I’m on vacation.  Carie and I travelled to Virginia for a week, and we’re having a great time embarking on adventure, Chick Fil-A, and lots of book reading. 

Yesterday was Sunday.  Always an awkward day in the life of a vacationing “non-denominational” pastor.  Typically I do my research, find a place I’d really like to attend, and go there.  I did that this time too, the only problem:  the only church I really wanted to go was one hour and ten minutes away.  So instead of attending a church in person, I decided to take advantage of a ministry we have at the FC called the Web Campus, and go to church online.  We started it last winter as a means to get through the horrific Sunday weather we had (ice storms, Nor’easters, etc…) and have been improving it over the last year.  This was my first opportunity to see it live on a Sunday.  (Typically I’m busy)

I arrived at church at 10:29 am on Sunday morning armed with my Macbook pro (13″), a pair of headphones, and a bottle of water.  The 5 minute countdown was playing and “FCHoldenBilly” was there to warmly greet me to the chat forum/internet video service.  7 others joined me for the occasion, said a small box in the video section.  In about a minute and a half, the countdown turned to the FC band going all soft on me with the worship song “All who are thirsty.”  I happened to be in a room full of people walking all over the place as I watched, and I didn’t think they wanted to hear me sing anyway (I left my hat back at the room).  I started chatting with the others in the cyber room.  At this point 11 were attending church.

We talked about the band, the internet, where each of us were.  In truth, it wasn’t a lot different than my live conversations before a service in Holden.  The people were nice, and they were certainly expectant.  Eventually, the executive pastor of Fellowship, Steve Blumer came on stage and welcomed the audience.  I’m not sure if he welcomed the internet audience, though I can always look back at the video and see, but he told of the things that are to come at the FC.  I took this opportunity to venture into another website I am privy to, to see what the order of service would be, while I listened to Steve wax eloquently about all things ladies retreat and future sermon series.  This was one of the two times the video froze on my laptop.  Both times I was viewing other pages, much like reading your bulletin while the minister is preaching, right?

The band came back on, still sounding great with some worship tunes, then closing up the setlist with one of my favorites, “We shine”.  I almost stood up at this song and sang along, but security being called on me didn’t sound so great, so I just hummed and mentioned to my fellow viewers (13 by this time) that this was indeed one of my favorites.  None of them agreed.  Huh.

Currently we’re going through a series in our church called “Why we love this place” and we’re focusing on our 7 core values.  After the last song, Steve came back up and introduced both the next video we had, and the speaker for the day.  The core value was relational evangelism, so it was appropriate to have with us two missionaries filling in the gaps for me this morning.  One I won’t mention because of the nature of his ministry, and the speaker was Walt Mutti, former missionary to Venezuela and current missionary to new England – to which I mentioned to the people in the chat room – we need it.

Both missionaries did a fabulous job, and Walt provided a lot of conversation in the chat room regarding sin, the need for Christ, and how to deal with stuff going on in our lives.  To be honest, it was one of the most wonderful services I’ve been to (that I didn’t have a heavy participation in) in a long time.  The spirit was amazing, and I told my wife afterwards, it really felt like I had been to church.  I mean, I started it.  I advertise for it all the time, but who knew. 

Two shout outs I need to give up:  Billy, who is our Web Campus director.  He has worked hard to develop this ministry, and from what I’ve been told, it hasn’t always been this smooth, but his hard work has paid off.  And Al, who led the music during the service.  It was fabulous!

What about you?  Would you attend an internet service?

It appears that my friend of many years, Dave Huey is finally tying the knot and getting married on November 7th, 2009.  Dave and I met in college somewhere around 1995, and bettered our friendship a few years later when we both lived in Hotlanta.  In honor of Dave’s upcoming marriage, I’m going to share a story a month about Dave.  They will all be funny and they will all make me look as bad as Dave I’m guessing.

One of my favorite memories of Dave was when I was starving in 1998.  Not for attention.  Not for relationship.  Literally starving.  I worked in sales for a few months in Atlanta, and one thing is for sure – I’m not a good salesman when I don’t believe in something.  So I was making ends meet – kind of – and eating ramen noodles and barbeque sauce most of the time.  Then one day Dave and I went to Chick Fil-A.  At the time, this was a big deal for me, because money was scarce.

Chick Fil-A was running this special deal where when you bought a meal, they would give you a card that had their nutritional facts on them with multiple choice guessing.  If you guessed the right answer, then you received a free food item.  The funny part was the answers were all on their nutriotional board next to the order counter, so a smart person would always get the free food.

So as we stood in line and Dave ordered.  Flirting with the cashier, Dave jokingly (but very sincerely) asked if he could have a stack of cards instead of just one.  Not wanting to be “uncool” or flirting back, for whatever reason, the cashier said, “sure, but don’t my manager see you.”  Dave lovingly responded, “Oh, I would never do that,” and we all laughed, like this was so funny.  It wasn’t all that funny, but it was great!  Because…

we ate good for the next 3 weeks!

“So it finally happened. I got caught.  I had expected it for some time, living in the shadows, and hoping no one would see me doing it.  But alas my time had come, and I had no one to blame but myself.  I made the bad decisions. I lived as I pleased.  And now I would pay dearly.”

In August of 1997, I was a college graduate that loved to have fun and who had just gradauated from a college where I could not make my own decisions.  This did not make for a very good combination.  I tried to figure out what I wanted to do as far as work was concerned, but it wasn’t easy.  I wanted to be some sort of half pastor/ radio DJ/ politician. Like a mix between Rush Limbaugh (he was “in” back then) and Billy Graham.  Instead I chose to be a high school history teacher in Atlanta.  Pretty cool, huh?  I thought so.  I remember loading up my new car – a 1993 cherry red Nissan Sentra, and began the drive from Tucson, Arizona where my parents lived, to Hotlanta.

After leaving Tucson at 9:00 pm on Friday, August 1st, I finally arrived in the “land of sweet tea” on Sunday, August 3rd at around noon.  The friends I was temporarily living with in Atlanta had called me and told me they would be away.  They left a key underneath the flowerpot or something, and I could make myself at home.  They were at some camp with kids and I was in Atlanta until next Friday by myself.  Cable television kept me busy until around 5:00 pm until I got bored and decided to drive around the suburb I would be living and explore.  On that drive, I discovered Chick Fil-A. But it wasn’t open on Sunday!

Then I received a call from my friend Ruben.  Ruben was a crazy man who loved to stretch me in all things adventure and this conversation would be no exception.  He confessed he was in Massachusetts, having a great time,and since I had a week before I had any responsibilities, I should come up.

Now remember I had just driven 35 hours or so to get to Atlanta and had only arrived hours before. But something about Ruben the adventurer always made me say yes.  So around 7:30 pm, my car hit the highway again to drive to the northeast, a place I had only visited once before.
I share this story with you because this was the way I lived my life.  Adventure and fun drove my decisions.  No one dared to tell me what to do any longer.  I could drive to Massachusetts if I wanted to drive to Massachusetts on an hour’s notice. I could go to bed when I wanted to go to bed. (I know that is a funny thing to say for a 21 year old, but the college I attended had a bedtime of 11:00 pm)  And I would from now on make my own decisions.  I was free!  You might even say I was my own king.

By October of the same year, I had hit my stride.  My students loved me.  I taught not only in school, but also a “singles class” at the church I attended.  Don’t worry, I was not teaching people how to be single, I was teaching life, a subject I was certainly qualified to teach, right?.  In short, I was on fire.

The only thing I didn’t have was money, but that would come sooner or later, now I was serving and having a blast with a bunch of people around me – peers, parents, students, and whoever else wanted to come around.  I remember walking from one class to another one day telling myself how invincible I was becoming. Life couldn’t get any better than this!

But it could get worse.

Thinking your invincible is a little like thinking you’re the best at the game of basketball because you hit a shot from 3 point land while you’re shooting around by yourself.  No one can prove you’re not the best, and of course that’s where the burden of proof lies.  So when you hit the shot, you smile smugly to yourself about how good you are,and how the Celtics deserve to have a guy like you on their team.  Basically what I’m saying is, it’s ludicrous to think that way…

This was part of an rough draft introduction to a project I recently started working on entitled,”The Worst Story ever told and a few really bad ones too.”

It would appear that restaurants can treat their employees any way they want to, a practice that has evidently been going on since I worked at a Ponderosa steakhouse in the early 90′s. 

Last week my sister-in-law,(we’ll call her sis for the rest of this post) came home not very happy from what had transpired at her new work establishment, Via, a sweet Italian restaurant on Shrewsbury St.  She started there about a month ago,and so far, has loved the work environment and the money.

When she filled out an application for working at Via, she wrote down that she was able to work 6 days a week.  The day she could not work was Sunday.  She attends church on Sunday morning (Fellowship Church represent) and generally tries to rest the remainder of the day.  So she was very up front with them that she was available the remainder of the days in the week, but Sundays were off limits.

So she was surprised to see that she was on the schedule to work for Mother’s Day Sunday, May 11, 2008.  She immediately went to the scheduling manager and they debated for the next several minutes as to why she should have to work or not on this particular Sunday.

How’s this for an answer Via  – “The answer is NO.  She was up front with you, and she told you the truth, saying she could never work on Sundays.  You hired her that way, and from the schedule you’ve given her in the last 3 weeks, I suppose you think she’s doing good work (5 days a week), so leave her alone.  She can’t work on Sundays.”

A similar situation happened to me 16 years ago when my scheduling manager at Ponde-gross-a tried to make me work on Mother’s Day Sunday.  My dad, who is a pastor in the midwest, had a few things to say about that, and so that case was closed.
But what about sis, who needs the money and likes working there, but is already being disqualified in her work schedule (coincidentally, this last week she was cut down to 3 days of work) for saying she could not work on the very day that she told them before they hired her that she could not work?

My assumption is that the scheduling manager will eventually forget this Mother’s Day and that she will be on for 5 days again after about a month, but what about next Mother’s Day?  Does she have to fight and then lose days of work again?

I say she goes to work for Chick Fil-A, because they’re closed on Sundays, but she’s not agreeing.

This post is a part of Watercooler Wednesday with Randy Elrod!

I have finally arrived home and am currently sitting at my desk, pretty refreshed considering what I’ve experienced.  “What have you experienced?”  You might be asking.

-Two trips (there and back) of about 14 hours a piece.  All in all, about 2,000 miles.
-A surprise visit to Clay, my best friend in high school and his family.
-A surprise visit to my parents.  It was my dad’s 57th birthday.
-Visits to Chick fil-A, Chipotle, and Steak and Shake, all restaurants that have neglected New England (with the exception of CFA, which is too far away for an average visit)
_Able to see my grandparents, my Uncle Matt and Aunt Joy, and my cousin MIke along the way.
-Wednesday night service? Are you kidding me?
-despite the fact that Lonnie had lost his father, and we were there for a funeral, we were able to spend some solid quality time with their family.  The Snells are amazing people, no doubt.
-I just missed Jake, my cousin, who moved to Atlanta on Thursday to begin his recording career.  Go Jake!
-The first thing I did on arrival in Worcester – Friday at Finders!!!