busy week

There are a lot of things on my mind right now, this week is going to be crazy…

1. Catalyst… I’m so excited its hard to get anything done
2. Kids Krusade (only the biggest event for kids ever) is only a week and a half away
3. We just found out that Bella has hand, mouth & feet disease (or something like that)… poor little thing, she’s had a horrible fever and now has little spots all over the place
4. Tons of video for Kids Krusade and mapping out the production for each night

review: the kingdom

If I were to judge this movie by opening credits alone I’d give it 5 stars, they were amazing. Through the credits we’re caught up on the history of the Saudi/U.S. oil saga through slick graphics and vintage news reels. The rest of the movie to follow was very good, although it did have a few problems.

One thing that I loved about The Kingdom is that its very raw, it almost has an unrehearsed quality about it. Actor-turned-director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) has a way of catching actors and their emotions in such a raw manner while never slowing down his crisp and confident visual style.

While the Kingdom is visually stunning with powerful action sequences that are cut together brilliantly, it’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Without a good story providing solid backbone for all the style and action the movie is simply good, but not great – it lacks the resonance that a political thriller could have right now. Don’t get me wrong, the overall arc of the story itself was good, I just felt it could’ve been told with a little more conviction and even intrigue. The middle of the story is a bit slow (as in a CSI:Omaha slow), which is not always a bad thing as long as there is substance in the storyline and characters, which I didn’t feel like The Kingdom had.

Overall I liked it a lot – I’d give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

shiny new coat

Just now, as I was rocking Bella before her afternoon nap, I noticed the bookshelf we had put in her room. We had gotten it from a friend and I had worked very hard to paint it to match Bella’s other furniture. I was disappointed to see that the paint that I had worked so hard to put on it was starting to peel, all 17 coats. Then it hit me that when I painted it, I never sanded off the old clear coat that was on it before I painted it. Yea I know, the son of a ex-house painter should now better right?

A few thoughts on this… first off, before the pretty, shiny, new paint can be applied, there has to be a cleaning off of the old. And it’s really hard work. If you choose my method of skipping that step your next problem is that anything can scratch off that shiny new coat of pretty paint, revealing the true condition of that piece of crap furniture. Secondly, I realized that I’d never noticed this peeling before today because the shelf stays full of stuff… so I never see those exposed places. These rough patches have been hidden by the clutter and chaos. But its ironic that all stuff that is actually pulling off the paint. Its the excess of the books, baskets, toys, and all the other “stuff” that is revealing the true nature of this old, piece of junk shelf that we just tried to pretty-up the easy way.

Apply it however you want… I got a lot out of it, hopefully you will too.

couple caught cheating…

…with each other. Yea you read that right, this couple cheated with each other online. You would think that having an affair online would be easier… not for this couple. True story… it seems to be either a modern version of the Pina Colada song or the sequel to You’ve Got Mail. It would make a good romantic comedy though. Check it out here.

engaging in worship

In Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis says that we delight to worship and we can’t help doing it. It’s true, think about how easy it is to praise anything you like or enjoy. It’s so easy for me to praise my little girl, as spouses we praise our lovers, most pet owners (not so much me) adore their pets. I can’t tell you how often I spontaneously praise a good movie, book, blog, quote, or anything else that tickles my fancy. It’s common to hear people praise their favorite sports team, restaurant, or celebrity. We honor our heros or people with absurd amounts of talent.

I believe that in the same way, if we were to truly encounter God on a daily basis, that we would be overcome with his glory and we wouldn’t be able to help the words or attitude of worship that would spill from our lips. C.S. Lewis also said this,

The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” But… these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.

It’s so easy for us to view worship as a Sunday thing or a corporate experience… but its not. Typically when I think of “Worship” I think of large crowds, lights low, eyes closed, arms raised and singing loud. Yea that is worship, but that’s not were worship ends. We should be worshiping God one-on-one and experience the power and priviledge of worship every day, privately engaging God. Then when we come together corporately as people who’ve worshiped privately, then we’ll see worship taken to the next level. It wouldn’t come through a special night of worship or a new song, but from a collection of hearts that are already primed for worship because that’s how they live life.

tivo – man’s best friend

This morning I finally got around to getting my TiVo ready for this fall tv season. It’s probably going to be smoking under the hood for awhile because there are a lot of good shows this year. So here’s my rundown on what I’ve got TiVoing…

First off, mondays are looking great, How I Met Your Mother (which is really funny) and of course Heroes, I wouldn’t miss that for anything. New shows I’m going to try out are K-ville, The Big Bang Theory (only because I love Garden State, and the kid from Garden State is in this show, he was the kid in the armored suit, only one of my favorites parts), and I’m giong to give Journeyman a one night shot at making me a believer… I have little hopes for it. I love CSI, but Miami has gotten so lame, I will probably only watch the premiere to see what this hype about H having a son is all about.

Tuesdays are little slow, the biggest show of the night by far is House. This is going to be an interesting year since everybody walked out on him last season. (dont worry they are all coming back – just not in the same position) The only other show I have TiVoed is a new show called Carpoolers, I’m only giving it a shot because it was created by one of the stars of Kids in the Hall. That’s it for me on Tuesdays, I’m really not a fan of the Unit… it just never panned out for me, which is sad because I love David Mamet.

The only returning show for Wednesdays is CSI:NY. Which is turing out to be better than expected. As far as new shows on that night I’m going to give several of them a shot… Back to You, Pushing Daises, and Dirty Sexy Money. The 2 new shows that I got a season pass for are Private Practice (for my wife of course, he he he) and Bionic Woman.

Thursdays are easily the toughest night because of the great Grey’s, CSI, Office dilemma. What were they thinking putting them all up against one another. Anyway, if you havent heard the first 4 episodes of the office are an hour long… holy crap, thats going to be awesome. Anyway, I will have to watch one of those three shows live, which is so devastating (oh how you’ve spoiled me TiVo). Other shows that night are 30 Rock (I love Alec Baldwin, the show would suck without him), My Name is Earl, and Without a Trace. There is one other on Thursdays thats a cable show, if you haven’t seen It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia you should (its on FX). If your easily offended then don’t, but if you can handle a little raunch… then check it out, its one of the funniest shows on tv.

That’s it for me, Fridays are pretty lame, but its ok because I think I’ve got enough from all the other days to keep me busy through the weekend.

third place

Today was a great day. Our Pastor was out of town so Shannon and I got to experiment a little with the delivery of todays talk. We team taught, as in both of us on stage together delivering the message in a more conversational style. It was a lot of fun just to get of the box and do something different. Growing up in church has made me very bored very fast of all the “normal” stuff and its just so refreshing to break the rules and catch everyone off guard.

The message turned out great, some services were better than others, but overall we got extremely good feedback, which was encouraging. The topic was community and why its so important for all of us to have a third place. Your third place is the community you have outside of home and work.

A great example is the show Cheers, this little pub in Boston was a third place for all those characters, its where they found community. It was fun because we played off the theme of cheers (not that we knocked back a few during the message) but we opened with the praise band playing “Where Everybody Knows Your Name.” Our central question was, why wouldn’t the church be our third place? The main place that we find connection and community. And our answer to that is Fusion Groups. Overall it was a great day.

Side note: if you haven’t read the full lyric of “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” you should because it is one weird song… and supposedly and believer wrote it.

5 amazing years

5 years ago today I was lucky enough to marry the most beautiful women in the world. So today we are spending the day together, which means sleeping late, eating a lot, a walk on the beach, and probably some shopping. Oh yea… its gonna be great. I can’t believe its already been 5 years.

I love you Becky… you’re my princess.