Page 28 of 96

It now comes in two’s

02/03/2008 / Blake

Tomorrow morning will be the first Sunday that we begin running two services. I’m excited to see what all happens. I bet there will be a decent crowd of people there since tomorrow night is the Super Bowl. Crazy, but this will be the first Super Bowl where I miss kick off since probably 4th grade or something. And I’m not that young anymore.

But a lot of people will go watch the game somewhere instead of coming to the evening service. But we live in Oxford. And Eli Manning went to Ole Miss and is playing for the Giants. So there may be a VERY slim crowd tomorrow night.

Time will tell…

Oh What A Night!

01/28/2008 / Blake

Yesterday afternoon when I posted about T-Minus 90 minutes…I was in a lull of sorts. I was just about ready to take a nap vs. anything else. It had been a long day (went to a fairly charismatic church with a friend that morning. The service lasted over TWO hours) and looked to be longer.

But as start time drew near, someone brought me some hot green tea, and I grabbed a few cookies. And people started coming in. Now we had some cake to mark our first birthday. So while enjoying some cake I kept noticing more and more people coming it.

Now admittedly I’m still fairly new but it did seem to be more people than I’m used to. And when someone asked me where all the people are coming from, I knew it had to be the cake.

But all be told, when everyone moved into theater for worship and a few late comers found their seat, we had 123 folks in there! Quite amazing. And some of the people that showed up was surprising too. We had more adults there if you counted the volunteers helping with the children in the other rooms.

Next week is our first Sunday meeting. Nice that it coincides with the Super Bowl. There may not be many there for the evening service since Eli is playing in the Super Bowl. But it was a great evening last night. I’ll get a few photos up of the cake and some of the people and all.

T Minus 90 Minutes

01/27/2008 / Blake

I’m sitting here in The Powerhouse with everything set up for tonight. The folks leading worship are going through a few songs for tonight. Pat is off doing a little bit of prep on his sermon. And I’m waiting for everything to get rolling.

It’s been a really full weekend, and I didn’t even go back to Clinton. Friday night and Saturday were with a Staff Leadership Retreat. We were supposed to be away at a camp for it, but the icy weather made our plans change. So after I made it to Tupelo across icy bridges it was pretty good. I took some notes and will post a few nuggets that I got from out time together. Larry Osbourn from out in San Diego came and taught us. He picked a nice time to come to north Mississippi.

Tonight is our one year birthday as a church. The last Sunday of January back in 2007 was when The Orchard here in Oxford started meeting. First monthly, then twice a month. Then weekly in August. Tonight is also our last “Sunday Night Only” weekend. Starting next week we’ll start having church on Sunday mornings as well. Great timing, huh, with next Sunday night being the Super Bowl.

Cloverfield….Wow!

01/22/2008 / Blake

Well, I’d had January 18th etched in my mind for a while, but it turned out that it just wouldn’t work out that day for me to see Cloverfield. But this afternoon I caught a matinée and was blown away. No spoilers here, but just suffice to say that it was one of the more impressive movies I’ve seen in a while.

Not necessarily because of the story, but because of the methods of the film makers, how they did it, what they showed, how the couched the story, and how they gave me a few pauses to catch my breath before making me hold it again for the next few minutes. It had some comedic moments in it as well.

A few pieces of advice if you’re going to go see it:

Go pee before hand. No, it’s not going to make you pee, but you don’t want to have to get up in the middle of this one and miss anything. Don’t get a huge Dr. Pepper or anything either.
Don’t sit too close to the screen. Did you see The Bourne Ultimatum? Remember those fight scenes and chase scenes? It’s quite similar to that, except the whole movie.
Pay very close attention at the very end.
And if you want to wait out the ending credits, there’s something for you to listen for.
And buckle up.

Admittedly, this is not a film for everyone. The Wife probably wouldn’t have liked it. But pretty much all my friend that have seen it were quite impressed with it.

So far, So good.

01/18/2008 / Blake

So far my time in Oxford has been pretty atypical. But it’s been a lot of getting settled in the office, meeting people, making phone calls, setting up wireless networks, and reading. I probably need to do a little bit more of all of that, but hospital visits and funerals have added to the crazy schedules so far.

But with my main responsibility being to coordinate small groups and the people involved within them, I’ve been contacting some people who have a little more experience than I do. Heather Zempel from National Community Church, Chris Bell from The Orchard Valley Church, John Bishop from Elevation Church, and Ted Wlazlowski from The Village Church. Each of them have been more than gracious to allow me to ask questions and have conversations with them.

Hopefully I’ll be able to glean from our conversations and continue to develop a strategy for our own community. I know I can’t expect to grab an method that a different church uses and expect to be able to do a cookie cutter approach and transfer it exactly as it is to our church and think it will work exactly the same.

But we’ll start up a few small groups this Spring semester with the term “Beta Groups”, while looking to have the groups this Fall be our big launch.

Those three little letters

01/18/2008 / Blake

So today I heard the dreaded words:

“The test shows she does have flu…”

My only response was, “Great!” Even though she’d been running and playing like nothing was wrong yesterday, today she is weak-eyed and wanting to sit in my lap unless she’s lying down. Such is parenthood. And it seems that her favorite place to keep her fingertips is in her mouth. So I’m hoping that no one else gets it. And I’m hoping this works.

But as we sit on the couch together, her older sister comes and hands her a homemade envelope. On the outside it reads, “Just thought you needed a little love. Hope you feel better.” And on the inside was a heart cutout and colored red.

Eight Kids At One Time??

01/16/2008 / Blake

So maybe I just found my new favorite television show. I was at my dads flipping through all his cable channels and stopped at TLC. The show Jon and Kate Plus 8 came on. And I was amazed!

It’s about the Gosselins that had a few fertility issues so they tried some fertility treatments; they worked! They had twin girls first, but then when they were about 3 or 4 they got pregnant again. They were excited. But turns out there was more than one (or two) in there this time. There were SIX! Holy smokes, six babies at once! And add that to twin 3 year olds!

I try to imagine that sonogram where the doctor is trying to locate all six of them in there to identify their sex. Tomorrow The Wife and I go for another sonogram for Baby #3. We’ll just be looking at one baby in there. No way can I imagine SIX.

On the show, the twins are now seven years old and the sextuplets are three. It looks so awesome and then so chaotic. As a parent I find it really, really interesting to watch. How do you feed 8 kids cereal in a timely and organized manner? How do you get them ready for a trip to WalMart or church?

It’s pretty much worth cable to watch this show (maybe). TLC has some pretty interesting programs. And while I’d watch Jon and Kate Plus 8, it’d never replace LOST or Friday Night Lights. The husband (Jon) is a little too lazy/impatient w/ the kids, and the wife (Kate) is a little to impatient w/ her husband, but they all get along pretty well. So check it out if you get a chance.

Also, interesting that they had notecards with Bible verses up everywhere in their kitchen…

Back in Oxford

01/14/2008 / Blake

After burning up the roads a little this past week/weekend I’m back in Oxford living out of my big Nike bag. I’m amazed at what all I can fit in there. But I really don’t mind living out of it. It’s not ideal, of course. But it’s where I am right now.

I pack it up each morning and usually don’t know til late afternoon or early evening where I’ll be unpacking it for the night. I guess there’s a sense of adventure to it all that way, huh?

But I think we’ve found a buyer for our house. Signed contract and all. There are a few things that a handy man needs to straighten up on the house before it is all said and done, but it is so amazing to be able to say we’ve got a bona fide buyer.

School is starting back up here at the University. So it should make things more interesting around town and campus. There were definitely more college students at church last night. Restaurants will be more crowded and traffic more clogged. But I look forward to it as well. It’s part of the character of the town. Yes, it’s Red and Blue. But that’s okay

I did get to go to Starkville on Saturday with The Fam. Got go to see a MSU basketball game. Man, I miss being able to see every home game. We won, but played pretty sloppy. But a win is a win.

Outside of Joe Joe’s

01/07/2008 / Blake

So I’m in a parked car on an old iBook G4 outside of a coffee shop using some bootleg wifi. Such is life.

Pat and I came over for some meetings. But I’m not a part of the first meeting. So I’m running a few errands around Tupelo before the meeting I am a part of.

The first official Sunday is over now. It went well. I got to meet a few new people. I think that’s going to be something I should and will be doing a lot of these next few weeks/months. To be a leader of small groups I’ll need to make a lot of connections. Sorta the same, but sorta different from leading youth specifically. We’re still trying to map out what involvement I’ll have with the youth ministry here at The Orchard in Oxford. I know I’ll have some, but not sure to what degree. And it may be something that shifts and changes as time moves.

I’ve not yet spent even a week up here in the “North”, but there are a lot of familiar places and spots. It’s good to be back. But there’s still lots I miss from Clinton…. again, such is life.But it’s really cool seeing the church in Oxford still in it’s toddler stage of life. And all the potential and promise that it holds.

But as I was driving up yesterday, The Wife reminded me …that I need to rely completely on God. That’s it’s Him in me that even made any of this possible. And with all the busyness of the holidays and final youth trips, and traveling, and living out of a suitcase….I’ve let some of that slip.

So I ask for your prayers specifically for 2 things: That I spend time intimately with Jesus as I take these next steps in my life, and that our house sells. There may be a lead on that one…so I really, really, really, really want that to happen quickly.

My last few days

01/04/2008 / Blake

Sorry to admit that there is not a group of pictures to show you, but the last few days have been a nice blur. But life has changed!

I am no longer an employee of FUMC Clinton. I ended employment there promptly at midnight on December 31st. Thirty seven months I spent there. It’s a great place to live and work.

But after spending January first w/o really a job (it was a national holiday and all), The Wife and I took the fam to Amory to visit the doctor. The Doc said that Baby #3 was coming along nicely. Next visit will mean a sonogram and a few pictures.

Then I went to Oxford to start work on the 3rd. It was not what will be my typical day: WalMart, Office Depot, lunch at Ajax Grill, Kroger, setting up office, moving furniture, meeting people, delivering children’s material, Guitar Hero III, cleaning out storage rooms, getting new phone service, unboxing books, freezing, taking cardboxes to recycling places….and a few things I’m forgetting.

But really, really looking forward to being there and hitting the ground running. Sunday should be really cool.