Blake Thompson daht NetI'm just saying….

Not too long ago Bev and I had a few friends over for supper. You know how that usually goes. Some people are on time. Some are a touch late. But everybody makes it eventually. And then everyone eats at the table or the barstools or standing around in the kitchen. And then the guys end up in a clump while talking about sports or tv shows or how they would probably make up a good Curling team in the next Olympics. And on the other hand the ladies clump up and  talk about their kids or how lame it is that their husbands watch Curling.

So this time Bev wanted to go with a theme for dinner. And for some reason she chose a Wedding Theme. So everyone wore something from their wedding or brought something from their wedding and wedding pictures and all that fun stuff. It was quite fun. But we also played a game. We called it “The Not So Newlywed Game.”

It is played like the classic Bob Eubanks version I guess. But we had five questions each. It provided quite a bit of laughs and insight as we talked through the ten questions. Here’s what they were:

Questions for the Ladies

1. The saying “opposites attract must be true because my husband and I couldn’t be any more different when it comes to _________?
2. Every wedding has something to go wrong. What detail at your wedding didn’t go as planned?
3. Where did you share your first kiss?
4. What is your husband’s most irritating habit?
5. If your husband won $5000, what would he want to spend it on?

Questions for the guys

1. If your wife could have unlimited access to any store, what store would she choose?
2. If your wife could send you to the body shop for a tuneup, which body part of yours would she want worked on?
3. What is your wife’s favorite comfort food?
4. If you could have a second honeymoon, where would your wife want you to take her?
5. If you wife was married to a tv/movie star instead of you, who would she want to be married to?

As I said, it was a great time. And I meant to mention that my wife actually wore her wedding dress from nearly 11 years ago for a while. She’s a trooper!

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…it’s a new life…for me!

That is a quote from a Nina Simone song. I think I first heard it in a movie, but I’ve heard it now and then since. But it’s a pretty cool song. But the phrase repeated often is, “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me. And I’m feeling good.”

As we move into 2010 (do you say twenty-ten or two-thousand-ten?) I think there’s reason to be feeling good. I know everyone looks towards the new year as a time to make resolutions and changes and drop big mile markers on their life’s roadmap. I’ve never been big on resolutions. But maybe I can list out some intentions. Maybe that’s a softer way of saying things. But if I’m honest I do realize changes I need and/or want to make in my life.  So here they are, in no particular order:

• Read more. Now it starts with me being in The Word more. I really have no excuse. And You Version now has over 20 reading plans that I can download and print, read online, or read right on the iPhone. No excuse, right? But I know it should be my base in life. But I also want to read to my kids more; both the Bible and other stuff. Addie is a voracious reader on her own, but she really likes for me to read with her too. Ella is still putting together how to read, but has grown in her interest lately. And little Rowan, not yet 2, will go get a book and crawl up on the couch and call you over to him. So all of our kids like books.
• But I want to read for fun too. Good fiction books can really carry me away sometimes. But not only fiction but non fiction too. I want to learn more though books, and from that learning put that knowledge into life experiences.
• I intend to blog more. I always miss blogging. And I’ve not done it much at all lately. But I always mean too. And then I’ll go back and read some of my older stuff and really get the big again. Especially if I go back a few years. I need to figure out how to get my way older stuff imported into here. I think I have to juggle some old mysql databases and all. We’ll see. But in blogging more also comes more interactions with other blogs.
• I want to take more pictures. Whenever we look back at old pictures we always wish we had taken more pictures more often. I got a nice camera a year or so ago, but I’ve been hamstrung with out getting a good lens to go with it. Time to eliminate that excuse.
• I intend to eat cleaner. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I think I’ve probably got enough toxicity in my body right now that eating “clean” would benefit me in a whole host of ways.
• With eating better also comes exercise. I don’t want to try to be on any magazine cover. But to gain some cardiovascular endurance, a little muscle, and a lot of flexibility is where I want to go. I’ve got three small kids. I want to be around for their kids…and not just watch them from the recliner either. Without a doubt I need to work on core strength and flexibility.
• See growth and depth occur in the body of The Orchard. It’s been a great two years, but I think now that we’ve found a place (building) to call our own, we’re about to see lots of potential become realized. It’s going to take work and effort and prayer. But it’s exciting.
• Serve more. We’ve talked about it as a family, but we want to teach our kids what it means to serve and give of ourselves.  There are many opportunities around Oxford for serving too.
• Put some work into MissSportsTalk.com. It’s a good site, but it has lots of potential to be a great site. I’ve even considered starting up a podcast for it. I think there are plenty of people who would be willing to help out. And there’s a base of people already there who would listen I think. But articles and interviews for the site as well.
• Have real conversations with more people. Reconnect with old friends. But use the phone or the email or the coffee shop or whatever to connect with more people.
• Take my wife on a vacation: just the two of us.
• Take my kids on dates, just one of them and me, from time to time.

So there’s a quick mind dump. I know I wasn’t very specific with some of them. Instead of “exercise more” I could have said, “Run a half marathon in 2010″, but I didn’t.  Like I said, these are just some intentions. But hopefully they become reality.

But either way, it’s a new dawn…it’s a new day…it’s a new life for me.

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Over the last two years I got to know Steven Bush though his blog and photography. I would email him and ask a ton of questions, and he was more than gracious to reply and give me patient answers.  He was living in Nashville while also part of a band called Spur58. Since that time he and his wife, along w/ their bandmates, have moved to Austin, TX to be a part of a church called The Austin Stone. But I’ve continued to check his blog as he’s gone though an adoption process and expanded his photography business.

The lead singer of the band and now worship pastor at Austin Stone is a guy by the name of Aaron Ivey. I first heard of him through Bush’s blog because of pictures Bush took of Aaron’s family. As I looked as his and his wife Jamie’s blogs I saw they too had a heart for adoption and missions. And as a country they have a heart for Haiti specifically.

So, when I take time to peruse a blog here and there, I’d looked at these guys’ blogs, showed a few pics or stories or videos to my wife or shared them with friends.

But then yesterday Bev shows me the DM and asked if I knew anything about this: there was an add saying that Aaron Ivey was playing a concert that night. In Oxford. At….(get this)…Chick-fil-A. What? How did I miss that? And why did they plan it or the same night I had Community Group?

So the concert starts at 6pm. Group starts at 6:30. But it was a casual night of just soup and hanging out with another group. So I’d miss a little at the front of group and get to see the concert and meet the guys. I sent Steven and Aaron a msg on twitter and said I’d be looking for them.

I make it to Chick-fil-A thinking I’m going to be late, they’ll be starting up and not able to talk, and then I’ll have to leave and basically miss out. But they were behind schedule because of some weather issues. I was able to talk to Bush just a bit before sound check. I saw Aaron setting sound under the tent. Something he doesn’t usually do. He was stressing. I said hey, but could tell his mind was in about 47 other places and had no time for any talk, small or big.

I stuck around for a few songs, but had to get to the Heckel’s house for some good soup with some good people. We talked Friday Night Lights, and football, and website hosting, and mission trips. We talked of Haiti a bit because of the video from Austin Stone I sent out to our group. We talked of maybe trying to plan a trip soon that was similar.

I felt torn. I was enjoying the conversations with everyone, but wanted to catch the guys after the show, so close to 8pm I headed back up to Chick-fil-A. The stage area was being torn down, equipment packed up, and the band was being treated to free chicken and a tour of the inner sanctum that is the Chick-fil-A kitchen.

I got to sit down and talk with them as they enjoyed their free chicken (a friend of mine calls Chick-fil-A the Gospel Bird!). But this post is getting long enough. I’ll continue w/ the rest tomorrow.

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It’s been a bit of time since the last bullets. But here goes:

• Going to Orange Beach was a blast for vacation. That’s when the blog break began. But I might have a story or two to bring back from that trip.
• I participated in some osteoporosis study at Ole Miss. The were studying bones and such. I barely made it into the age range but had a bone scan done. Turns out I have the hips and spine of a 20 year old. But at least that lets me know that something else is wrong instead of just my bone hardness. I think it’s flexibility. But I credit my eating ice cream and lasagna for my strong bones.
• The test also told me my body fat percentage and Body Mass Index. It was no surprise. Not overweight, but not ideal weight either.
• I’ve been meaning to exercise more. Run around my neighborhood some. Maybe join a gym. I realized I’ve not lifted a weight in a gym since I started working here in Oxford. Only a few pushups now and then. That needs to change.
• I heard about CrossFit from Matt Chandler. Then after reading up some and watching some videos, I’m intrigued. It looks both easy and really hard at the same time. It’s aim is for total body fitness instead of any specification. I might give some of it a whirl. But I’m (currently) inexperienced in any Olympic style lifts.
• Pat and I started a new podcast. It’s called Everything and Nothing. Catchy title, huh? You can listen at the blog or download it from iTunes. And if you tell all your friends about it you’ll feel good about yourself.
• I’m still digging the iphone.
• The Orchard had a news piece done on it last weekend. Here’s the video.
• Speaking of The Orchard, we might just start having two morning services soon.

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I watched with anticipation when the iPhone came out two years ago. A few people I knew got one. They even let me hold it now and then. I witnessed the price drop, the backlash, then the giftcard response by Apple. Then last summer I saw the 3G release and friends left and right were buying it. Only $199, right? That’s not cheap, but it’s not unreasonable in the smart phone market. But I still watched from a far. But now I even got to fiddle with an application now and then over the last year.

But then the 3Gs was announced: more features and still low(?) price. Could it get any better? Turns out Pat was somehow eligible for the upgrade even though he was the first in line for the 3G at the Oxford AT&T Store last summer. So though we didn’t make a “released date purchase” last Friday, we scoured the local AT&T stores after the release weekend for an iphone. There were none w/in 75 miles it seemed.

But yesterday The Wife and I went to the Apple Store in Memphis to grab one. [Pat had succumbed to ordering from the Apple.com store and having it shipped to his house.] I’ve always liked going into an Apple Store, but this was my first purchase in one. It was a good experience.

I was worried at first because I was wondering if they would have any in or not. I’d called a few times since they’d opened and it was only a recording saying they were closed. But as I walked up there were lots of others walking up too. And I walk in and the place was crowded. I tell the guy in the orange shirt what I’m here for and he (I’ll call him Mr. Soul Patch) instructed me where to wait after I told him I had checked my eligibility and was good to go.

I only waited about 8 minutes (give or take) until a Specialist in a blue shirt came to assist me (I’ll call him Mr. Weekend Worker). We didn’t go to a desk or to a chair, we just stood in the software aisle as he took my info, put it in a handheld device, checked my stuff, swiped my card, and then said, “Let’s go activate your phone.” Wow, simple procedure.

The first thing that happened after my phone was activated was to receive a text from Pat: “I just canceled my order.” He knew I was at the Apple Store. So I was going to try to get him a phone as well. Turned out it worked after some initial hesitation. So I left the Apple Store with two 16gig 3Gs iphones (one black, one white).

So I’m pumped. So we celebrate by going for a visit to Target (wouldn’t you?) So The Wife looks as things wives look at. I look at the books and electronics. I make a call or two. And decide the phone sounds “muffled“. But maybe it’s just me. So as we leave I hand it to my wife and call it with her phone. She agrees. So….I take it back not knowing how long this will take.

So I walk back into the Apple Store and wait at the front counter where there are orange shirted folks there. I’m not really sure of the color coding, but I figured I’d just wait here first. But a blue shirted girl walks up (I’ll call her Miss Pessimistic/Confusing). I tell her I just bought this like two hours ago and it sounds muffled, so can I swap it? She gets a screwy face and says, “Um, you probably need to make an appointment with a Genius (they’re in the very back. Must be smarter than specialists and orange shirts) and they can determine what to do. She told me we couldn’t do an exchange, but the Genius folks could swap it out.” Wait, huh?

She explained that again, but it still made no sense. So I told her I was from out of town, drove here for the express purpose of buying an iPhone going to Target, but I didn’t have time to make an appointment. So she said to wait on the orange shirt girl next to her. So I finally get to talk to her (I say finally, it’s been 3 minutes). So I tell my new orange shirt friend (I’ll call her Miss Multiple Piercings But In A Cute Way) my issue. She asks for the phone and it’s number. So she dials my number, hands me a desk phone and says, “Talk!” So I say, “Hey, Orange Shirted Friend, it’s hot outside. It’s supposed to be the hottest day of the summer. So swap my phone quickly and we’ll both be happy and then I’ll go sit in my air conditioned minivan. But don’t let it fool you. I’m still a cool guy.”

She acts like she’s still not to sure about it all. Then she says, “The thing is…we’re all out of 16gig Black” I say, okay, I’ll take a white one if I can walk out here with it and get in my cool minivan with my wife and kid.” So she says, “okay”, meet me over by the iMac. So I do, she brings it, we activate it, and I leave happy. But me ending up with a white iphone (and Pat choosing one) makes me laugh because of this.

So, what have I learned in my first 24 hours of iPhone ownership:

• It eats batter like no tomorrow. My SE phone could hold a charge for over 2 days sometimes.
• There are more apps than I know what to do with. But it looks like some cool games for me my kids too.
• It seems there’s an unspoken fraternity of iphone owners.
• Little kids like iphones too. My girls weren’t with us when we got it, but they immediately thought it was their new toy.
• I get nervous when my 4yo plays it. But she’s only played “Memory” so far.
• My 8yo will be a wiz at it soon.
• My goal is to keep it out of my 1yo’s mouth. He’ll slobber in the speaker and ruin it otherwise. Like he did two previous phones.
• I have to get a case soon. I’m too nervous about it getting busted. And it might help me be a little more comfortable w/ the kids holding it.
• The Wife scoffs at it right now, but she’ll be acclimated before long. I have a feeling.

Got any apps to recommend?

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The other day I had lunch out at Camp Lake Stephens. On my way there I sent a twitter message that said that Camp Lake Stephens was one of my favorite places in my world. But it got me to thinking about the places I’ve been to that I like the most. So I tried to put a list of them together in my head. I think I have a solid list of my top handful.

So I’ll start a “place a day” here on the blog. Some places are more recent. Some of more often visited. And some mean different things for different reasons. But they’re all special. I’ll explain.

But tomorrow starts a “no particular order” of my favorite places.

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When I first came to partner with Pat Ward and be a part of The Orchard here in Oxford, the church met at The Powerhouse. And actually the first and second time I ever visited there was a different quality about it. First visit was a mid summer visit. Low crowd. Honest Biblical teaching. Moving music. All simple but genuine. The second visit was over Christmas break. So Oxford was empty again. But we were celebrating Christmas. And there were some funky decorations from a dance the night before.

But for the next year and a half I was a part of The Orchard meeting at The Powerhouse. It’s a great place. And sometimes you never know what to expect when you get there early on a Sunday morning to set up for church. Especially if there was a huge wedding reception or a wine tasting or a ghetto booty dance contest there just a matter of hours before we got there.

But for all the great character and variables that came with The Powerhouse we needed a little more space. Specifically childrens space and parking space and a few more chairs would be nice as well. We’d been praying and keeping our eyes open for a while. And a property we’d inquired about before became available. And it was in a movie theater!

I have kept up with a few churches that have met in theaters, but never been to a service in a theater. Most noteable is National Community Church (who’s domain name is TheaterChurch.com interestingly enough). But now that we’ve been meeting at The Amp for a month, I think we’ve settled in. The children’s space is much better for our kids and teachers, people don’t have to park far away and cross busy roads to get to church, the lobby space is fantastic, and there’s not much risk of having to clean up stacks dinner plates or vomit or who knows what else on a Sunday morning.

So…we’re one of those theater churches now. It comes with it’s own challenges too, of course. And sometimes we miss a few things about The Powerhouse. And the people were good to us there. Fantastic peole.

But as we’ve grown from those small worship meetings we had at the beginning, we want to remain genuine and true to our calling to serve Oxford, to be a place where people can taste and see that the Lord is good, and to truly be a place of faith, hope, and love.

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I don’t know what’s up with the blogging lately. Or what’s not up with it. I used to be the one who’d try to encourage people to blog. And even got a few people into it. But I’ve been a major slacker. I think it’d be easy to blame it on Twitter. And I’ve noticed that a bit more lately too. Some people who used to be really frequent bloggers have moved most of their online voice over to twitter. And I really like twitter. But didn’t expect to give it attention at the expense of blogging.

I guess sometimes when you have a quick thought in your head that would eventually morph into a blog post…if you zip that thought out to twitter through a text message or Tweetdeck, then you feel “done” with that thought. Or at least you look for conversation about that thought through twitter or Facebook (my tweets update my Facebook status…so feedback is there as well).

And this new twitter attention has taken some of the time away from regular blog reading too! But a couple of nights ago when the house was all quiet I looked back through some of my favorite blogs…and realized what I’d been missing. Yes, I like a 140 character glance into what someone is thinking/doing. I mean, who doesn’t want to know that Pat’s power is out again or that Will thinks that love for a Pizza Hut buffet knows no age boudaries. And it’s always interesting to know that Emily has a cold and is going to be early or that Shaq is sending a message to Brett Farve. I like those things. I really do.

But in my return to reading some blogs, I realized there’s so much more to read than just 140 characters. And I want to return to it. [But of course follow me on twitter as well: @statedog.]

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Have you seen this? I found it by coming across Lanny Donoho’s twitter feed. After checking it out I decided to give it a whirl.

Basically Daily Mug Shot is where you can go once a day (and only once a day) to use your computers webcam (or you can import pictures) to take a picture of your face (your mug). After you do this daily for a while it will then loop all the pictures in a stream (or like a flip book) to where it can be pretty cool looking and funny.

Here is a link to Lanny’s. [Lanny is the guy behind BigStuf Camps and lots of other stuff that's pretty cool. BigStuf impacted my life a lot. And a lot of kids I took to BigStuf camps too! You should go. Seriously.]

But I’ve got a ways to go before mine has enough pics to be worth looking at. But you should do it too.

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It’s 11:40 pm right now and tomorrow is coming very quickly. Wake up call at 4:30am. Wow. But today and yesterday both have been full.

Yesterday was a church day. Full of it. We got the Grace Church for the first service. Sat through the production meeting to see them run through a few details. When the service started we didn’t go in though. Instead we went to the Fifth and Sixth grade ministry called Fusion. Watched about 73 kids worship and then as teaching began we had to leave. Because as soon as Matt Williams finished the sermon in the 9am service he was leaving in a get away car (or 4 Runner) to rush to a different campus downtown to preach.

So we meet him at the back of the church, jump in the 4 Runner and to go to The Handlebar downtown. We get there as people are still coming in and see the opening worship set and the sermon. And the we repeat the cycle by rushing back to the Pelham road campus for the 11am service there. He gets to the church just in time to get on stage and preach there too.

But again we don’t hear the sermon because we go check out the Seventh & Eighth grade ministry. So we hang, watch for a bit, and see some of the teaching. But then we go back to the main worship service and hear part of the sermon and then the closing worship set. So…that was three main worship services and two children/youth services.

So we go eat at Five Guys and then drive to Clemson and catch part of a baseball game.

Then back to Greenville and go to the satellite campus of Newspring Community Church. A much, much different feel than Grace. And I don’t know if it was because it was the 6pm service or not, but it was a very young crowd. Like over half teenagers probably. The youth ministry meeting was afterward too, so maybe that contributed. But I’ll say that Perry Noble’s sermon was easily the best sermon I’ve ever heard about marriage and relationships. And..it was the 3rd one of the series. So I have to go and listen to the previous ones.  I’ve read Perry’s blog a bit here and there. And it’s obvious the dude pulls no punches. And he didn’t in this sermon either. I’ll be sure to get a link up for it when it’s ready.

And then a trip back to Grace’s campus to meet with two staff members to go to supper. And that was a full day.

Today has been meeting in really small settings with different staff members of Grace Church. We started around 9am and went through til about 4:30 or 5. I’ve been amazed with the openness and accessibility of the staff. They have gone out of their way to be available for conversation, questions, observation and whatever else we asked of them.

Tomorrow I’ll go through a few things that I learned or caught my attention this weekend. But maybe not til I get some rest. There has been a dare of staying up all night long before the flight. We’ll see.

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Seems Carlos is taking a blogatical these days. So since he left I’m back. There wasn’t a planned reason for me to be gone. I thought many times “today I should definitely blog again” but didn’t. Not sure why. But I’m back in the saddle. And I could throw out a few more cliches, but sufice to say I intend to tear it up.

Right now I’m sitting at Spill The Beans in Greenville, SC. Flew up here today for a weekend of meeting with the staff of Grace Church and seeing how their staff is structured. We’d met Matt Williams, the Teaching Pastor and planter of Grace Church a few months ago. He was intriguing as was his story about his church. So @willrambo and @rickpike and I are going to be experiencing their weekend worship service, their “new member” class, and some one on one time with various staff members to look behind the curtain and ask some probing questions.

I’m looking forward to seeing how their church leadership strategy is structured and also how their small group ministry is structured. And a peek at their youth ministry events is going to happen too.

So…Greenville, SC. Here we are.

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Sunday night while I was at a Super Bowl party with some folks from church, Sarah was getting ready to have her daughter over in Tupelo. And before we knew it, Sawyer Belle Ward was born. A huge congratulations to Pat and Sarah. I think they’re actually returning home right now after a couple of nights in the hospital.

But my daughters were staying with my mom for a few days. And they were asking lots of questions about the baby and if she’d be born yet. My mom was looking on Pat’s blog to see if there was any update there. Alas, he’d not updated there yet eschewing for the other technologies of Twitter and Facebook. But my mom did find this picture on Pat’s TwitPic page. My mom called the girls over and said, “Look, this must be Pat & Sarah’s new baby…”

Ella, my four year old, stared at it for about two minutes. Looking hard at the picture. Then she said, “It doesn’t look much like Sarah, but it’s a cute baby I guess.”

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