• Easter Egg Hunt Video

    This is pretty raw. But it shows what we were up to and how much fun it was. Again, thanks to all that helped pull this one off. I think there were about 25 volunteers… awesome!

  • God of this City | Animated Video

    Man, I wish I knew how to do this. I love what we can do… but sometimes you look at this stuff and go… WOW. This is something a church created for their worship services. Amazing.

  • Easter Egg Hunt | Slam Dunk

    Gosh, I just got home and I’m having a hard time controlling my excitement. Today was a blast!

    The teams were all awesome. Set-up/Tear-down team… excellent. Band team… excellent. Hospitality team… excellent. We had never been a part of an event quite like this one.  Joyce from Park & Rec and her team seemed very pleased with how we complimented the event. She told one of our team, “I wasn’t sure what to expect with the band… they were great.”

    As parents and kids filtered in, the weather was perfect for what we had planned. (Sunny and mid-30s) Our hospitality tent was ready [big thanks to the folks at Caribou for all their help!] and people were thirsty for great coffee, hot cider, and hot chocolate. Oh my… we went through a lot of hot chocolate. (150 cups!) We had just enough as the last cups were poured with only 2 packets left in the box.  Autumn and Bob (our senior pastor) had a hard time keeping up with demand. Bravo to them for keeping their cool! They had a constant line the entire time… amazing job.

    What was today all about? It was all about changing minds. Forever we’ve been the “old baptist church” in town. Those who have lived in Romeo a long time think they know who we are, what we’re about… in marketing language the typical person in our community thinks they know our story and they’ve made up their mind. This was about us partnering with the community and showing them that we aren’t who people think we are. We aren’t fuddy-duddy. We aren’t old-fashioned. We don’t wear skirts and ties or are stuffy. We aren’t “against the world” and judgmental. Basically… we want to tell people the truth… we’re just like you. We’re parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends you know from school. We like the music you like, we have the same dreams you have, and we like to give back to the community as much as everyone else.

    I loved the way we came alongside of the Parks & Rec department and worked with them. I hope we made them look good!

    I loved the songs that the band selected. They did music right off the radio. Switchfoot, Rascal Flatts, John Mellencamp, Daughtry, etc. I kept hearing people ask, “Is that the band from the church?” Yup. Jimmy and his gang are really, really good. I loved seeing people smile as they sang along to the music.
    Over at Romeo, we’re entering into this new phase we’re calling “God of this City.” It’s not about us and serving ourselves. It’s about bringing God to the city.  And we’re doing that in fun, unexpected ways. Today was one of them. Awesome job to all who helped. Thanks!

    I’m working on a video. It should be up later today.

    For now… rest.

  • Easter Egg Hunt | Today!

    The day is here already. In about 45 minutes I’ll head over to the church to pick up the last of the stuff to head over to Barnabo Field. Despite the fact that it’s only 28 degrees right now, we’re hoping that it is going to get up to the mid-30s for this year’s community egg hunt.

    It’s going to be fun to add to this event. I think the community center does a great job… it’s our hope to add just a couple of small elements to make it even more fun for children and parents.

    Hopefully, later today I’ll have pictures.

  • What Book are You?



    You’re Watership Down!
    by Richard Adams
    Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you’re
    actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
    assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
    build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You’d
    be recognized as such if you weren’t always talking about talking rabbits.

    Take the Book Quiz
    at the Blue Pyramid.

    HT to Jay

  • The Melt is On

    melting snowIn the knick of time. With the easter egg hunt about 24 hours away, the melt is finally on in Romeo. According to our thermometer it only got to about 31 degrees last night and it is already 35 degrees.

    As long as the sun shines all day, we’re safe. With the forecast saying we will hit 47 today, we’re safe.

    Finally, Spring has almost sprung in Romeo. Apparently, this has been the #10 snowiest winter on record in the state of Michigan. Winter this year was sponsored by Al Gore.

  • Think Different

    How about you… are you crazy enough to change things? Are you sick of status quo? I am.

    HT to Dennis

  • Great quote

    No need for my commentary here, it speaks for itself. Put your coffee down before reading this sentence.

    CNN apologized today for getting on-air analysis of Gov. Spitzer’s legal options from a former U.S. Attorney who resigned after being accused of biting a stripper.

    HT to Boing Boing

  • God of This City, update 1

  • Christian Alternatives

    Christianfamilytube logoLast night I got an invitation to put all of our church videos on a new Christian-only version of YouTube. First there was GodTube and now this.

    I laughed at GodTube’s claims that they were the fastest growing site on the internet… totally a joke of a statistic if you ask me… not like GodTube got bigger than Facebook did in 2007.

    As far as interface and design go… could this new site be any more cheesy? Technically speaking… a lot of the videos don’t even work!

    Let me share my opinion about “Christian only” content sites. I don’t mind sites that are geared towards Christians networking… heck, I own one. But I am against the idea that there should be a differentiation between the “Christian internet” and “secular internet.”  Both GodTube and this new video site claim to be “family safe.” While that isn’t a bad thing in and of itself I always wonder why people like this don’t just create channels of “family safe” stuff within the existing structure of MySpace, Facebook, or YouTube. Christians were never commanded to separate from the world or form our own sub-culture… we were commanded to penetrate the culture for God. Ephesians 5 teaches us to bring “light” to “dark” places. These sites are trying to do the opposite.

    I don’t plan on moving content to these new sites. If they offered services that were better than YouTube’s than I might consider it. But I’m not going to pull content off of a great delivery channel only to put it on a weaker and sorry to say cheesier delivery channel. That completely misses the point of using the internet for ministry.

    Plus, I don’t know how YouTube doesn’t sue these companies for trademark violations. That’s for another day.