classic at Guu’s on Main.
Guu’s was highly recommended. We have several friends who swear by Guu’s and there is a group of “threads” who meet there pretty much every Wednesday night. Noah and I both really liked the burger. The bun was toasted a great deal on the grill and we both thought that was great. The meat itself was crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. Its a 1/3 pound burger that is decent size and cost $6.99 with a side. Actually, while the burger was good Noah and I both agree that our side of waffle fries was the best part of our meals. The waffle fries were excellent. Dang crispy without being burnt.
On the 0-10 scale we originally thought the burger was a 7. A good rating for the first burger, when we are still pretty much figuring things out. We enjoyed our experience at Guu’s and were sure that we would want to come back and have that burger again. We wouldn’t crave it like Riverside or Whistler’s but we would still enjoy another one.
That changed 30 minutes after we had eaten our burgers. Almost at the exact same time both of us went running for the bathroom. The burger giveth and the burger taketh away. In this case the burger tooketh away our dignity and a little Terrell family toilet paper. We both feel fine now so it wasn’t food poisoning or anything similar. The burger just didn’t want to stay in our stomachs. It was enough for Noah to lower his rating to a 5. I’m just dropping it one point to a 6 because the burger was good enough that I would eat it again, even knowing that I would end up running to the bathroom 30 minutes later.
Guu’s on the Main Burger Experiment Score – 6.
We are thinking next week will be Arbuckles Eatery & Pub.