Quick Update

[Ignite Winter Blaze crew before boarding the bus to head home]

Last weekend was the Ignite (Cornerstone's 6th grade program) "Winter Blaze." I had the wonderful opportunity to speak 3 times at the event and I had a great time (One student kindly told me that my teaching was "understandingable"). The sessions went well and the students enjoyed various activities such as dodgeball, tubing, eating late night pizza, and climbing a giant ice wall. I have a lot to do today in preparation for the Middle School Advance (we leave tomorrow morning at 9:00) so I will just post a few pictures from "Winter Blaze" and send you on your way.

[Some of the Ignite girls -- I took this picture and
therefore pridefully consider it to be of top quality.]

[My new friend Michael and I awaiting some food in the cafeteria/lodge.]

[This is not from "Winter Blaze" but rather from last night. Sarah found this gem of a sweater at the thrift store and thought that it would look perfect on me. It does.Accompanying me in this photograph is my decorative giraffe named Melman.He is on loan from the Moens for the duration of my internship.He is kind. And gentle. And very quiet.]
p.s. I'm not sure why this picture has a pinkish hue on its western edge.

Saturday

[Rachel and I at the rink]

Saturday was none other that Rachel Moen's 20th birthday. Rachel is a member of the college age group at Cornerstone and also a member of the "Go and eat food on Wednesday nights after church crew." It is of this latter group that I would consider myself a part-time member. Is that crucial information? No. Was it free? Yes. You get what you pay for, I guess.

For Rachel's birthday we went roller skating. It's like roller blading, only chronologically slightly more pre-historic and socially significantly less cool. Regardless, I donned the quad-wheeled shoes and had a great time rolling in circles. 

[How does one lean at such a drastically acute angle to 

the horizontal plane and stay standing? Magic.]

The rink was packed with more young kids than a free Hannah Montana meet n' greet so, consequentially, much of the time on the rink was spent trying to avoid knocking over waist-high 10 year olds who skated with the grace of a herd of rhinos taking ballet. That being said, we had a blast and nobody got hurt. 

[Michelle, Rachel, Me, and Josh at the rink - all members of said 

"Go and eat food on Wednesday nights after church crew." ]

Side story: During the "Hokey-Pokey" dance at the rink, this smiley little 7-8 year old girl next to me asked if she could hold on to me so she wouldn't fall over. I was caught off guard and said, "Do I look like a handrail? Go sit down!" False. I said, "Sure." It's the hero instinct inside me. I couldn't resist. 

Post-skating we went out for a little pizza.  Then I bid the skating group farewell in order to join up with a different group of friends at a movie theater to see "Paul Blart: Mall Cop." 

Then I went home.

Local Bands Sleeping Like Lions and Smiling as Citizens under Bemur's 17th Streetlight

Last Friday night, as predicted, was the 4 band concert at Cornerstone. The night went really well as we had right around 200 students show up. The four bands were each a little different than the next so it provided some healthy variety. Here are a few pics from the night. Some are pictures that I took and others are pics I snagged off of Facebook.

[This is Korey from Citizen Smile doing what he does best...
standing perfectly still in a guitar player pose.]

[Some of the throngs of people attending the concert.]

[Paul, lead vocalist of Streetlight 17, working the stage like it's
his job. Paul also is the drummer for We Sleep Like Lions
(the closing band of the evening) and the Sr. High worship band.
This concert was Streetlight 17's first show. The highlight was
probably when Paul and some random kid starting
screaming/growling and then Paul jumped off the stage,
ran around the back of the whole crowd, and then jumped
back up on the other side of the stage and picked up where he had left off.]

[Me, John, and Roy - 3 of the intimidating staff force of the evening.
Our intimidation factor ranked somewhere between a lion and a bear...and a mongoose.]

[This is Bemur. They were really good at good ol' rock n' roll.
All the adults at the show wanted to buy a cd,
and all the students were like, "What kind of music is this?"]

[Trevor - frontman for We Sleep Like Lions,
and a miscellaneous saxophonist,
and Brownie on the bass. ]

[Matt of We Sleep Like Lions.
This is what happens when the keyboard stand breaks mid-show.
It's also what happens when you don't have any shoes or socks.
Or pants that you didn't steal from a homeless guy.]

Later today I'll post some pics and such from Saturday's festivities.

The Real Hero of "The 'Miracle' on the Hudson"

"The men in the cockpit, pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III and co-pilot Jeff Skiles, have become instant heroes for guiding the plane to safety." - Yahoo News

"Investigators brought in a giant crane and a barge Friday to help pull a US Airways jetliner from the Hudson River, one day after the pilot heroically brought the disabled plane to safety with 155 people aboard." - Yahoo News

"Former fighter pilot Chesley B. Sullenburger hailed as hero for safely landing Airbus 320 in Hudson River." - Fox News Headline

"The pilot deserves all the credit for this one." - quote from Fox News this morning

--

By now you can't not [intentional double negative] have heard of the "miraculous" landing of the plane on the Hudson River yesterday afternoon. The story is truly incredible and I fully expect to see the face of Pilot Sully on the face of every major magazine in the upcoming week. All reports say that he handled the situation with remarkable bravery and that he is the hero of the story.

While Pilot Sully certainly deserves attention for his role in guiding the plane to safety, I would like to point out that I have yet to hear or read a single news comment on how God graciously allowed all 155 passengers to survive the crash. Does anyone know if John MacArthur is going to be on Larry King talking about the goodness of God in this event? Is "Newsweek" or "Time" going to run a cover story entitled"God - Let's Give Him Credit When Good Stuff Happens"?

Yes, the pilot did a commendable job and acted with bravery that is more often dreamed about than exemplified in real life [one article commented that Pilot Sully walked through the entire plane twice to make sure all the passengers were off the plane before he himself got on a rescue boat], but God was the hero of this story and deserves mention for his kindness in preserving the lives of all 155 passengers of the plane.

Pancakes, Spontaneity, and Musical Tunes

Here's what's been happening and hopefully will happen in the next week.

Last Sunday's pancake breakfast went outstanding. Wednesday night I spontaneously (or the Spirit led me, if that sounds better) changed my lesson at the last second (literally I changed my mind while we were singing the last song) so I ended up talking about Isaiah 1 and the importance of having our hearts engaged in worship and not just bring lip service.

Sunday, the day after the day before yesterday, I made it through all of one of the three points to the lesson. And, much to the elation of the students, I finished on time! I tend to go long. And by "tend" I mean, I rarely don't go long. We are talking about our middle school core values, "Marked by Grace," "Driven by Love," and "Dependent Upon Prayer."

[Sean Watkins :: Jon Forman]

Tomorrow night I am going to the Fiction Family concert at The Ark in Ann Arbor with Jordan and Jessa. "Fiction Family" is comprised of Jon Foreman from Switchfoot and Sean Watkins from Nickel Creek. They release their first record next Tuesday. It's gonna be sweet. And as an added bonus, Jon Foreman will be doing a daytime free concert at the Borders in Ann Arbor and I am hoping to be able to attend that as well.

Here is the video for Fiction Family's current single, "When She's Near."



Tangentially, this Friday the youth group at Cornerstone is going to be hosting a musical evening of its own. Four local bands, all of which have some sort of connection to Cornerstone students will be appearing in concert. The night will hopefully bring in a lot of students from the community. I have only heard one of the bands that will be playing, namely "We Sleep Like Lions," and if they are any reflection of the night as a whole, I am thinking that the night is going to loud and crazy and a lot of fun. And loud.*

[The promo poster for Friday night's event.]

*Please file and and all complaints concerning my repetitive repetition of the descriptive term "loud" at the Department of Redundancy Department. Thanks.

Here's My Query.

Why do use we the expressions of some people being "filthy rich" while others are "dirt poor"? Who picked those expressions?

Please respond. A prize goes to person with the best explanation.

Killer Duck

Disclaimer: I am posting this video because enough students have requested it after it was shown to all the students and youth leaders yesterday after our pancake breakfast. I had nothing to do with the showing of the video. It was all Sarah's fault. And Ray's. And Kleinster's. The video was made a couple years ago at school by me and some friends for a video competition. Watching it will NOT make you smarter.



Click here to go to the actual YouTube page.

New Year ... Same Old Blog

Current reading: Don't Waste Your Life

Current listening: John Mayer [Where The Light Is: Live in Los Angeles]

I'm sitting at my favorite Starbucks right now and I just finished doing a little reading. I need to keep reading, but I wanted to take a few moments to throw a little update on the blog.

I celebrated New Years with friends up at Lake Ann's college/young adult retreat called, "The Break." It was a great experience. My friends from Churchill opened for AA Talks (a music ministry by a couple members of Audio Adrenaline) thereby combining for a wicked sweet concert lasting till minutes before midnight at which point we watched the ball drop in Times Square and pulled the strings on the little popper things that shoot out streamers. Then the moment was over and I unabashedly cracked the overdone New Years jokes like, "Wow, I haven't seen you since last year," which were met with courtesy laughs from strangers and punches in the face from those who truly care about me.

In other news...

I got a gym membership at the local fitness place on Monday, and so I spent this morning at the gym trying to act like I knew what I was doing with all the machines. Have you ever been in a place where you felt like everyone was staring at you and trying not to laugh at your incompetencies? Oh, you haven't? Ok, yeah, me neither then. I was just asking hypothetically. Regardless, it's definitely gonna be a while before I wear a sleeveless shirt to that place.