The Biggest Loser

OK, Crossroads Church just did a series called "The Biggest Loser." The premise was taken from the Bible verse "I must decrease so that He can increase." We used it as an opportunity to discuss weight loss, as well as lordship and discipline.  We also did a competition for people 50 lbs. or more to lose weight, and gave out pretty cool prizes for the biggest loser. Pretty cool stuff.

A couple of nights ago, I was watching the program, and I had an interesting thought come to mind. Before I share this with you, please keep in mind that I'm not trying to build a new doctrine here, it's just a thought...

Why does this show have such appeal? Think about it. You've got two trainers, both pretty hard on the contestants (quite frankly, Jillian Michaels scares the poo out of me), but they're amazing.

Bob is a real encourager. His contestant is at the absolute end of his/her strength, and he looks him/her in the eye and says thing like "you can do this" or "I believe in you." During workouts, Jillian is there, all up in their grills, pushing her contestants in (rather authentic) drill sergeant fashion, but one-one-one, she has a much softer side, and her deal seems to be getting to the bottom of why the person is overweight, and she cries with them, and lets them know that they are special.

Both of these trainers are examples of what discipline and hard work can give a person.  Bob and Jillian were both quite wealthy before this show began, but you can tell that they haven't let fortune or fame isolate them from the common man. There are plenty of hugs to go around, and you can tell that they are truly emotionally invested in their teams.

The result is that you have a group of people who enter this competition, and their lives are forevermore changed. They confront their demons head-on, and they conquer them, one by one. They put aside the past and make changes for the future.

Do you see where I'm going? This show is a microcosm of Christianity. Plain and simple. The world is filled with people in desperate need of someone to push them, someone to take them from a state of dysfunction, and bring them to a place where they are changed, and then go home and make daily (if not hourly, or minutely) changes to transform their own families. Unwittingly, Bob and Jillian have shown exactly what Jesus does every second of the day. He's got all the wealth we could ever imagine (multiplied by a an uptillion gazillion billion), but He gets involved in our lives, and He changes us, but He expects discipline and time put in. But in our race, the biggest losers win much more than prize money...

BTW, since January 1st, I've lost 12 pounds.  By tomorrow (my official Friday weigh-in), I should be under 300 for the first time in about ten years.

Crossroads Creative Goes Public (Sort of)

Well, Crossroads Creative has been up and running since July 2007, and we've seen a good bit of traffic, but not great sales.  So, I decided that a good way to get us "out there" was to go ahead and list our products on Sermon Spice, Worship House Media and Graphics for Worship.

I have about ten or so pieces on the first two, and 15 on the last one, and I'm pretty happy with the results we're getting.

We're in the process of re-vamping our website, so in the meantime, I'll be uploading more pieces to the resellers.  We'll also be on the Shoutable Store soon.

OK, with that all said, any one who posts a reply to this post gets a $15-off coupon to use any way they want in the Crossroads-Creative store.  In your reply, just include your email address, and I'll send you the coupon code. Why am I doing this? Ahm juss coo like dat!

Actually, I'm just trying to keep chipping, rather, pounding away at our anonymity, and if I can get my readers involved, maybe you'll help me spread the word :)

Anyway, have at it.  Show your pastor/youth pastor/whomever our site, and post your reply.

Accidental Progress...

A couple of weeks ago, I was made aware of an audio problem in our main auditorium at Crossroads Church. I'm not sure how it happened, but all but one of our horns in our PAS cluster were blown.  Did an incorrect power up/power down sequence do it?  Was it foiled by an (undercover) over-eager teenager crankin' it up too much?  Was it just old age? We may never know...

Well, anyway, our more-than-capable lead PA engineer, Chris Burney, really saved the day for us.  He just happened to have a pair of JBL Eons in his van, and we ran with it for the weekend.

The following Wednesday, we were able to temp-in a Nexo rig, and for the first time, run a true stereo, non-cluster PA system for weekend services.  What a HUGE difference!  The pastor is thrilled with the sound (as are the engineers, worship leader, musicians, and yours truly), and I'm proposing to the board the repair and sale of our PAS system in conjunction with the purchase of Nexo speakers.

This will allow us to carry out our remaining 18 months in the current facility, and leave the youth ministry with a truly state-of-the-art sound system (they inherit the current room when we build our new 1500-seat worship center).

So I guess it's accidental progress, but it's progress nonetheless. I'll take it any way I can.