Disciple Now Video

As many of you guys know, I love to make videos. Well my buddy Josh, over at Youth Group Videos. Com has posted another video our youth group did to promote our 2004 Disciple Now program. This is probrably our first video we actually got to use some editing software. I think it turned out pretty good. I mean it's not to shabby for a bunch of non-actors with a old non-digital video camera. Please go by Josh's site and check out our video. It is the one titled, "Disciple Now Promo." Josh has added a spot there to let him know what you think. Please leave a comment there so I can decide if I need to send him some more videos. This video is about 7 minutes long so if you have dial-up, it is going to take a long while before you can view it. Hope you like it. We had a great time making it.

No, I am not in this video, I like doing the behind the scenes things. I sound like a back woods hick when I am in front of the camera. (No offence to any back woods hicks out there.) I do a lot of the writing, directing, editing and filming, so I really don't have time to act.

It is so cool, we have a lot of talented people in our youth group, so if someone comes up with an idea we bounce it off of each other and it turns out so much better. I have to make one confession though, like I told my friend Josh, it is all God who gives us the ideas and abilities. We give Him all the glory.

God bless, Joe

Disciple Now Video

Wedgie free weekend.

70 hours + 70 high school students + 1 camp + 1 idiot chaperone = 0 wedgies. I take that back, I think there may have been at least one wedgie. There were also a few pranks, the tenth grade boys came into our cabin and duct taped a bunch of our stuff to the ceiling. I have got to admit, it was one of the better pranks I have seen in a long time. I just wish they would have taped some clean underwear to the ceiling instead of the ones they found in the corner. Not a pretty picture. And no, they were not mine. We tried to get them back by bombarding their cabin with water balloons. I was throwing them up high and busting them on the wall and water was showering down on the people below. Great idea....until, until I threw a balloon just as someone opened the front door. I could not do it again if I tried. Water everywhere, all over the inside of the cabin. So I went over there to check it out, just as I walked in I looked up and there was the associate youth pastor. I will spare you with what was said but I don't think I will be invited back to next years high school retreat. Or at the very least I am on double secret probation. Well one good thing, that lets Mr. Jimmy over at Being God's off the hook because he is always the one on secret double probation.

One memorable event was Saturday night. Let me set the stage, we were in a two story cabin. There were six of us down stairs and about 13 or 14 up stairs. We were all settling in for the night and we were whispering, now when I say were were whispering I mean the guys were two feet from me and I could barely hear them, talking about our day. One of the guys was talking about one of the guys upstairs, he was saying how he got shot during the paint ball game. Just then the guy upstairs screams, "You guys quit talking about me." We all looked at each other and said, "NO WAY!" There was no way that guy heard us. So we tried again and sure enough he came back with another comment about not talking about him. So we tried an experiment, and said something that was directed to him. Remember now we were whispering the whole time and he is upstairs around a corner and at least thirty feet from where we were. HE HEARD US! I could not believe it. But the funny thing of the whole event is we are whispering and the guy is yelling back at us but while all of this is happening, the other guys upstairs all they hear is the guy yelling. So they are getting mad at him. I guess you had to be there but it was the funniest thing I have done in a long time. Those guys wanted to kill that guy and we was just fighting with us. They thought he was going crazy.

I was think later the next day, sometimes when you think God is not listening, He hears everything we say. All you have to do is talk to Him even if is just a still small voice. Cool huh?

Anyway there are a few other things that happened this weekend but I think I will keep them to myself. Like I said, I am already in trouble.

God bless, Joe

Wedgie free weekend.

Miracle of the Day!

REVISED UPDATE 11/15/05

According to Matt's website, he is home! This is just amazing, thanks to everyone who has prayed for Matt and his family. He still has a long way to go but for him to be home after what he has been through is just awesome.

*****UPDATE*****

I spoke with Dan today and I am about in tears. Dan told me Matt's story and it is amazing. Alright first things first, Matt is starting to come around and when I say come around I mean he is doing thing that the doctors are telling him he can not do. I am not going to get into it to much because there is a web site I am going to send you to if you really want to read how awesome Matt is doing. One thing is Matt wanted to sit in a chair, the doctors told him he had been still for 12 days and the pain would be unbearable for him if he moved, but after a little while Matt WAS sitting in that chair.

Dan was finally able to talk about Matt today. I could tell Dan was feeling a lot better. There is light at the end of the tunnel, granted it is a very long tunnel but there is light there none-the-less. Dan said that when Matt rolled his machine into the fire, Matt unbuckeled his seat belt and walked through the fire to get out. He got in his truck and started driving himself to the hospital. He called 911 to let them know which way he was going. He called his wife to let her know he burned himself up. Then he called Dan's wife to let her know what was happening. All the while throwing-up from the pain. Matt had burned 20 to 30% of his body. Matt was still smoking when he walked into the emergency room. If that is not amazing enough, there was a trauma team at the hospital visiting for the first time ever. They were there visiting a man who needed their help. When Matt walked in they focused all their attention to him. Some may say it is coincidence that they were there and that Matt had enough strength and forethought to drive himself to the hospital but I believe it was God's plan for all of these things to be in place to take care of Matt.

I just want to thank each and every one of you who have prayed for Matt and have asked how he was doing. God has really performed a miracle here and I am glad to see that He still does that kind of thing in this day and age. Please continue to pray for Matt he has a long row to hoe.

If you would like to read more about Matt you can go here. It is rather an amazing story.

God bless, Joe

Miracle of the Day!

Would you sell your soul?

I have done it, I finally bought something off of EBay. I bought a skin for my IPOD for a penny! How cool is that. Of course the freight was $5.00 but I looked at one of these skins at Best Buys and they were like $29.95, so I think I made a good buy.

Any way while I was surfing to see what else I could buy I came across this ad. It is kind of sad.

Fake gold bracelet includes my soul.

I think this add will run for 5 more days so if it disappears I will add the description below. This is straight form the EBay description.

I had already placed an auction for my soul but eBay cancelled it stating I wasn't selling an item. Well, now I am selling an item: one fake gold bracelet with my first name inscribed. This bracelet was given to me by my father, who is now passed on due to cancer. He gave it to me when I turned 14, and it is the only thing I still have that he ever gave me.
Included free with this bracelet is my soul. I don't really have a use for it, so I'm giving it away free to the winner of this auction. Here is some info on the bracelet and the soul:

Bracelet is fake gold
Inscribed with the name Scott
Soul is 28 years old
No drugs, hardly any alcohol
No significant criminal history
Smoker since 18
Not very religious

I will also include a sworn statement signed by me that this bracelet is accompanied by my soul, for free, and that the purchaser of the bracelet has complete ownership of the soul. Just remember, this auction IS FOR THE BRACELET. The soul is just an added bonus for incentive. I will consider serious offers above $10,000.00.

P.S. I forgot to mention that the bracelet may in fact harbor my father's spirit. Two souls for the price of one! Every time I have worn this bracelet, I get the urge to drink, and I am not a drinker. But dear old dad was. He was a raging alcoholic in fact. So buyer beware! This bracelet may be haunted!

I just do not know how to feel about this. I mean your soul for $10,000.00 or the highest bidder. I know there are people out there who do not believe anything is going to happen to your soul once you die, so why not sell it. According to them, that would be $10,000.00 for nothing. To me my soul is everything!

My question to you, "Would you sell your soul?" I pray you wouldn't, I say give it away. Give it to Jesus so you can have heavenly riches for eternity.

God bless, Joe

Would you sell your soul?

This guy is a genius!

Photographer Unknown

This guy is a genius! I wonder if he has a patent on this idea yet because I would like a piece of the action. Just wondering if it is cost effective though. Generator - at least $600.00 and the AC is about $100.00, I am sure it is cheaper than getting the AC in the car repaired. But just think of the possibilities, you could put a pot belly stove on the other side. Shoot, you could just get an electric heater and put it in the other window.

With this picture, I do not have any Biblical truths or anything that could be tied into a Bible story. This is just one of those posts where I can only say, "Man I wish I had thought of that." Any ideas?

God bless, Joe

This guy is a genius!

Prayer request.

One good thing about my job is that I get to meet all kinds of people. Some of these people become friends and some even become very good friends. One such guy is Dan, I met him a few years ago through business dealings and we hit it off from the start. I feel like I have known Dan all my life, we have so much in common.

Dan and I have done stuff not work related. Hunting, fishing, ball games, you name it. On one such trip I met his son, Matt. Very, very nice young man. I liked him right off the bat. Well this is where my prayer request begins. Matt had an accident over the weekend. I do not know all of the details but what I do know is Matt was cleaning his property with a skid steer machine. It is a little machine with tires and a bucket, you may know it as a Bobcat. Any way, Matt had a fire going and was pushing stuff into the fire with the machine. All I know is the ground gave way under the machine and the machine rolled onto the fire.

Matt is a great guy, he has little ones and a wife at home. He is now in the hospital on life support. Please pray for Matt, he is in his late 20s, I think. Pray for the doctors, that they have wisdom. Pray for the family, they are going through a rough time right now. Pray for Dan, he has being going through a lot. He is recovering from cancer surgery and now this. No one should ever have to worry about their kids like this.

Thanks guys, I owe you one.
Joe

*****UPDATE*****

11/07/05

I spoke with Dan this morning and he told me they were going to try to take Matt off of the ventilator today. They will check his blood gases. Matt also has a touch of pneumonia. So not much has changed, I am supposed to get an update later today.
Thanks for your prayers.

Prayer request.