My social life is officially dead. If I haven’t found a good group of friends my own age to hang out with over the past two months I’ve been here, I’m done.

Thank God for the people I do hang out with, talk to and pray with on a regular basis. Without them, I’d jump in front of a train. I’m just sorry we don’t have more time to hang out due to erratic work schedules and other circumstances, but the people I DO have in my life are good as gold and you know who you are.

It’s disheartening when you look at it this way: I went from being a decently popular radio DJ overseas, to getting out of the Air Force and moving back to Oregon while having a girlfriend and nearly all my friends I grew up with within driving distance, to being here and trying to rebuild my life with the support of a faithful few people.

For a person used to being in the spotlight, and to a lesser extent having an entourage of some sort, flying solo friendship-wise and relationship-wise at the same time is a whole new concept and it’s one I’m not accustomed to, and definitely not taking very well to.

My church is full of great people, yet I’m the only person there who is older than 19 yet younger than 25. It’s a great thing to feel called to, and accepted in, a church to receive from the Lord and to serve in a wonderful capacity — yet it’s difficult to have no young unmarried males in the church other than one Chris Brewer. (Let’s not even mention young unmarried females ages 20-25.) We’re working on rebuilding the young adult group and I know it will be done, but at THIS MOMENT IN TIME it’s TOUGH.

Every other age group at our church has a good core group. Just not the young adults right now. Is there a lesson or some sort of parable in that? Some wise sage would tell me yes. Am I willing to learn that lesson or listen to that parable right now? Mmmmmm…not so sure.

God’s done a great job of providing my needs, don’t get me wrong. I just wish He would open a door for me to meet some more decent Christian friends my age who aren’t caught up in all the wrong and sick things this world has to offer.

For whatever reason, I never really cared much for kids all throughout my life. But over the past couple of years, my perspective on that has really changed.

Look no further for living proof of that than Wednesday night at church dinner, when I sat down by Omar and his son Treyton, who just turned six on Sunday. Soon we were joined by a good sized group of kids from the church, all circling around our table.

I don’t know why but for some reason they must think I’m my dad. My father was (still is) the massively popular children’s minister who was rather ersatz but connected with all the kids probably because he still is one. I guess they see some of him in me, and that’s a good thing. All I do is just spend some good time and crack a few jokes with the kids at church, and they eat it up.

So we’re all sitting down to dinner and we finish our food, and for some reason Trey decided it would be cool to show the rest of the kids the ability I gave my iPhone to use it as an Etch-A-Sketch. You simply touch your finger on the screen and you can draw anything. Trey and I had tried it when we were bored before the wedding on Saturday and here is a result of it, a man who crashed his car and is trying to get out of it:

So naturally, all the other kids wanted to try it out. Sofia, Jesiah, Lily, Christian (I think that’s his name), Trey and a couple others happened on over to check out the ghetto Etch-A-Sketch.

After awhile of just doodling, we decided to create a neat little picture of our own. It started out with Trey making a dinosaur neck, Jes adding ears to it, Sofia adding the eyes and nose, me making the mustache and Lily doing a great job of making the rest of the body.

We saved the file to disk, and without further adieu I present to you the unofficial mascot of Crimson House Children’s Ministries.

That’s right, everyone. Donkey Hotay, the official mule of Crimson House Ministries. I think we’re the one and only church to have a mule as a mascot. Hey if Balaam’s donkey spoke God can speak through Hotay too, I guess.

In all seriousness, something like this goes to show how easy it is to interact with kids if you really try. If you say and believe, as I once did, that you’re not good with kids, then you’ve really not taken the time to interact with them at all. God has given us all a tremendous gift when he gave us children, and I am thankful that my time here at Crimson House is helping me realize that more fully.

After all, if children are a reflection of the Kingdom of Heaven, they command as much — if not more — love and respect as our contemporaries.

God bless our kids.

Tornadic activity is making its way across the Plains states, and Missouri is no exception. The prospect of facing and possibly chasing a tornado is exciting for a someone new to the Midwest like myself, but talking to some local residents today gave me a different perspective.

Tornadoes are of course, nothing to take lightly. We could be in for some crazy rain, hail, tornadoes, you name it overnight. Pray for us, we could all use it.

After two years and about six months of operation, I’m proud to announce this blog has received it’s 1,000th comment. Daniel Browning’s comment on my last post, “Some Homeless Guy Wanted Me Dead,” is the big winner. For this, Daniel gets 250 Brewer Bucks.

Thanks to everyone who actively participates here, or even just takes time to read. Thanks a ton.

Wow. Tonight was one of the weirdest nights I’ve experienced in a long time.

Aside from fussy customers walking into my store and demanding money back for a product they claimed didn’t work but did work, and it turned out they bought it more than four months ago so we couldn’t accept the return, my evening turned even more eventful once I was awarded my 30-minute lunch break.

I walked into the Subway housed inside the Wal-Mart on Independence, where I was instantly met by a homeless-looking individual who began to yell racial epithets against me (even though I’m white) and swear at me.

“You ______, rich boy, what are you gonna do,” he started pointing and half-yelling at me.

I looked back at him and said “Rich? I’m far from rich.”

“The rich shall oppress the weak, the Bible says so,” said the man, pointing to my iPhone that I was using at the moment. By this point I was trying to get past him and stand in line but he wouldn’t let me. “I challenge you to a fight,” he said.

“Nah, don’t waste my time. Wouldn’t want you to lose a fight that wasn’t fair,” I muttered as I walked past him.

“You’re gonna die,” he told me as I stood in the line and the employees asked him to leave, which he surprisingly complied with.

Something like that would have rattled me, but I laughed it off with a few customers and employees after he walked off. I got my pizza and hurried out a different exit to make sure the homeless guy didn’t jump me.

What a weird event.

Here’s something to break out of my case of writer’s block in a big way.

Omar preached a great message at church tonight, about how we need to be the ones to reach out to those lost and hurting in our community, show them the love of Christ, accept them into our church, and see them as God sees them. Great message — it wasn’t hard-hitting, but it was powerful and it was something that brought a new life to the parable Jesus told about the king who held the wedding feast and when no one who was invited came, they brought anyone and everyone from the highways and byways and they all enjoyed it.

So fast forward to home tonight.

Here’s a little insight as to my music collection. I have 5,050 songs on my computer (I just checked so it’s an accurate count), with maybe about 1,300 of them being labeled as Christian, Religious or Gospel.

The reason I told you that, is that out of 5,050 songs and me wanting to listen to whatever random song would pop up, suddenly “The Stand” by Hillsong United started playing.

Junk, I thought. I’m gonna skip to the next song.

For some odd reason though, I felt intent on listening to the lyrics and I remembered this was a song we had sung at church a few weeks ago, and I had really enjoyed it. So I kinda figured I’d sing along and look up the lyrics, which go as follows:

You stood before creation
Eternity within Your hand
You spoke the earth into motion
My soul now to stand

So I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll stand
My soul Lord to You surrendered
All I am is Yours

I sang along with the lyrics and about three minutes in, I closed my eyes and imagined everyone in our church singing it again as we had done a few Sundays ago. I sang the lines I’ll stand with arms high and heart abandoned, and before I knew it I had risen out of my chair and raised my arms high in worship.

This is nuts, I thought. I never do this at home. Only in church.

At Shauna and Nick’s wedding yesterday I told Angie Thomason that I wouldn’t cry during anything, because I’m not a crier. In fact a few of my friends told me once that if I cried once a year it was a miracle.

About four weeks ago I cried at prayer meeting, and sure enough I did it tonight. I replayed the song and I closed my eyes as I imagined me being there while Jesus was being crucified. There was Mary and James standing over off to the left, the soldiers all keeping watch on the right, and me just standing there with the song playing.

As I began to pray after the song was over, I imagined something else. Could we call it a vision at this point, I don’t know. But I imagined that our church was full of people singing I’ll stand with arms high and heart abandoned, and they were all standing on their toes and fully extending their arms as if reaching for something that was just out of reach. Imagine that, Crimson House full of people engaging in such a wonderful act of worship, and it was like Jesus was standing there ready to bless everyone.

Anyway, that happened about 30 minutes ago and I knew I had to post that because it was gonna bless someone, I’m sure.

I’ve been diagnosed with a rather lengthy case of writer’s block. It hurts. I need inspiration.

Oh, and congratulations to the newly married Nick and Shauna Crider (formerly Pace). The wedding was wonderful.

Yesterday I found out something that took another load of bricks off my back. It’s been a good feeling to get all this weight removed over the past few weeks, let me tell ya.

I discovered that my ex-girlfriend has now hooked up with someone else.

Is that a bad thing? Actually, no, and I can’t really explain why. I just see it as nothing but a good thing that she has found somebody.

I know I wasn’t even minimalistically involved in her life at all since she called me to tell me it was over, but for some reason it’s such a huge relief to see that she has moved on in what way she feels best to do so. Somehow this allows me to completely and fully do the same.

It’s weird, but when I heard the news, I felt every remote bad feeling from the relationship vanish. Even though things weren’t handled properly by both parties, I don’t look back on the relationship with a frown anymore — I can look back and say that even though I had no business moving up to Oregon, I learned something from the relationship, and the person I find companionship with in the future will benefit from a better me as a result.

So I hereby burn the book, saving whatever pages I need to reread to keep learning life lessons, put the ashes in an urn, blow it all up and walk away.

Congratulations to her finding someone else. I really mean it. No sarcasm. Hopefully her new relationship is better than it ever was with me.

As for me, I still have a ways to go before I can “see” anybody. Even though I’m completely over the ex now, I still have to get myself financially settled, spiritually rejuvenated, and wise up a little bit. It’ll happen — I can’t put a timestamp on it but it will happen.

The end.

This is just a test post to see how well my brand new iPhone will post to my site. This rocks sufficiently.

1. This morning when I stepped outside to get the morning paper, I didn’t want to go back inside. For the first time since I’ve been here, the air was cool and crisp — definitely the first true tinge of autumn that I’ve felt since I’ve been here. (Don’t know if tinge is the right word but it sounds cool so I’m keeping it in there.)

2. Mom’s heading out for Las Vegas tomorrow to spend some of her hard earned money and try to multiply it at the casinos. Okay, not really, but since Dad is a safety inspector or something like that at a construction site in Sin City, she’s gonna spend some time out there visiting him. Much needed, and I’m gonna see how I can survive the next week housesitting.

3. Watch out over the next couple of days, because our church website is going to be up and running.

4. Elderly drivers here in Springfield are the ultimate paradox. I think that they read the speed limit sign and only obey the first digit displayed on it. If the speed limit is 60, they drive 6. If it’s 70, they’ll go a whole mile an hour faster. If I were in a position of authority, I would require visual acuity and dexterity tests yearly for anyone over the age of 65 if they wanted to drive.

5. Speaking of the dexterity test, and I’m going to patent this so don’t steal my idea, will consist of a game of Hot Hands. If the DMV employee slaps the test subject’s hands three times in 30 seconds, no license. It’s that simple. If you can’t pull your hands away to prevent getting slapped, you definitely can’t be expected to make critical snap judgments on the road.

6. On that note, props to two disabled drivers I passed today on the James River Freeway heading toward Republic. They were zooming, 75 in a 60. That’s more like it.

7. Church is tomorrow night and I think I am going to stick out going to Wednesday night discipleship sessions for the rest of the quarter. It’s tough being the only person age 21-25 in the church and having to grind it out in the adult class, but I think it’s also a good challenge because it forces me to elevate my thinking a bit. Which I desperately need to do. Hey, they gotta have someone young and unmarried in there anyway, right?

8. The Van She Technologic remix of Feist’s track “1234″ is absolutely amazing. I’ve posted this before but I’m going to do it again because it’s as close to glorious as you can get here on this earth. Five minutes of pure stereophonic bliss — I personally enjoy the 1:03 to about 1:48 mark and could put that on repeat all day. Click the play button below to indulge.
[audio:http://this.bigstereo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/01-1234-vanshe-tech-remix.mp3]

9. My blood-related brother and two not-blood-related sisters are great people.

10. That is all.