Hey Guys,
I recently made a few new slides for our church powerpoint announcements which center around avoiding distractions during the sermon. Being the jovial fellow that I am, I decided to go with the direct-but-funny approach. The following are the images I made. In light of these, I’m curious what kind of Powerpoint announcement you’d love to see go across your church’s screens?

How many times do some people have to get up to go to the bathroom?

Is the Sermon interrupting your conversation?

Do you really need coffee RIGHT NOW?

Hey, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on here, but I thought I should probably tell everyone that I just finished a website for a Luthier (guitar maker) in Central Oregon. You can check out the website at www.guitarsbysc.com . I’m really excited about it! The domain name stands for “Guitars By Steve Campbell”. Steve has been a wood-worker for years, and worked for Breedlove Guitars for about 5 years before striking out on his own. I personally own two of Steve’s guitars, and they are wonderful! So go on, check out his site! His prices are better than anything else you’ll find, especially for a custom made guitar. Go to the site, check out some of the pictures in the gallery, then, if you’re interested in a getting a guitar, go to the order page and submit a request. Don’t worry, you aren’t officially ordering anything, you will simply be getting a dialogue started between you and Steve, and you can go from there.

Here’s an mp3 of the song I wrote for our Easter service this year. It’s called “As You Are”, and is about how knowing Jesus is an ongoing process. Sometimes we can get lost and lose site of Him, much like Peter when he was walking on the water, and other times we just forget that we’ll never completely plumb the depths of Who He is while we are still on this earth. What we need to do is keep Jesus in site and know Him, and always realize that it’s really like the first time we’ve met Him, and that’s one of the things that makes Jesus so amazing. He is the infinite, unsearchable God, made accessible to us through His humanity. Let’s get to know him more and more every day.
Just click the link below and a player will pop-up below it. Then click play. (I should mention, I recorded this while at the tail end of a really nasty cold. You know, the kind where you discovered that your body could produce more flem and snot than the entire population of Rhode Island. Yeah, that kind. So sorry about my snotty-stuffy sound. And don’t try to make me feel better by telling me you can’t tell a difference from when I well. Someone that just makes it worse. *grin*
As You Are – By Stewart White

So I’ve been racking my brain the last few days, trying to come up with a graphic to use for our Easter service. It had to be functional for a few different things. First, it had to be able to work as a background for our screens on Easter Sunday. Second, it has to be functional as a banner on our church site. And third, it has to be able to work as a CD label because we are making CD invites instead of postcards.
The more I thought about all of this, the more I realized that it might be best to create a logo that can be incorporated into all of these, while still leaving the option to change each one in it’s own way. The following is a rough draft of what I came up with. It’s nothing fancy at first glance, but if you knew what went into it, you’d appreciate it a lot more.

I can’t even remember what that quote is from, but I can hear it in my head in a Japanese accent, “You lack discipline!”.
Whenever I hear someone begin to speak of discipline, that line runs through my head. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I, like most Americans, when pressed, would have to admit that I lack discipline in many areas. It’s not that I am a lazy slob who never gets anything done, but when it comes to personal discipline, such as exercise, it’s a struggle. Up until now I’ve been able to rely on my young metabolism to get me through life, but now that I’m closer to 30 than 20, I’m beginning to notice age catching up with me. I’ve always been in, what appears to be, reasonably good shape. However, the last couple of years I’ve noticed my pants fitting just a little tighter, and my belly looking a little more rounded than it’s ever been. It’s certainly no surprise; I work a job that has me at a desk in my office most days of the week. Then on Sundays and Wednesdays I’m usually leading worship, but that’s been just about the extent of my physical activity.

Well, that’s all started to change, since about two weeks ago. My wife and I started doing P90x. You know, that workout system that you see on infomercials late at night (and now in the middle of the day, too). I’m not usually one to get suckered into buying anything from an infomercial, and to my credit, I didn’t. I did what any truly clever person would do; I bought it off of eBay. Then, I proceeded to seek out the proper tools to use it. You need to have a decent collection of free-weights, and a chin-up bar (also available on an infomercial). It took me a few months, but I eventually managed to accumulate the tools I needed. Mostly from borrowing them from other people. (Hey, weights aren’t cheap! they’re like a dollar a pound!)

My wife and I, knowing that we would probably start slacking off if it were only the two of us, got some friends to commit to working out with us, too. Now, here we are, almost two weeks later, and feeling great (Actually, the girls are three weeks into it). But I have to tell you, the first week is pretty miserable. Especially if you haven’t done anything to prepare yourself for it. We were all pretty darn sore. I could barely stand up straight. But that’s where discipline began to come into play. I knew that if I could just press through it, the pain would begin to lessen, and I’d start seeing results. Believe it or not, P90x is such a good workout, I can already see results. Instead of being a miracle diet or an exercise equipment gimmick targeted at the lazy, P90x is for those who are serious about getting into shape, even though it’s going to be hard work.

Beyond just getting into physical shape, my wife and I are getting our finances into shape as well. Our church has been hosting Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, and I’ve been the one coordinating the class. We started with about 80 people, and I think we’ve lost a few, but we’re still going strong. We just finished week five. That’s been amazing as well, especially in this time of economic distress that is sweeping the country. We are currently just a few months away from paying off the last of our debt and beginning to save. It makes so much more sense to save your money and let it earn interest, rather than borrowing it from someone at an exorbitant percentage rate. I’m glad we weren’t very far into debt in the first place. It’s made it much easier to get out of debt.

What is better than both of those things, though? Jesus. Jesus makes it worth doing any of that stuff. It would all be pretty meaningless without Him. Maybe that sound strange to you. Jesus is better than all of those things, absolutely! But when you are in fellowship with him, it makes all of those things far more enjoyable, too. Because then I’m not just a guy whose whole purpose in life is to be in shape or to make lots of money, but I’m a guy who loves Jesus and gets to worship Him in all that I do. That includes exercise and managing my finances. I get to use those things as they were created to be; for the purpose of disciplining myself to be a good steward with what God has given me.

Well, Christmas has come and gone. Children everywhere have demoted last year’s toys and gifts in place of this year’s. Many parents have spent money they don’t have to buy gifts that their kids want but don’t really need. Most people avoided burning down their house with the tree that they bought from a guy trying to make a few extra bucks in order to afford gifts for his own family, or maybe just to pay off the gifts from last year so he can repeat the cycle again.

Ah, Christmas!

But in all seriousness, I had a very nice Christmas. My wife’s family came up from Arizona to celebrate with us. It has been a good visit. I have about a week and a half off from work, with the exception of our usual service times. It’s a funny thing; we always say we want to take a little vacation from work, but when we get one, we don’t really know what to do! If one is just hanging out around the house, trying to avoid spending money that one doesn’t have, one begins to realize how much they rely upon money to keep themselves adequately entertained!

One of our small indulgences was to see a movie yesterday. We packed the van that my wife’s family brought and headed out to the movies. Most of us saw “Seven Pounds”, but two of the kids saw “Bolt”. I must say, “Seven Pounds” was quite an emotionally gut-wrenching movie. Without giving it away, I’ll just say that it might challenge the way you think about self-sacrifice for the good of others.

If you have a Christmas story from this past Christmas, we’d love to hear it!

Blessings,
-Stewart