Category: God

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Blogging God

Life Pointe Church Sunday Morning Tossed Salad

1.  Anne J. was the first to arrive at the movie theatre this morning, and she greeted me with open arms once I arrived. Actually she greeted me and told me to open my arms so that she could put stuff on them that came out of her car. Anne’s car is a ‘Mobile Life Pointe Church On Wheels’ at 7 AM every Sunday morning. I’M SAYIN’ !

2.  Richie Nieves and Mark Martinez (in his final LPC appearance) put up Pastor Paul‘s Information Booth this morning. It only took them about an hour and 15 minutes to do so. Pastor Paul can usually do it blindfolded with one hand tied behind his back in about 15 minutes or less. OK I’m exaggerating here, but the point that I’m trying to make is that only Pastor Paul can put that thing up and make it look great within a minimal period of time. That’s why everyone refers to it as ‘Pastor Paul’s Information Booth’.

3.  Pastor Travis took a well-deserved break this week to allow Pastor Paul to lead this week’s message. As part of our extended ‘Got Funk ?’ message series Paul spoke on ‘The Funk In Death’. I don’t have any of my notes from this morning’s service because of what happened this afternoon following the services. Pastor Travis and Pastor Paul are expected to post their ‘Sunday Wrap-Up’ and ‘Sunday Stew’ respectively. Additionally Marcela is substituting for the working LL Phil J, and she admitted that there could be trouble if she doesn’t follow through with her promise to post the ‘Sunday Talk Soup’. Look for those synopses to appear at a blog near you later tonight or early tomorrow.

4.  At 12:15 this afternoon I went out to my car in the movie theatre’s parking lot, and it would not start. The battery was low, and it wouldn’t crank. ‘Service Vehicle’ appeared on the computerized display on the dashboard. I ended up riding with Paul and Nathan in the ‘Hollifieldmobile’ over to the LPC offices, and then we picked-up the rest of the Hollifields and ventured east over to Homestead Bayfront Park.

5.  If you’re looking for a down-and-dirty scandalous report from the beach regarding our baptisms then prepare to be disappointed my friend. Everything went fine and dandy at the beach. One of the lifeguards that was a huge part of the April 13TH melee even came over to us and very politely asked us to move slightly over to the left-hand side of the beach area so as to not block the front side of one of the lifeguard stands. We did so, and then we proceeded. About a dozen new believers went public with their new faith in God. We had an audience in excess of 100 including virtually every other soul that was in the water looking on from beyond. It was a beautiful picture and a beautiful event on a beautiful day at the beach. God was smiling down at us, and the devil was running away from the scene of the crime as fast as he possibly could without even looking back.

6.  I won’t be at Life Pointe Church next Sunday morning. In fact I won’t even be in Homestead or Florida. I’ll be on vacation elsewhere. Be sure to check out the previously identified blogs for the happenings of next Sunday morning. I’ll be back with your next exciting edition of the ‘Tossed Salad’ on Sunday July 06TH. I’ll see you cats then !

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Bugs Career Computers God Home Life Shopping Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

You know you want it, so don’t let me be the one to deny it:

1.  On this dark and stormy Tuesday afternoon in Homestead I actually heard the following overused phrase from a coworker – ‘I think this is gonna be a really bad hurricane season. This could be the worst one yet !’ Remember when Hurricane Andrew destroyed Homestead 16 years ago this August ?  That was one of the quietest Atlantic hurricane seasons in modern history. It only takes one powerful hurricane to wreck havoc with your life as you know it. If we have an all-time record 30 named storms this season, yet none of them strike land anywhere near you then what kind of hurricane season is that ?

2.  We’re getting a lot of much-needed rain today here in Homestead. I totally dig that. We need every last drop of it and then some to pull us out of this extended drought that we’re in. We could really use at least three FEET of rain (that’s right – 36 inches) over the next three months !

3.  If you think that you haven’t seen that many mosquitoes out and about thus far this Summer then check again by this weekend. Let me know if you can feel them biting you in a few days.

4.  Last Thursday I celebrated the 23RD anniversary of my United States Air Force / Department Of Defense career. Time flies when I’m having fun !

5.  Last Friday I celebrated the 13TH anniversary of me living here in my current home here in Homestead. This is by far the best place that I have ever lived in my entire life / Life.

6.  For those of you who are new to my blog let me explain. When I refer to the last 22 months of my Life the word ‘Life’ is always capitalized. When I refer to the 39 years before that the word ‘life’ begins with a lower-case ‘l’. When I write about my ‘life / Life’ I’m referring to my previous sad, miserable, and directionless life, as well as my current Life – full of glory, joy, and purpose for I have been saved and reborn again by the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s all symbolic, but it also keeps it all in perspective.

7.  My next laptop will have at least 2 gigabytes of memory in it. My current laptop has exactly one-fourth that amount. I think that I will finally buy a brand new laptop sometime between now and the end of the year. I’m actually not looking forward to it. Once I buy that new laptop this blog may suddenly go inactive for about 3 to 5 days because it will probably take that long to transfer all of my files over from this laptop to that laptop and also install and configure various programs. There’s a lot of work involved there. If I knew that it would be really easy then I would probably already have a new laptop by now.

8.  Ela O. called me on the telephone this afternoon, and we talked for exactly 7 minutes and 29 seconds. She made me laugh hysterically, and I returned the flavour. The telephone is my least favourite electronic device that I could easily live without; however, when I see that it’s Ela on the other end (via my Caller-I.D.) I know that I should be prepared to laugh up a storm with her. She has every reason in the world to be sad and miserable, yet she is one of the happiest and most joyful women I know in my current Life. She’s got a whole lot of purpose remaining in her Life here on Earth on God’s fantastic journey !

9.  Ela tried to pull a fast one on me during that telephone conversation by telling me that I was being assigned to make coffee this Sunday morning at the Life Pointe Church Café. We have quite a few Medical Doctors and Registered Nurses that are part of our LPC family. They would be put into action and forced to go to work on their fellow brothers and sisters if I were to make coffee on Sunday morning. We would need a couple of shuttle buses to transport the victims from the movie theatre to the hospital. I stopped making coffee for the general public in 1989 – not because I made anyone sick or anything like that – but because I could. Nowadays I actually make my own instant coffee for myself on most mornings. It would probably cause irregular heartbeats for most normal healthy humans.

10.  The Sun is now shining brightly and baking the atmosphere directly above my neighbourhood. That only means one thing. Prepare now for another ferocious thunderstorm with torrential downpours in about an hour.

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God Life People

The Fortune Cookie Message Of The Week Club

‘Place special emphasis on old friendship.’

I’m 41-years-old, and I can count exactly two people in this world who have been my friends for at least half of my entire life / Life.

Marge R. is one of them. I’ve known her for over 20 years now – pretty much my entire life / Life since I’ve been living here in Homestead. She was telling me all about God for much of that time. I just wasn’t listening very carefully. She never gave up on me. If it weren’t for her none of you reading this right now would know me today, and I wouldn’t know you. I wouldn’t be living here in Homestead. I have Lunch with her every few months or so. She’s one of the greatest ladies that I’ve ever met in my entire life / Life. I can write that knowing that she’ll never see this. She doesn’t know what a blog is. She doesn’t know how to go online. That’s fine. I prefer to tell her these things LIVE and in-person. It’s not like she hasn’t heard them all before.

The other person who I’ve actually been friends with longer than Marge R. currently lives near an Air Force Base in Colorado. He was my best (and pretty much only) friend when we were stationed together over in the U.K. about 21 to 22 years ago. I haven’t seen him in person since November 1987, but we’ve been keeping in touch consistently ever since then via Christmas cards, (pre-Internet) letters, and (modern-day) E-Mail.

While a few good lifelong friends came in to my life during the 1980s and 1990s I can sincerely state that I now have hundreds of close personal friends today that are praising, worshiping, living, loving, learning, obeying, and following Jesus Christ alongside with me. They are VIPs within our Life Pointe Church family. I believe that many of these ‘new’ friends will be lifelong friends who I shall live the rest of my Life with forever whether it’s near or far. I am currently living the greatest times of my Life, and you sitting right there reading this are truly part of it all. Hang On !  It just keeps getting better !

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God People Politics Television

Life Pointe Church Sunday Morning Tossed Salad

1.  David Corrado and Richie Nieves arrived at the movie theatre long before anyone else did this morning. They were there long before Pastor Travis, Pastor Paul, Anne J., and myself were there. They wanted to get a head start in transforming a public place of Hollywood movie magic into a public place of praise and worship for God. David and Richie are so assimilated into our living and breathing body that is our Life Pointe Church family. That’s what it’s all about.

2.  There is no ‘summer slump’ in-progress at Life Pointe Church. I think that Flagship Cinemas Corporate Headquarters (up near Boston Mass.) would have been totally ecstatic to have a crowd show up at any one of their movies during the week that showed up for our 9 AM service. It was ‘bumping in to other people room only’ all throughout the main lobby just before the 9 AM service, and then again just before the 10:30 AM service. It was surely our busiest Sunday morning since Easter Sunday morning in March !

3.  Pastor Travis spoke on ‘The Funk Of Suffering’ as part of our summer-long ‘Got Funk ?’ message series. Suffering exists because sin exists. God sees and hears all of the suffering in His world that He created. He is compassionate about it all. He endures it all. He never avoids it. Everyone suffers, but will you suffer in a way that God can do something through you ?  Will your suffering compel you to love Jesus more ?  Will your suffering reprioritize you toward the mission of Jesus ?

Next Sunday morning Pastor Paul will speak on ‘The Funk In Death’. Tim Russert’s death has hit me rather hard. I was a big fan of him. He was an important part of my extended Irish family. I got very interested and knowledgeable in politics and the world around me because of him. I’ve been a 16-year fan of “Meet The Press” on Sunday mornings because of him. I never met him in person, but if I had a TOP 5 list of Americans I’d most want to meet and have dinner with he would have definitely been on that list. He’s up in Heaven now. God needed his Moderator and Managing Editor up there, and He got him. He’s probably staying up late and doing his extended research right now so that he can finally discuss the important issues of the century with Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. up there around the big table after all of these years. It’ll be the most intelligent and topical hour of LIVE television that the angels have ever seen. Rest In Peace Tim. Because if it’s Sunday – it is “Meet The Press” – but it will never be the same without you. This is BIG – Heaven’s got you now !