LARSROOD.COM

A dirth of lackluster writing

For about the last 5 months I feel like it's been a struggle to write consistently and with content that is worth reading. I'm not sure what the cause of all of this is but I do know that I haven't felt a lot of peace in the midst of it. Granted it's not that I'm a great writer but I do feel that I occasionally have something worth reading and have appreciated the people who have commented on my posts.

This week I've been tired. After a long weekend with our Junior Highers it feels like it is taking quite a while to recover. Seems too that during this recovery that there is a ton of things to do with work, family and school. I know my time with God is suffering and that I need to commit to daily meeting with him.

My commitment for the next seven days is to post about my time with God. I'll write about what I'm reading, thinking and praying about. Hoping to have this jump start my reconnection.

"Come and get us...it's an emergency"

Ok so this last weekend was a bit crazy. It was pretty clear that things were going to not be easy when just the day before our Junior High retreat 3 leaders came down with the stomach flu. Then, on the way to camp just about 2 miles from camp the van with all the sound equipment was side swiped on the freeway. Since the person who hit the van was told by his company that they had to file a report our van was on the side of the road (with one of my staff people) for about an hour an a half. Finally they got on the way to camp which is normally about an hour and a half drive. Somewhere though there was a big accident and it took us about 2 hours to drive 14 miles. I had all my kids in the car and Danielle and I were just shy of going nuts.

Later that night we finally got to camp and everything was good except we forgot to mention to the band that they would need to bring bedding. At about 12am I drove the band to the only hotel near by. It looked a bit sketchy and there was a shouting altercation going on between a couple guys when I dropped them off. I made it back to my room at about 2:30am and woke Danielle up to tell her how bad I felt that we didn't have very good accommodations for the band. That's when one of my staff guys knocked on my door and said the band had called and they needed us to come get them because they were in the middle of a "fight". The reality was that they earlier fight hadn't ended and things were a bit tense at the motel. They called the police and when we got to the hotel there were 4 police cars, a bunch of cops and a few guys sitting on the curb. The band was escorted down and we drove away in the minivan. Of course we still had the problem of not having a place for them to sleep.

We found an 14-Hour WallMart and bought sleeping bags and pillows and drove back to the camp. The band was all set up around 3:30am and I was in bed and asleep by 4am.

The rest of the trip was amazing and everything went well. It sure was a crazy night though.

Every part of me cringes at this

For anyone who's known me for a while you know that I have a huge desire to live a life that allows for my faith to be relevant within real culture. Because of that any time I see the Christian community copying something that the regular world does just to make it "ours" I cringe. Tonight I finally took it upon myself to go and check out GodTube which pretty much is just like it looks. It's a blatent copy of YouTube. Sure there is probably some good stuff on that site. Probably all Christians should check out the new Superchik video (just kidding) Here's a better idea though how about working to get the same content onto the site that millions of people check out each day.

Creating something aimed at providing a "Safe Place" for Christians is about as useful as all of the fake name brand copy t-shirts that some Christians make which try to get their message into culture by just copying something the culture did right.

Please just work on redeeming culture and not creating one of our own. We've been doing that for a while and sadly its not working.

This shirt makes me sick to my stomach. Not because of the message but because of the lame way some Christians try to copy culture to be relevant. Stop copying culture. Get in it and meet some people and just love them. This shirt will probably not save anyone.

I love my neighborhood

Ok so I need to preface this by saying I love my neighborhood and to remind anyone reading this that I grew up on an small island in a rainy state where GorTex and Fleece were the fabrics of choice. With that said I have to mention that when I was dropping off Soren at school today the woman who was waving me forward in the carpool line had a full length fur coat on and was in serious need of a dye job for her roots. Really a fur coat to help run carpool? I've seen more fur here than in my whole life. Makes me want to become a PETA supporter. :) I'm not trying to change anyone here just making observations that make me smile.

Staff retreat

I just got back from my new favorite spot in Texas. We went on a staff retreat out to east Texas to a sweet lake and had a great time. The house was right on the lake and had an amazing view. It seriously looked like we were in the Pacific Northwest. We had a great time of worship and ended up staying up until 2am last night just hanging out and being goofy. This morning sweet breakfast times.

While I was gone Danielle remodeled our bedroom (again). I love it.

Texas is Cold

All I have to say about today is that its cold. To cold to get anything done. When I get cold I want to snuggle and drink coffee. So thats what I've done today. I'm on my 23 cup of coffee and both me and the couch smell like B.O.

Still no laptop. Come on Apple just give me a new one.

Kitchen done

While I wait to get my computer back and now my car fixed I thought I'd finally post some pictures of our kitchen remodel which is pretty officially done.

Still no laptop so I decided to crash my car

Tonight I ran into a pole. Sadly I was leaving a church and turned to hard. The pole is ok but my bumper and light have seen better days. Kaije said that my car still drove pretty well for having an ouchy. It's one of those bumps that its hard to know what to do with it too.

But, since I know my dad would fix it I feel like that's what I should do. Tomorrow I'll call the insurance company.

I haven't been online much since I gave Apple my computer. I want them to give it back, please........

The apple in the sky

Today I took my computer to the Apple store to get it checked out. It has had a couple of issues for a few months. Anyways they kept it and are putting a whole new lcd screen on it. So yea new screen and boo I don't have a computer this week. I'm going to hold off posting for a little bit. Things will be so brighter when it returns.

Stop with the hassle

Ok so I promised and didn't deliver. I'm working on it and will get it up tomorrow which is Wednesday the 9th of January 2008. I'm in the process of reading the 3rd book in the series and just haven't finished it yet.