The Weekend of Much Ricchuiti

I almost spent 24 hours with Andy. He came over late Sautrday to spend the night. We left around 7:30 to leave for Waco - If you want to go to Waco from my house, it only takes 2 hours...not 2 1/2 or 3 - and arrived an hour early for University Baptist Church's 10:30 service. You see, David Crowder is from Waco and this is his home church. When not on tour, he leads worship at UBC. He was doing so today.

Apparantly, they're doing some renovations in their usual sanctuary, so they rented out a theater downtown. We found the place, but all of downtown was deserted so we went searching for a coffee shop or diner or some place to chill for 45 minutes. Naturally, there was none. I couldn't believe it! Where do people eat around there?! It was madness. We finally stumbled accross a Shipley's Donuts and stayed there until 10:15-ish. When we went back to the theater, there were only like 3 or 4 cars out front, and the streets were still pretty empty. It seemed so vacant. We went inside and the band was just finishing warming up, but there were only a couple folks inside. I guess "10:30 service" really meant "start arriving at 10:30."

But, no, I was wrong. There was a mass exodus from somewhere cause the place filled up in like 10 minutes. The service was not what I expected. It was just like any other church. You have a few announcements, then a band plays a couple songs, then then the pastor comes up to speak, then you leave. It was just like that - no flashy lights, no technical wizardry - just a simple church service. The only difference was that David Crowder lead the worship. That was cool. The pastor almost successfully summed-up Revelation in 15 minutes and was very humorous.

Andy and I ate lunch with Jonny O, then returned to my house, where we sat around for a couple hours before heading to Denton Bible Church (Andy's church in Denton while at UNT) for their evening service. That place is starting to grow on me. The music is sort of ... OK ... but the pastor is pretty good. He's funny, but has good messages.

I was with Richuitti from 11pm Saturday until about 7 or so Sunday. Which reminds me...if you haven't seen The Patriot, you need to. It's a bit gory at times, but it's a great show.