Monday Miscellaneous

Monday morning. I'm listening to old Coldplay (they have a good Monday morning feel) and doing a little bit of debriefing. This will be a random post. Hope you don't mind. Blogger has a new video upload feature. I'll try it this morning to see how I like it.

1. Last night Grandviewians were kind enough to support my "survey supper." Thanks to all who came! This was a gathering in the fellowship hall for a carry-in supper, for filling-out a dissertation-focused survey, and music by Tom Root and his friend, Glen Diamond. They were really good. The unfinished fellowship hall is impossible acoustically when people are gathered. We have to tackle that problem. The room has great potential.

Acoustic difficulties and all, Tom and Glen were great to have with us. Here is our own Tom Root--man of many gifts--preparing for the evening.Here is Glen Diamond. He's a music student at ETSU and a good bass player. He plays, by the way, on Thursday nights at the Mid-City Grill in Johnson City, bringing in various friends to accompany him. The music is mostly jazz. I think when my Christ and Culture class is finished I'll try to get over there.2. Worship was nice yesterday. The students are back in town and we have our share of them. I would like to do a better job of reaching out to them, the problem is that we need to balance the desire to get tons of students to worship here with the desire to be more than a Sunday morning stop for students. I want us to do a good job of helping the students use their gifts to serve--while they are students. And I want us to do a good job of getting to know them.

I sneaked to the back corner of the sanctuary and took a very brief video during the first part of the service. Isaac, who arranges first service music, went with a stripped-down worship service (piano only) this week. While I miss the band, there is no question that worship is enhanced when you can hear peoples' voices being offered up in praise. Great singing yesterday.

3. I've been meaning to share this with my blog-community. The Johnson City Medical Center and Mountain States Health Alliance have banned smoking on hospital grounds (not just inside the hospital). That's a great idea--in theory. It winds up making the parking lot a desperate looking place with people sneaking out to their cars to smoke, like ninth graders in school bathrooms.

Let me give you a sample! Below you can see where a patient has made a quarter-of-a-mile trek from his or her room, with I.V. stand dragging along behind, in order to sneak a smoke in the car. I think the hospital has finally found a way to charge $875 and hour for a room that people won't even use. Brilliant!


More thoughts later . . . out of time!