It goes like this.

You’re having a discussion about something – ways to do ministry, methods of outreach, structuring of teams, what you want for lunch…you know, something relatively important – and as you start to reach consensus on an idea, someone says, “Well, let me just be the devil’s advocate on this.”

Really? He needs one? And he needs you to fill that role?

I would think if I felt that phrase about to come out of my mouth, I’d stop and say to myself, “Hmm. If I am about to align myself with the Prince of Darkness, maybe I’m not on the right side of this issue.”

I’m not sure how finding the will of God by being the devil’s advocate would work out. Perhaps a full and correct translation of Matthew 16 would read more like this:

Jesus I’m going to be killed. The Pharisees and other leaders are out to get me. I’ll rise again on the third day, but I’ll have to die first.
Peter Okay, Jesus. Let me just play the devil’s advocate on this…

Of course, you’re free to pick which side you want to be on. If you feel the devil needs your help…

You see, yesterday I thought it would be a perfect day to get a post out and start a regular habit of posting every Monday.

Here are the current and upcoming things I’m on right now:

• The Scrooge DVD. First and second acts are cut and rendered. Working on the cover. Still have to do front title, end titles, and second disk elements. Then the DVD itself with menus and stuff.
• Helping FLOCS with their Fine Arts festival, which is this Friday and Saturday. I might be going up on Friday for a few hours to help.
• Just posted the audio and video for episode #57 of the Church Drama Podcast. Pretty good.
• Some time this week I need to get ready to teach this Sunday in our Wii Sunday school class. It’s my turn. We will be talking about my main temperament – the S-Phlegmatic-Ox.
• Then there’s the church administrator stuff. Signs, maintenance, preschool, bills, blah, blah, blah…
• American Idol. Watching as I type.
• Bible Quiz this weekend in Orlando. Last league match. I’ll be coordinating the Southeast Regional in May.

As Shae and I took our daily commute to Edison College this morning, I told her we would count the number of Florida license plates compared to the out-of-state plates. The snowbird plates took an early 2-1 lead as we drove down Bayshore, but it was all Florida after that.

Perhaps the out-of-staters don’t come out until later, or maybe they get their vehicles registered in Florida, but they weren’t where we were this morning.

- Between the groceries and dropping off paperwork, there was a picture I tried to get, but just missed. It was of Trudi passing me headed the opposite direction on the interstate as she went to pick up Shae from school. I snapped the picture, but my shutter was too slow to catch her.

- Before we went to Kohl’s there was a quick stop by the church to pick up the receipt for Trudi’s gifts that I left in my office. I should have taken a picture of my office. Just because.

- As we left Kohl’s, we passed emergency vehicles blocking one lane of the road in front of the store. A fire truck blocked our view, so we couldn’t tell if it was an accident or what, although Trudi thought it looked like a red vehicle on the other side of the fire truck had front end damage. We found out later it was the car of Kathy, a friend of ours. Chase Goss and her daughter, Trinity, were also in the car. Someone had pulled out in front of them. Kathy, Chase and Trinity all seemed to be fine. Chase told me all this when I dropped Sawyer off at the church. She had pictures on her iPhone of Kathy’s car. (They would have made a good entry for the blog.)

That’s about it. Trudi and Shae are getting up early to head to JC Penneys. I have to have Sam and Summer to the church for Upward Basketball by 9am and I’ll pick up Sawyer from her sleepover then.

Good night.

I’ll be blogging my day tomorrow.

I’m not exactly sure what all I’ll be doing, but whatever it is, I plan to put it on the blog. Good or bad, exciting or dull, fair weather or foul, I’ll put a picture and a blog post for each step along the way.

See you tomorrow!

(This picture has nothing to do with anything, other than it’s old.)

Page 1 – “Love your people.“
Page 2 – “Feed your people.“
Page 3 – “Don’t do anything stupid.“

Good schtick. I guess I’ve just blown future sales for him.