I had the privilege of preaching this morning in both services. I preached a message entitled, “A Teachable Spirit”. It was our one-year anniversary of being here at Armbrust Wesleyan – a year ago we moved into our home in New Stanton!
I felt good about the sermon after both services and received some good feedback that always helps know how those listening responded.
Sermon audio, if you’re interested:
It’s been two-weeks now that I’ve been rocking my new Palm Pre phone. It’s been two-weeks of ups and downs, two weeks of loving the phone and hating the phone.
Some more thoughts on the Pre for those who are interested:
1. Battery life is STILL my nemesis. If I’m in the office all day, by the time I get home I have to put the phone on the charger if I want to use my phone at all in the evening. This is depressing especially when my old phone could go at least a day-or-two without a charge even with a lot of use.
2. The “Touchstone Charger” that I bought with the phone promises “cord free charging” – the technology is incredible, to be able to place my phone on the Touchstone (that’s plugged in) and it auto-magically charges the phone via some “inductive method” that makes me feel all futuristic. Sadly, this only sometimes works. I can charge the phone on the Touchstone for a bit and then my phone goes a bit nutty and charging turns off and on, off and on – which is especially annoying at 3AM when I’m trying to sleep. I will be asking for a refund on the Touchstone, or a replacement when my Sprint-guy returns from his vacation this week.
3. With the finicky-ness of the Touchstone and the need to charge my phone during the day if I want to use it in the evening, I recently purchased another “micro-usb” cord on eBay and will keep that one at the office for charging and syncing the phone.
4. Palm’s attempts at making the Pre compatible with iTunes even since I’ve owned the phone has been on-again, off-again. They now claim that it does sync with iTunes, but I’ve yet to figure out exactly how.
5. The online App Store has continued to grow over the past two weeks, but I’m still not overwhelmingly impressed. As opposed to Apple’s App Store, MOST of the Pre-apps cost money, only a select few are actually FREE. I haven’t purchased any apps for the phone yet.
6. My phone does some weird-things when the battery gets too low. For one, my screen doesn’t come back on after a phone call, so I can’t exactly hang-up. That’s pretty annoying.
7. A positive – I still LOVE having all my Gmail and Facebook contacts synced with my phone. And the intuitive WebOS software knows to combine “Sher Sheets” my Gmail contact with “Sherilyn Sheets” my Facebook contact. Productivity genius.
8. Another positive – I have been using Amazon’s MP3 store for some time because of the better-pricing that they have versus iTunes. The Palm Pre has the Amazon MP3 store built-in as a standard-app. I have downloaded a few FREE mp3s from Amazon and have already used my phone in my truck plugged in via the 1/8″ headphone-jack cord. This is convenient, though I don’t think I’ll be getting rid of my iPod Touch anytime soon like I originally thought.
9. Some other people are frustrated with the glitches and failings of the Pre, too:
Ever since I was little, I have known about the “battle” that is Church vs. Halloween. I remember being a part of “Harvest Parties” and dressing up like Moses or Lazarus (complete with burial bandages). I also remember enjoying trick-or-treating as a kid and coming home with my pillowcase full of candy.
In 2009, the battle wages on with churches across the country coming up with new-ideas to attempt to use the time of year as a launching pad for a church-event.
One idea that has taken off in the last few years has been the “Trunk and Treat” idea. Families decorate their vehicles and park in the church parking lot allowing kids to nab candy from the comfort of their church parking lot instead of their neighborhoods. Our church attempts a “don’t dress scary” disclaimer and this year we’re presenting the Gospel through a musical-skit before the trunk-and-treating begins.
Another idea that I just stumbled upon that Brand New Church in Arkansas manages to pull off grabbed my attention. They call it “Hallowin” and it involves a costume contest at their church on the night of Halloween and then they pass out a few hundred DVDs featuring information about their church as well as a clear Gospel message to all the families and ask them to go out Trick-or-Treating and to pass out the DVDs to the homes they visit! I love it! More about Brand New Church’s “Hallowin” here.
So, how about your church?
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