People With Too Much Time on Their Hands

Today was the Pastor's Conference (and a few other groups' meetings) at the Southern Baptist Convention. There was some great music and great preaching.

It was also our first day to see some protesters. Bless their hearts. They have too much time on their hands and hate filled hearts. You've seen them before in the news and they have been to Clarksville. It was funny watching the people on the inside watching them. And then it was really funny when the hail storm came up suddenly and they had to leave. A policeman told us that the people in the vans that were there were all attorneys. They are there so they can try to catch the police doing something (like violating the protesters first amendment rights) so they can sue them and get lots of money in out-of-court settlements. (You may put in your own commentary about both groups - lawyers and protesters - here.)

Sunday Worship

I'm sure everything went well in Clarksville at the main campus and at the FLC. I'm glad our church has a high view of worship.

Cheryl and I attended Northside Baptist Church here in Indianapolis. It's probably the largest Southern Baptist Church in the city - if not the state. But large churches in the North are not the size of large churches in the South. They had an 8:00 service for their youth as a send off to camp. They had 100 youth going to camp. They have a cool deal. A youth can invite an unsaved friend to go to camp with them and they get to go free. They have several youth saved every year at camp.

The music was great. They sang some cool upbeat arrangements of some hymns as well as some choruses. They had a great brass section too - a couple of trumpets, some bones and some saxaphones... and one lone violin. And then of course drums, congas, a bass and keybaords.

One of the men in the running for president of the SBC spoke. Hmmm, I guess I should remember his name.

Here's a church downtown. (not the one we went to this morning) They were doing some sort of photo shoot. We decided this wasn't a real wedding party. There wasn't a mother hovering around making sure everything was like she thought it should be, the bride and groom didn't seem interested in each other and the bridesmaids and groomsmen were all too pretty to be someone's friends.

A Pie Ends VBS

The girls always win the missions giving contest, but there was a big surprise comback by the boys and Mrs. Tracey got the pie in the face instead of Bro. Tim.

And here's another collage of me and the kids.

A Fun Concert

Cheryl had to work this morning. You may already know that she is one of the recruiters at the corporate offices of LifeWay. She had to hire checkers and courtesy clerks for the Southern Baptist Convention and today she had to make sure they showed up and that they could clock in and know how to run a cash register or put a book in a LifeWay bag and to say, "thank you, come again" or something like that. Actually, other people do the training. She just makes sure the managers have the people they need.

While she was working I went to a concert at the Artsgarden in the Circle Centre Mall, downtown, Indianapolis. It's a cool mall and a cool "art" place. There are several hotels and a mall and other things all connected with "sky walks" over the streets. The Artsgarden is above the street. This is a picture of it from below.

The concert was by the "Athenaeum Pops Orchestra" http://www.athenaeumorchestra.org/ under the direction of Lee Jones. It was very good. It was a Leroy Anderson Centennial Concert.

You would probably recognize some of the music they played - like "Syncopated Clock" and "Typewriter".

Southern Baptist Convention

My lovely wife and I are in Indianapolis. We left after VBS today. I have a video to upload later. I don't have my camera with me at the moment. We're in the lobby of our hotel. The camera is sevgeral floors up from here and I haven't had a chance to download the pictures and the video from today because we've been driving.

I had planned on giving exciting updates from the Southern Baptist Convention this coming week, but the only place for WiFi is in the lobby. I can get internet in my room for $20 a day. You read that right - $20 a day for internet!!!

But I'll still check in with exciting commentary and news.

If you need to e-mail me you might send it to my home address as the church connection has been out since late Thursday and I still can't connect to it - so I assume it is still down.

Summer Arts Sign Up Continues

Summer Arts begin verrrry soon. The water color class is our first class and it is June 16th.

We've had a good start on our sign up for Summer Arts http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/05/summer-arts.html Click the link for more info. Call the church office to sign up. Classes are $40 each or $140 for all four (save a little and learn a lot more). What a deal!

Here's a little more of an explanation of what will happen in each class.

Water color - June 16 - We'll learn how water color paints work, try some cool techniques and end up with a lovely painting that is simple enough that anyone can do it, yet interesting enough that more experienced painters will enjoy the project.

Stained-glass - June 23&24 - We'll learn how to make a leaded stained-glass panel. There are several steps which makes this is a two day class. We'll cut glass and lead and learn to solder and more. You must bring your own eye protection. There's nothing worse than getting a sliver of glass in your eye or having some hot solder pop and burn your eye.

Wire Art - June 30 - Fun and easy and you end up with a lovely wire cross to hang in your home.

Clay Creations - July 7 - We'll make a bird feeder shaped like a cat. How fun is that? Each one is different because the sculptor decides the shapes and colors of paint.

VBS 2008 - Outrigger Island

The first day of VBS 2008 was a great success! I don't know the numbers, but there were a bunch of us and we had a great time singing together. I couldn't resist taking pictures again this year. The color is different because I couldn't get my flash to work at first. I should have some better pictures tomorrow. I'm just glad my Hawaiian shirt fits the theme this year.