Monday, July 27, 2009

Set List 07.26.09

Here is the music that we used for 07.26.09:

[Opening Song]
This Is Who I Am - Third Day

[Worship Set]
Desert Song - Brooke Fraser
Ready - Third Day
Born Again - Third Day
I Still Believe - Jeremy Camp

[Message]
Matt Rogers

[Closing Song]
Glory Revealed - Candi Pearson Shelton

I scheduled myself off this week (I did play guitar on two songs, but didn't sing). Tommy Sayle and Stacy Brown led the music this week and they both did great jobs. "Desert Song" had a lot of energy even though the congregation was a little unfamiliar with it. We'll do it some more and it will soon be a favorite.

Matt Rogers was our guest speaker this week. He is planting a church (Renewal) in Greenville, SC but he grew up right here at FBC-Rock Hill. He spoke on John 17, specifically verse 18. "As you...so I..." He reminded us that we are all missionaries - to our neighborhoods, to our workplaces, to our schools, to our families. He asked a great question for everybody to think about: "If your job transferred you tomorrow to another place, would your neighborhood be any different because you weren't there anymore?" Then for the church: "If the church building was to be flattened tomorrow, would Rock Hill be any different without First Baptist Church?"

Next week, we are having lunch and Steve Hogg is back to kick off the August series "Indescribable" which will be discussing the doctrine of God. I am really looking forward to it.

As always, part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Friday, July 24, 2009

Random Notes

Some random thoughts for the weekend.
  • Matt Rogers will be speaking at Reveal this weekend. FBC is Matt's home church. He is part of a team that is planting Renewal Church in Greenville in the coming months. He has also been the speaker at Summersalt for the past two summers. Should be a great message this week.
  • I love Seth Rogin's blog. In this post, he does a great job helping us get creative in how we approach people. He doesn't say anything specifically about evangelism but the implications are there.
  • Having kids is one of the greatest ways to get a fresh perspective on God and His love for us. Charisse Noble teaches here dad another lesson in this post.
  • Yesterday, I watched all or part of the best and the worst that Star Wars has to offer. In the morning I watched The Phantom Menace. In the afternoon, I watched Star Wars (aka A New Hope - but it will always just be Star Wars to me).
  • Next Sunday (August 2), we kick off our Indescribable series. Steve Hogg will be back from vacation. We will also have lunch in the cafe following Reveal.

I leave for Ocean Isle Beach tomorrow morning. While I'm out of town, don't look for any posts from me. You can however follow me on Twitter and get all of my captivating tweets from the beach. They will mainly say "Reading a book while sitting on the beach" and "Eating seafood from Calabash." But I might throw in the occasional, "Going to take an afternoon nap" tweet.

Have a great week while I'm gone.

-- Peace, Jamie

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Faith is...(Part 6)

Faith is...the conviction: the promiser keeps His promises.
In baseball, batting .300 is really good. That's 3 out of 10. In building bridges, that ratio is really bad. You would not trust a heart surgeon if that was their success rate. But how about God? He has a perfect record. Every promise He has made, He has backed up. Now I know that there are some promises that He has made that have not happened yet, but so far He is perfect and I have no reason to believe that the future will be any different.

Here is a quick survey of some of God's promises:

To Eve - "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth." - Gen 3:16

To Adam - "Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it" - Gen 3:17 (labor to make a living)

To Noah - "never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh." - Gen 9:15

To Abraham - "I will make you a great nation." - Gen 12:2

To Moses - "I will send you to Pharaoh so that you may bring my people the sons of Israel out of Egypt." - Exodus 3:10

To Moses - "Surely all the men who have seen my glory...yet have put me to the test...shall by no means see the land..." - Num 14:22-23

Of course I could list many, many more but in this short list we can see that God keeps his promises. So what does this mean for us? Let's recap what we have already seen over these past 5 posts:
  1. God has a pattern for my life
  2. God is the Lord of time
  3. It is His strength alone
  4. We have an assurance of heaven
  5. God controls the future
This means that no matter what we see our circumstances to be, we can trust God's plan, timing, strength and promises to work for our good. It may not happen how or when we think that it should, but be assured, it will happen.

It all comes down to faith.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Costa Rica, Pt 2

On Thursday, we returned to one of the areas where we had passed out groceries on Monday. We spent the morning on the side of a one-lane dirt street playing with some of the children of La Carpio. We were fortunate that the week that we were in Costa Rica was one of two weeks that the children are on vacation from school.

We had lots of children to show up. Most of the children brought an opportunity for us to build a bridge for Mark and the missionaries to share the gospel with older brothers and sisters and moms. We spent about three hours face painting, making balloon animals, blowing bubbles, tossing frisbees and making salavation bracelets.



While the language barrier can be frustrating, we all learned that a smile and a hug say a lot in any language. While I was making balloon animals, the kids would come up to me and start talking. I would say, "No espanol" with my best southern accent. Then they would start pointing and talking and I would try to figure out what they were saying. When I thought I knew I would say "Si" and start doing whatever I interpreted them to mean. I got it right about half the time. The other half, they would go "No. No." and we would start all over again.

In the afternoon, we worked around the mission house. I mention this only because my daughter and her team left without me to pick up trash in the streets and at a park near the mission house. I ended up having little to do and they came back to find me taking a nap on the couch. They're still reminding me about that one.

On Thursday evening, we went to Teracillos (pronounced - terr-uh-see-joes) for a mother-daughter banquet. The church that is meeting in the area is relatively new. The pastor and members had gone out the Saturday before to pass out invitations. It was the first time they had tried a mother-daughter banquet and were unsure of what kind of response to expect.

We were supposed to start at 6:00pm. At 6, there were only about 20 people there. We waited to start and by 6:30, the room was full. Amanda Rollo shared the gospel using the salvation bracelet. It took about 30 minutes to go through the entire process of explaining, translating, and passing out beads. Amanda did a great job and then the pastor of the church gave the ladies a chance to pray to receive Christ. Afterward, we served a meal of rice (of course, EVERY meal, including breakfast, had rice), beef, and cole slaw to the ladies.

The night ended with us saying "Adios" to a lot of the nationals with whom we had grown very close. The week was awesome. Again, if you've never experienced missions in an international setting, you need to plan a trip.

That's all for me from Costa Rica. If you want or desire more info, I'll gladly answer questions. As always, thanks for praying for the team as we went. Thanks for reading about the experience. I hope it inspires you to go and be the hands and feet of our Savior to those near you as well as those around the world.

-- Peace, Jamie

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Set List 07.19.09

Here is the music that we used for 07.19.09 - Blockbuster (Week 3).

[Music Set]
Counting On God - Jared Anderson
Marvelous Light - Charlie Hall
Days Of Elijah - Robin Mark
Mighty To Save - Laura Story

[Closing Song]
Medley (Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus/Cannot Say Enough)

This was a crazy weekend for me. Saturday was my 34th birthday so we had family in town. We had a family dinner on Friday night, then I played basketball with some of the young men of the church. My brother and his family stayed at Lori and my apartment so we spent some time catching up on Friday night after I got back from basketball. Saturday morning I had a men's small group meeting followed by a trip down to Chester for a family reunion. Then my parents came over Saturday night for dinner. So by Sunday I was really tired.

This was one of those services when it seemed that everything went wrong. I felt that the band was a little flat this week. We had a few people out and some others had other commitments during our normal practice time so maybe we just didn't have the chemistry that we would normally have. We also had some technical difficulties during the video clips for the sermon. And to top it all off, I had a flat tire when I was done with church. Lori and I did however have a great lunch with some missionary friends of ours that were in town.

Jamie used the movie "Bedtime Stories" to bring out some truths from the book of James. You can read more about it here.

As always, a part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Faith is...(Part 5)

Faith is...ceasing to worry leaving the future to the God who controls the future.
Worry. Wow this could be the word of the year for 2009. We are worried about our jobs. We are worried about our finances. We are worried about North Korea, serial killers, plane crashes, government leadership, healthcare, the moral compass of America...I guess I could go on and on about this topic, but I think that you get the idea.

I remember hearing somewhere that anxiety is the Holy Spirit's beeper system to let you know to pray. I liked that thought, but I think that it is more accurate to see anxiety as our spirit's reaction to God being taken off our throne and us sitting down. I think that when we worry we in essence tell God that we are going to take care of something ourselves because the situation is too big for Him to handle.

Seeing that in print makes it seem foolish, but don't we all do this in some way? Here's a crazy thought: What if we prayed as much as we worried? How much more could God do in our lives?

Now I am not saying that I never worry or get stressed or get anxious. I am by far perfect in this regard. So I am preaching to myself as much as you. But this is perhaps the biggest area where we can be different from the surrounding culture.

It is said that the religions that have the biggest growth are the ones where the followers are sold-out and are different from the surrounding culture. So in this time of worry in our culture, what a better witness than the calm that comes from knowing that "the God who controls the future" is interested in my personal well being. That is something that all the other world religions can't say! Because no other religion has a personal god like the God that we serve. Now that is different! But...

It all comes down to faith.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Costa Rica, Pt 1

Because I didn't get to blog much last week while I was in Costa Rica, I wanted to share a little about the trip. This was my 7th international mission trip. If you have never had the chance to go to a third-world country and experience the culture in a missions setting, I highly recommend everyone take a trip like this at least once. It will change the way you view your lifestyle, your possessions, and your standard of living.

While we were in Costa Rica, we spent most of our time in the barrio of La Carpio, which was described to us as the most poverty-stricken area of Costa Rica. About 90% of the 40,000 poeple who live in La Carpio are Nicaraguan refugees. They are looked down on by the people of Costa Rica. (This was brought home to me on Tuesday when our guide on the whitewater rafting trip shared that he was Nicaraguan and had experienced discrimination first hand because of his accent.)

Here are a couple of pictures of La Carpio:


La Carpio is literally built on a trash dump. The city of San Jose dumps its trash on one side of the barrio. On the other side is a huge limestone quarry. While some of the homes are larger and made of stucco, most of the houses are little more than a maze of corrugated metal. Sewage runs through the streets carried to the river at the bottom of the hill.

On Monday, we passed out bags of groceries (beans, rice, sugar, salt, butter, and more staples) in an area that was new to our missionaries. While our team carried and handed out the groceries, a team of teenagers from a local church shared the gospel using The Bridge illustration. In about six hours, we handed out almost 100 bags of groceries and 67 people prayed with our Costa Rican team asking Jesus to be their Savior. It was an awesome experience.

Later, Mark, our lead missionary, said that they would go back in to the area where we passed out groceries and begin discipleship groups led by Costa Rican believers. The hope is to begin having worship gatherings among the people of La Carpio once they have established enough discipleship groups.

Here's a picture of the bags that we passed out as well a couple of pics of us passing out the groceries:


If you want to catch up on the team's day-to-day blog, check out kudzas.com.

I'll blog some more about the experience later this week.

-- Peace, Jamie

Monday, July 20, 2009

Bedtime Stories: Who Controls Your Life?

It was great to back at Reveal yesterday. As has been usual for the summer, the attendance was good even with some of the band and tech team gone.


Here's a quick wrap-up of yesterday:
  • I had the pleasure of teaching for the second time in three weeks.
  • One of the truths of Scripture is that planning is important (Proverbs 20:18, 14:15; & 16:13; Isaiah 32:8). But just as important is how you plan.

  • I had a nine point sermon, which I had never come close to doing before.
  • Here are some of the points: Looks can be deceiving (we think we know the correct path in life by studying a situation but sometimes (well, a lot of times) God calls us to do something that makes no sense to us. The struggle between the eternal and temporal is enormous and can be harder the more possessions that you have. Life on this planet is short. Live like today is the last day you have. Because Jesus WILL have the final say in our lives.
Next week at Reveal, Matt Rogers will be speaking. I will be heading out of town for a family vacation with my mom and dad, and sister and her family. In two weeks, Steve will be back in town and we will begin a new series, "Indescribable."

-- Peace, Jamie

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Faith is...(Part 4)

Faith is...not a vague hope of a happy hereafter but an assurance of heaven based on my trust in Christ's death as payment for my sins.
A vague hope is a ungrounded, unsure feeling that something will happen. Basically it is a guess. However, an assurance is grounded and sure.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." - Hebrews 11:1 (NASB)

I really like this verse in The Message: "The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see."

These words seem much better to me: assurance, conviction, firm foundation. Much better than vague hope. And if we can have an assurance in what God says, then we don't have to understand everything about it, we can just have faith.

After all Jesus said: "In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you." - John 14:2

It all comes down to faith.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Faith is...(Part 3)

Faith is...keeping on keeping on when I am dog tired, discouraged, disillusioned, deserted, dusty dry cast on His strength alone.
Are you tired? Tired of trying to do the right thing when everyone else seems to not care? Tired of your schedule? Tired of never having any "You" time? Maybe just tired of being where you are right now?

In Part 1 and Part 2 of my "Faith is..." blog series, I talked about God's pattern and God's timing. And I could be a poster child of being "tired". Many of you know that I only work part-time here at the church (~25 hrs/week) and so to help make ends meet and to provide insurance for me and Lori, I have been working at Home Depot for the past year and a half (~20 hrs/week).

But of course, I don't just work at Home Depot like a regular associate. I work from 4am to 8am. Yep you read right. 4am to 8am. That means that I get up at 3:25am and leave the apartment at 3:40am.

Now most days I get a nap in the morning before I head to FBC, but there are mornings that I don't. Now, as you can imagine, I tend to always be tired - physically.

But what about spiritually? Just as we can be tired physically and need to sleep and rest and recharge, there are also times when we can get tired spiritually. There are going to be times when you will feel like you are hearing God on a loud-speaker and then there are going to be times when you feel like you can't hear from God no matter how hard you try.

What do you do during those times? Do you give up and quit reading your Bible, quit praying, quit seeking Godly-counsel?

In many ways, it will be in these dry times that our faith grows. It will be a challenge to stay with your devotional and prayer life when you don't feel that you are getting anything out of them. But later, you will see what a blessing it really was. Remember that it is easy to trust God when things are easy and everything seems to be going our way.

It all comes down to faith.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Set List 07.12.09

Here is the music that we used for 07.12.09 - Blockbuster (Week 2).

[Opening Song]
Undignified - Matt Redman (David Crowder Version)

[Worship Set]
Keep On Shinin' - Third Day
Bless The Lord - Jeff Deyo
Better Is One Day - Matt Redman (Kutless Version)

[Closing Song]
Rescue - Jared Anderson (Desperation Band Version)

[Walk-Out Song]
Everyday - Joel Houston (Lincoln Brewster Version)

Well back in June I promised y'all that we'd bring back two of the new songs that we introduced, "Undignified" and "Bless The Lord". So, true to my promise, we brought 'em back this week. I was very pleased with worship this morning. The congregation was into the worship and after two weeks off, the band was energetic. Lots of energy and a great time of worship.

David Mitchell opened up James Chapter 1 for us and used the movie "Yes Man" staring Jim Carrey for our second week of the Blockbuster series. David's basic premise was what if we said yes to God in areas where we would normally say no? What could God do through us? He challenged us to do that in one area this week and to share the stories. I'm looking forward to hearing what we allowed God to do by saying yes!

As always, part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists - where you can see what other churches are doing for worship.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Costa Rica

The week in Costa Rica is flying by. I can't believe it's Tuesday morning already. While we do have internet access and some down time in the evenings, blogging hasn't been a priority.

If you want to know about what's been going on here, the best place to check is at http://www.clfcostarica.com/FBCRockHillJuly09.html. Each night someone posts something about our day.

As always, being in a foreign country is an eye-opening experience. Hopefully, when I get back I can share with you some pictures of our time here as well as some of the experiences.

Now it's off to breakfast and then a free day of exploring some of Costa Rica's natural beauty.

-- Peace, Jamie

Friday, July 10, 2009

Faith is...(Part 2)

Faith is...recognizing that God is the Lord of time when my idea of timing doesn't agree with His.
Where are you at with God's timing? Are you dying to get out of High School and out of your parents house? Are you are in college and tired of studying and projects? Are you ready to have a real job with a real paycheck? Are you are single and wanting to get married? Are you wanting to start having kids? Are you ready to have a house instead of an apartment?

In part one, I told y'all of some experiences that I had that caused me to have to rely on God's pattern for my life and not my own. God's timing and God's pattern tend to go together. Just as it is hard to see a pattern when things "seem" meaningless - it is hard to wait when human timing and God's timing don't line up.

Needless to say, that summer that I had to move back home was tough. I had been "on my own" (not literally of course, but you know what I mean) for 6 years and it kinda felt like a step back to go move home. After all, I had an Engineering degree from one of the top schools in the nation, it couldn't be that hard to find a job - my timing, not His.

The year after seminary...once again hard, probably even harder. I mean, come on God, I just spent three years studying You. Why can't You give me a job? - my timing, not His.

Funny thing, when I try to do things on my timing, I usually screw up. But when I wait on God's timing, things usually work out for the best - even if I would not have chosen that path or timing. Funny. Well...Not really, just truth.

It all comes down to faith.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Costa Rica & This Week @ Reveal

Unbelievably, in just 24 hours, I will be sitting in the Charlotte airport waiting to catch a flight to San Jose, Costa Rica for a week of mission work. There will be 10 of us from First Baptist going.

While there, we will be working in some of the poorest areas around San Jose, the capital city of Costa Rica. We will be delivering groceries, working on homes, playing with children and sharing the Good News of Jesus with everyone who will listen.

Please pray for us while we are gone. Obviously while I am gone, I will not be blogging. However, when I get back, I hope to have the chance to share with you some of the happenings from the trip. If you want to keep up with the team while we are gone, check out this link.

I am going to miss being in Reveal this week. Since Steve is on vacation this week and I will be out of the country, David Mitchell will be speaking in Reveal. Carrying on the Blockbuster theme, he will be using "Yes Man" as a jumping off point to look at James 1. Next week, I will be back and using "Bedtime Stories" to look at James 4.

I haven't checked with Will, but I am assuming that the band will be back at full strength this week. It should be a great week at Reveal. Don't miss it!

-- Peace, Jamie

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Faith Is...(Part 1)

In my office, there is a framed print that my mom gave me when I went off to college. On it there are six statements about faith. Here is the first one:
Faith is...reliance on the certainty that God has a pattern for my life when everything seems meaningless.
Where are you in your life right now? Do you feel like you are floundering? Maybe just treading water? Do you feel like if ______ would just happen everything would be ok and your life could move forward?

I think that we have all felt like that from time to time. And more than likely, we will all feel like that again at some point in the future. But could it be possible that God has you right where He wants you at this point in your life? I think that I can honestly say that when I have been in those places in my life, that I was right where I needed to be. Now, I was not always in places that I enjoyed (most of the time I was not happy at all), but I was in the position that God needed me in.

When I graduated college, I moved back home for the summer while I was looking for my first engineering job. The one that I found was in a place that I was not thrilled to go too. But I soon made some friends and got plugged into a church. And I met my wonderful wife while I was there.

When I graduated seminary, I spent ten months looking for a job and after I found it and moved back to South Carolina, it lasted 4 days. I then spent three months looking for another one. But I heard about this position in Rock Hill at a family dinner that I would not have been at if I was still in California.

Those are just two personal examples to help illustrate that God is working in your life and has a pattern even when things seem meaningless from a human stand point.

It all comes down to faith.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Random Thoughts

If you're looking for Reveal news or spiritual enlightenment, move along. Nothing to see here, just random thoughts from yours truly.
  • The MLB All-star game used to be a big deal for me. Debating who got left off the team, handing out the mid-season report card, and wondering who was going to make a run and who was going to fade were all a part of my regular summer schedule. No more. Don't know if it's because NFL training camps open in about three weeks or if it's because I'm more interested in who's making The Chase in NASCAR.
  • I have never been a huge Michael Jackson fan. I enjoyed some of his music. However, he may have been the last truly worldwide music star left. The news coverage of his funeral has been unbelievable on some level.
  • The news that Switchfoot's new CD, "Hello Hurricane" will be out in October gives me three exciting events in October to look forward to - "Hello Hurricane," Catalyst and a Disney trip with the family. I'll let you guess which one I'm most excited about.
  • I have become slightly addicted to Twitter and, as usual, slightly obsessed with what Twanalyst says about me.
-- Peace, Jamie

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Up and Perseverance

On Sunday, we kicked off our Blockbuster sermon series and used the movie Up to illustrate Galatians 6:7-10. We used the trailer to introduce the characters.

Then we discussed what perseverance looked like using the clip where Russell knocks on Carl's door. Looking at the Galatians passage, we asked three questions:
  • Why persevere or what compels us to persevere?
  • Why don't we persevere?
  • How do we persevere?
The main reason we can persevere is the nature of who God is and the reward, both in this life and in heaven, that He promises.

To look at the question, "Why don't we persevere?" we checked out the video of Russell and Carl as they pulled Carl's house through the jungle. The truth is many of come up with excuses to not persevere in our faith so that we can do what we WANT to do. The NLT translates the first part of verse 7 as "Don't be misled. Remember that you can't ignore God."

Sometimes we are looking to get God to bless our plans instead looking to follow God in His plans for us. Mark Batterson calls that 'inverted Christianity.'

How do we persevere? By surrendering each moment to the Holy Spirit, we look for opportunities to serve others. In other words, when we look outward (to others interests instead of our own), we can see the God's big picture and gain eternal perspective during the good and bad times.

Selfishness has a way of making us give up. Surrender goes a long to helping us persevere.

-- Peace, Jamie

Set List 07.05.09

Here is the music that we used for 07.05.09:

[Worship Set]
Enough (Chorus Only) - Chris Tomlin
May The Few - Shane Barnard
I Will Not Forget You - Ben Pasley (Waterdeep)
The Doxology - David Crowder Version
Enough (Chorus Only) - Chris Tomlin

[Closing Song]
The Beauty Of Simplicity - Josh White (Telecast)

So with this weekend being the 4th of July and two of our band members being on vacation, I decided to do a acoustic set. This set worked really well I thought. I put all the songs in E and played with a cut capo on 2. I started off slow with the chorus to "Enough" twice and then went into the chorus of "May The Few". I then brought "May The Few" up to tempo which flowed well into "I Will Not Forget You" - a new song for us, we'll have to bring it back with the full band later. For "The Doxology" I wanted to do something a little different so I started just picking out the melody for one verse, then added some strumming for one verse then started in with the vocals. I did the chorus of Amen like David Crowder did on the Passion album. Then with the tempo down, I went back into the chorus of "Enough" to book-end the set. I thought it went really well.

I was blown away by the number of people that we had in REVEAL on Sunday. Jamie and I were honestly thinking that we would be around 30 people and maybe more like 20. But to our delight we had around 50. And that is without at least 5 families that I know were on vacation. We also did lunch again this week (Dominos Pizza). Great fun was had by all.

God has really blessed us this summer with great momentum. I am really looking forward to the Fall when we can get on the Winthrop campus and talk up REVEAL. I truly believe that once we get up to around 150 people coming, the room is going to take on a whole new dynamic and the worship is going to be even more awesome that it has been these first 5 months.

Next week we are bringing back two songs that we did in June that went over really well, so get pumped and come ready to worship.

As always, part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

--Will

Monday, July 6, 2009

Cartwheels

Yes. I did a cartwheel off of the stage at the end of Reveal yesterday. Actually, I was informed that it was only half of a cartwheel. But that's about the best that I can do. There may be video footage to confirm that I did the cartwheel but I haven't seen it yet. [UPDATE: There IS video and it proves that I am no gymnast. If I get a chance to post it later, I will.]

Being the day after Independence Day and knowing that a lot of the 'regulars' at Reveal would be out of town, I told my daughters on the way to church that we would probably be very low in attendance and that I would do a cartwheel if we had more than 35 people at Reveal.

At 11:50, my cartwheeling abilities didn't look like they were going to be tested. However, by the time it was all said and done, we ended up with almost 50 people in the Apex and I cartwheeled off the stage after the closing song.

Thanks for a great attendance. Thanks for being faithful during the summer.

I will be in Costa Rica next week and will miss being in Reveal. I look forward to being back on the 19th.

-- Peace, Jamie

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Computer Update

For those who read the blog regularly (both of you), I thought I'd give you an update on my computer situation. While I was in New York, I turned my laptop over the Miller Pitts, the church's computer master, who installed a new hard drive and upgraded my memory.

I spent most of Monday re-installing programs like Firefox and iTunes. Now the computer is running smoothly. The biggest challenge I've had is getting iTunes back in shape. I can be a tad OCD on certain things. For example, I stack plates when I'm finished eating.

My OCD-ness extends to my iTunes. I keep track of my plays. I want to have all of my album artwork showing. Getting the music back into my iTunes was only half the battle. I still have to get everything organized.

I want to do it all right now. But I've tried to take things slowly because of everything else that I have going on.

I'm sure there's a spiritual application somewhere in my experience. But, for today, I'll leave it to you to make it.

-- Peace, Jamie

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

This Week at Reveal

Just a few notes to let you know what's coming up.
  • We begin our Blockbuster series this week using the movie "Up." If you haven't seen "Up," I highly recommend a trip to the theater to check it out. As usual with Pixar, the story is very strong; the animation is excellent; and it's a movie that should appeal to the whole family.
  • We will have lunch in the cafe this week following our worship gathering. It's a great time to invite a guest to join you and to treat them to a free lunch.
  • Since the 4th of July is on Saturday, a lot of people will probably be traveling. If you are going to be in town, I would encourage you to come to Reveal and to get here early to make any guests who show up feel welcome and comfortable. If you're traveling, have a safe trip and look for ways to be used by God while you're on the road!
-- Peace, Jamie