Family, Ministry, Entertainment: Ramblings.

Do you ever have one of those weeks where you look back and say what the heck went on? I had one of those last week. It seemed like I had no time to do anything in the form of relaxation. Here are some thoughts from my week, enjoy.....

12" Powerbook - In 2004 I bought one. It has been great (I'm typing on it right now!) Well last Sunday I had to give the harddrive a funeral. It decided it had enough so I had to bring it in to the Apple Store down the road. They replaced it in 2 days! Too bad it cost me $***!!!! Anyway, I'm using it again and she's running like a well oiled machine. Awwww, those Powerbooks! A laptop owners dream.

Universal Studios ROTS! - Ok. A little cavalier you might say. Have you been there lately? Well, last week we had this deal called the "Youth Pastors Summit". It's one of those annual promotional events put on by Rock the Universe and Student Leadership University. You go there ( I took a couple of guys from our ministry), you hear some speakers (Doug Fields, David Nasser and Jay Strack), you get a free lunch by Chic-Fil-A, then they hook you up with a free duel park pass for Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios. The Summit was ok. Doug Fields was the real deal and David Nasser gave one of his stump speeches ( I have heard it before, it was encouraging) and Jay Strack was a walking commercial for his thing, Student Life U. All of this to say, Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios is stinko! I know I sound like a complainer and all. We went to Disney a couple of weeks ago. I couldn't help but notice how clean, concealed and complete they were. IoA and US was dirty, distracting and deficient. Now I see why Disney is light years ahead of anyone else when it comes to entertaining people. Its all about the details baby!

West Palm Beach to Miami - Every year Palm Beach Atlantic University asks us to transport short term mission teams to and from the Miami airport with our beautiful "Calvary Cruiser". It amazes me that a simple trip that is only 67 miles takes almost 2 hours!! That's ridiculous!! I did the math and you average a measly 33.5 MPH. Not too good on the gas mileage, huh? I remember back in the day (before I-95 was a war zone) sometimes it would take me only 55 minutes to get to the Orange Bowl from WPB. Those were the good ol' days! Oh well. Enough of that.

LOST - What up with LOST and all of the repeats? I understand how TV works and all, with the sweeps and the 22 episode deals they have, but dang, how to lose momentum: show a new episode one week, then a repeat, then a new one, then a repeat. It'll tick some people off (like me!) Because of this, my ultra-conservative dad says he will never watch the show again. He said "years ago they didn't used to have repeats! There was a new episode every week!" I asked him to give me an example of a show "back in the day" that didn't show repeats. The only thing he could come up with was, "I'm not watching that show anymore!" I think he's ticked because he hasn't solved it yet. Just a suspicion.

The Office - Another repeat! Fortunately I can watch this show over and over. The episode this week was the one about diversity training. It was so hilarious. Michael Scott (the main character) reminds me of Archie Bunker in some ways. I had watch this on Friday evening (props to TiVo) because of the aforementioned Summit trip. I love TiVo.

American Idol - I was unable to watch any of last weeks episodes. I just asked my wife who did good on the show and she would give me her run down of those who sucked and those who rocked. I would have to say All of the girls (except Mandisa), Kevin and Bucky suck. My picks so far have survived, Chris (the BALD guy! He will win), Mandisa (the only good girl) and Taylor (the gray haired dude with turret's). Who are you picks?

Student Ministry - I have been doing youth ministry in some form or another for a long time. Usually church youth groups are very predictable. You know the typical church guys and girls. For a long time our ministry resembled a typical ministry. Not anymore. Over the past several months we have noticed an increased interest in our ministry from bisexual and Goth kids. They come every week now and they are inviting their friends. (Last week we had some girls making out; needless to say I had to break them up). A couple of weeks ago one of the Goth ring leaders accepted Jesus as his Savior. On Saturday we baptized another (he obviously accepted the Lord). We are starting to see the results of the time we spend on campus. I'm so thankful that the Lord is using our ministry to reach out to our community and the students here in a very unique way. Please pray for us.