Life Group sign-ups

Things here are still winding down from Back to School Bash this past Sunday. Other than that it has been a fairly quiet week.

One thing I do want to remind you of is to be sure and sign-up for a Life Group. Registration began last Sunday and will continue for the next three Sundays or until the groups are full. This is a great way for you to make real connections with other folks at Freedom. You can sign-up in the atrium before or after the service on Sunday.

Dustin has posted another video of an idiot on his blog. It's only about 40 seconds long and you can see it here.

Olympics events you won't see

The Olympics are in full swing on NBC. For the last few nights I have stayed up later than normal to watch swimming, gymnastics, beach volleyball, etc. There are so many different Olympic sports that some of them never get on television. It is a shame for all of the athletes who train for four years or more to not get a little air time. Here are two events that won't make it to television this year:

Men's and Women's block crushing: Athletes compete to see who can break the most cinder blocks with their head in two minutes. Women's gold medalist Olga Meinhammer from Germany will attempt to break her own world record of 73 blocks. Word is that if she is victorious she will set her sights on competing versus the men in the 2112 games.

Chopstick fly catching: Competitors are placed in a small room full of common houseflies where they try to catch as many as possible. There is no time limit. Each athlete may enter the room as soon as the opening ceremonies end and remain there until the start of closing ceremonies. Usually all of the competitors have broken their chopsticks and stormed from the room by the end of the third day. Only one medal has been awarded in the history of this event, due to the fact only one person has ever actually caught a fly. Daniel LaRusso took home the gold at the 84 games. Although it was a historic event, some have claimed that the gold medal victory was simply beginner's luck.

Please enjoy all of the events that will be televised, but remember what you could be watching.

Back-to School Bash = Awesome

It's hard for me to find the right words to describe last night's Back-to School Bash. The number of people who showed up, and the hard work of all the Freedom volunteers was outstanding! Here's a few things I think you'll want to know about:

518 backpacks were given away! Because of the donations from everyone at Freedom we had 550 backpacks full of school supplies and at the end of the evening there were only 32 left. I'm sure we will have folks come by the office this week to pick up some, and any that are left will be donated to one of the local schools. Seeing the expressions on the faces of the kids and watching them immediately open the backpacks to check out what was inside was awesome.

At Freedom we have the hardest working bunch of volunteers anywhere! Last night there were over 100 folks who did everything from set-up, greet, serve food, paint faces, make sno-cones, empty trash cans, and just generally show the Greer community that Jesus loves them. It was obvious to everyone there that each volunteer was there to serve and show compassion. If you helped in anyway with Back-to-School Bash, THANK YOU!! You are a hero to our community!

The impact of last night will go on for a long time. There were more backpacks given out last night than at last year's event. There will be more given out next year than were given away last night. The effect of events like Back-to School Bash are bigger than one night and bigger than a spike in worship attendance that may follow it. The effect of serving our community year after year will be bigger than our church. We want to build God's kingdom and serving our city is one way to do that.

One Olympic item: I stayed up late last night to watch the Men's 4x100 Freestyle Relay at the Olympics. I'm glad I did. That was one of the most exciting things I've seen in sports in long, long, time. If you didn't see it you should take ten minutes to check it out here.

Sunday scripture

Here's the scripture for Sunday's message: 2 Samuel 11-12.

Be sure you're at Back to School Bash on Sunday evening. That's all for today, see you on Sunday!

Back to School Bash is almost here

I can't believe that the last post about Wasp Nest Street didn't yield a single comment. I figured lots of you would tell me about some weird named street your great aunt used to live on. Oh well, moving on to more important things...

Back to School Bash is this Sunday! Tamara and her crew were here yesterday stuffing backpacks, all the assignments have been given out to those of you who have volunteered to help, so the only thing left is the actual event. Everyone is invited to come out to Century B ball field (behind Kid's Planet) from 6-8 p.m. to enjoy free inflatables, hot dogs, and sno-cones. Come whether or not you need a backpack of school supplies or not.

We are hoping to give away all 550 backpacks of supplies to families that need them for the start of school in two weeks. If you are helping with the event on Sunday you need to be sure and arrive no later than 5:00. If you are a regular Freedom attender and you are not signed up to help, your presence is still important. We need as many people as possible to greet and make all of our guests feel welcome.

This is the second year we have done this event and I continued to be amazed at the generosity and helpful attitude of our folks at Freedom. This is a great opportunity to show our community that we care about them, and you have made it happen! Pray that children and adults will come to know Jesus through what happens on Sunday.

Stuff that's not important:

- Check out this stupid video on Dustin's blog. The idiot train rolls on.

- Brett Favre is a New York Jet. I really didn't see that one coming.

- There's only one good thing about school starting back, football season is right around the corner. The Gamecocks kick off three weeks from tonight.

That's all for now...

You live where?

I have seen some strange street names in my lifetime. When I was in college in Charleston I ran across a Jedi Street in North Charleston. I thought that would be an awesome street to live on. Perhaps Jedi Street would dead end into Obi Wan Kenobi Circle. Also, I heard on the news several years ago about a poor woman who lived on Anthrax Street during the time of the anthrax terrorism scares. Well yesterday Emily and I saw a terrible street to live on. We spotted it on the way to a friend's house in Inman.

The name of the street was Wasp Nest Lane. The dude that came up with that name probably got stung by wasps as he was clearing the land to put the street in. I didn't turn down Wasp Nest Lane, but my fear was that it would have been part of a larger neighborhood with other dangerous pest related street names. Imagine giving someone directions and saying, "turn right off of Wasp Nest Lane onto Fire Ant Mound Way, then you'll take the second left onto Den of Rattlesnakes Drive."

Personally, I think I'd rather live on Anthrax Street.

Monday morning quarterback

Yesterday started out stressful and ended up being great. For the first time in three years we had a major communication breakdown concerning one of our trailers. The cool thing is that once the trailer arrived everyone who was present pitched in to help get all of the stuff unloaded and set-up. In the end everything worked out fine. My blood pressure spiked for nothing. Here's a few more thoughts on my mind this morning:

- All of the school supplies are in. Tamara let me know yesterday that the only thing still needed to fill up the 500 backpacks is about 100 packs of wide ruled notebook paper. Once again, all of the folks at Freedom have responded in a huge way to meet a need in our community. I am looking forward to seeing all of the kids that will receive a backpack full of supplies this Sunday at Back-to-School Bash.

- Glorious One is one of my new favorite songs that we sing in worship. The band sounded great all around yesterday, but Glorious One was special.

- Jeanne Brown made me an awesome peach pie. Jeanne had made two of them for last week's baptism party, and after I bragged so much about it she decided to make me one all for my own. I ate two pieces yesterday afternoon. That means I need to do about 20 extra minutes on the treadmill today.

- I just found out a little while ago that Skip Carey died last night. Evidently he had been sick for some time. I had no idea because I still heard him on the radio this season doing Braves home games. Braves fans will miss his low-key delivery, his well placed sarcasm, and his call of "Braves win! Braves win!"

- To follow-up on my post concerning great breakfast cereals, evidently "King Vitamin" isn't sold everywhere. My brother-in-law Chris told me last night that growing up in Winnsboro he never heard of "King Vitamin", and his Dad worked for a grocery store! The good folks in Winnsboro have missed out, and I imagine they never got to enjoy "Kaboom" either.

- Brett Favre is supposed to report to Packers practice today. That ought to be fun.

- When I was in seminary I never dreamed that teaching the scripture would give me an opportunity to use the phrase "dancing in your drawers". If you weren't there yesterday, that's part of what you missed.