Sorry!

Sorry to everyone about the lack of posting lately. Crossroads is in the process of retooling their web presence at the moment. The plan, right now, is to relaunch their website with a new design and some new features. So, the Reverb Blog will be going away for a short while and returning as a part of the Crossroads' website sometime in the near future.

I'm sure some sort of announcement will be made at the appropriate time - but if you'd like to make sure you dont' miss the launch - email me at patchdrury@gmail.com and let me know. I'll send out a private email letting you know.

In the meantime, if you need something to flitter away the soul-crushing hours at work, check out some of these links:

Donald Miller's website - Favorite Christian author
Dave Ramsey's website - Financial guru
Burnside Writer's Collective - Spirituality, culture, and social issues handled with a bit of humor, sincerity, and irreverence.
Wikipedia.com - Open source reference material
Theopedia - Theological open source reference material
The Calvin & Hobbes Searchable Database - Just type in a topic you remember from a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon (like Snowmen) and it'll pull up all the strips that featured said topic. Awesome!
CD Central - Local music store
Netflix - Online movie rentals
The world's coolest online clock/calendar
Download Firefox 2.0 - Favorite web browser.
Digg - Intersting bits from around the net

Hopefully that'll keep you busy. Remember it's the internet and you never know what might be on the other side of a link, so browse carefully. I didn't knowingly post any links with obscene material, but you never know when something like that might just be a few wrong clicks away from you.

See you soon!




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Getting nothing done today...

If you thought the Halloween puzzle thing was tough, try this one. Supposedly no one person can do it on their own. Despite that warning, it's just workable enough to keep you interested.

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Waste time at work on Halloween

Greg Gilmore's sister sent this to me months ago. You're supposed to figure out the dark/scary movie titles from the clues in the painting. I thought it seemed appropriate for Halloween. I've only gotten about 37 out of 50. Give it a try and let everybody know how you do.

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Halloween is coming!

If you know me very well at all, you know I love Halloween. It's one of my favorite Holidays. I love spooky stuff, I love candy, and I love costumes. Because of my love for those last two, I'm gonna head out to Crossroads on Thursday or Friday to check out the Pumpkin Patch Party (they've got candy and costumes - no spooky stuff, though, in case you were getting worried). I like seeing all the little kids in their halloween costumes - and I like sneaking some candy when nobody's looking.

I know Bret and Sally's daughter Lilly is going as a Mermaid. Are any of the rest of our readers taking their kids to the Pumpkin Patch Party? Or maybe just trick or treating? If so, what are your kids dressing up as? Are you dressing up too? Maybe for a Halloween party? I'm going as a skeleton this year. I pride myself on originality.

Tell us what you and/or your kids are dressing up as. If you email me a picture I'll even post it if you want.

(By the way, if you're interested in going to the Pumpkin Patch Party - it's on Thursday the 26th and Friday the 27th and starts at 6:30. For More information, contact Angie Poston at 263-4633 x258).

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Word verification

Our comment section has been spammed a couple of times in the past two weeks so I've decided to turn on the word verification feature. All this means is when you make a comment from now on, there will be a little three or four letter code at the bottom of the page that you'll have to retype. No bigee. Now back to the action!

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Two Way Conversation...

Surveys show most people pray. We ask God for what we need. We ask God for what others might need. But do we ever really listen for what God might say in return? This past weekend at Crossroads Mark and Faith led us in a responsive prayer that acknowledged not only our needs, but what God might say back to us if we'd just listen. I post it here in case it spoke/speaks to you or you'd like to use it as a part of your spiritual rhythms this week.

We Pray: Father, sometimes the needs in my life seem overwhelming. I feel like I worry all of the time. Where will the money come from? Will I find someone to love? How long can I keep up this pace? Will you help Lord?

God Responds: Can you add a single hour to your life by worrying? Look at the birds. They don’t plant, harvest, or gather the harvest into barns. Yet, I feed them. Aren’t you more important to me than they are?

So don’t ever worry about tomorrow. After all, tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

We Pray : Our world seems so fragile God. What will happen next? Will my tests come back negative? Will my kids be ok? Will I be able to make it on my own? There is so much I can’t control. Can I trust you to help me?

God Responds: I know the plans that I have for you. They are plans for peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future filled with hope.

Then you will call to me. You will come and pray to me, and I will hear you. When you look for me, you will find me. When you wholeheartedly seek me, I will let you find me, declares the LORD.

We Pray: Why is life so hard right now God? Why do you allow me to struggle? Why don’t you protect me from the randomness of nature and the actions of others? Can you hear me God? When life is hard I start to wonder if you are there at all.

God Responds: Although it doesn’t seem possible, know that I make all things
work together for the good of those who love me.

Nothing can stop my love for you- death can’t stop it, demons can’t stop it, powerful people can’t stop it, problems can’t stop it. There’s nothing in all of creation that can make me turn my back on you.

We Pray: I am so weak God. I come to again with the same list of failures and sins. Can I ever really change? Will you forgive me again?

God Responds: If you told me that you never sin, I’d be concerned. You’d be lying to yourself and to me. I keep my word. If you confess your sins, I will forgive you and cleanse you from everything you’ve done wrong.

Trust my mercy. My compassion is unlimited. It is new every morning. You can count on this.

We Pray: Have your way with us Lord. May our lives please you and bless those around us. We entrust ourselves to you. Amen.


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Of interest this weekend...

As you may or may not know, Crossroads has been in the process of finding a new worship leader. This weekend one of the possible candidates will be sitting in with our band and helping out with the service by leading a couple of songs.

Two important caveats:

1. This gentleman is a possible hire. I stress this just because we don't want to start a game of telephone where the end result is on Sunday people are coming up to this poor guy, welcoming him to the Crossroads family, and warning him to stay away from Bret when he hasn't been hired yet.

2. He'll be leading songs the worship team picked out, backed up by our band, and our vocalist - so don't assume what you see this weekend is the most complete picture of his style or abilities.

So keep those two thoughts in mind this weekend if you make it out. Lots of exciting things are happening at ol' St. Awesome's these days. God is shaping our future right in front of us. You should come be a part of it.



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Music to get you through the last few hours of work

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The Reverbification of St. Awesome's

Soooo, yesterday was the first merged service. What did you think?

It obviously wasn't just like Reverb and it obviously wasn't just like the classic service. It was, as one might imagine, kind of a mix. I think talking about the service as a "merge" is probably a little limiting in the long run as the service should be it's own thing instead of an equal mix of column A and column B, but for the time being, I thought yesterday's service represented some of the best parts of both Reverb and the Classic services.

Like Fred pointed out last week, movement will no doubt be slow and deliberate as we work to move the entire body into new means of worship and expression. I'm excited and encouraged by how the first week went. Random notes:

-The community area looked really nice. Greg Gilmore and Amy Cranfill deocrated it. And the paintings over the coffee area were by Amy!
-I thought Greg Chandler's segue into the responsive worship/communion/confession time was excellent. Greg is made for that sort of thing.
-It looked to me like the 9:30 crowd was the largest of the three.
-I had two donuts.
-I was amazed at how quickly and smoothly the larger crowds made their way through communion time. I was really anxious to see what that was going too look like.

After the 11:15 service there were a lot of old Reverb regulars stacking chairs. I thought that was awesome. If some of you Reverbites are bemoaning the loss of the sense of community you loved with the smaller Reverb crowd, you might consider sticking around after the last service and helping put the chairs away. It's a nice way to serve and it's good bonding time. For instance, yesterday Bret, Fred, Greg, and I had a chair fight. It was just like a snowball fight, but instead of throwing snowballs we threw chairs. And instead of clumps of snow falling down the back of your shirt, blood gushes out of your nose and stains your pants.

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FYI

If anybody was planning on going to Louisville to see Donald Miller this Sunday night, it's been cancelled. No explanation given as of yet. I suspect he heard I was gonna be there.

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