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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Waste time at work

Click here to play Line Rider

Click here to play around with Google Fights (found by Bret).


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Where would you go?

If you had just a couple of days to get away, and didn't want to fly or drive more than 6 hours?

What would you do once you got there?
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Reverb Radio #5 - It is Finished

Download the FINAL Reverb Radio by right-clicking here.....Well, we'll keep doing the podcast, but since Reverb and the "Classic Service" at XRoads are merging into one identical weekend experience, we need to retire the podast's name. Since we'll keep doing the podcast, we need to give it a new (and improved?) name. Send your podcast name ideas to reverbradio@gmail.com or leave your suggestion in the comment.

Never the less, this episode of Reverb Radio is packed with cool stuff. We talk about Chicago, TV, and other cool crap....and this weeks music spotlight is The Lemonheads' song "Become the Enemy" off their new self-titled LP. How cool is that? Totally cool!

We hope you enjoyed Reverb Radio...now go and re-name us! Come on....I triple-dog dare you.

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Mistah Jones! Mistah Jones!

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Just in case there's any other Indiana Jones fans out there, here's an update on the possibility of IJ4.....

NEW INFO ON INDY JONES IV

While this excites me it also is a sad, sad reminder of my dwindling youth (is there any left at 34 without children? :) ). The last release in the Indy trilogy was 1989. The same year I was a junior in high school and drove a 1979 Dodge Aspen. Yep, I never heard of an Aspen before or after that vehicle and it's probably a blessing that I forgot to put the oil cap on and eventually locked up the engine.

Now.....how old were you and what were you doing back in 1989?

For more Indiana Jones info, check out this site

WWW.INDIANAJONES.COM

One Last Hurrah

This Sunday (10/08) will be our last formal Reverb service, and we’re going out in style. For starters, our gathering will center around sharing a meal together. We’re catering enough Sonny’s BBQ for everyone, so come ready to eat.

As we partake, Jason will treat us to a couple of our favorite preludes from the past year. (You have voted for this a couple of posts below, right?) We’re also planning a time of open mic sharing and on taking communion together. Sound good? Then plan on joining us Sunday @ 11:45am.

Oh yeah- since we’ll need to have places for 200+ people to eat, we could use a little extra help with setup this week. If you are willing to lend a hand, meet Greg Gilmore in the lobby @ 11am. He’ll put you to work. Greg would also appreciate a brief email if you are planning on pitching in this way (ggilmore@xroadschurch.org).
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It's Hard Being Famous. Just ask Biff.

You know, being famous, like I am, people often ask me weird questions, in weird places. Just the other day, a complete stranger came up to me and said, "You're that guy from the podcast. You're so much funnier than Patrick. And handsomer too!” This wouldn't be an unusual conversation, but this guy was yelling this out of his car window at me while I was in my car and we were driving around New Circle Road going 60mph. OH, the price of fame.

Finally, I found someone that can relate to my pain. Yes, Biff from Back to the Future fame. He understands me.

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Favorite U2 album?

The Burnside Writers Collective (an online magazine with ties to Blue Like Jazz author Donald Miller) recently ran a poll on what is the greatest U2 album ever. I'm not sure why they chose U2 for their poll. Maybe because the Collective deals with a lot of faith issues and U2 has always been Christendom's secular band of choice (I use secular here just to mean they're not on a Christian label)? Who knows.

I used to be a big U2 fan, but got kind of tired of the way they became the template for a lot of Christian music in the eighties. Achtung Baby was my favorite album. I used to listen to it every weekend my freshman year of college when I'd drive home to see my girlfriend. Most of U2's stuff lately leaves me kind of cold. Like everyone else in the world, though, I think Bono is the cat's pajamas for using his celebrity to bring attention to poverty and AIDS (even though that's a lot of lip service on my part since I don't do much to contribute to the cause other than think about how nice it is that Bono's doing something).

Here are the results of BWC's poll:

1. Achtung Baby
2. Joshua Tree
3. War
4. Pop
5. Zooropa
6. All That You Can’t Leave Behind
7. Rattle and Hum
8. Unforgettable Fire
9. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
10. Boy
11. Under a Blood Red Sky
12. October

Agree? Disagree? Can't find the strength to care? Tell me your thoughts. Obviously, I approve of their choice for #1 since I already stated it was my favorite. I'm also a littledisappointedd at where Rattle and Hum fell.

While you're commenting, let's talk about how easily I shook off the realization that I'm doing very little to ease other people's suffering around the world and continued to talk about U2 albums like a spoiled jerk.

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Cover song poll

Pick your favorite Jason Eaton Reverb cover song

Select an option:

Sweet Home Alabama
Take On Me
Crazy
Pearl Jam medley instrumental
Mamma Said Knock You Out
Hey Ya!

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