Last night Al and I drove to Boston to a Boston Baptist College alumni dinner (can you say free barbeque).  I have had a relationship with the school, and I’m a pastor, so I was invited to attend via email from my friend Scotty Anderson.

We twittered about it all night (yet another exciting reason to twitter), but I thought I’d say a few words about it on my blog.  BBC is a college that has its roots in the Baptist Bible Fellowship, and is a network of autonomous (unless you change the name of your church to not have the word “Baptist” anymore) churches for the purpose of things like fellowship and missions.  Typically I enjoy spending time with many of these pastors, and really, this evening was no exception.

Al and I arrived late because of traffic, and almost all the barbeque was gone when we got there.  But we dug up the food we could, which was very amazing.  And we ate.  This was good too.  Among the things on the menu:

Barbeque Beef sandwiches
Bbq baked beans
Corn bread
the most amazing cheesecake bites ever

After we ate, the program began.  There are some things that are done well during bbf meetings like this, but there is hardly anything that is done relevant.  For instance, the music was wonderful, it was just boring, with the exception of one song where this girl stole the show from her parents (who were the main performers) and sang this song with her dad that was absolutely brilliant.  The song was old-fashioned, but how it was done was great.

After the concert, a alumnus from the school came to the stage and offered some thoughts on how it prepared him for his work on the mission field.  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Perhaps the only redeeming part of the night was the speaker (every BBF meeting has a preacher, not a speaker, amen!) named Paul Trinkle.  I know Paul’s brother, Ed, but had never got a chance to meet him.  His message was encouraging as he focused on the relationship of Moses and Joshua, and encouraged every Moses (old guy) to have a Joshua, and every Joshua (young guy) to become a Moses. (from Exodus 33)

After the meeting, Al and I talked to several people we know, and then we went to Dunkin Donuts with some of my closer friends from the group and talked church for a bit.  Actually, one of our friends, attempted to share with several of us why we should be more a part of the BBF.  I was not convinced.  In fact, one of the lessons I learned from the chat was that the ONLY thing I need from this organization is fellowship.  I don’t need or want their money.  I don’t need to send any of my students to their Bible college.  I only need to be able to chat with a group of guys who are going through many of the same things I am.  Here are 3 of the guys I met with:

Left to right:  Paul Trinkle, Sean Sears, Rob Willis (not pictured:  James Tomassen (sp?), Al Dancy)

We stayed there chatting until about 10:35 pm, at which time the Celtics had already beaten up on the Pistons in game 1.  I had a great time, like I always do even with the music and suits, because of relationships.  This is why I go. 

I did ask myself however if I would have rather have been here.

How about this?  My dad’s favorite teams in basketball and hockey are the Pistons and the Red Wings
My favorite teams are the Celtics and the Penguins. 

I bet there will be some trash talking!

Welcome to MoMo’s! 

HERE are the guidelines. If this is your first time giving your “amazing story”, PLEASE take time to read them. It will save us both a lot of time.

To join me, write a post today (or a post you’ve written from last Monday to Sunday) sharing something tht has happened to you this last week - anything funny or interesting, crazy, fulfilled, too busy, hilarious, wistful, or any number of out of the ordinary happenings that made you happy or miserable last week.  Put a link in your post to this post permalink (not my general URL) and then put the permalink of your post (not your general URL) here at the end of this post. Thanks.  By the way, I do this because I love stories.  To tell them, to hear them, and to read them.

So tell me your “Inspired by the truth” story every Monday…

Here’s mine.

On Sunday night my wife, Carie and I threw a welcome home party for my friend Steve MacArthur, who recently returned from Iraq to Massachusetts.  We had a great time at the party and all of Steve’s friends brought an italian dish for a brilliant dinner full of pizza and meatballs and other cheesy foods.

One of Steve and I’s old friends joined us for the occasion.  Her name is Darlene.  Darlene is like a 2nd mom to Steve and I and another mutual friend of ours named Ruben.  She is an amazing person, and we quickly reminicsed about some good old times.

One of the times she reminded me about I had somehow forgotten, but evidently she had not, and we had quite a laugh at the expense of this ”old time”.  Basically she was going away for a week or so and got the bright idea to ask Ruben and I to house sit for her.  To give you some brief background information, she had a beautiful house in a wooded area of Massachusetts, complete with a lake, a full bar, a large screen TV, and a hot tub.

Ruben and I were 23 years old.

We started off the week getting a feel for our surroundings, enjoying the comfort of relaxing in a house we could call our own for a short time.  But later on in the week, being the relational people we were, we decided to quench our desire for a more people-oriented environment, and started to invite people over.  

The first thing we did on Wednesday was to invite a group of our guy friends over to get acquainted with the house.  Now one thing I should mention was that it was March in New England and as such there was still snow on the ground.  Also, Ruben was a bible college student from a school in Boston and all the people we invited that week were students from the school.

We chilled for the major part of the day and then decided to do something semi stupid.  We decided to play truth or dare, which by the end of the game, had us all somehow making snow angels outside with a limited amount of clothes on our bodies.  This was very cold. 

From there we ran into the house and jumped into the hot tub.  Unfortunately, our friend Chuckles was with us and tried to get in.  Chuckles is an amazing guy, but he was a bit on the heavy side, so everytime he tried to get in, the water would overflow and run onto the floor. This damaged some of the carpet.  

Later on, we invited several of the females from the school to join us at the house. Amazingly enough, there was a snow storm that hit the area that night, so the crowd of students that normally had a curfew, now could not make it back to their dorms without fear of getting into a car accident on their way home.

So for those of you who are not getting what was happening up to this point, we were basically having a Christian sleepover, something my alma mater at a school in Pensacola would not have approved of. (and possibly for good reason)

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and a few of my friends (who will remain nameless) found themselves in the hot tub with a few of the females from the school.  Which would not have been a big deal since it was still a pg-rated situation, except that one of the females had a boyfriend who did not get invited to the party and told his girlfriend that he would tell on them if she did not.

So everybody got demerits except me, because I had been graduated from my particular Christian college for about 2.5 years.

Also, at the party on Sunday night, Darlene reminded me that her electric bill had gone through the roof that month (like around $1500 through the roof).  Not sure how that happened, but I bet it had something to do with the amount of times the hot tub was used.