Regarding Frontline
I think Frontline is largely a social thing—a place for Christians to meet other Christians. I’ve never gone and felt motivated to go home & read the Scripture myself, or to reach the lost with the Gospel. Maybe it’s just me. There are a lot of little things I’ve never been comfortable with in the Frontline worship service (lead singers going off on their own vocal paths and not “leading” the congregation, the guitar solos, etc.). I can’t help but view the worship service as entertainment—and not worship. Also, a common theme presented at Frontline (pay attention to the mission trip testimonies) is how service in the church helps you—the Frontliner—become a better person and more enlightened. Rarely is the benefit of those you’re supposed to be serving ever mentioned. A lot of what I see at Frontline is self-serving—how can serving God help us? Instead of worrying about how the service makes the attendees feel, we should worry about how the service makes God feel. He’s the point of worship.

Regarding Evangelism
Most modern churches aiming to hit the 20/30-something crowd rely on entertainment and spectacle to draw them in. I say that the Gospel of Christ is all that’s needed. It, alone, has the power to draw souls to God. You can’t slip saving grace into the hearts of the lost with an emotional drama skit or a bitchin’ guitar solo. Our challenge is not figuring out how to dress Christianity up so it’s more appealing or applicable. Our challenge is to have the courage to tell the lost that they are damned without Christ. The Gospel message doesn’t need our help. We’re the ones who need to overcome our frailties and cowardice to go and preach the Gospel as is. The more we try to make the Gospel less offensive, the more we replace the Gospel with an idol. The Gospel will always be offensive to the unsaved. It will always hurt a man’s pride to admit that he needs Christ. A person must always be aware of their dire circumstance before he will turn to Christ for salvation. Candy coating the Gospel only makes it less effective in attaining this reaction. If you preach an easy… [Never finished.]

Well, now. So much to remember. I will start here and end there. Bounce back and forth until I manage to touch on everything…

It’s Friday night, and I’ve just downloaded some old Huey Lewis songs from iTunes. I know, it sounds dorky, but I’m happy to hear them. They’re comfort songs, reminding me of my happy childhood.

Kickball is over. I don’t really want to think about it. The highlights are few and far between. The best part, of course, was meeting Allie. Our team won one game, and we had a really great team-bonding hangout session after our final game. But that’s about it. I won’t be leading a Frontline team again. The end.

Work is really quite interesting right now. Three contractors on my team turned in their two-week’s notice yesterday. That leaves me and my new manager. (Sounds vaguely familiar.) Today, my manager asked me if I was planning to leave, too. I told her, honestly, that I didn’t currently have any plans to leave. That’s only because I haven’t had another job offer yet. But I’ve sent out resumes. If Sprint offers me a fulltime position, I will consider staying—especially since I’m now the go-to guy on the team. But as it is now, my contract will end December 31, leaving me two months to find a new job.

I’ve been looking for a new church to go to. Frontline isn’t a good place for me to worship these days. I want to go somewhere smaller, where I can be challenged to study Scripture and Theology. I want to know more about God—not how to be a good date, or how to deal with stress, or how to do some other yuppie relationship thing. (I’m not trying to dissuade anyone else from going to Frontline; I’m only thinking through my reasons for no longer attending.) I want to strip away all the distractions and get to the bare bones of worship. I’ve visited several churches lately. Allie and I have gone to Reston Bible, Cherrydale Bible, and Cherrydale Baptist in the past month. I like the smallness and old-fashion worship of Cherrydale Bible, but the Reformed teaching of Reston Bible. I think I’ll visit New Hope Presbyterian in Fairfax this Sunday to experience the hardcore Reformed teaching it utilizes in its worship service. Maybe I can find a good Reformed church with old-fashion worship.

Allie’s in Florida this weekend. She left today. I don’t know what I’m going to do this weekend. It’s almost entirely free. I’ll complete some tasks, read some Narnia books, and maybe do some writing. After weeks of non-stop craziness, it’s nice to have a weekend to rest.

The Foo Fighters are playing a surprise show at the 9:30 Club this Sunday night. At last Monday’s Patriot Center show, I told Allie that it’d be awesome to see the Foo Fighters play a club show. And now they are! Unfortunately, the exclusive pre-sale tickets sold out almost immediately online, and I was unable to get even one. I found out later that DC101 was doing “ticket raids” at various bars in the area the rest of this week. Allie, her sister Melissa, and I went to Buffalo Wing University over in Fairfax City last night to try and win tickets. We put our names in the box, and they gave away 15 pairs of tickets between 10-11 PM. As luck would have it, Melissa won a pair of tickets, so she and Allie will be able to go to the show Sunday night. There is one more opportunity for me to go to the show. There will be another ticket raid in Adams Morgan on Saturday night. If I can’t score tickets then, I’ll just have to wait until next time. Here’s hoping!

I went to the Foo Fighters/Weezer show two nights ago with Allie. We met my co-worker at Brion’s Grille for dinner first, then walked over to the Patriot Center together. The evening was pretty interesting. It was my first time back at the Patriot Center since my graduation in 1998. I was so jealous of the photographers down by the stage. In the past, I would always be there for Patriot Center shows. The show was quite good. I specifically came to see Weezer, but they weren’t very lively. It was cool to hear some of their early songs, but Rivers was sick and couldn’t even sing half the songs. Instead, the other guys in the band did much of the lead singing. At first, I considered staying to watch the Foo Fighters a mere formality, but once they came on stage, I was surprised by how rockin’ they were. Dave Grohl was screaming for the first two songs, and I was totally into watching the rest of the set. Allie had fun, too. She was reliving her high school days. We ended up leaving just before the end of the Foo Fighters set. I bought both a Weezer and a Foo Fighters shirt, then we went back to our car across the street at University Mall. We went to Wal-Mart next, where we got a couple Foo Fighters CDs and other stuff. I knew this was premature, because as soon as I got home, I found a torrent with all the Foo Fighters albums. C’est la vie, baby.

“I never even knew I liked butts, until I met yours.”

- Allie