Going on 14 days without rain or sprinkles in Portland. I think all of you East Coast and Midwest readers are starting to understand why you can’t beat Oregon summers. Forecast tomorrow: 82 degrees, early morning clouds, sunny afternoon, 20% humidity, no rain.

This is the 2nd weekend in a row that I am a single man. Still married but without my wife until Sunday night. She is off having a blast at the Houseboat camp on Lake Billy Chinook. How to pass the time? Watch the entire Band of Brothers series for the third time. I swear it gets better everytime!

1. Los @ Ragamuffin Soul had two posts that generated some awesome discussion. One on what people hate that their worship leader does, the other on what they love that their worship leader does.
2. After reading those you have to read Billy Chia’s post on how to be an effective worship leader. He also wrote a great post on the difference between giving your worship pastor feedback and criticism.
3. Sagging is now against the law in Flint, Michigan.
4. My good friend from college, Brenna, is now blogging. Right now she is in Mauritania, Africa, and she’ll be blogging about her experiences in Africa. Head over and say hi.
5. My Twins showed really well at the All Star game. Mauer got a hit, Nathan pitched a perfect inning, and Morneau scored the winning run, while also “winning” the Home Run Derby.
6. Shane Claiborne on how Christians should endorse political candidates.
7. John Piper on understanding how human pain and God co-exist and what it means for us.
8. For those of you Twitter users, here are some good ways to take advantage of it.
9. Why golf is better than soccer. Can I get an amen?!?
10. Craig Groeschel on the temptation that success brings.

Often times we call music in church, worship. We have a genre of Christian music called worship. We call Sunday morning a worship service, and we have worship pastors. The list could go on.

When I think about music in church I almost automatically get caught up in musical style and the current really awesome “worship” song. The problem is that when worship becomes about those things, I don’t think it’s worship…it’s just music.

The thing I love the most about worship is that it is completely focused on God. It is a surrendering of myself to God. It is honoring Jesus with everything I am.

Tim Hughes defines worship as this: “Worship is the total alignment of our heart, soul, mind and strength with the will of God. It is our whole-hearted response to God’s extravagant love and mercy.”

I confess that far too often what I desire to be worship falls well short of being such. When we focus on the style of music, I believe that what we call worship becomes simply music.

Question: When does music become worship?

Right now I am in Middle of No Where, Oregon. Actually, I’m at Lake Billy Chinook but it is definitely in the middle of no where. Close to an indian reservation and a 3.5 hour drive from home. Beautiful though.

I’m gone for just about 24 hours to help the set up for the 2nd session of Houseboat Camp. It is the summer camp for the high school ministry at Sunset. Check out the views!

Sunday was a first. For those of you who do not know, at Sunset (where I work and serve) we have two different types of services. Most of you would say that one is traditional, and one is contemporary. I think it goes a lot deeper than that, but I won’t fight you on it. Anyway, I led worship in both services today for the first time.

9am service:

• For All You’ve Done in E (Hillsong)
• My Redeemer Lives in E
• The Solid Rock in D
• Blessed Assurance in D
• Responsive Reading in Psalm 33
• How Great Thou Art in C (just a verse and chorus)
• Offertory: Because He Lives (Jill and Regina blew this one away, it was amazing)

11am service:

• Let God Arise in B (Tomlin)
• For All You’ve Done in E (Hillsong)
• Beautiful Jesus in A (Stanfill)
• The Solid Rock in D (Passion/Charlie Hall version)
• The Stand in A (United)
• Offertory: Lord of Lords in E (Fraser)

What worked:

1. Pretty light load music wise compared to the past few weeks. Most of these songs were pretty familiar to me before this weekend, so that really helped for me memorizing the music.
2. Blessed Assurance in the 9 was a bit hit I thought. They seemed to really sing out and enjoy it. It isn’t one of our consistent hymns, but I think we’ll be doing it again soon.
3. The Stand was “a moment” in the 11. Not only did I feel totally freed to worship, I sensed that the congregation did as well. I love hearing the church sing instead of me, and when I stepped back from the mic I could really hear them.
4. We started the 11 with a video (Hillsong dvd opener) and went straight into Let God Arise. I thought it was pretty killer. It had some energy to it that me welcoming everyone and having them stand doesn’t have.

What needs work:

1. My in ear monitors didn’t work for the first 2 songs in the 9. I had bumped a chord connected to it and didn’t have time to fix it until after the 2nd song. That was interesting…
2. Only doing a small part of How Great Thou Art. I hate it when you plan for something to be really great and it backfires. I could tell they wanted to sing more, but I had already planned for everything to end after one chorus, and I didn’t know the 2nd verse words by heart.
3. I hate dead space in a worship set, something I told the drummer (Rhett) this week actually. Well between Beautiful Jesus and The Solid Rock (which he starts) there was dead space. I turned around and he was in his own moment of worship. I hate dead space, but when it happens because someone is worshiping, I don’t care at all.
4. Doing the Passion version of The Solid Rock didn’t seem to work to me. I could tell some people really enjoyed it, and others were giving me the blank stare of: “what the heck is this?”. Haha, I love those!

Part One

Creative Chaos @ The Soul.

Today I hope we provide some concrete answers. The beauty of this blog conversation and my conversation with Rose is that there are no concrete answers. As you can tell, I don’t deal with this very well, but I am doing my best to open up to God’s moving without specific answers. Here is the rest of our conversation:

Me: I totally understand that many of the things I feel called to cost money (guitar, schooling, etc.) and I need to have a way to pay for them. I also can see that God has blessed us with jobs, a car, a place to live, and I don’t need to give them up. But we still haven’t figured out how we can serve “the least of these” and also serve money. In some way we are serving money by working jobs, paying bills…all those things are money oriented. So how can we live to do these money oriented things and also serve the God who desires everything from us?

Rose: I think the biggest thing is how you spend your time. If someone chooses to work longer and allows that to be their top priority then I think they have their priorities wrong. In our situation, we don’t have a ton of money, but we do have time that we can give. I think everyone has time. When I spend time with my small group girls, I feel so much more fulfillment than anytime I have a big day at work. I try and focus my mind on eternity and not material things that are of the here and now.

Me: I like to think of how I can sanctify myself from unbelievers. How can I show that I am different? I think a lot of my life and a lot of the “average” Christian life, does show a difference but I don’t think finances is one of those ways. Christians spend lavishly just as much as anybody else. I look at my own life and wonder how much different I look than the average person with how I spend my money. Just because somewhere around 10% of our money might go to a church and humanitarian efforts doesn’t mean I have set myself a part with my finances. At the same time, I don’t think we spend money on anything crazy. But, I want to challenge us to think of ways to be sanctified with our spending outside the 10% we already give away. 10% is pretty pathetic if you ask me, and it is probably sad that I let it be the benchmark.

Rose: This takes me back to when we were really struggling financially and had some unfortunate things happen and people just gave us money…and we still don’t know who those people are. My trust in the Lord and confidence in His provision has never been the same since then. I want my spirit to be listening to Him so when others are in a similar situation, God can use us to help them through. To me the real giving of yourself, is giving of your heart, not just money. As long as your heart is rooted in Jesus and in love then I don’t think money is the problem.

Shane Claiborne was asked this: How do we combat the pull toward materialism, and what does simplicity look like in the 21st Century?

His response has stuck with me since I read it:

“I think the most important question is not what I should give away, because the Scriptures say you can sell everything you have and give it to the poor, but if you don’t have love it’s nothing. So the deepest question around simplicity is about love, and redistribution of resources is only meaningful inasmuch as it’s rooted in love. When we really figure out how to live in the personalism and love of Christ with our neighbor, then that defines what’s enough so that we’re not just driven by an ideology, but by a love relationship to our neighbor.”

Romans 12:8-10

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Tonight I watched some of The Home Run Derby. It always happens the day before the Major League All-Star Game. I watched so I could watch Justin Morneau (who plays on my team the Twins) and to see Josh Hamilton, “the feel good story in sports.” Well how about it…they both made the finals.

In 1999 Hamilton was the #1 overall pick in the Major League draft. He played Class A ball (the lowest level of Major League baseball) and fell out of playing due to drug and alcohol addictions. He tried to commit suicide 3 times and has been in and out of rehab several times. Between the years 2002 and 2006 Hamilton never played baseball except going to the local batting cages a few times a summer. Hamilton hasn’t used drugs or alcohol since October 6th, 2005 and brings his accountability partner on the road with him often. Josh Hamilton has been one of the best players in baseball this year (less than 2 years after starting to play again) and shattered the single round Home Run Derby record tonight. He put on a show.

What changed Josh Hamilton’s life? Jesus. Now his story is one of hope for others. He calls his changed life “a God thing.” I couldn’t put it any better way.

Over a year ago, Josh wrote an article for ESPN on his story. I’ll include the full text below. Or you can follow the link to it HERE. You have to read it.

“To let you know how far I’ve come, let me tell you where I’ve been.

Not that long ago, there were nights I went to sleep in strange places praying I wouldn’t wake up. After another night of bad decisions, I’d lie down with my heart speeding inside my chest like it was about to burst through the skin. My thinking was clouded, and my talent was one day closer to being totally wasted.

I prayed to be spared another day of guilt and depression and addiction. I couldn’t continue living the life of a crack addict, and I couldn’t stop, either. It was a horrible downward spiral that I had to pull out of, or die. I lay there — in a hot and dirty trailer in the North Carolina countryside, in a stranger’s house, in the cab of my pickup — and prayed the Lord would take me away from the nightmare my life had become.

When I think of those terrible times, there’s one memory that stands out. I was walking down the double-yellow of a two-lane country highway outside Raleigh when I woke up out of a trance.

I was so out of it I had lost consciousness, but my body had kept going, down the middle of the road, cars whizzing by on either side. I had run out of gas on my way to a drug dealer’s house, and from there I left the truck and started walking. I had taken Klonopin, a prescription antianxiety drug, along with whatever else I was using at the time, and the combination had put me over the edge. It’s the perfect example of what I was: a dead man walking.

And now, as I stand on the green grass of a major league outfield or walk to the batter’s box with people cheering for me, I repeatedly ask myself one simple question: How did I get here from there?

I’ve been in the big leagues as a member of the Cincinnati Reds for half a season, but I still find myself taking off my cap between pitches and taking a good look around. The uniform, the ballparks, the fans — it doesn’t seem real. How am I here? It makes no sense to anybody, and I feel almost guilty when I have to tell people, over and over, that I can’t answer that one simple question.

I go to sleep every night with a clear mind and a clear conscience. Every day, I walk into an immaculate clubhouse with 10 TVs and all the food I can eat, a far cry from the rat-infested hellholes of my user past. I walk to my locker and change into a perfectly clean and pressed uniform that someone else hung up for me. I grab a bat and a glove and walk onto a beautifully manicured field to play a game for a living.

How am I here? I can only shrug and say, “It’s a God thing.” It’s the only possible explanation.

There’s a reason my prayers weren’t answered during those dark, messed-up nights I spent scared out of my mind. There’s a reason I have this blessed and unexpected opportunity to play baseball and tell people my story.

My wife, Katie, told me this day would come. At my lowest point, about three years ago, when I was wasting away to skin and bones and listening to nobody, she told me I’d be back playing baseball someday. She had no reason to believe in me. During that time, I did nothing to build my body and everything to destroy it. I’d go five or six months without picking up a ball or swinging a bat. By then, I’d been in rehab five or six times — on my way to eight — and failed to get clean. I was a bad husband and a bad father, and I had no relationship with God. Baseball wasn’t even on my mind.

And still Katie told me, “You’re going to be back playing baseball, because there’s a bigger plan for you.” I couldn’t even look her in the eye. I said something like, “Yeah, yeah, quit talking to me.”

She looks pretty smart, doesn’t she? I have a mission now. My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it’s never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger.

Addiction is a humbling experience. Getting it under control is even more humbling. I got better for one reason: I surrendered. Instead of asking to be bailed out, instead of making deals with God by saying, “If you get me out of this mess, I’ll stop doing what I’m doing,” I asked for help. I wouldn’t do that before. I’d been the Devil Rays’ No. 1 pick in the 1999 draft, supposedly a five-tool prospect. I was a big, strong man, and I was supposed to be able to handle my problems myself. That didn’t work out so well.

Every day I’m reminded that my story is bigger than me. It never fails. Every time I go to the ballpark, I talk to people who are either battling addictions themselves or trying to help someone else who is. Who talks to me? Just about everybody. I walked to the plate to lead off an inning in early May, minding my own business, when the catcher jogged out to the mound to talk to his pitcher. As I was digging in, the home plate umpire (I’m intentionally not naming him) took off his mask and walked around the plate to brush it off. He looked up at me and said, “Josh, I’m really pulling for you. I’ve fought some battles myself, and I just want you to know I’m rooting for you.”

A father will tell me about his son while I’m signing autographs. A mother will wait outside the players’ parking lot to tell me about her daughter. They know where I’ve been. They look to me because I’m proof that hope is never lost.

They remind me that this isn’t really about baseball. It’s amazing that God allowed me to keep my baseball talents after I sat out three years and played only 15 games last season in A-ball. On May 6, I hit two homers against the Rockies at home, and I felt like I did in high school. I felt like I could do anything on the field.

I’ve been called the biggest surprise in baseball this year, and I can’t argue with that. If you think about it, how many people have gone from being a crack addict to succeeding at anything, especially something as demanding as major league baseball? If I hadn’t been picked up by the Reds after the Rule 5 draft, which opened up a major league roster spot for me, I’d probably still be in A-ball. Instead, I’m hanging around .270 with 13 homers through 60 games with Cincinnati; not bad for a 26-year-old major league rookie. But the way I look at it, I couldn’t fail. I’ve been given this platform to talk about the hell I’ve been through, so it’s almost like I need to do well, like I don’t have a choice.

This may sound crazy, but I wouldn’t change a thing about my path to the big leagues. I wouldn’t even change the 26 tattoos that cover so much of my body, even though they’re the most obvious signs of my life temporarily leaving the tracks. You’re probably thinking, Bad decisions and addiction almost cost him his life, and he wouldn’t change anything? But if I hadn’t gone through all the hard times, this whole story would be just about baseball. If I’d made the big leagues at 21 and made my first All-Star team at 23 and done all the things expected of me, I would be a big-time baseball player, and that’s it.

Baseball is third in my life right now, behind my relationship with God and my family. Without the first two, baseball isn’t even in the picture. Believe me, I know.

***** I’LL NEVER forget Opening Day in Cincinnati. When they called my name during introductions and a sellout crowd stood and cheered, I looked into the stands and saw Katie and our two kids — Sierra, who’s nearly 2, and my 6-year-old stepdaughter, Julia — and my parents and Katie’s parents. I had to swallow hard to keep from breaking down right there. They were all crying, but I had to at least try to keep it together.

I pinch-hit in the eighth inning of that game against the Cubs, and Lou Piniella decided to make a pitching change before I got to the plate. The crowd stood and cheered me for what seemed like forever. It was the best sound I’ve ever heard. When I got into the box, Cubs catcher Michael Barrett looked up at me from his crouch and said, “You deserve it, Josh. Take it all in, brother. I’m happy for you.” I lined out to left, but the following week I got my first start and my first hit — a home run.

Whether I hit two bombs or strike out three times, like I did in a game against the Pirates, I never forget that I’m living with addiction. It’s just part of my life. Johnny Narron, my former manager’s brother, is a big part of my recovery. He’s the Reds’ video coordinator, and he once coached me in fall baseball when I was 15. He looks after me on the road. When they pass out meal money before a trip — always in cash — they give mine to Johnny, and he parcels it out to me when I need it.

I see no shame in that; it’s just one of the realities of my situation. I don’t need to be walking around with $400 in my pocket.

I know I’m different, and my teammates have been very accepting. Being a rookie in the big leagues, there are certain rituals involved, and one of them is carrying beer onto the plane. My teammates gave me that job on one of the first road trips, and I didn’t do it. I didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to be seen carrying beer onto a plane. They respected my decision.

I get a lot of abuse in visiting cities, but it only bothers me when people are vulgar around kids. The rest I can handle. Some of it is even funny. In St. Louis, I was standing in rightfield when a fan yelled, “My name is Josh Hamilton, and I’m a drug addict!” I turned around and looked at him with my palms raised to the sky. “Tell me something I don’t know, dude,” I said. The whole section started laughing and cheering, and the heckler turned to them and said, “Did you hear that? He’s my new favorite player.” They cheered me from that point on.

I live by a simple philosophy: Nobody can insult me as much as I’ve insulted myself. I’ve learned that I have to keep doing the right things and not worry about what people think. Fortunately, I have a strong support group with Katie, my family and Johnny. If I ever get in a bad situation, I know I would have to get out of it and give Johnny a call. The key is not getting myself into those situations, but we’ve talked about having a plan for removing myself just in case. It’s all part of understanding the reality of the addiction.

In spring training, when I hit over .400 and made the team, there was a lot of interest in my story.

I decided to be open about what happened to me; early on, I was doing long interviews before my first game in every city. It’s been amazing how people have responded, and I think being honest helped. I can’t avoid my past, so I don’t try. It’s not always easy, though. I got sick in late May and ended up on the disabled list after going to the hospital with a stomach problem, and I knew I’d have to answer questions about whether I was using again. I can’t control what people think, but the years of drug abuse tore up my immune system pretty good. I get tested three times a week, and if it comes back positive, I know I’m done with baseball for life.

Aside from our struggles as a team, this season has been a dream for me. And that’s fitting, because in a way I had to learn how to dream all over again. When I was using, I never dreamed. I’d sleep the dead, dreamless sleep of a stalled brain. When I stopped using, I found my dreams returned. They weren’t always good dreams; most of the ones I remember were haunting and dark. They stayed with me long after I woke up.

Within my first week of sobriety in October 2005 — after I showed up at my grandmother’s house in Raleigh in the middle of the night, coming off a crack binge — I had the most haunting dream. I was fighting the devil, an awful-looking thing. I had a stick or a bat or something, and every time I hit the devil, he’d fall and get back up. Over and over I hit him, until I was exhausted and he was still standing.

I woke up in a sweat, as if I’d been truly fighting, and the terror that gripped me makes that dream feel real to this day. I’d been alone for so long, alone with the fears and emotions I worked so hard to kill. I’m not embarrassed to admit that after I woke up that night, I walked down the hall to my grandmother’s room and crawled under the covers with her. The devil stayed out of my dreams for seven months after that. I stayed clean and worked hard and tried to put my marriage and my life back together. I got word in June 2006 that I’d been reinstated by Major League Baseball, and a few weeks afterward, the devil reappeared.

It was the same dream, with an important difference. I would hit him and he would bounce back up, the ugliest and most hideous creature you could imagine. This devil seemed unbeatable; I couldn’t knock him out. But just when I felt like giving up, I felt a presence by my side. I turned my head and saw Jesus, battling alongside me. We kept fighting, and I was filled with strength. The devil didn’t stand a chance.

You can doubt me, but I swear to you I dreamed it. When I woke up, I felt at peace. I wasn’t scared. To me, the lesson was obvious: Alone, I couldn’t win this battle. With Jesus, I couldn’t lose.

***** I GET cravings sometimes, and I see it as the devil trying to catch me in a weak moment. The best thing I can do is get the thought out of my mind as soon as I can, so it doesn’t turn into an obsession. When it happens, I talk to him. I talk to the devil and say, “These are just thoughts, and I’m not going to act on them.” When I talk like that, when I tell him he’s not going to get the best of me, I find the thought goes away sooner.

Believe it or not, talking to the devil is no harder to explain than many other experiences I’ve had since that day last December when my life changed. I was working for my brother’s tree service in Raleigh, sending limbs through a chipper, when I found out I’d been selected by the Cubs and traded to the Reds in the Rule 5 draft.

But there is one story that sticks with me, so much so that I think of it every day. I was driving out of the players’ parking lot at Great American Ball Park after a game in May, with Katie and our two girls. There’s always a group of fans standing at the curb, hoping to get autographs, and I stop to sign as many as I can.

And on this particular night, a little boy of about 9 or 10, wearing a Reds cap, handed me a pen and something to sign. Nothing unusual there, but as I was writing the boy said, “Josh, you’re my savior.”

This stopped me. I looked at him and said, “Well, thank you. Do you know who my savior is?”

He thought for a minute. I could see the gears turning. Finally, he smiled and blurted out, “Jesus Christ.” He said it like he’d just come up with the answer to a test. “That’s exactly right,” I said.

You see, I may not know how I got here from there, but every day I get a better understanding of why.”

Positive Post Tuesday

Scene: The coffee shop within Powell’s bookstore in Portland called World Cup Coffee and Tea.

A few weeks ago Rose (that is my wife for those who do not know) and I went out to coffee. I had lots rolling around in my head. So we just started talking. This post is a synopsis of that conversation. We are only posting this so that you can join that conversation and help us grapple with these things. This whole thing will be in two parts, one today, the other tomorrow.

Me: I struggle so much with living in suburbia, living on much more than $2 a day and also being a Christian. I read verses where Jesus tells a man to sell everything he has before he can follow Jesus, I read about Jesus explaining the kingdom being accessible to the sheep, but the goats not making the cut, and I hear story after story about how well off I have it compared to most people. I can’t help but cringe every time I fill up my tank or go to the store to buy clothes. How can we, as a couple desiring to live with Biblical principles, follow Jesus’ words and yet live in such a consumer driven society?

Rose: It is hard to compare our lives with the rest of the world. When we look at our lives, barely living pay check to pay check, it is considered wealthy by the world’s standards. Growing up in such a small home, it has always been a dream to have a nice home for our kids, and to be able to provide a nice life for them. That is important to me. But, when I think of my time in Africa, then I feel like I have way more than I could ever need. Does that mean I need to change my thinking? Or should I not compare myself to someone who lives in a totally different culture? I’ve been changed by having seen true poverty in Kenya, Uganda, and Romania, and it is so important for people to be able to see face to face, these things that are only words (poverty, malnutrition, etc).

Me: I think of Monica, the girl from Uganda that we sponsor, and I think about the fact that she walks miles a day, every day, just to get water. I don’t know how my life, other than giving $35 a month, can make an impact in her world. I need to keep my job and spend money to go to school, yet I can’t help but wonder whether I am that man that needs to sell everything.

Rose: Just like you can’t ever be perfect, I don’t think that if you sold everything you would find Christian perfection. I don’t think God is calling us to sell everything we have. I know Jesus is saying that in those verses, but I sense it is more of a mindset or heart issue. I can think of so many people who are driven by money everyday and it truly has become their idol. And there are others who have a lot of money but have used their income wisely to bless others, while still providing essential needs for themselves.

Discuss.

Thanks for all your advice on the announcement post. Here are some questions I have run into in this process:

1. For school and work I definitely have to get the Office Suite. How would you recommend doing this? iWork? MS Office for Mac? NeoOffice? OpenOffice.org?
2. How necessary is a dual boot option through Parallels, Boot Camp, or VMware? I don’t want to spend money on getting XP or Vista if it isn’t all that necessary.
3. Is AppleCare Protection worth the $250?
4. Where can you get the best value for a carrying case? Or is a hard case a good way to go?
5. A lot of you are saying 4 GBs of RAM is the way to go…how many of you disagree? I really want to cut every corner I can to save money.
6. Is there a choice on type of screen? I’ve heard about a glossy screen and a matt screen.

Thanks for your help everyone!

I’ve noticed a fair amount of new readers over the past few weeks. Welcome to you all. Hopefully I don’t disappoint. Let me be the first to encourage you to subscribe here. Thanks! And of course, thanks to all of you long time readers. You guys are the best.

• Do social injustice and evangelism oppose each other?
• A week straight of no clouds here in Portland.
• A-Rod is on his way to being single and further tarnishing his name. Isn’t it bad enough that he can’t hit when it counts?
• I find it funny that most Obama fans love his “faith based plan” but love to rip on Bush’s. I don’t understand why we are all about bridging the gap between church and state.
• I was excited about this election, but if I’m honest…this past month has made me go from excited to annoyed.
• If you have Facebook, then we need to be Facebook friends. Make it happen by going here.
• I recently read a book by Matthew Paul Turner called Hokey Pokey. Once you get beyond the weird title and weird book cover, then you find a really great book on finding your calling. A lot of what he said resonated with me. Calling is rarely something that just shows up instantaneously.
• Eugene Cho on compassion versus indifference.
• Francis Chan’s church is building its sanctuary outside with seating for 3,000 people. Read about why.
• I got a Flickr account this week and have some pictures on the sidebar down below.

Sports:

A guy named Evan Longoria made the All-Star team for baseball. He is doing a good job of making it so no one can call him Eva anymore.

The Nadal-Federer match up was incredible. I started watching it at 6:20am PST before I went to church. I got home at 1:10pm PST and I still caught the last 10 minutes of the match. Amazing.

Well here is an announcement I don’t think I have anticpated making.

I am buying a Mac.

After a life of using PC’s, I am switching. I have used a Mac probably less than 15 times in my life. Somehow our paths just never crossed very often. Nonetheless I cannot resist the urge to have iLife.

My plan is to use the student discount to buy the higher end white Macbook. It is basically the same as the trendy black one, with less hard drive space.

I need your help. I know a lot of you who read this are Mac users. As a student who needs to write and read papers, as a musician, as someone who is firmly entrenched in PC world…I need your help. No advice is unwarranted. I am as green as it gets with what to know about switching from PC to Mac.

So let’s hear it!

I’m sure you are probably thinking…”how can he afford to get one…I thought he was a poor seminary student.” I am a poor seminary student, but I’m selling our current computer to my sister before she goes to college. Hence why I am almost able to afford one.