Steps of the Day

<< My hotel room most nights.

#1 Wake up early this morning and visit, guess, guess, Lakewood Church with Joel Osteen. 

#2 Yes you read #1 right, I had to ask myself twice before I decided to go.

#3 Go visit Lakewood church.  I have this huge car at out here.  It's a 2007 Suburban and much like driving a bus.  I first tried to park in Handi-cap, which I didn't mean to do, but turned around and hit the garage.  They have a huge covered place to park cars so you don't have to chill in the rain.

#4  Visited by a large number of people and made to feel very welcome.  We took a shuttle over to the church that holds 16k people.  We must have stuck out like a sore thumb because everyone knew we were visitors.  Maybe it was my flip-flops.  Maybe they read my blog, hehe. 

#5  My friend and I are guided by a woman named Willie Mae to the visitor section.  We joked on the way down to the visitor section, "We are going to sit front row!"  Well we were close, we actually were taken down to the front row but then realized there was only 1 seat and we needed two.  We were then taken to the 3rd row.  Had we sat on the 2nd row, which was also an option, we would have been sitting directly behind Joel. 

#6  There music was pretty exciting I must say.  Everyone was rocking out and having a good time. 

#7  Joel speaks about 5 minutes.

#8  More music, Joel leaves.

#9  Victoria, his wife, speaks for about 10 minutes.

#10 Music,

#11 Joel comes back in to speak for a little while.  His message wasn't that bad.  He shared a few stories from the Bible and mainly talked about how God will finish what He starts in your life.  I agree with this, but a lot of his focus was on the success of each of us in many worldy things.  God wants us to be successful, but it would be nice if the church didn't focus on that so much.  Jesus wasn't mentioned in the majority of the service.  I was surprised that He was mentioned in the gospel presentation and Joel did use the word "sin."  He said if you stand up and receive Christ today, your sins will be left behind.  His gospel presentation was more than I thought he would do.  After the King interview and he mentioned that they didn't talk about "sin" much, I wondered. 

#12  My friend really wanted to meet Joel.  We are working 7 days a week out here and I told him that we had to get back to the hotel to gear up for work.  So I agreed to walk around the building to walk by the "meet n greet."  The funniest thing happened.  Just as we were talking about how funny it would be to meet him, bam, we walk right into him.  We both say hi :)  Pretty funny day.

All and all.  The verdict is still out on Joel.   Much of his preaching is focused on what God will bring to your life. Most of it is focused on this "good life" that Jesus didn't really mean.  If we define "good" as roaming with no house, never knowing where you will sleep, and finding food here and there.  This can be a good definition of "good."  The abundant life that Jesus speaks comes in many things.  It might mean that we can have joy in death, because we know Jesus conquered death.  It might we can have joy when life gets us down, because we know this life is temporary.  Our life should not depend on how big our car or bank account is.  It should hinge on Jesus and how many people we introduce him to and the life we live for Him while we can.  The abundant life seems to exist by letting Jesus live in us so we can live out for Him. 

I will say that many people are excited about Lakewood and they seem to have a very well rounded ministry that reaches many parts of Houston and the world.  I just wish his teaching had more meat to it. 

It is 3:00 and I just finished doing my expense reports for the past month.  I will wake up in about 3 more hours and do it all over again.  Please pray for me, I have become a work-a-holic.  This is a season, this is a season :)

Oh and a few more things

#13 I got upgraded to have a jacuzzi in my room so I took a bath for the first time in 7 years I do believe.  This was a waste of time.  I sat in there for 5 minutes and realized that you sit in dirty water and if you aren't married, it's just not any fun.  Ahhh c'mon, everyone knows married people play checkers in there.  Right Chris Moody?  Poor Lod. 

#14  I had sushi tonight

#15 Picked up co-worker / friend from airport.

#16  Finished expense reports at 2:30AM