Random thoughts & inspirations

Here a few random thoughts from today and the previous weekend:

• Just had an older gentleman come into the store and I overheard him in conversation with a younger woman when he said, "Have you ever heard that Joel Osteen fella? He keeps everything plain & simple. (Here's the kicker) All the other preachers on TV are crooks." If that isn't an ironic statement enough for you, how about this statement coming from a African-American gentlemen that's in his 60s? I ain't making this up!  I did want to say, "what about T.D. Jakes or Tony Evans?"  Definitely the most ironic statement of the day:)

• I had lunch with a certain college student this afternoon and in the middle of a conversation about whether God is male or female asked such an cute, elementary question.  She asked, "what does God look like?" I was dumbfounded and thought to myself, "I can't remember if God was wearing gender specific clothing the last time I saw (him?).  Oh yeah, nevermind, I've never seen him."  My actual response was a lot less clever.  I said, "well Jesus is God and a man, so..."

• Really don't know what happened to my Mavs Saturday night.  They were riding a 13-game winning streak into a home matchup against the lowly Knicks.  And the last time they met in NY they were without 2 key players, including their starting, all-star point guard Jason Kidd and still they won BY 50!! Easy game, right?  Nope, they dropped, no, they didn't even show up in a 34-point loss! See, what had happened was...

• We had 45 students in THE EDGE two Sundays ago! Ya hurrr?

• Just found out that Kutless came out with a new worship album, gotta get that thing in the near future!

• Tribal Wars (Northeastern vs. Everyone Else aka P-Tank, Camden, PQ, etc) is April 14th in the auditorium at Forest Park! These kids ain't ready for this...thank God for release forms:)

•  Yesterday in THE EDGE we had part 4 of the Conflict series.  This last installment was about Conflict with God.  One common theme ran about the room that morning: "Why does God allow natural disasters?" And God totally supplied my response (which was unplanned, btw).  I said, "well, the Bible says that the earth groans for the day of the Lord's coming so you gotta think that we aren't the only ones in need of a Savior, the earth longs for Jesus' return, too.  Just as we grow older and our sins and mistakes are magnified, the earth grows older and inhabits more people and therefore has the potential to cause more devastation.  It may have all started in Genesis with thorns and thistles but now we see tsunamis, cat-5 hurricanes and earthquakes.  Sin doesn't just affect humanity."  

• Just thought I would let you know that Forest Park will have 1,000 people as a commonplace on Sundays in the future (and it won't stop there).  You heard it here first because God is moving and speaking! Holla.......lejah!

•  The Unleash conference was fabulous like it always is! It's making me dream all over again! You haven't heard the unfettered truth being preached until you've heard Perry Noble.  Check his podcast out on iTunes!

• I'm hungry...and I tend to ball well @ Corinth when I go hungry, watch out ballerzzzz!

• This year is gonna be the year that our college/young adult ministry takes off! I can't wait to share spring break with 14 of my friends from 29:11 (our college/young adult community group) this Thursday-Saturday in Nags Head.  FPC covered the cost of the cottage! Yes!

• THE BRINK will have its one year anniversary party at our first annual HOUSE PARTY @ my house! Can't wait to take all the furniture out of my living and dining room and party like its 2099!

• It's quitin' time here at the bookstore, I'm out!

Not Just Any 2 Weeks....

I tweeted last night (which I rarely do) about how I found simple pleasure in just sitting back, watching TV and having nothing pressing on my schedule for the next couple of weeks.  Here's what my last 2 weeks have consisted of:

• Doing prep work for the 30-Hour Famine, which includes but is not limited to calling each of the shelters, getting an accurate number of people that we were going to feed, putting together teams of students & volunteers, getting all 50 people to fill out and turn in a release form for the mall, etc.
• Holding a meeting with the Famine participants and making sure all the meals would be prepared by the families of the participants and delivered at the church when we needed them (one parent took it upon herself to feed 95, YES 95 people!)
• Designing an 8-foot banner that would display HOMELESS FOR HAITI and finding money to pay for it (gulp), which after the company printed it they gave us 50% off when they discovered what it was for (PRAISE GOD!)
• Secured my own living quarters (cardboard box) for the Famine, which we stayed out front of the mall
• Answered my phone which either rang or beeped with a text seemingly every 2 minutes
• Plotted directions for every team and made sure each had the schedule and the appropriate amount of meals for each outreach that we went to
• Led a candlelight vigil and a time of worship & prayer with Mark
• Failed to sleep much at all in the high-20s weather we had Friday night
• Drew the 3-5am watch shift for that night
• Succeeded in sleeping from 5:30-8am
• Guided a few teams on the fly on their routes while I was trying to lead my own team
• By the way, I stopped eating at 8pm Friday night and wouldn't eat until 7am Sunday morning
• While we fasted, we served the meals
• At 1pm (this is last Saturday mind you) we started a door-to-door canned food drive for the Food Bank. We raised 1,700 lbs in just 2.5 HOURS! Amazing!
• Took a 20 minute nap in my box
• Had a small interview with the guy at the Daily Advance
• Led Silent Library, if you know you know, if you don't you're missing out.  All the games involved food (which was GREAT). But it involved eating gummy bears off someone's face, eating marshmellow fluff from someone's fingers and lastly eating three bottles of Gerber (flavored Carrots, Fruit Yogurt and Lamb, which was easily the worst smelling thing from that day).  The prizes were half-eaten bags of chips, cookies, etc.
• Led another time of prayer & worship with Mark
• Drew the 12-2am watch shift, which wasn't better as it sounds because I couldn't wake up my partner who was supposed to stay up with me.  I wasn't going to go into his box to get him! No worries because George wasn't asleep.
• Found it really difficult to sleep in the humid low-30s weather (hadn't ate anything in 31 hours)
• Cleaned up all the trash and boxes, took communion (led by Jason)
• Had the best, most classy experience at McDonald's that I've ever had and I only ate a McChicken bisquit (after 36 hours of fasting)
• All 44 of us went to the 8:30 service Sunday morning service and totally blew the place up with our energy, which no one thought we would have:)  Take THAT!!
• Went home, took a 1.5 hour nap, came back and started to set up for the Hunger Banquet
• Emcee'd the Hunger Banquet and raised over $1300 dollars
• Cleaned up the auditorium and left around 10pm
• Got up and did some calls for the Benefit Auction, packed and left for Charlotte the next morning
• Saw the Mavs come from behind to beat the Bobcats that night!
• Called more businesses on Tuesday, sent faxes, emails, etc
• Went to the Unleash Conference at Newspring Church (newspring.cc) Wednesday-Friday
• Picked up all the remaining donations for the Auction on Saturday
• Sunday morning, we had the most kids we've ever had in THE EDGE, 46!!!
• I set up the football field at 1:45pm, finished setting up for the Auction at 5pm and had my first meal of the day immediately afterwards
• I described all the items and let the auctioneer do his thing (we raised nearly $3200 by the way)
• Cleaned up and done by 10pm
• And then, I tweeted what I did when I was watching House and having leftover Mexican food:)

 Yep, not my usual two weeks, but it was a blast nevertheless!

What do you think? Were you a part of the Famine or any of the fundraisers? What was your experience like?