Categories
God

Life Pointe Church Sunday Morning Tossed Salad

1.  It’s certainly not a competition as to who gets to the movie theatre first in the morning, but (for a change) I beat Anne J. there this morning by at least a couple of minutes. Then again David C. and David ‘Ritz’ were there before me. They just didn’t know that the front door was already unlocked !  (They were waiting out front.)

2.  Due to personal reasons near and dear to me this morning’s 9 AM service was the most emotional Sunday morning service for me ever – in the 18 months (exactly) that I’ve been attending Life Pointe Church. During selected portions of this morning’s service it truly felt like Pastor Travis was speaking directly to me and about me regarding some situations that are currently going on in my Life. I’m sure that some of my fellow brothers and sisters in attendance felt the same way – that Pastor Travis was talking to them and about them from the stage. The fact of the matter is that God is using our Lead Pastor to communicate to us corporately each and every Sunday morning. That makes Pastor Travis very relevant. God is truly omnipotent.

3.  Pastor Travis spoke on exhaustion this morning. The following statement in his teaching caused me to get the chills and get very emotional with tears – ‘To run with endurance all the way to the end, you have to drop your dead weight.’ It’s based on Philippians 3:13-14:
13  No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,
14  I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

4.  A few of our regular attenders have been asking me about the next membership luncheon at The Capri Restaurant in Florida City (where all of the food is). The next one is scheduled for Sunday August 17TH at 2 PM. You can sign-up for it at the Information Booth next Sunday morning, or you can let us know that you (and your family – if applicable) wish to attend via your connection card next Sunday. If you have any questions regarding the membership luncheon then please feel free to stop me in the hallway next Sunday morning and ask me about it.

5.  I recently switched over from the 10:30 AM service to the 9 AM service, and you can too. There’s plenty of seats available during that first service, so consider making that switch. Be sure to arrive at the theatre in time for the actual start of each service – whether it be precisely 9 AM or precisely 10:30 AM. Jesse leads the LPC band up on stage with at least 15 minutes of rockin’ music that will surely get you up on your feet, singing loudly, clapping proudly, and even gettin’ down with a little bit of dancing. If you’re missing the big music show at the start of each service then you are definitely missing something !

Categories
Animals Bugs Computers Food God Music People Shopping Television Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Are you ready ?  Here’s what I’m talkin’ about !

1.  It’s a cool, dark, and stormy Tuesday afternoon in Homestead. We’re still in a drought if you can believe that. We need a lot more rain than this to get ourselves out of this fine mess !

2.  My brother and his lovely wife got me addicted to the TV show TMZ while I was at their house in Texas. I watch it almost every night now. I never saw a single episode of it before my recent trip to Texas.

3.  I never realized how much I actually like iced coffee … before I started drinking iced coffee !  I’ve made the new Homestead Starbucks a Monday afternoon tradition (right before the weekly Life Pointe Church staff meeting).

4.  Irony ? – A coworker of mine standing barefoot on an old chair on top of a hard floor while updating our building’s safety bulletin board !

5.  Yesterday I picked-up the new premium fish fillet sandwich from Wendy’s, and I brought it back to work. I microwaved it (to get it a little warmer than it was), and it emitted a wonderful smell that attracted a small portion of my coworkers. They adored that smell. It probably smelled better than it tasted. It was a fine sandwich, but I wouldn’t consider it to be ‘premium’. If anything it was perhaps a bit overpriced.

6.  Watch this cool Life Pointe Church promotional video from this past Sunday morning. I’m not in this one. I told Jesse that I wanna be a lovable babyface in his videos rather than a miserable heel. Travis alleges that I have a loyal cult following at the church. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a not so good thing.

7.  Every Sunday morning at Life Pointe Church I manage to get myself in to a whole bunch of pictures, yet they never see the light of day. I challenge you to put those pictures online, or send them to me and I’ll put them on the blog here.

8.  Here’s my brother in a recent text message to me describing what he had to deal with regarding his beloved dog Buddy – ‘… on Saturday he ate grass outside then ate insect killer that I sprayed, then vommitted BRIGHT YELLOW PUKE in A CIRCLE in the living room’.

9.  My 2002 HP Pavilion laptop is dying a slow death. I can see myself buying a brand new one sooner than I thought – like before the Summer is over. I may even donate this old laptop to the church once I buy the new one.

10.  Got ‘Rock Band‘ ?  I’ll be the lead vocalist. I’m good like that !

Categories
God

Life Pointe Church Sunday Morning Tossed Salad

1.  I don’t even try to beat Anne J. to the movie theatre bright and early on Sunday mornings anymore. This morning she was already working on starting the coffee by the time that I got there (well before 7:30 AM). I’ve decided that of all of the tables that are set up in the main lobby the two most important of them all are the tables for the Café (where the coffee and the bagels and the cream cheese go). Everything else comes after that !

2.  The ‘summertime slump’ continues at Life Pointe Church. There were a bunch of our regular attenders and members out on vacation, but we still had an above average total of first-time and second-time guests. Instead of a total attendance in the mid-to-upper 400s (kids included) we were closer to the low-to-mid-300s this week (estimated). That’s not bad at all for the middle Sunday of July !

3.  While it’s fine to count people we must remember that it is always about the human lives and what God is doing to transform them. God is only going to send these human lives to us if we (as a church) know what to do with them. If we don’t have our act together at Life Pointe Church then He will stop sending them to us. Right now I think that we meet with His absolute approval. We must keep it that way. We must continue to expand His kingdom here in the big city. We must continue to lead our brothers and sisters by the hand so that they can have total access to Him. We must continue to walk His fantastic journey together as we all follow Him !

4.  Pastor Travis spoke on ‘Conflict’ this morning, and he utilized the following Scriptures from the Good News to reinforce his teaching:
Philippians 3:1-11
Matthew 7:1-5
Matthew 18:15-18
Matthew 5:21-25
Romans 12:17-19

5.  My favourite of the five Scriptures above is Matthew 7:1-5:
1  “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.
2  For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.
3  “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own ?
4  How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye ?
5  Hypocrite !  First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.

Check out what this blogging lunatic had to say about this morning’s services at the LPC !

Categories
Blogging Books Computers Driving Food God Health Holidays Shopping Sports Television Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  Of all of the regular weekly blog entries that are posted on here this is the one that I look forward to compiling and posting more than any other. This is totally unrehearsed, and I am totally unprepared for it. This is raw, and that’s what makes it so cool. I have absolutely no clue what I plan to blog about for the next 9 items of interest, but I’ll just let my fingers do the talking and watch what happens.

2.  The 10TH season / 9TH summer edition of “Big Brother” on CBS-TV begins this Sunday night at 8 PM EDT / 7 PM CDT. Please don’t bother me while it’s on (three nights a week as usual).

3.  Some days everyone around me is a lousy driver. They either drive too slow in front of me, pull out in front of me, or tailgate me. This was one of those days. I couldn’t wait to get off of the streets.

4.  Everytime I sneak a peek at this book I spend more time in it than I intended. I need to find some time this weekend to intentionally spend a couple of hours with it. It’s what I do for Life Pointe Church. It’s how I serve God and His children here in Homestead.

5.  This afternoon I ordered a medium roast beef sandwich combo (with curly fries and a Sierra Mist) and an apple turnover via the drive-thru at Arby’s in Florida City (where all the food is). That’s what I paid for, and I’ve got the receipt right here to prove it. I got the curly fries, the Sierra Mist, and the apple turnover, but in lieu of the medium roast beef sandwich that I was truly looking forward to devouring I instead got – get this – a REUBEN !  I can dig mistakes like that when they work out in my favour flavour !

6.  Are you tired of all of the rain here in Homestead (nearly 14 inches over the past 22 days) ?  GOOD – I’m forecasting very little to no rain at all for the next 5 to 7 days (until perhaps early next week). Let’s see if I’m right.

7.  The Washington Redskins and The Indianapolis Colts kick-off the 2008 NFL season with the annual Pro Football Hall-Of-Fame Game in Canton Ohio on Sunday August 03RD 2008. That’s only 26 days away. THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT !

8.  I saw my hot new laptop on sale at a Best Buy in Plano Texas last week. The longer I wait the cheaper it gets with more power. Laptops with 4 GB of RAM are pretty much standard nowadays. So are desktops with 8 GB of RAM.

9.  I survived my 5TH cold in 8 months. It lasted 6 days. I kinda knew that I was getting it before I got it, and it was pretty much gone before I realized it. Here’s hoping that I don’t have to be blogging about my 6TH cold in 10 months come Labour Day Weekend !

10.  THIS JUST IN – My brother and his wife (my sister-in-law) now have a cold. My 6-DAY cold ‘peaked’ on its 3RD day. That was my last full day at their house. I felt a little bit better on the 4TH Of July – the day that I left them behind and flew back home. A single contact with my nasty cold germs left behind and it was pretty much all over for the both of them. They’ll probably infect each of their coworkers.