Wednesday through Saturday I'll be in Washington DC doing media work for the March for Life.
im switching over to Wordpress from Blogspot so check out brianwashed.wordpress.com for my new blog!
So this is a story I heard in 2005 at a Christian Conference in Pittsburgh, it sums up the hope I have for this world and my life.
I was at an art gallery with my friends, perusing the paintings and just walking through, pretending to have a greater appreciation for art than I actually held. My friend got stuck on one of the paintings, a piece titled "Checkmate" that depicted a chess game at (you guessed it) checkmate. He stood there for over an hour, while I walked through the whole gallery and back. I stood there with him for a few moments, quickly became bored again, and began to walk away for my second circuit of the room. However, as I did, he shouted, "The king still has ONE MORE MOVE!"
Why would the artist paint this scene incorrectly? There are millions of finished chess games in the world, millions of scenarios that would have allowed for a correct label to the scene. However, the artist decided to say that, contrary to all appearances of checkmate, the king still had one more move.
Isn't this something like life? As Christians surrounded by a hopeless looking world, it often feels as though we're pawns in a losing game of chess. As though we're fighting when the game is already finished, when the King has been defeated, and Satan has won. As though nothing we do will stop the fact that the King has left this world, and God is absent from all the misery and pain felt by people here. However, as in the painting, the KING STILL HAS ONE MORE MOVE. See, Jesus died, and that should have been the end. A miracle happened, and he rose, but then he left this world. Shouldn't that have been the end? Hell has been given free reign over this earth, just look around. There are earthquakes, shootings, pickpockets, failing grades, corrupt politicians, gossip, bad parents, suicide, tornadoes, depression, guilt, failed relationships, child molestors, eating disorders, AIDS, orphans, starvation. However...
The King still has ONE more move.
Look again. See love, sports, joy, Christmas, presents, swingsets, preschoolers, grandparents, friends, family, college, art, music, Apple Computers, cuddling, bonfires, beaches, sunsets, laughter, HOPE. The King is here, and he is playing. And one day he will end Hell's temporary reign.
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
-Revelation 21:4
No more pain. No more death. No more mourning. No more tears? How amazing. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
I'm not sure if I ever shared this but I made it to Ohio.
I actually left a day earlier then my plans on here showed. I updated facebook and Twitter to show the changes but forgot to change this. So in the future for real time updates on stuff go to twitter.com/brianwashed. When I switch over to the new blog you'll see those twitter updates appear in real time on the brianwashed.org page but that won't happen until sometime Jan 1.
Anyways so I made it to Ohio. The first night I was home it got down to -30 degrees with the windchill. For those of you who are unaware of where I normally live that is 100 degrees colder than Hazlehurst, Georgia was the day I left there. I mean I miss my family and I miss my friends and I miss a lot of stuff about Ohio... but -30 makes me miss Georgia a whole lot!!!
Yesterday I went shopping and chilled with friends. Today I got some work stuff to do. Tomorrow I'll probably finish my shopping in true manly man spirit. And of course Thursday I'll spend Christmas with my family. Friday I'll chill and work. Saturday I go to Cleveland to see my extended family and to pick on my Uncle Gus. Sunday it's church in the morning and then I'm actually gonna spend some time on my new blog to get it ready to launch. Next Monday and Tuesday are work days. Editing videos and getting ready for my talk on Wed night at the New Years Party. Wednesday I'm sleeping during most of the day and at night of course I'll be at a 12 hour lock-in. On Thursday I'll watch football and rest up. And on Friday I head back to Hazlehurst where it won't be -30 degrees.
So it's kind of busy but kind of not. Busy will come though. January 16-23 might be the busiest week of my life so I'll spend the first 2 weeks I'm back getting ready for that. We are doing a prayer conference in tifton, georgia that weekend, then driving overnight to DC for Obama's inauguration, then covering the March for Life for Stand True, and then we'll drive back that next weekend.
As far as I know January 1 I will know more and be able to announce the crazy sweet news that up to this point I haven't been able to confirm or announce. It deals with Shift Ministries, Shift Creative, and my life. I'm excited for it if we can confirm it. It definitely is good news if it happens.
That's all I got. Merry Christmas! Don't take my parking spot at the mall!
A few weeks ago we were approached by a hispanic family about doing some video work for them at the local catholic church. They told us nothing about the event but the date was Dec 19 so we just assumed it was a Christmas event.
So we showed up at the local Hazlehurst area catholic church at 3pm like our contract stated. We waited an hour. No one showed up. We had been trying to call our contact the whole hour and never reached them. So we called someone else who knew the family and they informed us that it had been moved to a different church about 15 minutes down the road.
So we drove and we ended up walking in about 15 minutes late. It turns out it wasn't a Christmas thing... it was a service and party to celebrate a girls 15th birthday. In the hispanic culture 15 is a more important birthday then 16 or even 21. It's the right-of-passage age so they throw huge parties. They had a huge meal, a live band, a DJ, a few hundred people, a huge cake, and some expensive presents... all to celebrate this girls 15th birthday.
It felt like I was on the crew for the Sweet 16 show on MTV. Literally tens of thousands of dollars were dropped on this party. We realized part of the way through the party that part of the reason for all the fancyness and expense was probably to help boost the self esteem of the girl because she always seemed sad and depressed even at the party.
So after 4 hours of crazy sweet live mexican music, some really good food, some crazy outfits, and some crazy dancing we called it a night and left. They were still dancing and drinking so I'm sure the party is going on now.... but it was a crazy night being thrown into another culture.... I'm glad it happened though.
I have CNN on in the background as I work today and I just watched President Bush announce his bailout for the Auto Industry. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the $13.4 billion bailout.
I just read online that Apple has invested in the company that helped design the PSP for Sony so there is speculation that a new iPhone will be released with a lot more emphasis on gaming stuff. Also a new iMac should be announced at the next big event.
Anyways back to my life. Like I said last post it's been insanely busy. I've been working on a wedding video but they didn't just want a plain old typical wedding video. We made it like a documentary and added a lot of creative and artsy elements. It isn't just a recap of the events of the day but it's more like a story and when it's totally done it'll look sweet. It just takes a lot of editing work. Also today we are going to a local catholic church to shoot their Christmas service and make them a DVD.
When I get back from Christmas and New Years we will be planning some stuff for a prayer summit we have been asked to do media stuff for. That prayer summit is Monday the 19th so Jim will stay in town and help run that and I'll be on the road to DC. On Tuesday the 20th I'll be in DC to cover and tape Barack Obama's inauguration and all of the festivities. Then the next Wed-Saturday I'll be in DC to cover the march for life for Stand True Ministries. After that I'll head back to Georgia and we'll work on the purchase and installation stuff for a church near Chicago. I'm not sure when we'll drive up there but at some point we'll have to head up there to do the installation. We also will be helping a church in Xenia, Ohio with installation of a new sound system.
In April we will be heading down to sunny Miami, Florida for the Hillsong United conference.
I'm excited for the new year. On January 1 I really hope I'll be able to share a lot more about what other big things we have planned. Some of the stuff isn't final yet and some just can't be made public yet but once I know and once I'm able to share I will.
In the mean time here are some of the ways to keep in touch or follow me as this year ends and next year begins...
twitter.com/iBrianwashed
myspace.com/brianwashed
facebook.com
AIM - iBrianwashed
Cell - 937-287-9845 (texting is the best)
Brianwashed.org
ShiftCreative.org
those of you who know what twitter is or use it should know that I use it now via SMS on my phone. you can check out my twitter page and tweet me at twitter.com/ibrianwashed
if you use twitter then feel free to follow and/or direct message me!
