So there I am sitting in a VERY liturgical Community Good Friday service this afternoon thinking about how dead “religion” is and I couldn’t help but want to jump up and exclaim how exciting this day could be because of what happens in two days!

We sang atleast three songs that I’ve never heard in my life. Hymns #289, #297, and #292 I think. Good lyrics, terrible mood-setters. Couldn’t have been more depressing.

I’m all for REMEMBERING what took place on “Good Friday”, but why the negative-emphasis?

Paul in Philippians 3:13: “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (TNIV)

It’s that GOOD NEWS that I want to focus on – this “race” we’re in – and this “prize” we are racing to win.

Where’s your focus Church?

The English Language is messed up.

How is the English language messed up?

Well, here are the first of MANY examples I have been running through this brain of mine.

001. “Mrs.”
Um, why in the world is there an “r” in the abbreviation for “misses”?

002. “Excuse” me.
NO ONE has ever said “excuse me” to me in my life. Why have we changed it to ” ‘scuse me”? We’ve even changed it to “excuuuze me”

Okay, I’m done.

Last night, while wandering around in the worst store in America – K-Mart, I picked up a must for any “kid” experience the feelings that come with Spring being upon us.

I bought a kite.

Yep.

And a cheap one. $5.99 +tax for my “Coke SpinKite”.

And I just got done taking a 5-minute “fly a kite break”.

When’s the last time YOU flew a kite?

Today I purchased the ILO DVDR04 from WalMart for $138. I bought it to work on getting some DVDs of some live satellite feed of Christian Music videos. Glen and I came up with the idea over dessert the other night.

So far, the thing is sweet.

I had only two ways to hook the thing up to our ANCIENT television, and the second way worked!

After getting it all hooked up, the setup was easy! It even runs through all of our cable channels to automatically “skip” the ones that aren’t channels!

Because our tv is older than we are, we now have to use two remotes to watch tv. One to change channels (the new DVD recorder remote) and one to change the volume and turn the tv off and on.

I think I may be able to “fix” this problem by getting a “universal” remote, but so far – can’t find one that has “ILO” listed as a compatible device.

I recorded just a minute-or-so of live television earlier this afternoon and wasn’t really “impressed” with the recorded video quality, but I wasn’t really discouraged either.

Sure beats recording to a bulky vhs tape! One DVD+R can hold up to 6-hours of video!

I can now make sure we don’t miss the weekly episodes of Myth Busters!

Occasionaly, this model is “updated” by “ILO” – the company that builds it. I actually downloaded and installed an update tonight. It was neat! I downloaded a file, burned it to a cd and then put the cd in the dvd player and it automatically updated itself!

I think I have a new favorite toy.

Last night I’m pretty sure I was the most “broken” I’ve ever been in front of a congregation.

Last night I didn’t “preach”. I bore my soul.

And God honored it.