I love Jeremy Camp’s music.  I think he’s got some great stuff and some of the messages in his lyrics are fabulous.  Songs like “This Man”, “Walk By Faith”, “My Desire” and many others just really speak to me.  Today his new album, Speaking Louder Than Before hits stores. You can listen to it for free over at newreleasetuessday.com -

Below is the music video of the title track from the album.  A loud, in your face song that challenges us to stop just sitting around talking ABOUT Jesus but actually get up and BE Jesus to the world.  Give it a watch and then head out and pick up this album for yourself or someone you love (or me)!

So, we’re in the process of planning for our Christmas Eve service and I’m really excited about it.  There is a big focus on light.  But I’m not talking about that thing you flip the switch on and you can see by…I’m talking about THE LIGHT…the light of the world.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

But the cool thing is that when God sent that light into the world, he sent it down for US to receive it.  We can’t just hold onto it – we have to share it with someone.  We have to let the light of Christ that is burning WITHIN us burst FROM us and reach those in need.

I’m really excited about how this message will be spread at our Christmas Eve service.  If you want to know more be at the Wadsworth United Methodist Church for the 8:00 service on Christmas Eve.  It’s a casual, family friendly, come-as-you-are service with a full praise team.  Get there a little early (we’ll have live music playing before the service as well) say hello to old friends or make some new ones.  But mostly – come and hear about the TRUE light of the world and then receive that light to share with those you meet.

The iPhone – I mean, that’s so last month.  Now we’re hearing all about the Google G1 or Android and the Blackberry Storm.  Phhbbtt!!  Those phones are NOTHING!!  You want a next gen phone you have to check out the Pomegrante!  This thing will rock your world – click the picture to check out the flash presentation on it.

Make sure and check out all the features.  The videos will just impress you to no end!  Once you watch the videos on the features you’ll be asking yourself…Preset beats or freestyle?

OK, so it was actually the afternoon.  The girls have been taking piano lessons for a while now and Sunday afternoon was their recital.  They’ve been practicing very hard.  Brooke even created her own little ending to her song using chords that weren’t in the book (but was too nervous to actually play it during the recital).  They both got dressed up and looked absolutely beautiful.

After patiently waiting their turns they each got to play their songs and did a wonderful job.  Enjoy!

Shaun Groves recently recorded a new song and is making it available to download for free beginning today.  You can download it by clicking on the widget here or over in my sidebar. 

It is a song that has been three years in the making for him and it was pretty cool, because he did a lot of blogging about it with a first draft posted as well as live video feeds from the recording sessions for the song last month. 

I could tell you what the song is about, but it’s better to read about it in Shaun’s words.  Head over here to hear the first draft and read about the inspiration and story behind the song.

Right now there are a group of bloggers that are in the Dominican Republic with Compassion International to see the work being done there and share their thoughts through words, pictures and videos.  The group is made up nine people.  Shaun Groves and Brian Seay are the trip leaders along with a photographer.  There are a wide range of others including a father and his two daughterswho got to meet their sponsored children, and a father and his 8 year old son – both of whom are blogging their experiences.  I would encourage you to follow their trip through their blogs – all of which can be found at the Compassion Bloggers site.

I plan on sharing the stories with our kids starting tonight so they can understand a little more about the conditions of the children we sponsor.  Some of it may be over their heads, but I’m expecting that they will be able to relate to the pictures and especially the 8-year’s stories as they are all around that age.

If you would like to sponser a child you can click the “widget” over in my sidebar on the right or head over to the Compassion International website.

So, Beth and I went over to the church tonight for a dinner that was being put on by The Edge – our young adult ministry group.  Shortly after arriving we learned from our host that our associate pastor had been tragically killed earlier that night and that foul play was suspected!  Apparently our head pastor had overseen the whole thing.  Just as we were getting over the shock of this news the lights in the fellowship hall went out and when we got them back on we saw our head pastor slumped over his plate at his table – a double tragedy!

Luckily for us, this was just the initial set-up for the rest of the evening as we were at a Murder Mystery Dinner Party to raise funds for The Edge’s trip to Kenya next summer!  We were introduced to some of the key players in the tragedy and after feasting on salad and an amazing pasta dish were escorted around the church to various locations to gather clues and try and determine “who dunnit”!  There was a great turnout and I think everyone had a really good time.

The “cast members/suspects” all did a great job with their respective parts.  The mastermind behind it all (in more ways than one) was our Director of Young Adult Ministries and fellow blogger over at Mustard Revolution.  Ben and his wife did an amazing job of putting this together.  The crazy thing was not only did they organize\cook\set-up\participate in\clean-up for the dinner they spent the entire morning working an a pizza sale which was another fund raiser for their trip.  I think Ben mentioned he had to get up at like 3 a.m. in order to start the prep for everything!  This is one couple that will REALLY take advantage of the extra hour of sleep tonight.  Oh, and the great thing for us parents was they had child care there for us!

The thing is, they are doing it all in order to see the kingdom of God reach those in need.  As I mentioned, the whole purpose was to raise funds for a mission trip next summer.  The evening ended with a wonderful presentation from the women from the group they are going through – Empower International – that will be accompanying them.  If you want to know more about the trip I strongly encourage you to check out Mustard Revolution starting with this post.  I’m sure Ben will be posting a lot more about the trip as the days and weeks go by.  If you would like to help in anyway please contact Ben through his site and I’m sure he would be happy to tell you how you can help.

Thanks to everyone who made tonight a great evening – here’s hoping you get some much deserved rest!

So, tonight was trick or treat here in town and the kids couldn’t have been more excited.  The girls had parties at school and got to wear their costumes at their afternoon parties.  Of course, at school you have to dress up as a character from a book…which basically means you have to find a book that has what you are dressing up as.  I know my neighbor’s son was going as Iron Man so I let them borrow an old comic book I had laying around that had him on a couple of pages.

So, Ally went as a cheerleader and Brooke was a witch.  They both looked great!  They had snacks at school, did a parade around the parking lot and watched “It’s the great pumpkin Charlie Brown.”  Tonight they couldn’t wait for 6:00 to get here so they could head out and hit the streets with their friends in search of the bounty of chocolate\sugar\etc.  Here’s a picture of Ally, our neighbor and Brooke before they headed out.

Taylor was a different story.  I had my work cut out with him.  You see, he wanted to go as a werewolf this year.  He had gone out and found a latex prosthetic that you glue on, do the make-up on and attach fake hair.  Not an easy thing but I love these types of kits.  Here’s a picture of me when I used one a few years back for a work Halloween party and no one in the office knew it was me for quite a while.

So, being experienced with this and having done stage make-up in the past, I’m the guy for this type of job.  I got home from work at 5:00 so I knew time was short and we started right away.  After making some adjustments to the face-piece to get it to fit his face we glued it on.  Then I started applying the make-up to the face-piece and his face.  After we got that to a good point we started gluing the hair on around his face (and we added a little on his hands for good measure).  The final piece to the puzzle was an old princess wig that the girls had.  I pulled it out, got rid of the ponytail and make it look a little frazzled.  Add in some fake teeth and almost an hour later he was done, and I’ve got to say – it was awesome.  If I didn’t tell you there’s no way you would have never guessed it was him under all the make-up.

A regular chip-off the old block I think!  So, we walked the neighborhood, collected enough candy to rot out all of our teeth a few times over and ended back at a friends house for some fellowship and discussion about old movies.

Oh – and one other thing, while masks like Taylor’s are really cool they can be a real treat to remove!  That process probably took about 15+ minutes, glue remover and lots of scrubbing with soap and water.  It’s probably the cleanest his face has been in a long time!