As a series though, wow… What an amazing four weeks. God did some awesome things and I continue to hear stories of relationships God is restoring because of it.

Oh, and see if you can find the little easter egg we put in there.

…leaving my laptop bag with my computer, my books and my phone charger sitting in a stroller in the garage.

Nothing like a little enforcered technology fast.

After we were all in the room and I realized I was soon with nothing to do (no TV’s in the rooms at Asilomar), I went to the front desk and scrounged through all the books they have for folks (I’m assuming like me) who need something to do when you’re not at the Monterey Bay Aquarium or  freezing your rear off in the ocean .

I picked up Dean Koontz’s book The Taking for some recreational reading. And wow, what a gift it was. I’m not usually a big Koontz fan, but this book was amazing. It was an easy read and extremely interesting. It’s about how Molly and her husband Neil face an overnight changing of all they know from what seems to be an alien invasion. But I’m here to tell you, the ending…

Sometimes, a writer doesn’t just write a good story, he uses it to teach important lessons. Koontz teaches about the importance of hope and fighting despair in this one. But the ending…

When you think you know what something is all about, and then you get a revelation at the end that makes you want to start reading the book all over again from the beginning?

Yeah, that’s a good book.

You should pick yourself up a copy and we’ll get together at Starbucks and have ourselves a chat about Koontz, hope and the end of the world.

Well, it’s finally happened. The reign of porn appears to be over. Or at least failing.

“…surfing for porn had dropped to about 10 percent of searches from 20 percent a decade ago, and the hottest Internet searches now are for social networking sites,” says Bill Tancer in his new book Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why It Matters

Now I know many of you still don’t fully get this whole social networking thing. You’re just discovering Facebook. And many of you think you just don’t have time for Twitter.

But I’m here to tell you, this is the future. And, unlike the prior internet king, this one has the potential to enrich your life, not destroy it.

Then again, people get addicted to all kinds of things. Moderation- it’s a wonderful thing.

To help explain to you folks who still don’t get the whole social network thing, here’s a stripped down explanation of social networking.

I crawl on my hands and knees and chase Rohan all the time at our house. I’m a monster, a horse, all kinds of things.

The location may change, but the games remain. At my folks house, we played our game as usual. But their carpet is different.

In just about 5 seconds, I realized my knees were burning a little from crawling on the carpet in my shorts. Can you say “rug burn?”  Yeowch!

Doc says no ear infection, so it may be a tube thing causing blockage and prescribes me this “super-sudafed” steroid that should clear it up. Well, it eased the ear pain, but left a big case of vertigo. With a quick adjustment by my good friend Dr. Sorensen on Sunday morning, the vertigo was gone, but the pressure remained.

Oh, if that was only the end.

Sunday afternoon, the hiccups started. And stuck around for the next 24 hours. Ever had the hiccups, big violent hiccups, for that long? Let me tell you, it really sucks. I tried every internet cure listed and nothing. I was convinced it was the medication. Hiccups wasn’t on the sheet, but upset stomach was. So, a pharmacy consult and message to my doc later, I was prescribed an anit-hiccup med.

So, now I’m taking two meds to treat an ear thing that still hasn’t gone away. And this second med I’m given? Yeah, it could have “permanent side effects” and in rare cases “could be fatal”.

Um, hello? This is a secondary med to treat the primary med that isn’t fixing my problem!

So now, I’m a dude on vacation with ear pain, a jacked up digestive system and sporadic hiccups which is battling out supremecy in my body with a potential lethal other drug.

I just want my ears to stop hurting. Who would have thought it would be this complicated?

The church at large has a bad reputation and history of being a place where you shouldn’t ask questions. Not Clovis Hills.

We’ve done services like this throughout our history, where people could ask questions during the message and we’d answer them live at the end. No prep time, just Pastor Steve on the spot.

Well, inspired by what some other churches have done, we’re taking that to the next level. We’re going to do an entire series entirely based on the questions people want to ask the church.

So here’s the deal. If you don’t go to church, have a bone to pick with the church or God, or feel the church has let you down, go to askanything.clovishills.com and ask your question.

It’s completely anonymous. We’re going to spend the month of October answering the questions you ask. THEN, we’re going to take more questions during the service and answer them live at the end.

So go ahead. What do you want to ask? askanything.clovishills.com

I watched row after row of our people come forward. And I was wrecked. God completely overwhelmed me with how much he loved each person individually. And each person, through this act, was signifying their surrender to God, recognizing and accepting his gift of forgiveness. I watched families come through, generations of a legacy of following Christ. Fathers leading sons, mother’s their daughters.

What an amazing God we have. What an amazing church who loves him. What an honor I get to be a part of a place where God changes lives.

But I think this goes beyond blonde. There’s a lack of common sense and then there’s a serious educational gap. You be the judge.

Now I understand Get Smart was a much better movie than most of us anticipated (though I didn’t get to see it in theaters & now have to wait for DVD). And I understand that merchandising is just part of the movie machine. But seriously, who is buying extra bags of chips to get their very own Shoephone?

Notice there’s no actual picture of a shoe phone, so kids can’t see it and bug their parents to buy chips til they get it. And most adults (I’m sure someone somewhere “needs to have it”) could care less.

So this goes under Crazy Products as another moronic attempt to usurp our expendable cash.

My tag line: Because a cell phone can’t be too big.

What’s your tag line?

Gary Haugen, CEO & Founder of International Justice Mission
“Just because I am leading, and people are following doesn’t mean I am leading them in things that matter.”

“Are Jesus and I really interested in the same things?”

“What’s God’s plan for making it believable that he is good? We are the plan. There’s no other plan.”

“People will take care for themselves the work that is easy and fun. Leaders must lead in the areas that feel frightening and really difficult.”

“Jesus did not come to make us safe. He came to make us brave.”

Bill George, Harvard Business School professor & former CEO
“People who fail, don’t fail to lead others. They fail to lead themselves.”

Wendy Kopp, Founder of Teach for America
“It’s your personal conviction in this that enables you to ask people to sacrifice to achieve the vision.”

“We channel the greatest future leaders against our greatest social injustice.”

John Burke, Gateway Community Church lead pastor
“The religious leaders didn’t like Jesus’ messy ministry. They wanted it to look clean on the outside.”

“Are we leading others to look at people through the eyes of grace?”

“Spiritual growth is scandalously easy. A child can do it. Are you growing your relationship with God?”

“Seekers aren’t opposed to truth… But what they are opposed to is arrogance.”

Craig Groeschel, LifeChurch.tv lead pastor
“You have everything you need to accomplish what God wants you to. Not having what YOU think you need makes you look for the thing GOD thinks you need to accomplish his will.”

“People say failure is not an option. I agree. Failure is a necessity.”

“You are not what people say of you. You are a child of God, gifted by God and led by God to have everything you need to do what God put you here to do.”

Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries Founder & prolific author
“Stop blaming the culture when everything goes wrong.”

“Culture is nothing more than religion incarnate.”

“We don’t impose, we propose.”

Catherine Rohr, Prison Entrepreneurship Program CEO & Founder
“I felt compelled to give them a solution where they had no option to fail when they got out.”

“My prayer was simple. ‘Bring it on, God. Bring it on.’”

“God doesn’t really need me. He just needs me to follow instructions.”

“I sacrifice a lot of privacy for accountability. And it’s worth it.”

“These guys understand what it is to be willing to die for something. And that does something special to our culture.”

“This isn’t about pity. We hope this is about compassion. Suffering with people and taking them to the next level.”

Mother Teresa’s commitments she made to God and never compromised:

• Say yes to God in everything.
• Respond to God promptly.
• Refuse God nothing.
• Seek to love God as he has never been loved before.