I’m back from the Entheos Mission 2005 to Grand Bahama island. I’m going to (by this weekend) type up an entry describing the week long series of events.

Just an FYI for those of you who read the weblog and are wondering how it went. (I and other on the trip took about 1400 pictures, of which I have about 1000 of them now).

Tonight’s Entheos at Lake Grove Pres was pretty good. We had a good speaker who talked about how graduating seniors in high school these days who believe in God pretty much loose their faith by the time they get out of college, unless they happen to go to a christian college.

Well.. it was really much more than that, some bits about Darwinism vs creationism too.. it is hard to describe, you had to be there.

The thing that struck me tonight though was the worship. We always spend a good 20 minutes singing contemporary praise songs.. the last song (of which I already forget the name but have it written down in my notebook downstairs) was just incredible.. I felt God in the room, you know? The whole spine tingling thing as I was singing with my eyes closed, I felt really emotional..

I suppose it could be the lack of sleep I’ve been getting recently.. but wow.

If you ever want to see the world from a youth’s point of view, go volunteer at some place with them.. you’ll get to experience their passion for things. Makes me feel young tonight – and incredibly thankful I can spend my Sunday and Tuesday nights with these kids.

Click through as I answer a readers question on my last post. This is my self censorship of religious topics – I don’t like pushing what I’ve learned about my religious beliefs on anyone. If you are curious, feel free to read on.

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Rob just iChatted me this:

“Man was created with a God shaped vacuum that nothing else can satisfy.. And that is certainly my experience”

Nice.. I completely agree with that, I even mentioned something similar to that in my testimony to 40 high school kids last night.

This is a picture of the camp we stayed at in Mexico during the mission trip I went on in July 2004 with the Entheos high school group.

So, in regards my complaint about Down2Earth earlier tonight, Do me a favour.

Go read Steve Harrington’s March 7th sermon, and Bob Sander’s March 7th sermon. (note you might have to hunt around for Bob’s if you read this after about a week, as they don’t have a perma-link for it yet).

Tell me which one makes you think more, consider life and how you act in it. To me it’s Steve’s all the way.

Tonight I went to the kickoff of the 4th service at Lake Grove Presbyterian Church, they are calling it Down2Earth.

Jennifer and I have high hopes for this service. We met at an awesome evening service in the bay area, Intersections at Sunnyvale Pres. It’s a hard act to live up to, and it’s been one of the big reasons why every few months we consider moving back to the bay area.

Down2Earth started off pretty well, with 4 quick, upbeat songs. I was like “Ya, this rocks, we can stay!!”. Then it went downhill from there… the piano guy started talking a lot, and it got really preachy and serious, close to their morning services.

Yes, while you might say ‘hey, that’s what religion is all about’, it isn’t too me. I, as a moderately young married guy, I am looking for a fun place to worship, with a good message, and not a whole lot of real ‘preachy’ stuff.

I don’t know if that’s not being a real Christian or such, but it’s what I want right now, and what I miss from Sunnyvale. I suppose I’ll get used to it, as much as I consider moving back to the bay area, it’d be a bad financial move for us.

Although I should hope that it will get better, or maybe go and tell them my thoughts, eh?