Jess and I enjoyed a leisurely trip to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum this afternoon. We spent about 5 hours in this very hands-on museum. Surprisingly, we never even had enough time in 5 hours to see everything!

We did, however, see two shows in the Planetarium, and a Willy Wonka drama!

By the time 5PM rolled around, and the museum closed, we were ready to be done with hundreds of bad-attitude kids, screaming babies, and numerous “counts to three” everywhere we turned. Want to learn parenting methods? Visit the Indy Children’s museum! Sheeeesh!

After the museum, we headed back to Castleton for dinner at Red Lobster. I had enough popcorn and fried shrimp to last me another year-or-so (until the NEXT visit to the world’s greatest seafood restaurant).

It was yet another great day to enjoy with my wife.

More pictures from today’s adventure here.

Today we slept in, ate some cereal and then headed downtown again – this time to the Indianapolis Museum of Art & the Lilly Estate.

We had a great time visiting both of these historic Indianapolis landmarks and of course took some pictures – available here.

Tonight, we’ve invited a couple Indianapolis friends over for a cookout here at Kory’s. We’ll be cooking up some delicious brats and burgers and enjoying the company of Mr. Chris Magee and Mr. Brandon Schenck (if he can get here).

Of course the camera will be close by to capture memories!

Jess, Kory, and I enjoyed an evening at the Symphony tonight!

We arrived at Conner Prairie at just the perfect time to get good seats and enjoy our Subway supper!

The Symphony started at 8:00 and the finale of fireworks was amazing!

Definitely a fun time had by all – even with the HUGE amounts of booze being consumed by various couples all around us. We also had to constantly “turn away” when we would catch said “boozers” making out all around us in their various stages of being clothed. I guess “culture” includes listening to the Symphony AND drinking it up!

More pictures here.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the Indianapolis Museum and Botanical Gardens this morning and afternoon.

We’re trying to rest up a bit before heading back out into the heat of the afternoon. Tonight, we head to Conner Prairie for what is called the “Symphony on the Prairie” – it’s going to be super special. Fireworks behind a symphonic orchestra – what could be more “culture-ing” for a guy like me?!

Check out the pictures from the zoo at my flickr account by clicking here.

It’s Sunday, our first day of “real” vacation and we’re still in Warsaw.

Laundry (from camp) is all over the place in neatly folded piles by my dear wife. (I helped, too, I promise)

We attended the 11:30AM service at Warsaw Community Church this morning. It was great! This church of a couple thousand each week meets three times on Sunday mornings and this morning, Pastor Denny preached the final sermon in a series on family relationships. It was good stuff!

One of the things I’ve noticed since moving to Warsaw three years ago is that folks from other churches seem to have pretty harsh opinions of Warsaw Community Church. I’ve heard anything from “they don’t have a cross” to “they don’t have any meat” (to which someone replied, “if they served hotdogs would you be happy?”)

I have become friends with WCC’s Student Ministries Pastor in the last year and have quickly gauged Scott as being a man of integrity and as having a heart for God! After attending service this morning, I can say that genuine worship took place at Warsaw Community!

I think the opinion of others outside of WCC’s membership is dangerous when it comes from those who have never attended a service there! I also think that Warsaw’s church-going population is a bit nervous about a “mega-church” in their town and will harbor any “negative opinion” that they can hear or come up with on their own.

One of the on-going comments I hear about WCC is that they have a mentality of people coming to the church for one-hour each week and not being committed or discipled any other time – in a sense, they come in for one hour a week and then are done with their “duty” to God and church by attending that one hour.

My “rebuttle” to that is that MANY, in the Body of Christ, have that same exact mentality. Warsaw church-goers need to be more in-tune to that same “mentality” in their own local church! With the average church of a couple hundred in Warsaw, I know that there is a percentage of those who attend – even Warsaw Wesleyan – who come in for one service a week and never involve themselves in any ministry of the local church. I can almost guarantee that the same percentage of those in the “average” local church would match up with the percentage of those with that mentality of Warsaw Community!

I think it’s about time that we quit trying to TEAR DOWN this “Body of Christ” that we, as Christ-followers say that we are a part of – and begin to accept that there are MANY places of GENUINE WORSHIP – and that each, in it’s individuality, is a piece of this BODY that we represent as churches.

I will continue to stand behind the BODY OF CHRIST – FIRST, rather than just be a cheerleader for the local church “ELBOW” or “KNEE” that I am on staff at. God is so much bigger than that!