After this past Sunday, Cassie and I will no longer be attending Tri-City Christian Center. While these past three and a half years have been wonderful for us, we can no longer attend Tri-City or act as members of Tri-City Christian Center. In fact, I am certain that we will never return to Tri-City under any circumstances. There are no hard feelings, it’s just a decision that we have come to.
For those of you who don’t get the joke, this past Sunday Tri-City changed its name to Connection Church. We’ll still be going to the same building, attending the same services, and being a part of the same church community that we have been for years now, the church is just going by a different name.
I know I’m a couple of days late, but Happy Easter to everyone. I hope your Easter Sunday was as great as ours was. We had an awesome time on Sunday morning because the Creative Arts team at Tri-City did another spectacular job with the Easter presentation. I got to enjoy portions of the service twice because we attended on service at 10, and then Cassie worked in the nursery during the 11:30 service. This left me with a lot of time to kill. I worked on a video for Reality for a while and then caught the end of the service for a second time.
Cassie and I were lucky enough to have both Good Friday and Monday off. There’s nothing like a 4-day weekend to help recharge the batteries. The best part is that we’re both off this upcoming Friday and Monday when we go to Florida for my dad’s 50th birthday. I’m really excited to go down there because we don’t get to see my parents very often and because it’s Lily’s first time going to Florida. We’re going to have her swim in the Gulf of Mexico, which should be a lot of fun.
On a totally different note, there was a great report on Nightline last night about the country of Zambia in Africa. For those who don’t know, my grandparents were missionaries in Zambia during the Sixties and my dad spent 5 years there when he was a kid. Ironically, the report was filmed at the Salvation Army complex in Chkankata, Zambia, where my grandparents worked when they were there. It was cool for me to see what kind of place it is. I hope to be able to visit there some day. If you want to read about the story, click here.
Last night was a pretty eventful night. We had a business meeting at church, which was the first one Cassie and I were able to attend because we are now full members of Tri-City. The meeting was the normal facts and figures that every church has. I’m not a huge fan of going over financial reports and the business of running a church, but it was my first glimpse into the finances of a very large church.
After that was a very special Reality. I haven’t written about it here, but last night was Dave Stephens’ final night as the director of Reality. He’s stepping away from Reality to focus more on his responsibilities as creative arts director and also as the main associate pastor for the whole church. It is a bitersweet thing to see Dave leave. On one hand I will miss seeing him and working with him every week. But I also realize that this is best for him, his family, and for our church as a whole. We also have great leaders who are stepping in to his shoes, Jeremy and Christi Roth. I’m sure I’ll be talking more about them in the weeks and months to come.
After we got home, I rushed to turn on the Oscars which had already started. Thankfully I didn’t miss any of the big awards being handed out. I was very pleased with the way the major awards were decided. Late last week I filled out my own Oscar ballot on Yahoo! movies. Of the major awards (Picture, Director, Actor & Actress, Supporting Actor & Actress, and Screenplay) I only was wrong about one of the categories. I picked Eddie Murphey to win the Best Supporting Actor category, but I based my vote on who the critics seemed to be favoring. I was actually hoping Alan Arkin would win and I am very glad that he did. I am also very glad that The Departed cleaned up the top awards because I loved that movie. I’ve probably watched it 5 or 6 times in the past couple of weeks and I enjoy it every time. It’s not the best move that Scorsese has ever made, but it’s definitely one of his better ones.
As my wonderful sister pointed out in the comments for my last post, there is more going on in the world than just the Tigers. I guess I need to start writing about Flavor Flav costumes for Halloween.
Lily is growing up so fast. She’s a monster now. It’s amazing when we look back at the pictures when she was born and then see how much bigger she is now. She’s really starting to take a liking to me, which makes me feel good. There was a long stretch where she only wanted to be with Cassie, but I think she’s over that now. She likes to play now, which is very fun for me. It’s pretty cool being a parent.
We’ve been in a new series at church the past couple of weeks. It’s a good topic, but they’ve gone a little overboard with the sets and costumes. The series is called “Behind Enemy Lines” and they are using a military theme to match the movie of the same name. Tri-City has been using more and more elaborate sets recently. They had a desert scene with a working waterfall for a series about John the Baptist. They had a giant ship and marina set for the Master and Commander series. Now they’ve got a scene out of Apocalypse Now including parachutes hanging from the ceiling. And if that wasn’t enough, the entire worship team is wearing military fatigues. I can kind of understand the purpose because it is supposed to attract new people, but it’s becoming a frustration and distraction for me.
This upcoming weekend is our annual Reality retreat. We missed last year because they scheduled it for the weekend before Thanksgiving. This is one of the highlights of the year for me, and I’m sure this year is going to be great. I just need to remember to go to sleep at some point during the weekend.
Okay, that’s some of what’s going on with life. Now I’ll get back to the Tigers.