First Responder

Christ the King is a base for first responders who are coming into the area in preparation for Hurricane Gustav. Obviously no one knows for sure where it’s going to hit or how hard, or who will be most deeply impacted. Keep us in your prayers in these days.

August 17

• Last night was awesome. These Guys Here performed at Berryhill under the name "The Reese Foster Experience". Here's the back story. When our drummer Reese was in 9th grade, there was a 9th grade dance at which the bands would be composed of 9th graders. Reese said he had a band but the other 3 guys were old. We got to play and that is the name we played under. Last night was Reese's last night before leaving for college. His Dad, our guitarist Raymond, had about 50 shirts printed up with the R.F.E. band name, and we wore them along with a LOT of people in the house. And lots of other band supporters and friends of Reese were there as well. The owner loves the crowd we draw. Anyway with that kind of enthusiasm in the house, we had a GREAT night.



• Miles and I are 15 chapters from the end of book 7. We started Book one last July, right when everyone else was finishing Book 7. We've been reading about a chapter a night since then and I am enjoying the books SO much - we both are - major Dad-Son bonding - but I am also grieving that I am nearing the end of the series. Still,we have three movies left (we watched the first 5 movies after reading the first 5 books) - but learning that movie 6's release has been pushed back to next July was a downer. Miles and I were looking forward to that.

• Michael Phelps is awesome. He won #8 during a band break last night, which was very considerate of him. Everyone in the restaurant was gathered around the TVs in the place cheering him on. I know he'll appreciate knowing that.

• Alicia and I had purchased one of those digital converters for the TV, and at first it didn't get a strong enough signal to work. But I discovered quite by accident last week that the antennae line needed to be well away from power lines, and suddenly we're getting very good reception on about 5 channels in our area. Having quit the cable habit about 5 years ago, we've gotten used to unsatisfactory, fuzzy reception. Now we're enjoying crystal clear images and audio almost all the time.

• How did Thrivent afford that? Thrivent Financial hosted a splash day at Schlitterbahn Galveston, which normally costs about $33. We got in for $5 each. And the price included a BBQ brisket lunch that was worth about $7.

You are the One

Our 7 week fall series will be called "Every Breath: God". Its goal is that disciples learn the joy of God's powerful presence and leading in every minute of their lives.

Mark suggested that I write something for the song "You are the One", by Lincoln Brewster and Paul Baloche. Here's the original song (PDF):

You're the One who made the heavens
You're the One who shaped the earth
You're the One who form'd my heart
Long before my birth
I believe You'll always lead me
All my days have been ordain'd
All Your thoughts toward me are holy
Full of love and grace

Chorus
You are the One You are holy
You are the One You are worthy
You are the One, You are the One
Everlasting
You are the One I will worship
You are the One I will serve all my days
You are the One, You are the One
Everlasting
You are the One
Jesus You're the One

Brewster/Baloche © 2002 Integrity's Hosanna! Music

Here's the piece I wrote:

Every second, every moment,
Every minute, every hour,
I rely upon Your presence,
Stand upon Your power.
You have called my heart to follow
You’re my Savior and my friend
You surround my life with goodness,
Faithful to the end…

©2008 Rick Lindholtz

P.S. By happy coincidence, if you add "I will" to line 4 and "You are" to line 8, you get a verse that will work with the traditional hymn tune "Hyfrydol", which is often sung with the lyric "Jesus, what a friend for sinners".

August 8

• Sherwood Pictures, the church that produced the films

"Flywheel" and "Facing the Giants", has a new film coming out September 26, called

"Fireproof". Sure looks good. Firefighting is the backdrop, but the hard work of building a good marriage is the storyline.

-

• I am so glad to have Alicia and Miles back home from their weeklong visit to Cape Cod. Wish I could've been there with them...sigh...maybe next year... there are few places that mean more to our family than 44 Nyes Neck Road, Centerville.

August 5

Worship was powerful this past weekend. One of several highlights was Sara singing "We will Cry". (The file is hosted on www.drop.io, a very cool utility. Bookmark it.)

I wrote this confession for Sunday. For some reason it was overlooked at 8:20, and at 11:00 there was some kind of technical problem, but here it is:

Lord, You call us to a life of faith and faithfulness – of living with trust that the life revealed in Your Word is
Your best design for our lives.

We confess our weak obedience to Your call. We drift far from Your path for us. We are often distracted by
other voices around us. And when the journey includes hard times, we struggle even to believe that You
have our good at heart.

But here and now, we declare yet again our faith in You.

We confess our sins, confident that Your promise of forgiveness is true.

We ask once again for the filling of Your Holy Spirit, to empower our life in You.

We thank You for your many gifts of grace. Amen.

The sermon, "Grace for the Hard Times", was excellent. It can be heard here. Afterward, Raymond sang "Healing Rain" - also archived at www.drop.io/mp3s080308. It was very powerful.

• Alicia and Miles flew home from Cape Cod yesterday. It's good to have the whole family under one roof again.

• Tropical Storm Edouard was a blowout. When I was a kid we used to call these "rainy days", and they didn't cancel all regular television programming so the news guys could talk it up all day long. They didn't send some poor sap of a reporter out to a street corner so that he could say on local network television "There is a puddle of water here on the side of the road". Literally!