The day I became a Baptist (sort of)

Terri and I wen over to visit Matt and Mady in Conway where Matt is the Creative Minister for the 2nd Baptist Church ( www.sbcconway.org ) I know Mandy from the Hands and Voices Board we both serve on. I had heard Matt was a church creative guy and Mandy invited us up. How could I say no. This was stop one of the "Geo is getting church ideas tour". HA!

We got up there just in time for service to start and folks were very friendly and welcoming. We were about to sit and Mandy came up and invited us to sit with them. Cool... the VIP section! Services started and Matt was actually leading the service today. The band and choir were really good and let me tell you the motion graphic behind the songs was perfect. Very smooth motion graphic that didn't interfere with the words at all. Yes I was comparing everything of theirs verse ours. Matt won hands down!

The crowd was mostly UCA students and they all had their UCA purple on and had won their game last night. Big cook out for anyone in the community was going on after services. That was one thing that really stood out to me about them... they were VERY community friendly. Their Trunk or Treat was going to be at the Best Buy parking lot rather than at their church. Their goal HALF A MILLION pieces of candy to give away!

The lesson series was based around the movie Fireproof ( www.fireproofthemovie.com ). Again these guys sent it out of the park! They gave tickets to all first responders in Conway! All fire fighters, Police, EMT's and their spouses could see the movie for free. Now that my friends is outreach! The lesson was very good. Mark Dance was the speaker and he held the attention across the board. With a room full of college students with a mix of middle and senior aged it just worked. The stage set was great too. It was all fire fighter equipment and a lot of it too. Made me start thinking of stage sets again. My last good one was the baseball series with the dug out bench and all the bats and gloves and water cooler, etc etc. And their program, bulletin, News & Notes or what ever you may call it was very nice. Yes, I'm showing it to our folks. I told Terri after lunch, "I wonder if they (our church) would hand over the bulletin to me to work on?" Terri sort of had that deer in headlights look of "Oh no, he's taking on another project".

Church and hearing: I kept thinking I wasn't hearing the music like I should during church so during the prayer I turned up the equipment. Did it again during the next prayer. Come to find out the music was not that loud. Of course I didn't know this until Terri told me at lunch.

After we got home I headed out for a ride. Had a good ride but I think I'm going to have to ride some place else on Sunday afternoons under it gets cold. A lot of families were out today, which is good, but they were in herds today and taking up the whole trail wide. Several times I had to slow way down and ease around. I just pray one of those cute little tots don't pull away from parent someday and get hit by a bike. Some times I see cyclist just buzz families. Not a good thing.

I had an idea while I was riding... I wonder if Matt would consider designing the Gears for Ears jersey. Since he has a hearing impaired child and is creative he might enjoy designing something completely different from his normal sort of projects. Think I'll email him and see.

Speak of riding and the event. I think I'm going to have to check in to the fat farm. I need to drop about 20 by May. I think I'm going to have to find someone who will wrap my head in silver duct tape so I can't eat. I think chips are of the devil.

Note to Jim... Hogs won!! Say something nice on your blog. Come on man, give us a little love. By the way, Mark Batterson has the same addiction as you to Chik-fil-a. He is in Washington and got all excited when he spotted on in Atlanta. You preacher types and your Chikfila addictions! HA!

Life is good... no reason... it's just good!