Matt Hughes hits with the Bible…not his fists!

That’s right, a new season of The Ultimate Fighter started 2 weeks ago. This time around it’s country boy all American Matt Hughes and potty mouth Matt Serra as the coaches of a Welterweight division of contestants to be the next Ultimate Fighter. I’m a huge fan of Hughes from the first time he was a coach with Rich Franklin a few years back. What I saw of Serra 2 seasons ago totally turned me off and so far this season he’s been just as disgusting. However it was the handing out of NIV Study Bibles this past week that was even more intriguing than the fight!

Before practice one afternoon Hughes passes out NIV Study Bibles to his team and encourages them to read the book of Esther. It’s not required but highly recommended. He promises an interesting story and asks them to think about what they’ve read and who Hughes would be in the story. WHAT IN THE WORLD! Rae and I were totally confused. You know it’s crazy because these first 2 episodes have been filled with Serra constantly talking smack about Hughes and who he is and what he is and on and on all the while just as filthy and disgusting as possible. However, all we’ve seen of Hughes has been a gentleman’s handshake and politeness. It’s been weird because I’ve always like him a ton but was beginning to rethink things because of Serra’s bashing. Turns out Serra’s the rotten piece of trash and Hughes is just above all that!

I trucked on over to Hughes’ personal site and was thrown for such a loop! His banner even quotes Philippians 4:13 in the logo! He totally addresses the Bible passing out incident in his personal journal. If they’d never read a Bible then an introduction to it was first off a great reason! Furthermore, the guys are taken away from ‘real life’ when they sign up with no email, cell phones, TV, magazines, books, anything but fighting; however, Hughes was able to get “production” to agree to give them all Bibles! Way to go Hughes! But it doesn’t even stop there! His bio is made up also of his personal testimony. It’s beautiful and inspiring! Completely hitting the nail on the head of the new blog I’ve recently made a ton of new friends with: AC180! Totally unexpected from someone who makes a living in a profession where his greatest assets are “powerful ground and pound!” HAHAHA!

I mean here’s a guy surrounded by violence, scantily clad women, profanity, egos, and more and actually has a bearing on what’s most meaningful in his life. Think what you will of the ’sport’ but I find it terribly uplifting! I do NOT however want to uplift Matt Hughes and now label him a “Christian Mixed Martial Artist.” I do however want to celebrate his honesty and apparent brazen approach to his faith!

Way to go Matt, and lay a righteous stomping on Serra at season’s close!!

The Office is back…and over the top

***SPOILER DISCUSSION***DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU’VE WATCHED IT***

It really snuck up on me! I was really beginning to enjoy the reruns they were showing on cable and then someone said, “Oh hey The Office starts this week!” It was exactly what I needed after practice that night!

And what an episode it was! Fun Run! A full hour of The Office but it really felt like 2 episodes back to back. When I heard they were going to be having more regularly planned hour episodes this season I got really excited and then nervous to see if they could pull it off. They did! Wow they crammed a ton in here! The cool thing was the use of all the characters. A bit over the top at times (Andy’s nipples!) but lines from Creed and Stanley were priceless, a plot line centering around Michael and Meredith, ‘relationship’ issues from one couple, and celebration of another!

However, Kevin made the show! Well, PB&J made the show but Kevin topped it off! He was hilarious! And it was so great seeing someone else really be the comic relief. The few brief moments with ‘the Temp’ in corporate were hysterical, especially Michael rationalizing everything for us! Thank goodness they didn’t rely on cliff hangers and unanswered questions to string us along. It’s like they gave us everything we wanted to know from last season so that they could begin a new series here in this season with all kinds of new quirky settings! Pam and Jim were just so frappin’ adorable! THANK YOU!!

I don’t know if I’m a huge fan of the camera-men involvement. They were all up in everyone’s business this time around! And Michael was a bit over the top. Unfortunately, if this is what we get with an hour’s episode: relentless Carrell bits of awkward moments then I’d rather scale it back to a half hour.

Another season means another bit of That’s What She Said podcasts, the reason I sometimes over-evaluate my new favorite comedy

Any other obsessors out there?

Sunsets

It’s funny what a little time with some high schoolers will do for your perspective. They helped me remember something from camp this summer that’s done wonders for this situation.

Sunsets are a beautiful amazing thing. B/c I’m a huge Passion dork and Louie’s gotten into astrology and nature over the past few years I’ve begun noticing God the same way. Interestingly enough my drummer/best friend and I had a similar conversation. He finds God most amazing and revealed through the marvels of nature as well.
Back to sunsets, they are a beautiful captivating thing! If you’ve ever been out in the country camping or what not though without city lights and street lamps, etc. you’ll remember how quickly darkness comes. One moment you’re marveling at the purple and pink and blue hues of the sky and the next: darkness.

What an incredible illustration of sin. Sinning sometimes is so wonderful At first at least. It almost always looks incredible. “She” looked amazing. “It” coming out of your mouth felt exhilarating saying aloud. “That” really didn’t belong to someone in the first place. Then the very thing that seemed like your freedom or what was owed you or your choice or just simply a self indulgence now has left you with guilt or regret. The excitement now replaced with a brick in your gut.

Thank you God for forgiveness.

Oh, I can’t comprehend
I can’t take it all in
Never understand
Such perfect love come
For the broken and beat
For the wounded and weak
Oh, come fall at His feet
He’s the remedy

You are the one who has saved us
You are the one who forgave us

Unbelievable!!

I’m not sure what’s more overwhelming…someone like Rascal Flatts holding down the number 1 spot in front of the Daves and Kanye or the fact that Remedy is number 4!!!!!

WOOHOO!!

Early Mornings

Forgive me, I’m trying to get in all I can right now because:

• Wednesday 6:00 AM – praise band run through before See You At The Pole at a local high school
• Thursday 6:45 AM – leading a student Bible Study before school at another local high school

Ah the glories of Youth Ministry. My alarm doesn’t even go off before 7:00!!! This is why there are Starbucks!!

Concert or Worship Poll – Need your help

What makes an event a Worship Service or a Concert? Listed are the artist and venue and what’s played at each.

1A: Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman come to a college campus and put on an event at a venue that hosts basketball/speaking engagements/concerts/etc. with Louie Giglio and play all their songs and present a message: Concert or Worship
1B: Chris Tomlin comes home to his church that meets in a gymnasium and play all his songs and a message is presented: Concert or Worship

2A: David Crowder*Band comes to the House of Blues and puts on an event where they play all the songs from their CD: Concert or Worship
2B: David Crowder*Band comes home to UBC where they play all the songs from their CD and a message is presented: Concert or Worship

3A: Hillsong United comes to church in town where they play all the songs from their CDs: Concert or Worship
3B: Hillsong United comes to neutral location where they play all the songs from their CDs: Concert or Worship
3C: Hillsong United comes home to church where they play all the songs from their CDs and a message is presented: Concert or Worship

Thumbs Up/Down – Remedy NOT A COLLISION but MAINSTAY! WOAH

OK, this is NOT A Collision. Let’s just get that out of the way right here and now. A Collision was this masterpiece work of art that not only was an incredible undertaking for Crowder and the gang but required the listener to set aside some valuable time to really get all that was intended! I’m uber-excited about Remedy! It’s got a flavor of all the elements I’ve grown to love and expect from these guys!

• An insanely awesome new revamped hymn!
• A Golden Oldie with new life!
• In your face raucousness!
• Beautiful slow worshipfulness is that a word?!?!?! HAHAHA
• Amazing lyrics!
• Crowder’s voice sounds nuts!
• Full guitar tones!

Seriously? What more? Songs? Yeah, having only 10 songs and 2 of them being Passion favorites already with a familiar rendition only puts us at 7 new tunes. I want more! However, those 7 new tracks are sweet! I’m already trying to plan when we can do Remedy at church! Well, those are my .02.

Mainstay – Become Who You Are – Holy mess, these guys somehow made it onto iTunes free Single of the Week a while back and I grab those every week of course. I was stunned by the title track of this album: Become Who You Are. Its your typical Rock CD but who doesn’t love a great rock cd?!?! The lyrics are pretty good with some catchy lines that stick with you. Honestly, I’ve been playing Become Who You Are now for a couple weeks and threw it on a mix CD with Foo Fighters, the new Alter Bridge single, Skillet, the Used, and some other random rock artists and it fit perfectly in there! I’m excited to give the whole CD a chance! Anything Aaron Sprinkle puts his hands in typically is a worthwhile endeavor!

Everything’s Magic Video - Angels and Airwaves – new video for another highly anticipated CD. I love what Tom’s been able to do with this new project however, thes new video doesn’t raise my appreciation for their taste in video style. Man it had a great concept and I was really excited about what could be but it never did. And I can do without girl on girl smooching even if it is a quick shot Come on fellas get more creative.

Remedy is HERE!

 

I wasn’t going to blog too much about this, I’ve already given a mini review here and today is superbusy with See You At The Pole tomorrow but yes, I do know it was released today and YES I AM SUPER STOKED!

If you haven’t purchased it…WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?!?!

I’m a little disappointed the Crowder website didn’t get a face lift

Go Ahead and Vote

If you missed this play then you missed out on the play of the weekend! LSU’s fake field goal attempt was righteous!!

You can go here and vote for ESPN’s Pontiac Game Changing Performance and watch 4 incredible plays from this weekend!

Apple Moves In!!!

Wow, how did I miss this?? Apple moves in to BestBuy?

Randomly stopping in to look for the Blue Man Group Keyboard I see this glowing display that looks a bit like heaven ok that’s a bit of an overstatement, however, I am not understating the enormity of the store they have sectioned off for Apple.
Seriously, the entire 3 aisles dedicated to printers and print cartridges and more is now given to Apple. This incredible black display with 2 huge glowing white apples light up the area. Its a thing of beauty.

For Sale: Toshiba Satellite laptop!
P4 3.0  Ghz processor
512 Mb RAM
55 GB hard drive
XP Media Center version 2002

Recently formatted and restored ‘as new.’

The one thing I didn’t see is if they’ve got Apple reps there to assist you or if it’s just BestBuy help???