What ice storm? Sure we lost about 1/4 of the tree in our front yard, but by the time we got up and headed to church everything was already melting! The roads were fine, but the church parking lot sure wasn’t! At least three cars “drifted” down a bit of a hill on the backside of the offices before services started this morning, but by the time church was over, the parking lot had thawed.

We had a low crowd this morning because of the weather, but still had two great worship services.

Tonight we had the pleasure of hearing from John Connor – a Wesleyan missionary representing the “Jesus Film”. His time was well-spent tonight giving us details and stories of how the “Jesus Film” is impacting lives around the world. He had some great statistics (which I’ve now forgotten) and a very well put-together PowerPoint Presentation to hold our attention. I was impressed.

After church tonight we enjoyed another “S.N.A.C.” event with 25 of us converging on the Detroit Street McDonald’s. Good times.

We are currently enjoying the sounds of an ongoing ice storm!

When I drove to pick up dinner around 7 things were already getting slick, so I can only imagine what things will be like in the morning!

I wonder if it will look at all like this tomorrow:

Tonight was date night for Stevan and Jess thanks to Mom Garrett who lovingly watched Ella for a few hours so that we could get out of the house together!

What a joy it was just to go on a date with my wife!

Now, to the movie…

We almost over-spiritualized our date and went and saw, “Amazing Grace”. I’m glad we didn’t.

“Astronaut Farmer” was a good date-night film. I was disappointed initially that the plot line was predictable – and then I was caught completely off guard by what I thought was a dream-sequence that turned out to be real-life! It was at this plot-twist that I decided that the bathroom break that I really needed to take was completely unnecessary so that I could continue to take in the entire movie.

Even the end of the movie impressed me – I waited and waited for a sad-ending and was pleasantly surprised with a smile-worthy-ending!

“Astronaut Farmer” earns its PG-rating by being littered with cursing.

On Wednesday night, Jess and I passed the Wal-Mart display of the “Facing the Giants” DVDs and remarked together how many times we have heard, “you’ve got to see this movie”, so we picked up the DVD and took it home. Thursday afternoon we put the DVD in and were thoroughly pleased.

My first impression of the movie – before watching it – was that it would be another “typical Christian movie” – low-budget, terrible storyline, bad acting, etc.

While watching the few first minutes of the movie, I was assured that my stereotype was correct – the budget was obviously small, the storyline was predictable, and the acting was sub-professional.

Even with these three “Stevan’s opinion” negatives, I will still promote this movie as a GREAT family film – to be enjoyed by most viewers.

I was impressed with the movie after it was all over and done because of its low-budget, its volunteer-actors, and its media-minister-written storyline! What I found out through the bonus features on the DVD was that a local church – Sherwood Baptist Church – made this film in 6-weeks with the support of its congregation and entire staff! What a feat!

I am quick to judge our Christian-produced media because of growing up with terrible examples in the past, but I will truly say that this film is a great step in the right direction of where Christian-produced media should and could be! I look forward to seeing more media produced by this church and the Christian community in general.

My thoughts will continue to be that the Christian community should be producing media that is NOT so far behind what the “world” is producing that it looks like an out-of-date, irrelevant production – but that it is similar and BETTER than what the world is currently producing!

Over the last few days, and especially today, I’ve been discovering again just how powerful words are. The words that come out of my own mouth – and dare I say – the words that come across through my fingers through the keyboard – are perhaps much more powerful than I give thought to.

Words that I don’t even remember speaking – or worse yet, never spoke, but somehow were heard – have returned in the form of “hurt” – as in, someone else is hurt by something I said or didn’t say but were assumed that I did.

What I’ve learned through a few experiences over the past few weeks:

– Live a life of integrity.
– Know that words are powerful.
– Mean what I say, say what I mean.
– Confront confrontation – even when I don’t want to.