Jesusgreek

Highs As of Tuesday, Beth and I are 100% debt free except for our house. After paying off my Explorer yesterday, we are now for the first time in our lives free from any car payments, student loan payments, credit card payments, or any "other" payment. Dave Ramsey and Clark Howard would be proud. Lows Half my family is sick with strep throat. Beth was diagnosed with it on Sunday and Jacob yesterday. Maria and I have them locked away in quarantine until all is safe. Highs Within the next ten days I will officiate two weddings and take our youth on an inner city mission trip to Atlanta. Lows Within the next ten days I will officiate two weddings and take our youth on an inner city mission trip to Atlanta. What was I thinking?????? Highs I have just finalized plans to take a group of 15 to Mexico City for a mission trip in October. (More on that in a later post) Lows Now we have less then 3 months to raise $800 a piece to go. Highs My buddy Ryan suggested a new TV show to check ...

I have been a HUGE Tom Petty fan ever since I got my hands on a "Full Moon Fever" "tape" back in '89. So when I had the chance to get some tickets back in January for his Charlotte show I didn't think twice about it. It has been at least 6 years since I last attended a 'secular" concert. (James Taylor '02) Not that I have anything against secular music or concerts, there just haven't been any I was willing to shell out $50+ a ticket for. Until now. When we arrived at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Charlotte the place looked more like the parking lot to a Panthers game with all the tailgating that was going on. A nice surprise was they didn't charge for parking. I guess they figured that after sticking you with $16 in service charges per tickets it was the least they could do. After parking and making our way through the sea of pre-concert partiers, we found our seats. We sat in the last section of seat in front of the lawn center stage...

I spent last week at Merriwood Christian Camp www.campmerriwood.net serving as camp pastor for a group of 70 rising 7th-9th graders. I've been sending students to Camp Merriwood for over ten years and I've the privilege to serve has camp pastor for the last six. The "tough" thing about this gig is having to give 9 sermons in 4 1/2 days. Some years I've been able to recycle (with a few tweaks) some of my youth sermons from our youth worship services throughout the year. But this time I went in fresh with 9 brand new messages / worship experiences. The easy part of the week is the down time I get just to hang out with the students, take part in their activities, and build relationships. The other bonus for me is that although I'm still "working", it also serves as a bit of a sabbatical as I'm pretty much away from all things "real world". I had my cell phone but I left the laptop at home and only checked my voice mails once a day. It was...

I had the chance this past week during some down time at camp to get away and catch a couple of my "must see" movies from my summer movie list. I saw the "Incredible Hulk" and "Hancock". Both were good flicks with Hancock taking the lead at the top of my favorite summer movie list...so far. So to review, here are the the films I've seen so far along with the rest of the top 10 I'd like to see. Seen Hancock - 3 Stars (Great story, action, and humor. Could have been a bit more cleaner with the language, not a movie for kids) The Incredible Hulk - 2 1/2 Stars (Better then the first Hulk movie but still not up to Spiderman, X-men, or Batman level) Prince Caspian - 2 1/2 Stars (Great action & story, poor dialogue) The Happening - 1/2 Stars (Nothing redeeming about this movie) Want to See The Dark Knight (After M. Night, the Nolan brothers are my favorite writers/directors) Indiana Jones (Can my childhood hero live up to my childhood memories) Step B...

"This movie's hurt'n" - Ryan McDaniel "There is not one redeeming quality from that movie" - Beth Gianopulos "There has to be a good reason why this movie was so bad. Maybe is was M. Knight's way of giving Hollywood the middle finger." - Kipp Garrett Those were just a few of the quotes from my wife and friends as we stood around outside the theater trying to comprehend what we just saw. I'm as big of a M. Knight Shyamalan fan as you'll find anywhere. I not only have loved all is previous movies (including The Village and Lady in the water) but I own them. Ever since I read the premise last summer of his newest film 'The Happening", about earth finally having enough of mankind destroying it so it begins to purge the world of humans by releasing a poisonous gas into the air, I thought this movie would be a work or art. Boy was I wrong. What I got was 89 minutes of bad story, bad acting, bad dialogue, and unlikeable characters. Th...

Everyone keeps asking me, "How was it?". To quickly sum it up, Hawaii is everything your imagination tells you it will be and more. Words and pictures can't describe the shear beauty of the islands. It was an amazing place to visit and I'm just glad I have the chance to say I've been there. Here are some random observations I made and my final thoughts on the trip: - Every one there was very friendly. From people on the street, to the restaurants, to places we visited, everyone we came in contact with was very nice. - The pace of life on the the Big Island was very slow, much like the south. The only difference is in the south (since that's where I live I can say this) folks seem slower because they don't have a choice. It's just the way we're wired. There, people made "slowing down" not only a choice but a priority. - The Big island is still very unblemished. It's not taken the population or tourism hit that some of the other islands...

My kids LOVE the book "Where the wild things are". So you imagine my excitement when I heard Tom hanks was making the story of Max and his wild friends into a major motion picture. The film was set to be released this October but word has just come out that it has been pushed back until Fall 2009 because the studio thought the first editing of the film might be to scary for young viewers. At least we have these cool pics to tease us until then.