[Insert creative title here]

I'm going to attempt to write an interesting blog, despite the fact that I am fuming - totally disgusted after tonight's Packers game. I don't know if I'm more disgusted at their mistakes or the ridiculously stupid announcers on ESPN Monday Night Football. I mean, give me a break, they speak without thinking and they jump on and off bandwagons faster than I can stop yelling at them for saying something stupid! Get an opinion and stick to it - don't change your mind after every play. I emailed ESPN and gave them an earfull. I am seriously almost to the point that I will either stop watching Monday Night Football, or I will subscribe to the NFL Pass and listen to the game online while watching it on tv to hear different announcers. Also the halftime/postgame show guys (except Steve Young) - I mean, it's so lame to talk trash to Brett Favre because the Packers lost. If it makes you feel like a big man, go for it, but I think it's pretty cowardly. A few plays with different results, the Packers win, and then what would your story be? Would it be how incredible Favre is? The media makes me sick with their shallow, emotional, unintelligent, meaningless blah-blah!! OK, sorry, I'll try to calm down.

We went to the Boswell (Saginaw) high school homecoming football game Friday night. One night last week, I saw the end of the homecoming parade and I was flooded with a desire to become a bigger part of our community. I absolutely love living here in Saginaw and I never want to leave. We will upgrade our house in 3-5 years(buy a bigger one), but we'll stay in Saginaw. Anyway, we decided to try and take our whole family to the football game, but after the first 6 minutes of the game, it became clear that our kids were not at all interested in sitting there through a football game. We took them down to the end zone in the grass to let them roam a little and play, but eventually, Jenn took the three youngest kids home and came back and picked Karissa and I up in the 4th quarter. Boswell actually looked very good! The were up 21-0, 6 1/2 minutes into the first quarter!! They ended up winning 55-22, but it could have been MUCH worse very easily had they kept their starters in. Karissa and I had fun. We went down to the bottom and stood at the fence behind the football players and cheerleaders. Karissa finally built up the courage to ask a cheerleader for a football, and she gave her one! Karissa was proud! It was fun to be part of the community like that.

This strong sense of wanting to plug in more to the community brought me to research local churches again. We like Christ Chapel Bible Church, but it is so far away (relative, I know) that we still haven't REALLY gotten plugged in and we only make it about once a month. We go to small group just about every week, but church only once a month. So I found what looked like a non-denominational church online (Eagle's View Church) that's right behind Karissa's school. I scoured their website and was not turned off by anything. I was a little hesitant because it appeared the pastor's style was more life-application than expositional study. However, I've come to believe that the life-application style is almost everywhere and I may need to just feed my in-depth biblical studying desires in a medium outside of Sunday morning church. I also recognize that the majority of people (and unchurched) prefer the life-application style. I agreed with the theologies detailed on the website, and liked the fact that it would take a minute and a half to get there, so we visited on Sunday. The website said the service started at 9am, so we get there around 8:40am and see a sign outside that the services are at 8:30, 9:45, and 11am. So, I got out to go see which time was right, and was immediately greeted in the parking lot by a guy who told me this was actually the very first Sunday they moved to 3 services. So I got back in the van to tell Jenn and we were trying to decide what to do for 45 minutes until the 9:45 service. The church member came back to the van and invited us to come in for doughnuts and coffee while we wait for the next service and he would show us around. So, we said ok and went inside with him. He's my age, plays the bass guitar in the worship band, and was very welcoming. We sat and talked about the church, the pastor, their theology, etc and then we checked the kids into their rooms and went to the service. He said it was a great first time to visit because the teaching was on sex! HA! The pastor is doing an exegetical study on the Song of Solomon. Cool! It was actually very good! He seemed to do a good job of balancing the story-telling surface-level style with the more in-depth style, explaining original Greek words/translations and pointing out historical references (cultural and historical facts to bring more light to the biblical text). There were a few cheesy pet peaves that I PERSONALLY am distracted by, like clapping after worship songs and saying "amen" throughout the teaching. However, those are just little personal distractions that I can overlook because it would be a silly reason to not attend a church because of that. We met our new friend's (Justin) wife (Misty), picked up our kids, and went home. Karissa said she liked it and wanted to go back every week. Cara and Kylie could actually tell you what they learned about. They seem to have a great children's program. The church is actually affiliated to a very small degree with the baptist church, but they are talking about dropping the affiliation next year. Justin said the pastor doesn't teach like a baptist pastor and he's not sure why they are affiliated with the baptist organization. He thinks it was because when the church was started about 7 years ago, non-denominational was still pretty new so they weren't sure if they should affiliate themselves with a religion that most closely resembled their upbringing and education or just go with the non-denomination designation. The pastor went to Southwest Theological Seminary, which stereotypically has a more baptist spin, but his focus isn't so much in line with a typical baptist preacher's. Anyway, it is essentially a non-denominational church. We liked it and look forward to going back, and I am excited about it! Justin said they need another keyboard player too, so I could immediately get plugged in to the worship team. They don't have an organized Sunday School program, but they have Lifegroups which are small groups you sign up for and attend weekly. They don't have a Lifegroup specifically for young marrieds (are we still young?) so maybe we could start one up? Jenn and I met Justin and Misty downtown today for lunch and had a great visit with them. They both work downtown. Anyway, funny how things just sort of worked out so spontaneously...almost like there was a higher power involved or something....possibly....