I just heard from my friends in California following the first preview service of South Bay Church, the new church being launched by Archie and Bekah and two other couples.

They had hoped for 100 or so to attend; the final count from that service is 175 and 5 accepted Christ.

Thanks to all of you who have prayed (or will pray) for them and their efforts.

So yesterday was a big day for me.  It was an emotionally-rough but spiritually-fulfilling day.

I saw my friends Archie and Rebekah for the last time — in a while, that is, but definitely not forever — at church yesterday morning.

After the service, Archie and I spent a little extra time together in his old office there.  We talked, laughed, exchanged gifts and prayed together.  He led me through the rededication prayer, which was wholly appropriate, because Archie has really been able to help me refocus my life in areas I hadn’t realized had become unfocused where God was concerned.

In my church, we talk about “God moments,” those times when we believers know beyond a doubt that we’re spending genuine, quality time with God Himself.  (If you’re not a believer, that’ll sound silly, I know.  I wish I could explain it better so you’d understand.  Short of that, picture a good time with a close friend: that’s what it feels like.)

Archie and I shared some really incredible God moments in the past year, and yesterday was the ultimate one for me.  Archie gave me a couple of books to read and some CDs of music he really likes.  It was an unexpected but really nice gesture on his part.

Eventually, they’ll come back to Charleston when they can to visit their friends and family here.   I will definitely visit them out there.  We have each others’ email addresses and phone numbers.  And there’s always Facebook’s live chat as an option.  We’ll stay in touch; of that I have no doubt.

But, as the saying goes, it won’t be the same.   Not like knowing they’re just 20 minutes away and that I can call Archie up on a random afternoon, ask if he’s had lunch, yet, and if not, suggest that he and I meet up at our regular hangout.

It was tough watching him drive off in the parking lot.  But at the same time, I still had a sense of new peace in my heart and excitement for them over what they’re going to be doing with their future.  Tomorrow, they actually leave Charleston and head to California, where they will be part of a team that will start a new church out there.

It’s a bittersweet time here at my place.  And today’s sort of the “in between” day where I’m reflecting on so many good memories and trying not to think about what tomorrow will feel like.

There’s so much good I know that they’re going to do, because they’re both the genuine article.  But I’ll miss them here.  They’re following God’s call, and there’s no greater thing I think anyone can do with his or her life.  But that call is sending them so far away.

Bittersweet.  Normal, right?

I love those two.  They’re incredible people in a world where incredible people seem increasingly hard to find.

If you’re so inclined, please say a prayer for them as they embark on the next part of their incredible journey.

Last night, I got to see my friend Archie lead worship one last time before he and his wife, Rebekah, move out to California to start a new church in the San Francisco Bay area.

It was awesome getting to see him perform one more time.

It was bittersweet, too. But I figure there’s a pretty good chance that you already guessed that part.

The title of this post should actually contain a little asterisk that refers to a footnote that reads, “One last time…at least for now.” I’m definitely going to start banking some courage for another 4-hour plane ride some day.

I hate flying.  But in this case, it’d be worth it.

Meanwhile, if you live in that part of California, some amazing people are heading your way soon! And if you’re not careful, before you even realize that it’s happening, they just might change you.  For the better.

That’s what they managed to do to yours truly.

So this officially concludes the Arch-a-thon.

I have not gotten an update from Archie, yet, so I don’t know if he has received a donation that will force me to post that awful picture — yes, one even worse than that mullet shot — but I do know that a few donations have come in.  I won’t know who gave what, and that’s fine with me.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect from this in terms of raising even a buck.  The fact that something has come in really makes me feel good and I want to thank all of you, whomever of you decided to donate.  As I said from the beginning, I know the economy isn’t the best right now, and I know it’s a bad time to have made such a request.

But I appreciate you, my readers, for sticking with me through this, or for having the patience, if this idea wasn’t to your liking, to just step back and give me this weekend; and I hope you’ll return soon.

I will leave the Arch-a-thon tab at the top of the page active for a while, so you can still get to that if you like.  No pressure.  No constant reminders.  Just there if you need it

Thanks again for helping them and thanks for keeping them in your prayers.  That means a lot to them and to me.

You may well ask why I would write nearly 50 posts to try to raise funds for people I’ve only known a year and could, conceivably, never see again for the rest of my life.  (After all, to get to see them, I’ve got to get up enough courage to get on an airplane for a four hour flight!)

Actually, I think I will see them again, and I don’t just mean that in a “70 years from now up in Heaven” kind of way.

Well, let me answer it this way:  if, after reading these posts, you come away thinking, “Wow, that Patrick is really a nice guy,” then I have totally failed to make the right point.

I’m not a nice guy; I’m the most self-centered person I know.  By a long shot.   This blog is about me…that’s why it’s called Patrick’s Place.  But this weekend isn’t about me.  That’s why it’s called the Arch-a-thon.

It’s about them.  It’s about their dream and how they’re serving God in fulfilling that dream.

It’s about setting aside the sadness of seeing them move away, and there’s a lot of that.  It’s about helping them, however I can, actually make that move that ugly, selfish side of me doesn’t want to make.  It’s about lifting up these two folks whom I admire so much.

And it’s about Proverbs 17:17, and thanking Archie for having been there for me.

That’s what it is about.

Adjustments are almost never easy.  Because they usually involve resetting our comfort zones.  And our comfort zones are comfortable because they don’t change.

Thus the conundrum.

At this hour, church is just letting out.  On the first Sunday in which Archie has officially “left the building.”

It’ll be fine.  It’ll be okay.

Change happens, and in this case, for a good reason.

I’ll be fine.  I’ll be okay.  Because I know this particular change is happening for an awesome reason.

Things were not meant to go on forever the way they are right this second.  Life happens.  (And don’t you just want to slug whoever came up with that little phrase?!?)

But think about it: if nothing was ever meant to change, we’d never get married, have families of our own, relocate here or there, form new friendships or grow in any way.

We’d just stay with our parents and never go from diapers to big-boy pants.  And that would not be pretty.

So we have to find ways to celebrate changes, even when we don’t like them.  I learned that lesson — or kind of did — earlier this year in the old workplace, where some responsibilities I had and enjoyed were basically reassigned and I was suddenly shut out from doing those particular duties.  It stung a little, I’ll admit.  And it felt like an insult to my intelligence when a manager tried to deliver the “change is good” speech.

Change often doesn’t feel good at the time.

But change is good.  Change is necessary.  It’s how we grow.   And like it or not, it’s often what we need.

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Just.  Can’t.  Believe.  It.

Yes, I had a mullet phase in high school.  Not only that, for a very brief period, through maybe two haircut cycles, I not only had the mullet thing going on, but I also had a wave in the back to get that ridiculous 1980s curl thing going on in the back.

No, it wasn’t pretty.  Not even a little.

And now, for my friends, Archie and Bekah, to whom I hope you will seriously consider making a monetary donation or keeping in your prayers as they leave for California at the end of the month, I’m going to run the pic.  After the jump.  (Because I don’t want this thing on my front page!)

Okay.

Here we go.  You can’t tell that I’m stalling, right?

Getting ready to take the plunge…  Continue reading “Arch-a-thon Post #46: The Mullet”

So I decided that I’d try to put my friend Archie on the spot with a set of questions. It’s sort of his own personalized “Saturday Six” on a Sunday. Here goes:

Q: What made you decide that you wanted to be a pastor?

A: For me it was something that chose me. My Dad was a pastor and ‘you know what they say about those pastors’ kids’ but I didn’t really get to that until I was in College. I just felt from early on that I was going to be a part of something really big. I still feel like that.

But when I was a kid I wanted nothing to do with being a Pastor, I wanted to be a pilot. I saw some of the struggles my Dad had as a pastor and I didn’t want anything to do with that. We went to a terrible church, the people were mean to my family, it was boring, and the old people made it smell funny. Ever been to that church?

But that all changed when I was in 11th grade. I went to a men’s event with my Dad and I really felt God doing something in my heart. I really had this overwhelming feeling that this “something big” in my heart was being a part of what God was doing on the earth: namely, being a pastor.

That was great and I really felt good about that until I went to school on Monday and was made fun of a bit. I kind of floated through the rest of that year and my senior year not really knowing what to do with this new-found calling. I went to College and it was the first bit of real freedom I had tasted. Eight hours away from home was, in my mind, perfect. Most people, when their parents leave them at college on that move-in weekend cry a little bit, especially when you go to a school where you know no one else. Not me. I was like, “don’t let the car door hit ya in the rear on the way home.” Not that I didn’t like my parents but I was ready to start my life.

That first year I went a little crazy with parties and girls and cussing and stuff — it was fun for a bit but I knew that I was called to more than the life I was living. I had a professor that pulled me aside one day and told me that he saw a lot of potential in me and that I needed to get my act together. So I started going back to church and getting involved again and really trying to hear from God, because something had changed in me that I wanted to be anything BUT a Pastor. But that year I couldn’t get away from it; there was nothing else that I thought of doing that sounded remotely fulfilling. Nothing else that I had a peace about.

And I decided one night at College while playing the piano in a dark room by myself that I would tell God, “I will do anything you ask me to do,” and, “I will do my best to always follow you.” When you say things like that to God, we always get scared that He is going to ask us to sell everything we have and move to Africa (I know I was scared about that) and that He was going to ask me to stop doing music.

But what I have found out was that a lot of times he shapes our hearts for the things he will call us to. And we find that a lot of times our desires are His desires, too. Like my desire to do music, or that I love being around people. He will use the gifts that He’s given us to His benefit. And when the things He asks us to do are difficult or when we feel really weak, He promises that He is at His best when we are at our weakest. (2 Cor. 12:9- “My grace is enough for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.”)

Q: You’re already a musical quadruple threat with singing, arranging, drums and guitar: what else would you like to do musically that you haven’t so far?

A: I have always wanted to write my own music. I really feel like my main gift in music is as an arranger, to put in cool little bits that weren’t there before. I have written a few from time to time but really want to make some more time for this. My Brother, Sam (who plays drums and some guitar), and I have begun writing some original stuff and are planning on recording this coming spring when he gets to California. I would really like to release an album on a record label or at least sell it at my church or something. I think I have struggled with writing because sometimes I think, “I don’t have anything to say, or my stuff wont be good enough.” It’s very scary to record things because once you do, it’s out there! People can say what they want about it or take it for granted. All the while, you’ve spent over a hundred hours making something for it to end up under someone’s car seat with some stale french fries. But I think that is just part of our culture to constantly want “new and exciting.” But long story short, I want to write and record my own stuff instead of just arranging my cool parts that I’ve written into someone else’s song.

Q: What are your favorite television shows?

A: The Office, 24, Modern Marvels, Myth Busters, How it’s Made, (don’t tell anyone but So You Think You Can Dance) I watch this with my wife. Most anything on the History Channel, or Military Channel.

Q: Does the attention you’re getting because of your departure make you uncomfortable?

Not really. It’s actually a little humbling and a good reminder that we really do have friends that love us and care for us and want to see the best for us. It has been great in these last few weeks because you get to say all the things that you really do feel for some people but never say. Like, “You changed my life” or “Thanks for everything.” I think that we too often get too caught in our own little worlds to help people or to appreciate another human being for the beauty that God has placed inside them.

But it’s times like these when you can say, “A month from now I won’t be here,” it makes you change the way you interact with those closest to you. It has to, or this time will just float off and blend into the past with all the rest of the friendships that have faded by time and distance. But you can say to those closest to you, “We may not always be able to go to Mexican at the drop of a hat anymore, but thank you for being a part of my life and loving me, and being a friend; and I hope I have done the same for you.”

Q: And you have. Next question: What’s a goal in your life that you think most people would be surprised to hear about?

A: A couple of things I think might surprise people are that I would like to get my pilots license and I would like to go on tour singing my own music with my brother.

Q: Final question: I can’t let a pastor get away without asking, “What’s your favorite bible verse?”

A: 2 Cor 5:17:

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come!”

I love this verse because it reminds me that there is always hope to be a new person. If you don’t like who you are today, change. God tells us in another verse that “His mercies are new every day.” He gives us so many opportunities for forgiveness and second chances. And this verse is telling us that when we are in Christ, we are new. The old has gone away but he offers newness everyday.

Thanks for your answers, Archie.

I hope everyone reading these posts will consider making a donation as Archie and Bekah pursue a dream to do God’s work in California. Click here  for more information. Coming up at 11:00am in the Arch-a-thon, I’ll embarrass myself in the name of friendship by running my high school senior portrait, so be sure to check back.

I wanted to save some fun stuff for the end as we slowly tick away towards noon here on the Arch-a-thon.  As promised earlier, I am posting a collection of my senior pictures from high school.

I have my favorite of the four, but I am curious to know which one is yours.  See the four after the jump:  Continue reading “Arch-a-thon Post #44: Senior Pictures”

Here is a second, “bonus” edition of the Sunday Seven as part of the Arch-a-thon.

A few weeks ago, I asked you to list your favorite Coca Cola brand products. This week, it’s all about equal time for Pepsi.

• First to play earlier today: (To be announced)

(According to the rules, “First to Play” requires you to be the first to include the link to the specific entry in which you answered the questions, not just the general link to your blog.)

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Name your seven favorite Pepsi beverages.

Either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. (To be considered “first to play,” a link must be to the specific entry in which you answered the question.) You may include this link in the URL space when leaving your comment, or in the comment itself. As long as it’s there in one spot or the other.

My Answers:
1. Diet Pepsi
2. Dr. Pepper
3. Aquafina
4. Lipton Iced Tea
5. Sierra Mist
6. Dole Orange Juice
7. Gatorade

Recently I drove out to Berkeley County, South Carolina to visit Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Moncks Corner.

The area dates back to the family of one of the Lords Proprietary of South Carolina way back in 1681, and has been in a monastery since 1949.

When I went, I was too late to see all of the spring colors, but what I could not escape was all of the green. It was as if even the air was green and you could actually breathe in the color. It was the deepest, richest green I’ve ever seen.

It’s a long way out, but I think it’s a good place to go if you need to just be alone for a while and talk to God, or meditate, or even feel a bit sorry for yourself. It happens to all of us at some point or another, you know.

Here are a couple of quick photos, but they don’t do the green justice. I also included a pair of black and whites of some statues…I think they look better without the color.

Here’s the fifth set of movies in my onging Patrick’s 100.

Sometimes the fun of a list of movies you like comes in just throwing out ten titles that aren’t of the same genre and have no real connection to each other at all. I’ve done a few sets that were all sci-fi, for example. This set, is a little of many genres just for fun.

As before, these are in no particular order. In fact, these are about as random as they come.

61. Carbon Copy (1981) - George Segal is a successful businessman (thanks to his wife’s father’s company) when a young Denzel Washington shows up on his door and calling him “daddy.” Hilarity ensues as Segal finds himself kicked out of the wife’s house and forced to live in the slums with his son…and learn a little about prejudice along the way.

62. The Caine Mutiny (1954) - As a general rule, I hate war pictures. This one is a rare exception. Humphrey Bogart is great at Captan Queeg, the paranoid soldier who puts his ship at risk leaving his senior crew members no choice but to take command of the ship.

63. The Cannonball Run (1981) - Yes, I’m serious. It is what it is, and that’s mindless entertainment, which we all need once in a while. And the bloopers during the credits are worth watching the whole movie for.

64. All The President’s Men (1976) - The story of the Watergate break-in from the vantage point of the reporters who wouldn’t stop searching for the truth. There are genuine scary moments in this tense drama, and that, I think is part of the point: Nixon’s White House was accused of almost everything under the sun, and finding yourself on the wrong side of that Oval Office was supposed to be scary.

65. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) - Who’d want to hijack a subway train? A group of heavily-armed men with a plan to make their crazy idea work. Some of the wisecracks are a little dated today, but it’s still a great film, headed by Walter Matthau as the New York City transit detective who’s determined to track down the hijackers down to the last Gesundheit.

66. A Christmas Story (1983) - Need I say more?

67. Outbreak (1995) - This is probably not a film that a hypochondriac should enjoy, but this medical thriller about a deadly virus on the loose in a California town is definitely on my list. There’s even a government conspiracy plot here. What’s not to love?

68. The Fugitive (1993) - One of the best movies Harrison Ford ever did, and Tommy Lee Jones steals the show repeatedly as the quick-witted marshall who is trailing the man wrongly accused of killing his wife. This is a long movie, but it pulls you in and doesn’t feel long at all.

69. Quiz Show (1994) - Robert Redford directed this movie about the quiz show scandals of the 1950s and the story of an American hero who fell hard after admitting that all was not as it appeared.

70. Wag the Dog (1997) - This is probably one of my all-time favorite comedies. A president gets involved in a sex scandal, so his secret advisers hire a Hollywood producer to fabricate a small world to unite the country around him and ignore the accusations. Despite all the laughs — and there are lots of them — it’s a little scary how plausible this made-up scenario seems to be.

Look for the remaining 30 in my list over the next couple of weeks.

If you’ve read my posts about Maymont in Richmond, you know that I like Victorian homes. One of the most famous ones in Charleston is right on the battery and it is known by its address: No. 2 Meeting Street.

Built in 1892, it was a father’s gift to his daughter. Today, it is a respected Bed & Breakfast and I’d love to get a look inside some day. In the meantime, here are a few pics that I hope you’ll enjoy.  It’s hard to get good shots of the home without invading anyone’s privacy, so I did my best.  I think you’ll get an idea:

Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church in Charlotte recently did a post on his blog about valleys, quoting a well-known verse:

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

—Psalm 23:4

He then makes a good point about valleys: we all will face them, and we will all come out of them.

When I feel like I am in a valley, there’s that piece of advice from my 7th grade teacher that I have mentioned before about just taking the problem and “giving it back to God.”

Some problems don’t seem to be the kind you can just hand over. I have a hard time of letting go of certain problems. Sometimes, even after they’re solved, I have some guilt about how I handled things or how I didn’t handle things. I play the whole hindsight game of, “Why didn’t I do it this way?” or “Why didn’t I think to try that?”

Some problems contain elements of good and bad. That, in case you haven’t figured it out, is where I am at the moment with the thought of my friend moving across the country. I feel like I’m in a valley at times in this, because the selfish part of me realizes that I can’t just call up Archie at the drop of a hat and end up meeting him for lunch up the road any longer. I won’t be able to talk one on one, in person at least, when something’s on my mind. And I won’t be able to just hang out with him and talk about things that have little to do with religion and just spend that quality time.

The selfish part of me, I’m sorry to admit, isn’t handling that particularly well. Okay, let me be realistic: the selfish part of me is failing miserably.

The unselfish part of me, which hasn’t seen a great deal of daylight in the past couple of weeks on this particular matter, is already out of the valley and waiting the rest of me to get over it and join the rest of me so that I can watch Archie and Rebekah follow their dream. After all, what more can you hope for when it comes to your close friends? You want them to follow their dreams, you want them to succeed.

And for believers, when that dream happens to mesh with God’s call in their lives, well, it just doesn’t get any sweeter than that.

So I’m still working on the valley thing. And I know that I’ll haul that ugly side of me — I’m convinced the selfish part of me is also the fat part of me, so it’s a lot to haul, thank you very much — up to the next crest and I’ll be able to set aside my own sadness. When I’m ready.

And hopefully sooner than that.

Here’s the fifth set of movies in my onging Patrick’s 100.

Let’s hear it for some horror! Here’s a collection of ten movies on my list of 100 films I enjoy that are not for the faint of heart. Or something like that.

As before, these are in no particular order.

51. Halloween (1978) - What a great movie. The suspense really gets you, and for those of us who were lucky enough to see it when it first debuted, the shocks were amazing. Nowadays, this same kind of movie is so predictable that it’s almost hard to even fake surprise when the killer appears out of nowhere. But this one packed a real punch and still does. And that little music cue that happens when Jamie Lee Curtis is slumped against the doorway as Michael Myers rises up…if that doesn’t give you a chill, you’re not a horror fan.

52. The Thing (1982) - A murderous alien monster attacking scientists in a remote research station in the arctic. It’s tight quarters and no one knows who to trust. With a hint of cabin fever mixed in for good measure.

53. Christine (1983) - Another great horror soundtrack in this Stephen King story of the car that will not die, but will kill whenever it gets in gear.

54. Phantoms (1998) - Of all of the movies made from Dean Koontz novels, this one is the best, and really the only decent one. There’s a good mix of suspense and humor and somehow you’re left wondering if it just might be possible….

55. The Tingler (1959) - This is as campy a horror movie as has ever been made, but with Vincent Price as a mad scientist who discovers a live organism in the spines of people who have been scared to death, how can you lose? When this film first hit theaters, select seats were rigged with electrodes that would fire off at a critical moment to make the movie-goers feel like the Tingler had grabbed on. And there’s a masterfully-done color scene in this otherwise-black-and-white movie in which a deaf mute gets a fatal case of the Tingler’s grasp.

56. The Deadly Game (1982) - This was a stage play shot for television and aired on HBO in the early 80s. George Segal is an American traveling salesman in Switzerland who gets caught in a snowstorm and finds himself in the home of a collection of retired lawyers who have developed an odd parlor game. They invite him to play, and he agrees, not realizing that it’s a game that’s played to the death.

57. The Vanishing (1993) - Want to see the difference between what a European audience wants and what an American audience wants when it comes to the big ending? Then just rent the American version and the French version and watch them back to back, French first. The story involves a teacher who works up the courage to do something really terrible, and a man obsessed with finding, once and for all, the victim of the teacher’s little experiment.

58. Thr3e (2006) - Based on the book by Christian author Ted Dekker, Thr3e is the story of a college student tormented by a secret in his past and stalked by a psychopath. You won’t see the end coming, but they cleverly show you how all of the seemingly unlikely pieces of the puzzle do, in fact, fit together! Despite a few over-the-top performances, it’s still an entertaining, if lesser-known, picture.

59. Pet Sematary (1989) - Despite one of the most ridiculous songs, “I don’t want to be buried…in a pet sematary” and some spectacularly bad acting in parts, this Stephen King movie is still entertaining.

60. Poltergeist (1982) - “They’re here.” And of course, the problem starts with the television. Yeah, yeah…blame TV. This little movie is the only Poltergeist flick you ever need to see. Don’t waste your time with Part II, and don’t even consider Part III, which feels as though the script was blank after about page 20. Sometimes, you do everything you can and should do in the original.

There are more of my 100 Movies coming before the Arch-a-thon wraps up at noon, so stick with me.