For You

Dear Friends:

Today, I am praying for you.  I am praying that 2010 will be a year of growth for you.  A year in which you will grow closer to God.  A year in which you will trust Him more.  A year in which he'll provide for your every need.  A year of loving others like He loves us.  A year of hope and promise.

Love and Peace.

The Church

There's a rap/hip-hop artist I enjoy listening to by the name of Lecrae. He's got a song on his most recent album called "The Bride." It talks about the Church today and how, despite it's flaws, she's still God's girl. Something to remember as we struggle with the shortcomings of the Church on earth.

Lyrics here.

Snow on my Grill

The Sing-Off

This week, NBC is airing a little contest called The Sing-Off. The premise of the show is a competition between several acapella singing groups from across the country. If you like choirs and good harmony, you'll (probably) love this show. Each group sings two songs and is judged after each song. At the end of the night, the judges eliminate one team.

Each team brings with it, various styles and influences that make their performances unique. What's extra neat (for me anyways) is that one of the groups is actually Voices of Lee, a student-led group from Lee University.

It's on tonight at 8:00 EST with the finals being on Monday the 21st.

I went to a Christmas program and an episode of Glee broke out.

That may be the longest title I've ever used for a blog post.

Anywho, our church had a Christmas program over the weekend titled "The Cradle That Rocked the World." Searching that phrase on youtube will only give you a hint at what actually went on Friday night. It was like a normal Christmas program, but with dancing and pom-poms.

It was very different. There were different styles of music represented with a simple storyline propelling the audience through the program. As has become the norm, there were live musicians playing the music. If I find a clip of the program, I will definitely post it here.

I left the building that night with the hope that creativity in worship is still alive. If there's ever a writing position that opens up on the production team, I'd like to see if I can try my hand at something like that. We shall see...

ICook 2

Today, I made a peanut butter pie. Notable only because I used honey as the sweetener instead of granulated sugar.


Also, I whipped up some baked corn. My sister made it for Thanksgiving and I loved it so much, I thought I'd make some myself.

Joy

It's only 9:00AM, but my day is already filled with joy.

This morning, I met a friend for breakfast. Before work. Friends that are willing to meet me for breakfast at 6:00AM bring me joy.

As I was leaving the house this morning, the sky was still dark. But it was alive. The moon and the stars were shining brightly. And I paused to give praise to the Creator. The words of David came to mind: "When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained. What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man, that you care for him." (Ps. 8.3-4). Creation brings me joy.

What is bringing you joy today?

Hark!

Yesterday morning, we sang "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" in church.  But the arrangement was a little different in that the even lines were preceded by a quarter-rest.  It bothered me.  And so I proceeded to ignore the rest and I came right in on the first beat.

Please do not mess with the arrangements of Christmas carols.  Cheers!

hey y'all

I have not been very good about keeping my little corner of the internet alive. Apologies to all those folks who have been checking here on a regular basis, but finding nothing new. You RSS people don't have the same problem.

What's going on? This weekend marked the series finale of Monk, a show that I've come to enjoy over the past couple of years. A little sad to see it go, but I'm not mourning it's departure. It was a clean PG-style detective show with a small amount of quirkiness, which there aren't that many of these days. And life goes on.

The Messiah soccer teams won another couple of champtionships. Isn't it time for them to move up to Division II?

A long time ago, y'all may have recalled that I had some crazy plan about cooking or baking something new every week. That hasn't exactly happened. But I did make something for Thanksgiving which I'm calling Creamy Cups of Goodness. Here's a picture.

On a personal note, more and more I'm enjoying hearing scripture read out loud. There is something about hearing the Word of God proclaimed that brings me hope and joy. We were reading through some scripture earlier this week, and we came across the portion of scripture that talks about living as Children of Light (Ephesians 4.17-32). I was thinking to myself how wonderful it is that words that Paul penned to the church in Ephesus 1900+ years ago, apply to us today.

I'll try to be more regular updating this thing. I'm going to try. Be well friends.