campfire anthems

a creative team meeting took place at our house last night to go over the upcoming series for the rest of the year at ridgepoint church.  there are some big concepts that are going to take fruition and i’m excited to see how everything is going to pan out.  after last night, i no longer have to figure out how to make text look like real glass, which is kind of a plus.  i may still figure it out just as a challenge and to know that i could do it.  another thing that we all learned is that my cousin-in-law is a pretty smart dude.  actually, i’m pretty sure he could preach the first week of our next series.  this was his first time at a creative meeting and i know without a doubt he will be a regular on the panel.  now if i could just get him to start blogging…

in other news: • the olympics are over and i am finally getting to bed at a reasonable hour.  • i saw that there is a hurricane on its way.  i don’t think we are in its path yet, but if you live in florida you know that that can change at any time.   • there is less than a week until my september calendars are released.  i’m very excited about one, but am still taking requests for another one.  i will cut off requests at midnight on wednesday.

it happened again last night.  you know, the thing where our friend doesn’t let us leave their house.  i’m tired.  it’s going to be a long day, i can feel it already.  i actually had a pretty constructive weekend though.  saturday i played guitar in a wedding.  sunday i did all the usual church stuff.  i realized that i need to start being more friendly at church and begin to meet people that are new.  as outgoing as i am, their is just something about the church environment that makes me uncomfortable with talking to new people.  maybe i don’t want to be asked any questions that i don’t have the answers to.  who knows.  i won’t be their this sunday because i’ll be on vacation, but next sunday i will be setting a goal to meet 8 new people.  4 from the first service and 4 from the second.

emily and i turned in our mortgage application this morning.  i think i have carpel tunnel syndrome after initialing and signing so many lines.  we are getting the ball rolling on our home owner’s insurance and getting all the necessities to the title company.  it looks as though we will be able to close early.  i’m hoping to be in there soon.  i’m getting anxious.

well i’m going to go get a cup of coffee and plow my way through the morning.  have a good one.

wow. thats all i can say. am i the only one that finds this absurd, even borderline offensive? people…let me know what is going on here.

and here my friends is the grand finale. i actually don’t have anything philosophical to say about today’s video. i hope you all have enjoyed this little mini series i have put together, and haven’t been too offended. you know what? maybe i will get philosophical now that i have started writing. i hope you are offended by these videos. i hope it make you uncomfortable. once you get comfortable with yourself, or your life, or even your church/religion…you are doing something wrong. yes. i just called you out.

by becoming comfortable with the way things are going you are instantly pushing away the very lives you should be trying to make an impact on. if you want to stay uncomfortable, or just satisfy your curiosity of what some churches are doing to change the way people look at religion, stop on by rpc. services are sunday mornings at 9:00 and 10:30. you won’t be disappointed. in fact, my good friend travis is speaking this sunday while timm is on vacation. anyways, thanks for playing along these past few days. enjoy.

*the views and writings of this website do not represent the ideas of any persons mentioned, nor any organizations. these are merely personal convictions of the author.

i think this one is especially good. all laughing aside, i think that the church, as a whole, points their finger in the faces of people and condemn them for their “sins.” in this clip, jesus is going around the crowd telling everyone what they did wrong. i know that the whole misconception of christianity is that you have to be perfect like jesus was, but that is impossible to achieve. i think instead of leaders in the church pointing and saying “you did this wrong you sinner,” they should be using positive reinforcement to help encourage people along their christian journey. a simple word of encouragement can go a long way. enjoy day three’s video.

day two’s video is very far out there. its funny to think of jesus, and even christianity, the way this video portrays it. i honestly think that some people think that this is the way churches work, setting up these ridiculous structures and rules, and to a certain extend maybe some churches do. you can’t miss church on sundays. you have to do this. you can’t do that. church, and especially christianity, shouldn’t be about rules and regulations. it shouldn’t be about what you can and can’t do. yes, i think it is important to be in church on sundays. if done correctly, church is an environment where you can have much spiritual growth. its a place to fellowship. after going to ridgepoint church, however, i have come to the conclusion that church isn’t the most important aspect of spiritual and relational growth. this kind of growth occurs by reading your bible and attending a small group, in which you can dive deeper into the meaning of christianity. the church is just a mere stepping stone.

now don’t get me wrong. there are some pretty cool things that happen on sunday mornings. last night, at our home, we had a creative meeting to discuss some of the upcoming sermon series, and let me tell you, there are some amazing things planned that you won’t want to miss. so without any further delay, enjoy what wouldn’t jesus do? video two.

man did i have a busy weekend. saturday morning emily and i had to be in winter haven at 8:30 to meet the home inspector at the house we are trying to buy. tabby bottoms did us a huge favor and got her dad, who is a home inspector in orlando, to drive over for the morning and give us the complete run down of the place. first of all, her parents are awesome. we all walked through the house, attic, yard, etc. after about 2 hours, a bloody finger, and a little sweat tabby’s dad told us that it is a great home. there were a couple of minor issues to take care of, like the structural warranty from the builder and putting some gutters on the roof, but all in all this place turned out to be in good shape.

after the home meeting we were starving. there was much debate about where to eat lunch, and it was only about 10:45, which made the prospects even slimmer. we drove over to lakeside village because i wanted a greek salad from louis pappas, but they didn’t open until 11:00. to pass the time we wandered around bed bath and beyond for a bit and then drove back over the restaurant…and decided we didn’t want to eat there. heading back down the road we finally agreed on fred’s market, which was a good call if you ask me. chicken, ribs, mashed potatoes, green beans, and peach cobler is a good lunch any day in my book. our next stop was carlton music center. i decided that i wanted to buy a glass slide and teach myself how to play slide guitar. it has such a cool sound. i hope i am successful.

we finally got home in the early afternoon. emily decided to take a nap, so i changed the strings on my acoustic guitar and watch ultimate fighter on spike tv. i love that show. by the time i was all done with this, emily was awake and it was time to get ready to go to betsy’s wedding. i was originally suppose to play guitar and sing in it, but then i had the tragic knife accident and was replaced by my beautiful wife. good call betsy. the wedding began at 5:00 and laster for just over a half hour. on to the reception we go. dinner, toasts, and and hour and a half later we decided to leave due to the early morning we have every sunday. when we got home we decided to hang out together and watch a movie. i got to choose. normally this could be a bad thing for emily, but she actually liked what we watched. let me tell you, blades of glory is very funny. bed time.

awakened by music at 5:30 sunday morning, i knew it was church day. everything went really well for the services. we did a stripped down acoustic set, due to everyone being on vacation. timm gave the second sermon in the squeaky clean series, and overall it seemed like there were more people in both services. a few of us decided to go to abuelos for lunch. i love that place. their pappas con chile is simply divine. after lunch we were still in house mode, so we drove way down into south lakeland to visit famous tate. i was very disappointed with the prices and selection. since it was on the way home, we stopped in the home depot next. once again, i was very disappointed with this establishment. we had been to lowes earlier in the week shopping for appliances, and i’m pretty sure that this will be where we do business. when we got home it was nap time again. this time i actually took one as well. i’m not sure if it was on purpose though, since i was watching csi and the next thing i knew it was 2 hours later. sunday night we had plans to go out to tampa to watch timm bottoms perform his senior recital for his masters degree at usf. he did very good. i’m proud of my buddy, and let me tell you, that boy can play a tuba. we did a little celebrating and hanging out afterward and finally arrived back home at 11:30.

monday morning. here i sit at work. overall it was a great weekend. i can’t wait to hear about the offer we made on the house. i can’t wait to go to lowes again and actually buy kitchen appliances. i can’t wait until saturday so i can sleep in.

happy easter first of all.  i apologize about the picture in case it offends anyone.  as morbid as it is i just find it hilarious.  ::moving on:: we just finished up with all of the day’s activities and boy am i tired.  the day started early.  i got up at about 5:30 this morning, for church and took out our dog puma.  emily got up at the butt crack of dawn and took out puma while i laid in bed until about 6.  we got to church at 7 this morning to have band practice again before the first service.  justin was in the kitchen making the whole band breakfast.  pancakes, eggs, bacon…the whole spread.  what a nice worship leader.  the new song we did today went perfectly.  it was pretty much the best song we have ever done, maybe even the best song we will ever do.  the whole band nailed it too.  anyways, there were a ton of people there this morning.  i guess everyone goes to church on easter and christmas.  there were a ton of new faces, hopefully many will return and become part of the usual crowd.  once again timm’s sermon was knocked out of the park.

we spent lunch and the early part of the afternoon with some family.  i love eating with family because it is always a delicious meal that i don’t have to pay for or prepare.  go family.  i guess one day that will be me in that position, so i’m just going to take advantage of it while i can.  no fat camp this week.  i need a week off for the holiday.  sorry but you’ll just have to get over it.  its not like its the best thing on this website…or is it?  i hope not.  that would make me sad.

so to all of you out there, i hope you have a great holiday, weekend, and evening.  i’ll see you tomorrow.

i can’t wait until sunday.  i know i always complain about the holidays and how busy they are, but i don’t even care this year.  for church sunday morning we are doing a really cool song.  i haven’t been excited about any of the songs we do in quite some time.  justin, however, has got my interest up this week.  first of all, this song is awesome.  its great just the way it is on the album, but to make things even better, we are doing this kickin’ arrangement for it.  i am almost even looking forward to practice tomorrow night.  i spent my lunch break today changing the strings on my les paul and learning all the lead parts i will be playing.  i didn’t even eat.  now you know i must be completely enthralled in something if i intentionally miss a meal.  so have i got your interest up?  if you want find out what i’m talking about you will just have to visit ridgepoint church this sunday for easter.  you don’t want to miss it.

what do you do?