Sometimes…

not that I can remember it all…….

::A-Z::

So, Wednesday I sang on the team, and we just had an awesome time, it was really powerful and amazing.  My mom got back in town from Minnesota, it was good to see her.  Worked on Thursday and Friday.  My car is a decroded peice of crap, and just not running right.  I parked it for now.  I left from work and picked up my friend from his house to take him camping with a few other people.

::Camping::

So, we got up to the camp site, my brother and his fiance had already set up the campsite, and our college and career leader and his son were there.  It was the 6 of us for the night.  We played Euchre and me and Paul (C&C leader) totally owned my brother and his fiance, my friend Josh was asleep…. bum…
The next day after breakfast we went to the beach and went swimming.  There, Julie and Jamie met us.  They swam with us until it was time to eat.  We went back to the campsite and ate a hearty meal of grilled cheese sandwiches cooked by yours truly….  They were absolutely delicious, I was the grilling man!  Everyone was thanking me and stuff, it was great.  I was glowing, no, not from the sun….
After lunch, we played a game that I can’t remember the name… you have to use other words to describe the word you have, and once your team guesses the right word, you pass it to the other team.
After that, Paul left, and we went back to the beach.  I didn’t burn at all… but I am covered in mosquito bites…………….. I hate bugs!

The rest of the trip was uneventful, we saw our company off, and then it was Me, Josh, Steve and Rebecca… We packed up the next morning and went home.  Glorious showers… how I missed them… anyway…

And now here it is today……. I’m back to work, updating my blog.

Hope you enjoy.

Chris

So, I thought I’d just update my blog here and get everyone up to speed…

I’ve been working at OS for over 2 months now, it’s gone by so fast.  I’ve also had the privelage of helping people out with their computer issues as little side jobs.

Last Wednesday I chose not to sing on the worship band because pastor Chris talked to us and the way he presented his lecture made me feel like I wasn’t worthy enough to be doing what I do.  A lot of people came up to me and asked me why I wasn’t singing, I simply said I didn’t feel like it tonight.  I figured that was a good enough answer for them.  Rebeka and Matt talked to me at Applebee’s and they just really encouraged me and all that good stuff.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I spent with my best friend Josh, All I remember doing is going bowling on Saturday night.  Ran in to my co-worker there.  Besides bowling, I think we just played WoW.  He’s got a 52 tauren druid, and I have a 49 troll priestess.

Monday night after work I helped one of the kids I used to babysit a long time ago with a powerpoint presentation he will be doing when he gets back home.  They live in South Africa, it was awesome being able to help him out.  He did a great job putting it together, I just gave him tips on how it could be better, and we made the changes.

That’s all for now, I gotta get to work here.

Later
Chris

FOOTPRINTS…A New Version

Imagine you and the Lord Jesus are walking down the road together. For much of the way, the Lord’s footprints go along steadily, consistently, rarely varying the pace. But your footprints are a disorganized stream of zigzags, starts, stops, turnarounds, circles, departures, and returns. For much of the way, it seems to go like this, but gradually your footprints come more in line with the Lord’s, soon paralleling His consistently. You and Jesus are walking as true friends! This seems perfect, but then an interesting thing happens: Your footprints that once etched the sand next to Jesus’ are now walking precisely in His steps. Inside His larger footprints are your smaller ones, you and Jesus are becoming one. This goes on for many miles, but gradually you notice another change. The footprints inside the large footprints seem to grow larger. Eventually they disappear altogether. There is only one set of footprints. They have become one. This goes on for a long time, but suddenly the second set of footprints is back. This time it seems even worse! Zigzags all over the place. Stops. Starts. Gashes in the sand. A variable mess of prints. You are amazed and shocked. Your dream ends.

Now you pray: “Lord, I understand the first scene, with zigzags and fits. I was a new Christian; I was just learning. But You walked on through the storm and helped me learn to walk with You.” “That is correct.”

“And when the smaller footprints were inside of Yours, I was actually learning to walk in Your steps, following You very closely.” “Very good.. You have understood everything so far.”

When the smaller footprints grew and filled in Yours, I suppose that I was becoming like You in every way.” “Precisely.”

“So, Lord, was there a regression or something? The footprints separated, and this time it was worse than at first.” There is a pause as the Lord answers, with a smile in His voice. “You didn’t know? It was then that we danced!”

So, after a few days of letting this all sink in and praying about it. I’ve decided to blog it.

Preface:

After a monday meeting on July 3rd the band and I went out to eat at a resturant. At this resturant, some thoughts and opinions were shared about the leadership and the band and other things. These opinions were not derogatory, they were simply the said opinions of the leadership and band as a whole.

The Holocaust:

Two weeks after said event happened. We had another meeting. We generally practice at these meetings, this week, we were told we were not going to be practicing. At the close of this meeting, Rachel said “Ok, guys, I want to address an issue that has been brought to my attention. I was told that the band went out as a whole after practice two weeks ago. At this lunch there was negative talk about the leaders. Is this correct?” I was the first to nod yes. She then went on to say that this is not how leaders (we’re considered leaders) should be acting according to the bible and we were wrong in doing so. Mrs. Brinker (acoustic guitar) said that we were just having a conversation, it wasn’t slanderous or malacious, we were just simply stating our opinions and views of the leaders and why they are the way they are basically. This discussion went on for a good 30-45 minutes and it felt like we were in the principals office getting punished and lectured.

I can’t even express my opinions to other people and not get my head blown off. It’s utterly rediculous and I’m very disappointed with the way this was handled. Tonight, we aren’t practicing before service either. The youth pastor (who just has a heart for the worship team *cough cough*) is going to be talking to us. Let me list my issues with him….

*He has a one track mind, if he’s talking to someone, you cannot get his attention at all.
*He has a way of making someone feel invisible to him because of his one track mind.
*He says he has a heart for the worship team, yet, when we pray, or even have our meetings, where is he? He has shown no involvment in the team.
*He can be condecending, and does not handle things as well as he should.

Anyway, I’ll post after tonight. We’ll see how things go.

Later.

Chris

Ok, on Saturday, I went canoeing with our college and career group.  It was a great time.  I got severely sunburned on my knees though… even though it’s 3 days after, I’ll still have to take pictures, still looks pretty bad.  My right arm also got a little scorched.  Other than that, it was a great trip.  After the trip I went over to my friend Josh’s house, where we sat and played world of warcraft while nursing our burns.  Went home, to bed.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday….

After church service a few (6-7) of the college and career (2 others and me had gone on the canoe trip) went over to our pastors house with the rest of the youth group for a gathering there.  There were about 40 people there.  It was a lot of fun.  I worked on the pastors computer for a while.  It was really messed up.  He had a lot of spyware on there.  One I could not get rid of.  It was called SurfSideKick 3  it was very annoying and nothing I did could get rid of it… so, he’s still getting pop-ups, but his internet is usable.  (before, it wasn’t)

After scanning the computer and all that good stuff.  I got to eat, then helped a friend learn how to play euchre.  (card game)  After that, we played hearts (another card game)  Then we sat around the piano listening to Matt (our youth worship leader) play.  Josh and I left there and went back to his house to play some more.  After that I went home for a few hours of sleep before work today.

Monday……….

Here it is Monday, I’m updating my blog and just chilling at work.  Got a little bit of work done.  Ordered some replacement iPod headphones because I couldn’t stand not having them any longer.  I got them off e-bay for $7.34  (shipping was like 6.89)
I had lost my original headphones and loved the sound quality and shape of them.  They fit in my ear perfectly.  So I got a replacement.

Anyway, that’s my day

Chris

14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Jesus, I surrender, I draw nearer, I fall down.
Master, be my Savior, be my Shelter, be my God.

Here at Your feet, I’ll always be, with the angels, crying holy.
There’s no one else, that can compare to You the Righteous One, the perfect Son.
Here in the silence, I hear You speak my name, and I cry out to You.

-Jeff Deyo

For those of you that are prayer warriors, please keep my co-worker in your prayers as his wife passed away.  She had a very long fight with cancer and the Lord finally took her home.  Tonight was church, it was such an amazing time.  We had 3 songs, and it was just so awesome.  I apologize for the brevity of the post, but I don’t really have much more to say.

Later
Chris

Alright, so, for the past 3 weeks or so I’ve been working on basically nothing but overhead projectors… kinda boring now.  

(skip this chunk of the post if you have no interest in cleaning overheads) 

Cleaning overheads consists of cleaning all the lenses and mirrors.  There is a total of 2 mirrors, and anywhere from 2 to 3 lenses.  There is a mirror that the lamp shines on, which reflects the light upward towards the Fresnel (pronounced fer-nel) lense, which has a piece of glass above that called the stage glass.  This is where the transparencies sit.  Then, we have the head, which takes the image and displays it on the screen, typically a concave lense on the top which points at another mirror.  Sometimes there is a lense in front of this mirror, or just a piece of glass.  The lense in front of the mirror will allow the projector to be close to the screen.  It’s called a short throw lense.  Anyway, I have to clean all that.  We also take the fan motor out and lubricate it, after dusting it of course.  Then we shine up the body, etc.  Do that about 50 times and you have my work life the past 3-4 weeks.  

(back to normal post)

Anyway, when I’m not at work I’m leveling up my Troll Priestess in World of Warcrack.  Real productive, I know.

(skip this part if you have no interest in my spiritual life or how our youth worship band is going)

Worship has been pretty empty for me lately.  I used to have a fire burning within me that just cried out to God, that seems to have faded.  We have our pastor’s daughter assisting the worship team (and by that I mean working with the vocalists)  and basically cutting off any fun we used to have on stage, during practice.  She seems to be choking the life out of the band… We used to be so spirit led and it was just powerful… Hopefully when she goes back to college, we’ll be able to have fun and just worship God for who he is, and not have to worry about playing the right notes or singing the right melody or harmony, or anything like that (For fear of getting yelled at). 

There was some conflict last practice.  Right now we’re going through a book by David Crowder called Praise Habit.  He got his point across in like the 3rd chapter, everything else is just nonsensible mumbo jumbo about trees and stuff.  I expressed this opinion and Rachel (the choker)  said “if you have a problem with the book you need to talk to me about it after practice”  This really turned me off to the rest of the discussion, and really towards practicing with the band.  I wanted to leave then, but I had to give someone a ride home.  So, during the practice, I was listening, and I got a text message from my brother, who needed a response, so, as I was texting him back she looked back at me and said “Are you going to sing? did you forget the harmony?” and I said, “I’m listening”  she said “You’re here to practice, I need you to sing, that’s what you’re here for”  At this point, I was very frustrated.  I am not singing because I have to, I’m singing because I want to, I volunteered for this ministry and you’re choking the life and fun out of it.  She shoots down any suggestions I have and tells me to sing in a lower pitch, because I’m the only guy on the team… True, but I still have a lower pitch than the girls, even if I sing high.  Anyway, so, after practice, she pulls me aside and starts lecturing me about how I need to keep my opinions about the book to myself because I’m older and the rest of the band members look up to me and they’ll start thinking the book is stupid too.  Then she said, and if there’s a problem with you singing, you need to tell me, tell me if it’s too high for you or something.  I said, “ok” and walked away.  I was very upset. 

I talked to Rebeka (awesome singer and on fire for God, I love her so much) and she didn’t like the situation either.  We’ve been counting down the weeks before she leaves.  The whole band doesn’t like it and we like our original worship leader who doesn’t lead anymore, he just plays the piano.  I told him that we’d love to have him start leading again, he’s been taking vocal lessons and has greatly improved his voice, I love listening to him sing.  Anyway, that’s what’s going on with the worship band.  Spiritually, I feel empty, too much drama.  It seems that the more you get involved with the church, the more you notice how certain things are done, and it deadens your spirit.  The people who seem the most on fire, seem to be oblivious to the stuff I notice.

(and now for closing remarks)

Thanks for reading guys, I’ll talk to you later.
Chris

Hope your holiday was great.

Chris