I'VE MOVED

There's still a few bits and pieces to be done to it's appearance, but from this morning my blog has movied to -

www.churchatthemovies.com/blog

- or you can simply go to www.churchatthemovies.com and hit the BLOG tab.

See you over there in the brave new world of WordPress!

THE FINAL FOUR

Okay, so I'm still a relative novice when it comes to U.S. politics, so what I have to say about it all may do little more than make public my total ignorance. Then again that never stopped me commenting on any subject before, so here goes ...

There are 300 million people in this nation - and that's only counting the legal ones - so couldn't we come up with a better choice for leader of the free world than Clinton, Obama, McCain or Romney?

From all I'm reading it's just about down to these four now, despite Huckabee's smile, so when I come to voting on this issue later in the year, I wish they'd add another choice, like None Of The Above!

SCHIZOPHRENIC FEW DAYS

While our church's new website has been up and running for a few days now - though a lot more information still needs to be added to it - I am still working on shifting my blog over there and am practising with a new program.

If you want to check it out, my blog is also at -

www.churchatthemovies.com/blog

I'll let you know when it's finally fully moved over there.

DARNED EMAILS

This has been a good day - well so far anyway!

It was the day that I committed to doing something I am not too good at - I answered all my emails.

For many years now I have worked with a very simple administrative routine. I have a big in-tray on my desk and that's where I toss items that need my attention, constantly adding to the pile. When all those papers are so top heavy they are at risk of falling on the floor, I go through them and toss out around 75% of them because they are no longer relevant.

Which all goes to show why I'm the visionary and Charlotte is the admin pastor!

I approach emails slightly differently. If something requires a one or two sentence response, I reply immediately, but other than that I leave it in my incoming mail folder, which today had 57 emails sitting in it for periods ranging from days to months.

So I've been working my little fingers to the bone, dispensing information, maintaining relationships and generally being a very helpful and sociable person.

The current count is 16, all of which are there for reference rather than awaiting a reply. I could switch them over to my Saved Mail-In folder but the chances are they'd be lost there for ever and a day.

So if you got an email from me today - congratulations.

And if you're still waiting, I guess I was too enthusiastic with the delete key!!!

Sorry!

NO FOOL LIKE AN OLD FOOL

Since I weigh in at Weight Watchers on Monday mornings, I normally push myself that little bit more at the gym so that I sweat off a few more ounces before standing on the scale. That was a big mistake today.

My right knee has been giving me some minor pain for the past five or six days, but thinking it was pretty much okay now, I ran 7.5 miles this morning and then did another 2 miles on the elyptical. When I was done I could hardly walk and that's the way it has been ever since. Ibuprofen seems to be helping, but the best solution may be to avoid the gym for a day or so.

Guess the old bones are fighting back!

DOUBLING UP

Today we publicly announced what most folks have seen coming for quite a while now, that from Easter Sunday onwards we are going to two services on Sunday mornings. I watched a number of people awkwardly looking around for seats this morning and while there were spots all over the place, to all intents and purposes we are full.

Church growth gurus used to say that you are full at 80% of capacity, but nowadays that has been pulled back to 66% for two reasons - firstly that people like their own space more nowadays and secondly most Americans need more space as they're bigger than they used to be.

I like the idea of two services for a lot of reasons -

1. If my preaching sucks in first service I can fine tune it for the second.

2. We give people options as to which time slot best suits their lifestyle.

3. We create a lot more space for a lot more people and since I don't expect the trend of the past few months to slow down, we're going to need those seats.

4. It presents a load of fresh opportunities for folks to plug into serving as we'll need to double up volunteers in a whole bunch of areas.

5. It stretches us, which is always a healthy thing. Personally I enjoy the challenge of change - probably something to do with the ADD that's part of my DNA - some don't. It'll be interesting to watch them sweat, try to convince them they can do it and celebrate with them when they discover they really can!

Fun times ahead!!!

SHAPING UP

I was on a tricky topic this morning as I taught the next part of our Getting In Shape Series - Getting in Shape Physically. The difficult part was motivating people without laying a guilt trip on them and I think I succeeded to a great degree.

I'm no health nut or fitness fanatic, in fact inside me there's still a 332lb guy wanting to make a comeback. I'm just someone who has decided that I want to enjoy this life to the full and that in order to do so, I'd better eat more smartly than I have done thus far and exercise a little more than walking to the garage and back.

As I mentioned today, the trouble is that as Christians there are a load of things we don't do socially and so that tends to limit our options. So a ton of stuff we do centers around food, whether it's small groups, covered dish meals or men's breakfasts. Now food is all around us, so the key is learning to eat wisely and in moderation, or as I heard someone put it a while ago, we have to find out how to peacefully co-exists with food.

So that was church today.

Great crowd - our cafe was cleaned out by the time service started, which means we need to up all the goodies for next week. Lot of new faces again, which leaves me sinking in a sea of folks I don't know. Maybe I should content myself with not knowing everyone's name, but I'm not at that point yet!

IT ONLY TAKES ONE

It's amazing what damage one self-righteous bigoted idiot can do to the work of God in this country. I'm not talking about any old unbalanced Bible thumper sitting in the pew, I'm particularly focused on the insane, iuncompassionate statements emanating from the pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, Shirley Phelps.

It seems this upright, obnoxious servant of God has declared that she will picket any and all memorial services for actor Heath Ledger who was found dead in his Manhattan apartment earlier this week. She even plans to protest anything done to honor Ledger at next month's Academy Awards ceremony, because of his portrayal of a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain.

Thanks Rev. Bigot, I'm sure you're doing what Jesus would do. He wouldn't be trying to console a grieving family or lamenting the passing of such a young man either, he would have been right in there ranting and raving about the judgement of God with caring statements like yours -

"And then the other place I'm going to picket him is when they prop him up to worship his dead, rotting carcass further at the Oscars. I'll be right outside by the red carpet."

It's a pity that this one off-the-wall lunatic who really should be institutionalized is instead being quoted in the media, because for millions of Americans she will fuel their disdain for Christians and their conviction that churches are gathering places for hypocritical religious zealots.

There's no getting away from the fact that the church in America has a very real image problem and the only way around it is for every real follower of Jesus to deliberately and unconditionallylove people the way he did.

However at this moment - as you may have gathered - I'm having a tough time loving a certain pastor from Kansas!

WE'RE BACK

You can check out our new website here -

www.churchatthemovies.com

It's still in its basic form with a lot of stuff to be added, but at least there's something up there and its new and fresh.