Word of Life SUPERBOWL 2009

On Friday, Suncoast Youth Group loaded up the trucks, cars, and vans and headed to Orlando, for one of our favorite activities of the year. Every Fall, Word of Life hosts an incredible activity called the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is an outstanding activity where our students have the opportunity to go to a Professional Sports Game, hear a clear gospel presentation, enjoy a youth rally with great games and prizes and then finish the night off with two great venues.

We have gone 3 years now, and this year I took a moment to stop and appreciate all of the effort that was put into making it such a great event. That is what I want to share on my blog today.

As a youth pastor, with many hats to wear, there is always pressure to come up with great activities. We have done many exciting activities at Suncoast Youth Group, and every single one takes hours and hours of planning and preparation (many of which can go seemingly unnoticed). Generally all that work goes into planning something simple like an Ice Skating Event, or a Scavenger Hunt of some sort. I can barely imagine all of the work that goes into planning the Word of Life Super Bowl.

To imagine an activity with a NBA Basketball Game, an Awesome Youth Rally, Bowling, Wonderworks, the RDV Sportsplex (including: Ice Skating, Broom Ball, Wally-Ball, Basketball, Inflatables, Dodge Ball, and even the Wii), Funspot (including: Go-Carts Everywhere, and every other fair ride that you could imagine), and enough Pizza for thousands of student and chaperones is quite a phenomenal feat!

Our teenagers enjoyed the Word of Life Superbowl this year even more than ever, and I, a busy youth pastor, want to thank you for making my job even more fun, and a little bit easier. Thank you Word of Life, Andy and Nancy Anderson, Chris Finchum, Marge Salemme, and all of the faithful servants and Word of Life students that made the 2009 Super Bowl so great! Thanks a lot! Your work has not gone unnoticed.

Thanks for making such an impressive activity where we can bring students to learn about Christ!

Suncoast Baptist Church

Home, Sweet Home

I am so thankful to be sitting at home, watching the Gator game with my little man, Will. Saturday, Katie and I arrived back home from our first vacation without Will since he came into our life :)

We decided to go on a Royal Carribean cruise, on the Enchantment of the Seas. It was a great trip. We left on Monday and finished the cruise five days later on Saturday.

Let me share with you the details about the trip and then throughought the rest of the week I will share several of the things that I learned and read during our trip.

Monday, we arrived at the Fort Lauderdale cruise terminal around 1:30pm and we were on the boat and in our stateroom by 2:30pm. It was a great evening, we went to a show and had a great dinner. After that we wandered around the ship until we decided to go to bed.

Tuesday we arrived at Key West, FL. we rented bikes and drove all over the island. That was alot of fun, I am so thankful that I had my iPhone with service because that is how we found all of the sites that we wanted to see. We saw the key west “Mile 0” sign, and we also saw the “Southernmost Point in the United States” marker. We would love to go back.

Wednesday we went to Cozumel, the beaches and the water were the most beautiful that I have ever seen, the Bahamas are a joke compared to the beaches there. Katie and I rented a two person moped and drove about 50 kilometers around the island. We also stopped at a private beach and snorkeled and swam for a while! That was definitely my favorite day.

Thursday we went to Belize, one word: Yuk. It was not great at all, in fact we got off the boat walked around for about 30 minutes and then got right back on the boat. When I got back on the boat there was one lady that was in tears going on and on about how her life was in jeopardy and she thought that she was going to die. I dont know if it was that bad or not, but It definitely had NO comparison to Key West, or Cozumel.

On Friday Katie and I slept in until about 10:30 then we went to breakfast, then we went back to bed and slept until 2:00pm. Katie loved it. I think it was her favorite day of the entire trip. By the end of Friday night we were ready to go back home to see our little man Will!

When we arrived back at Katies parents house to pick him up, he had an amazing grin on his face and he buried his head in my shoulder and hugged me so tight for about 2 minutes! I LOVED IT! 🙂

Well, That is about it for now, I read 2 Seth Godin books while I was on the cruise and I will post my thoughts about each of those over the next few days.

My Favorite iPhone Apps

I thought I would post a quick list of my favorite iPhone apps today. If you know of any great apps that I have not mentioned please post them in the comments below!

I will go in order of my most recent favorites:

Slydial: When was the last time you had to call someone and you prayed the whole time that they would not answer their phone because you did not want to talk to them? Well, with Slydial, you call straight to an individuals Voicemail. In fact it even shows a missed call on their phone, but their phone never rings, this allows you to leave them a message without the risk of having to talk to them 🙂 Pretty Sly Huh! (Cost: FREE)

Logmein: take control of any of your computers from your iphone, anytime and anywhere (with 3g service that is) I must admit that I was skeptical at first, but it is definitely worth the $29.99 price for this app, you can literally see your monitor on your iPhone screen and you can control it as if you were sitting at your desk. Great app!

DropBox: This is my newest app and it is pretty great! Put a shortcut on your computer and anytime you want to share a file with your iPhone you just drop in in the shortcut folder, it puts it right in your dropbox app and you can share it with any other computer or email it at anytime. (Cost: FREE)

C25K: sounds cheesy, I know, but it has changed my life. I am healthier than I have ever been. I now run about 15 miles a week, and when I started the program I could only run about 60 seconds without almost passing out. Great app and great program to get you “up and running” 🙂

Signature:  This is a neat little app that puts a nice little signature at the end of all your emails with sharp links to your facebook, twitter, rss feeds, and youtube.  I think this app was free but it may have cost $.99. Here is a screen clip of what it looks like: (no links)

MySongbook: Incredible app for any guitarist. you can import any guitar tab and store it on your iPhone. It will transpose the tab into your favorite chords and it has an automatic scroll feature so that you do not have to stop playing to slide the screen down.  It will also show you how to play any chord just by tapping the chord on the tab. Ingenius! Definitely one of my favorite apps.

Well, I am always looking for new apps, so if you find one, please let me know! Thanks

Lee Tomlin