1. I arrived at the movie theatre at my normal time this morning, and Pastor Paul was already sweating up a storm upon my arrival. He totally dreams of setup on Sunday morning, and come to think of it – so do I. Transforming a place of Hollywood movie magic into a place of worship within a matter of a few hours late on Saturday night and early on Sunday morning can only be described as miraculous. We do it all for Him.
2. I was at the Kids’ Life Registration table when Kelly, Kourtney, McKenna, and Blake checked in. I said ‘Hi’ to everyone. Kourtney ran away from me, McKenna ignored me, and Blake looked straight at me and cracked a smile as if to say ‘Yeah, I know my name !’ Oh yeah – and Kelly told me to fix her up with a cup of coffee with lots of cream and sugar. Apparently Kelly thought that it was Mother’s Day rather than Memorial Day. It’s all good, but Kelly got her own coffee ! 😯
3. A rockin’ edition of ‘Praise & Worship’ was conducted by Jesse, Alex, another young skinny dude with long hair and tattoos, and Julie (of ‘Richard & Julie’ fame). If you weren’t up on your feet and singing and dancing and clapping your hands then you … were probably sitting down and enjoying the music of God in your own special way. That’s cool too.
4. Pastor Travis wrapped-up our month-long ‘Fortune Cookie’ message series with a teaching that was subtitled ‘A Person Often Meets His Destiny On The Road He Took To Avoid It ?’. Our Life is the cookie. Our future is the fortune. Jesus is holding the cookie.
Romans 8:38-39 (NLT, 2ND Ed.):
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow — not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below — indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
5. What happened over the course of the next 3½-hours (immediately following the conclusion of the 10:30 AM service) can only be described as mass chaos to an exponential degree. I won’t mention most of the specifics except for the highlight of it all which featured Richie N. and I as the only two people to show up for a picnic and baptism at Homestead Bayfront Park. Apparently we made it in to the crowded park just before it was closed (by Miami-Dade County Police) to new patrons, but we didn’t know it at the time. I later found out (while I was back at home eating dinner) that the picnic had been moved over to Keys Gate Park (just a couple of miles away). One of these months we are going to have a normal picnic and baptism. I’d like to be there for that one !
CountUp 
11 replies on “Life Pointe Church Sunday Morning Tossed Salad”
Thanks to no cell phone service at Bayfront Park and no cooperation from the Park Police in getting into the park to communicate with you all, you and Richie were left in the dark wondering what happened to the rest of us. The ones of us who could be reached had a wonderful time at the Keys Gate Butterfly Park…
Good times anyway, and who knows, someday we might look back and see God’s hand even in this! We missed you (and your paper goods:) )
aj
Here’s the weird thing. Had you all been able to enter the park you would have been able to park in a parking space (there were plenty of vacant spaces when I arrived – and when I departed), and we would have probably had the picnic at our usual pavilion. I also don’t think that we would have had any problems with the baptism in the water, as the lifeguard there was a young dude who has seen our baptisms before with no problem.
After driving there, paying $5, hanging out with Richie in the hot sun with no clue as to the whereabouts of everyone else, driving over to Biscayne National Park and finding nobody there either, and then driving back home again amidst bad drivers in a thundershower all I wanted to do was to stay home and get to work on the ‘Tossed Salad’ and the assimilation data collection. My day with the outside world was done and over with !
I’ll bring the paper goods back to the office in a few days. They are bad luck !
Call it karma or just bad luck… but when you can’t do a simple favor like fix a cup of coffee for a friend bad things happen to you (like being stuck in the hot sun by your lonely self for three hours).
well i’m rather relieved that the park was shut down early, not because the baptism was, i assumed, nixed, but because when we reached (around 3pm) 117th ave the hmstd pd were directing traffic away from the park entrance. tardiness is not reasonable excuse but that is how the cookie, sometimes crumbles.
1. I only stayed at Homestead Bayfront Park for about 45 minutes – not 3 hours. I was there from about 1:25 until about 2:10. Richie left shortly after me (I’m hoping).
2. I stopped making coffee for people back in 1989. I’ll tell you why at another time. (No – I did not poison anyone.)
[…] of this moment, Chris is the only LPC blogger that has an alternatively titled Life Pointe Wrap-up […]
[…] perspective, check out my fellow LPC bloggers: Ritz Crackah’s Goosfaba Chris Day’s Sunday Tossed Salad Pastor Travis’ Sunday Wrap Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Midweek Mind […]
sorry all this happened….:{
#1 you are always on time or the first one to arrive for any event…
#2 why were the hmstd PD telling people to leave the park???
#3 serving Kelley her coffee was a smart gesture….keep it up…:]
#4 Were you going to go public this Baptism and get dunked ????
#5 It’s an Awesome experience…go for it….
GBY
see you Sunday :]
1. Most of the time. As J.T. frequently states with authority, ‘If you’re on-time then you’re late !’
2. That’s not Homestead over there. The Miami-Dade Police Department blocked off SW 328TH Street at SW 117TH Avenue (more than two miles west of the two parks) and did not allow any additional vehicles to travel eastward towards the two parks starting at around 1:30 PM. Those that were already there were good to go for as long as they desired.
3. I didn’t serve Kelly coffee. I don’t serve anyone coffee. I don’t expect anyone to serve me coffee. I would probably refuse coffee that is served to me.
4. & 5. I’ve already gone public with my faith. Reference this blog !
We missed you on Sunday morning at the LPC !
Still waiting on your story from when I was 11 years old as to why you don’t serve anyone coffee…
So you were 11 in 1989 you say ? That makes you … That makes you … still young !
P.S. When’s your birthday ?