So, what is Next?

OK, I was under the impression a plan in the 700 billion dollar bailout was a done deal. I never had a clue there was a chance it would not pass a vote. Well, people are hurting in this tough economic time. There are families doing without, some wondering when they will have to find a new place to live. Now, the lawmakers are trying to come up with a new plan. At this point, I am not sure what caused the plan not to pass. I guess we will see what the future holds. Maybe the Senate and Congress will get their act together and we will see something done before it is too late.

What a week, since Friday we have lost one of our greatest actors, a bailout bill failed as I said above and the market lost almost 800 points in less than ten minutes yesterday.

The up side to all of this, the market will rebound, the power in the government will shift and many other great actors will follow Paul Newman’s path. The best thing of all is we will learn from history and it will be many generations after us before anyone will have to deal with this kind of mess again.

Just remember we have our whole lives ahead of us. Keep your eyes lifted high and follow the path of the greatest man ever to walk the face of the earth. He gave us the best example of how to live.

So, what is Next?

OK, I was under the impression a plan in the 700 billion dollar bailout was a done deal. I never had a clue there was a chance it would not pass a vote. Well, people are hurting in this tough economic time. There are families doing without, some wondering when they will have to find a new place to live. Now, the lawmakers are trying to come up with a new plan. At this point, I am not sure what caused the plan not to pass. I guess, we’ll see what the future holds.

Maybe we will see something done before it is too late.

I’m Back

OK, I posted yesterday and it was one from a couple of weeks when I wasn’t sleeping all that well. I spent several hours alone at the computer with the television playing and lots of time to clean out the deep dark areas of my mind. Well, my wife tells me it is the silly parts of my mind. Anyway, last night I spent a lot of time sitting all alone in front of the computer and with the television playing. The good news is you don’t have to read the crazy things that were racing through my mind. I did finally go to bed and get some sleep. The down side is my alarm woke me up two and a half hours later. I managed to make it thought the day at work and a few miles of a taxi trip picking up my daughter and getting her to church. Now I am about to head back to pick her up. Then I hope the whole family gets to get a good night sleep tonight. So with the fear of sounding stupid, I hope my next blog post is boring. Well, not really but I do hope I sleep tonight.

Reality TV?

In keeping with my lack of sleep theme of a few weeks ago, here is another episode of my blog for your enjoyment.

Is “Reality TV really all that good. Most of the shows are not. How many of them have come and gone without as much as a glance. Of course There is Survivor , Big Brother and American Idol that have enough of a following that they will be around for a while. I don’t consider myself a reality show junkie or anything. I do watch some of them but that is mostly because we don’t have a million channels in our house and at times you just have to choose something you would rather tolerate over the other things that are on.

OK to the point, hasn’t TV changed in the last fifteen years. I guess it is because of the moral change in the views of the American people. We now accept things as the norm that fifteen years ago would have been considered voodoo if mentioned in public. Now we are accepting curtain words on prime time TV that were NEVER said in public settings much less on TV ten years ago.

What do you thing was the biggest contributing factor to this trend? Leave a comment and let’ see if we can come up with a reason and maybe a solution that will make TV worth our children watching in the future.

See you soon!

How much crap is for sale?

I told you I was having trouble with my sleeping patterns reciently. Well, I have seen a lot of late night/early morning TV. There is a lot of selling or at least trying to sell junk going on. It seems that every channel of “free TV” have infomercials running all night. This seems to be more present starting on Friday night/Saturday morning but none the less someone has found the need to try to sell some kind of gadget we “cannot life without” because it will “make our lives easier” or because they have found a way to give us that ripped and finely cut body we have always dreamed of by doing as little as possible for just fifteen minutes a day and it only takes five easy payments of $49.95. But wait there’s more! If you call in the next ten minutes they will pay one of the payments for you AND WAIT there’s more. They will give you a second of whatever contraption it is that they are hocking at now cost. Truth be known the first easy payment will triple their profit on both items they are promising to send you.

And what about those car salesman that are parading all these “Great Deals” around for thirty minutes on each channel? You can see them and when it is over change the channel and catch the same thing again and so on and so on until you have seen them on every channel.

What would an infomercial from God be like? I know He wouldn’t sell us crap. And furthermore there is no way we could possibly pay Him what it would be worth. I love a lot of people but there are only a hand full of people I would die for. If you want to see what it is all about let me know and I will give you the time and location of one of His infomercials. Even better I’ll give you direction to the live event.

See ya soon.

It's time for a little change

OK, I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Many of my friends have made the move from here to a new location. This is to put you on notice. I am making that move soon. Click on the link below and you will be taken to the new location of my blog. Bookmark it when you get there. Everything I post here will be there as well and then one day, BAM!!! I'm all there and not here.

Mark's new Blog Location

Saturday fun

OK, I've changed my plans yet again. Although I told you I had some plans for the next few posts, I have made one change. A few months ago Blake Comer (The youth minister at our church) posted a video of Blake Bergstrom and a slight twist of words while he was speaking at church. That video can be seen here.

There was a follow up to that clip. Blake B. has a great sense of humor. One would have to in order to deal with this. Watch this and enjoy.

I'll see you in a few days.

Weekend Update

The band was at Heritage yesterday. Things seemed to get off to a slow start. God decided to spend the day teaching me a little bit. The morning service was the third time we have led worship at Heritage. It was exciting to see two adults accept Jesus as their personal savior during the morning worship service. To top that just before the closing prayer the Associate Pastor announced that three children also accept Jesus as their personal savior in the children's service. That is pretty amazing isn’t it, five people, in the span of two hours? I am ashamed to tell you I walked out of the church with much less excitement than I did the two previous times we led worship there. I can’t believe I didn’t walk out of that church shouting and dancing with Joy. I have five new brothers and sisters in my family.

The first two times we led worship at Heritage were evening services which are a much like the services at Freedom. Sunday evening the people that sat in the pews with few exceptions were totally different people than the morning service. The worshipers showed a desire to spend quality time with God. The experience was not the same as the previous two times. But as I said earlier I came away with a lesson. The message was along the lines of when we face troubled times we MUST keep our focus on what matters most, God. He will bring us through the hard times and we will be stronger after the storm settles. The lesson I came away with is “we have all been called to spread God’s message”. We should use every opportunity and every option available to us in spreading God’s message.

I can’t wait for the next time we have an opportunity to share God’s love with our musical talents. I am so blessed to be associated with the other guys (and girl) in the band. They have so much talent and a love for God. I love these guys so much and am truly thankful for them allowing me to join them in this adventure. We all have very supportive families. They allow us to spend time away from them practicing as we prepare to lead worship as well as the extra time it takes to arrive early to set up and get the settings right on all the equipment prior to the services. They are wonderful and as much a part of what we are doing as we are. This is one great family. I’ll let you know when we are scheduled to lead worship somewhere.

I know I kind of rambled and I am sorry but that is the magic of blogging. Nothing has to lead to a point and I can say what comes to my mind at any moment.

Check back soon. I actually do have things lined up for they next several days to see what things pop out of the mind of this fourty something teenager.

See you later.

Trying to get back on track

I went back to bed at 5:15 and slept until 8:00 so maybe I'll make it through the night tonight. So I said I wasn't going to tell you anything I had in mind for the blog But check back I have a few things in the works since I had the spare time this morning..

See you soon!!!!!!!!!

Am I mixed up?

I woke up about two hours ago. I don’t know if it was all the caffeine loaded drinks I had Friday or if I have confused my body this week. This is the second time since Tuesday that I have woken in the middle of the night and not been able to go back to sleep. The other nights I have been awake until at lease 2 am and up around 6. Needless to say I haven’t slept much this week. Maybe it will help me sleep tonight.
I have been following Hanna as best I can. There is not much information flowing on the web about a tropical storm at 2:30 am. I thought these news reporters and weather people were working 24/7 or more. I guess in the information age it still takes time to spread the word. The good news is the storm was not as bad as expected. We could have used the rain from the storm had it hit the state on the southern tip or farther south but God knows best and decided He didn’t want to bring it inland that far south.

OK there are still a lot of random things floating around in my mind right now (it may be the lack of sleep) I was reading some of my previous posts and can’t believe anyone is still reading my blog. I tell you I am going to do something and don’t and then I wait two weeks to tell you I’ve been too busy (or lazy) to get to it. Yet you are still at least looking to see if I am doing anything. The numbers tell me that. So in the near future (at least) I will make the time to post something. I am not promising substance but something so you aren’t totally wasting your time looking to see if I have written something. So check back soon to see what is on my mind (or running out of my ears)

All joking aside, the band will be at Heritage Baptist Sunday morning at 10:30 am and again at 6:00 pm. Come out and have a great time with people with the biggest hearts in Greenville. I get a blessing being around them.

We’ll be looking for you!

Sunday at Heritage

Hey guys,

If you both are still reading, the band is playing at Heritage this Sunday. We will be there for the 10:30 am service and the 6:00 pm service. We have some great music to play. God puts things together and blesses everyone in some way. Be there if you can. It helps to have the support of family and friends. If you need more information let me know.

Hope to see you there.

Thank you God for your Mercy

All day long if you have watched any television you are sure to have heard a story about the hurricane. I just say, “Thank you God for sparing so many tragedies that could have taken place today.