Turning Over A New Leaf

Before I begin, I want to let you know that you should grab a drink and get comfortable...

I've been thinking about the direction of the young men's Bible study that I lead. Right now we are working our way through the second chapter of Revelation after having studied through 1 & 2 Peter as well as Jude. When we began Revelation, it was with the intent to go through the entire book, but after self-evaluation and a peek at the calendar, I do not think that that is a feasible option. I do not have enough of a personal background in eschatology (the study of end times subjects and events) to be comfortable leading a study in it. There is too much propensity for error. Also, if college becomes a definite reality this fall, then I will not be around long enough to finish the book of Revelation anyways seeing we're only in chapter two out of twenty-two at roughly four months in.

Because of these two main factors, I've been really trying to think about what I want to leave these guys with. I don't have much time left leading this study, but what time I do have I want to make count as much as possible. Based on these thoughts, I've been leaning towards

Catching Up

Church Tomorrow

      Our pastor is out of town, so one of the elders will be delivering the sermon. Both of the church elders are part of the south Wednesday night prayer group that we attend; and we heard from his wife that he was not able to make it this past time because he had been stung by a bee or something earlier in the day and was home with his eye swollen shut. So, I hope he has recovered and will be able to see both halves of the congregation in the morning! Tomorrow is also fellowship meal at the church so there won't be an evening service, but there will be lunch :) It actually worked out pretty well so that the elders only had one service to take care of.

What Happened To My Life???

     Lately I've been feeling like I'm walking the wrong way on an escalator. This week has been crazy with a big scholarship due, Good News Club ending, and school stuffed into all the nooks and crannies of my schedule. I'm looking forward to next week since everything should be back to normal, generally speaking at least.

A Live Performance & Dead Rituals

     Life has been busy since I last posted! This past Saturday we were able to go and watch a friend of ours, Eric Newsome, perform live at a restaurant in the area. His musical abilities are spectacular; he plays the piano like it's nobody's business and also proved himself to be quite talented with other instruments as well. Throughout the night he played a 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, 6-string acoustic guitar, and bass guitar in addition to the keyboard and performed very well on all of them. He's one of those people who not only knows instruments, but knows music as well. We watched him for a solid two hours of playing and he never looked at a single sheet of music, everything was from memory or created on the spot.

Books & Bowling

     This morning seemed to drag along for quite some time, but the arrival of my textbooks threw a little pep into it. My next set of Latin tests came in, so I took the first today and am now progressing through the subject again after coming to a standstill for a few days. I also got my math and science books, both are a good deal less challenging then the other books I've used throughout high school and that is nice. The math is a business math course and the science is astronomy; they are very interesting and well written, especially the science. Based on today's estimates (50-60 hours a week) I should be able to finish both books about a month sooner than I expected, so that will leave more time for monetarily paid labor this summer which is great!

An Essay & Apple Pie

     This morning I was able to write the essay for the GE-Ronald Reagan Foundation Scholarship application. The outline I prepared last night was great, except that I underestimated the length of the essay. The target size is 500-750 words and I counted something like 966 in mine... way too much English going on. I studied it for a little while, taking out bits and pieces, but then just decided to ditch my weakest point/paragraph on leadership and service in my schooling. It contained some useful information, but the majority of the paragraph was just filler stuff I cooked up to make sure the paragraph was the same length as the rest. The other paragraphs on work, community service, and my future contain the real meat of what I was trying to get across, so I just narrowed the essay a little bit in order to highlight these areas.

3D Slideshow

     This morning I was able to put most of the finishing touches on the slideshow presentation that I've created from photos and footage that I shot while we were on vacation at the beginning of January. All of the video clips, pictures, transitions, titles, background music, and DVD menus are in place and fully edited, the last thing to do is await the arrival of the anaglyph 3D glasses that I ordered online today and then convert the presentation from 2D to 3D. It will be my first slideshow in the third dimension; I have high hopes. I'm going to be sending out a bunch of copies of the DVD to people we saw while on vacation, so I bought two types of glasses today. I got one really good pair (all of them are fairly cheap regardless of quality though) for myself since I'll be using them a lot more often as I compose this slideshow and others in the future, and then I also got a box of 50 cardboard ones like what you would use in a theater for anyone I show it to and also to mail out with the DVDs. Hopefully they will be in the mail sometime towards the end of next week; if not, then two weeks from now.

Sunday Services

     This morning's Sunday School lesson continued our foray into the 1689 Confession of Faith, particularly the section on Saving Faith. There were several main points which helped to flesh out the details of this great power which we possess, this faith. Also, I was able to draw several conclusions or personal applications from it which I will share presently. The morning sermon was in the gospel of Mark, chapter 2 verses 13-22 on the calling of Levi and Jesus' meal at his house with the tax collectors and sinners.

My Poor Arteries

     This morning was the Men's Bible Study & Prayer Breakfast at our other church. It's a great time of fellowship and artery clogging; I think I out-clogged all of them this morning with 4 giant biscuits, 6 or so pieces of bacon, 1 sausage, and 3 helpings of scrambled eggs! Pork is not part of my regular diet, but I make occasionally allowances and also rationalized it with today's work. Each month we all gather together to study and discuss a portion of God's Word. So far we've walked through 1 Samuel, and this was our second time in 2 Samuel.

Friday Fest

     We still call it First Friday (the original name) although now the name is Friday Fest. A fairly large city near us opens its streets to partying and drinking for the first half of the night. It started out as the first Friday of each month, hence the name, but has now been extended to every Friday under the new alias of Friday Fest. On these first Friday's of each month a group of individuals from our last church and myself go out and actively engage in street evangelism. We bring along a supply of tracts provided by one of our senior participants, and spend our time passing out tracts to whomever we can and sharing the gospel with whoever will listen. This evening's outing turned out to be lacking in fruit-ful-ness since neither group (we split up, tonight was groups of 2 and 3) was provided with any seemingly meaningful conversations; but did, however, unearth some rather entertaining fruit-i-ness.

"Susy" & "Bob"

     Good News Club met again today: I was able to talk with two kids, let's call them Susy and Bob. I was sitting on the floor with the 3rd grade making sure that they stayed at a level of mobility below disruptive while the lesson was being presented. During this time I was able to talk with Susy a little bit, she's excited to come to the club and has been showing some initiative by working through her lessons throughout the week between meetings. Both relatively and individually speaking she's well-behaved; today she had a few questions to ask. I didn't have a whole lot of time to converse with her, but it was cool to be able to explain to somebody that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day (I didn't think to mention that it was the same as her grade) and watch her reaction as she heard that story for the first time.

Wednesday Night

     I'm almost finished with my next essay for my writing blog, it is a categories essay entitled "On The Integration Of Electronics." Look for it Friday.
     This afternoon I was able to attend a friend's official signing for college football. He made it into the news this afternoon, I'm really glad for him. He's had an uphill struggle to realize his football dream; being home-schooled for several years and then attending a small, private school throughout high school put him at a "disadvantage" for making it onto a college team. Through it all, he's shown a lot of team spirit, helping to train most of the freshmen that comprised his team during his senior year. But where the Lord wills there's a way, and so he's now on a great college football team! Yahoo!

Prayer Time

     After battling a minor cold and a couple technical difficulties with the alarm clock, I am back on track with my alarm. Life right now is very busy but fruitful, just the way I like it! Yesterday I was talking about some of the changes I've seen the Lord work in my life. One of the more recent, sort of, tools He has used is our church transition. We've started going back to a church that we were attending years ago. It's been years since we've see the people at the church; things have changed a lot and for the better.