Things I Learned in Michigan...

I just returned from an amazing trip to the "land of my youth" - which is not entirely true since I don't think I have grown up yet. This was the first time I had ever taken a vacation by myself. I feel like this weekend was one of those "watershed" moments in my life. I re-connected with old friends and made new ones, did new things and experienced life. Here's the list:

• Drink water while driving a convertible down the highway for half the morning.
• I can get sun through my clothes.
• RDU is the worst airport I have ever been in.
• DTW is the second worst airport I have ever been in.
• I have a new appreciation for CLT airport.
• One of the best times of day to solve the world's problems (or at least your own) is from about 2am - 4am.
• Always travel with a fan.
• Everyone has a story to tell - listen! Shut your trap and listen!
• The roads in Michigan are like war zones.
• True friends take you the way you are and don't' judge you for what you have done.
• The Jonas Brothers are Christians.
• I have completely conquered my fear of flying! WOW! Thank you Lord...ALL YOU.
• I would rather sit and talk all day with interesting kids than a lot of things...if you treat kids like they have something important to say then your life will be happier - they will fill it with joy.
• EVERYTHING changes, some changes are not so good, but most are great, unexpected...
• My worth does not revolve around how well I can sing or how good I am at working on computers.
• Never pass up an opportunity to tell someone how much they mean to you.
• I love XM Satellite Radio.
• The traffic in Winston-Salem is...er...NOT EXISTENT!
• Never forget to mingle...even when you don't want to...

NEW ONES I thought of later...

• "O Brother Where Art Thou" is an awesome movie...I love ""A Man of Constant Sorrow".
• Some of the best times may come when you are doing practically nothing...

That's enough for now.

I should never play poker for money

I have never played poker for money - and for good reasons. One thing, I don't like to gamble - it just seems like a waste of money - a crazy waste of money. In fact, if someone wants to gamble I'll be happy to take the money from them and put it to good use!

The other reason is that I would be the perfect example in "poker school" of what a "poker face" is NOT.

One thing for certain - I don't have a good way of hiding my emotions - short of physically hiding until they subside. Even then, the residuals are pretty easy to see as long as you are looking my way. I don't have any REAL skills at masking my emotion, especially if (this is not a complete list):

• I'm talking
• I'm passionate about something
• I'm excited about something
• I'm mad
• I'm sad
• I'm disappointed

My face, my voice, my body language all give me away - even a blind person would ask "what's up with you?". It's pathetic...and it's me.

The flip-side of all that is you pretty much know how I feel about most things. If you are a close friend, then even more so. If I like you - you know it. If I don't like you - you know it. If I like spending time with you and have things in common with you - you know it. There isn't much guess-work involved in knowing me.

TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE...

When i get excited about something, when I have great news or world changing news (my world), then I feel a real burning need to share it. I'm terrible at surprises - I love to give them, but the suspense kills me! I've only been able to pull a few off in my life.

There is just something in me that can't hold in good news, no matter how inappropriate it would be to share. For me, good news, good times, good friends, good life are all blessings that are multiplied when shared. Even more, I feel like I have let my friends down if I withhold information from them - isn't that what friends are for?...sharing our joys and sorrows?

So, if I had a Royal Flush in a poker game it would be of no use to me, because everyone would know about it before I could convince them to give me their money.

It's a good thing I'm not playing poker.

Can You Go Back?

Driving in the car makes my brain search for things to occupy it's time. Yes, I think that cars are simply a way to get from one place to another and that "driving" is overrated and simple if you just use common sense. Anyway, I digress...

When I drive home from work I almost always pass the Church building that I spent about 12 years of my life in and out of. Most days I just pass it without even noticing, other days, my brain is still searching for something to think about and that building can open up doors that my brain walks through before I can stop it.

The other day I wondered if I would ever go back for a visit and I imagined how it might go - what I might feel. This is not the first time my brain pondered this and the result was not much different than usual - it might be fun to see a few friends, but it would be more trouble than it's worth. It would simply be a social visit and not about worshipping God.

Nothing new there, that's just about where my brain stops with that subject - but the other day it kept going...

Can you go back?

For most of my life, I was surrounded by a "sub-culture" that I called my "Church family" or just "Church". The "Church of Christ" was IT and that's all I knew. My grandparents, my mom, my friends, most of my extended family in some way, shape or form associated with this group. I went to a Christian college - that is to say a college associated with the "Church of Christ". At least MY understanding of what the "Church of Christ" was. My "world" was a certain size and shape and everything beyond that enclosure was just not important - not relevant.

God has lead me somewhere I didn't expect, but I am convinced that He led me and I'm just glad that I stumbled my way behind Him enough to get to where He wants me to be. For many years - maybe 10 or more - I have come more and more to the conclusion that A cappella worship is a preference, a style, not a mandate. Even when I wandered to where I call "Church Home" now, at first I still believed that my preference was A cappella worship, but that based on my options and what God had put before me that worshipping in a "non-A cappella" style was OK. In fact, I felt that it would be good to be able to go "back and forth" if needed and not be hindered ONLY by the "make music in your heart" clause.

Now my brain poses the question (as I'm driving home)... Could I go back?

The answer is generally "No". Not because I want to make a statement about the correctness of my position, not because of some resentment. Just simply this. I have grown and my view of God and His kingdom has also grown - it's a great deal bigger now. My world is bigger now and frankly I don't believe it would fit in the door of that building.

Things I've Learned on Tour 2008

OK, so Heartbeat Choir tour 2008 is now "history" - oh wait, that was last year. Let's try that again.

The "noise" has subsided on this year's tour... "Beyond the Noise" - HBC Tour 2008 is over. As always, it's bittersweet. On one hand, it's almost always good to be home and this time is no exception. By the time we rolled into the building last night I was tired and I didn't feel 100% well. Also, as is usually the case with teens on trips like this, the closer we got to home, the louder and more crazy the bus got. No sense in fighting it - the kids are going through the same thing the adults are going through - they just express it differently.

On the other hand, it's the "end" of a labor of love. This tour and this program was one of the best things God has allowed me to be a part of. The tour went as smooth as any of us could have imagined - God is good and His hands were all over this. The kids gave us no unexpected or out-of-the-ordinary problems. In fact, they were routinely WHERE we needed them to be WHEN we needed them to be there. Every stop we had comments about how great our kids were and how they blessed those around them.

As the tour progressed, they also did something amazing...

Every youth worker, student minister, choir director and chaperon on just about any trip like this asks their students to expand their world and try to get to know people outside of their close friends. We ask them to do this, but we know it's hard to do. They did it. It was heartwarming to look back and see almost every student sitting with someone else so often that we had hardly any way to tell which seat they had "laid claim to" at the beginning of the tour. It was nothing short of amazing - God was there and He was smiling.

Here's some of the things I learned on tour this year:

• Never let kids go to the pet store while on tour.
• Restrict the use of large fountain drinks on the bus.
• When God sends you somewhere that feels uncomfortable at first, just relax and get ready to be changed.
• Girls are afraid of bugs - even ones that don't bite and are completely harmless.
• Surround yourself with great, Godly people and God multiplies the results.
• Drink wristbands at an amusement park are GENIUS.
• "The Beast" is the best wooden roller coaster I have ever ridden ("Son of Beast" was a bit disappointing).
• Too much of a good thing is bad - case in point - cologne.
• Not all DVD players are made the same.
• Never, ever question what God can do with those that are ready to be molded.

H2O - "The Equalizer"

Water, H2O...two Hydrogen atoms bonded to one Oxygen atom. It's all around us. It's in us - about 60% of our body weight is made up of water. We drink it, consume it as part of the food we eat, we play in it, we use it to get around, we breathe it as water vapor.

It's life - without it there is death - with it there can be life.

The properties of water are somewhat unusual, the solid state of water (what we refer to as ice) is not as dense at the liquid state. That is somewhat unusual, but without that little natural oddity ponds, lakes, oceans and all bodies of water would be devoid of life once the temperature dipped below it's freezing point.

We call water a "universal solvent" - it holds many things that we need to live.

71% of the surface of Earth is covered in water - we live on a small portion of the remaning 29%.

Water is important - water is life.

I thought about some of this last week as I watched two men step into a pool of water we call a "baptistry". I watched as a man about 5 foot 8 inches dunked another man about 1 foot taller and much heavier than he. If the smaller man had to pick up the larger one off the floor outside of the baptistry using just his right hand (like he did in the baptistry) there is no way it would have happened. He would have thrown his back out, and the larger man would have fallen back and cracked his head on the floor.

But water is special.

If you're not convinced then just think about how God has used water.
- He used it once to destroy all but a handful of people and a bunch of animals in the world.
- He used it to bury the Egyptian soldiers chasing his chosen people in the Red Sea.
- He used it to make a point for Jesus' first miracle, turning ordinary water to wine.

He used it to allow us to share in Christ's death, burial and resurrection. He could have asked us to do some other sort of series of tasks that would have "looked" more like what had actually happened...He used water. Cleansing, healing water.

And...he made us bouyant so that a 5'8" man could baptize a man more than a foot taller than him and a lot heavier. God made water special and He wants all of us to pass through it before we're done on this earth. Every person...people we will never see or meet, bankers, lawyers, salesmen, mothers, fathers, basket makers, messengers, CEOs, rich, poor, young, old, free, slave, murderers, tax evaders, democrats, republicans, men, women...everyone.

Water is "The Equalizer"...