A lot of stuff going on...

Call me crazy, but it seems to me like the beginning of summer is usually a time to slow down a little bit, rest, take some time off - but this year there is so much going on! I want to make sure everyone is up-to-date with it all. Here goes:

Most important things first: Rachel Semanek emailed me that her father is doing much better and that she and Matt truly appreciate all of the prayers and support during his surgery.

Now, onto things upcoming. Don't forget to check out the Young Adults Calendar and the weekly email for this information as well.

1. Brian McLaren - author of A New Kind of Christian and the new book The Secret Message of Jesus is speaking at Ecclesia this Friday night at 7:00. I know some of you are really interested in attending so here are the details. First of all, it is free. We will meet at the church at about 6:00 this Friday and drive over together. If you want to make it on your own, the address is:

Ecclesia (Taft Street Coffee House)
2115 Taft Street
Houston, Texas 77006
713.622.1846

More information about McLaren and his books can be found at the link to the right. If you want to go this Friday, call me (832-247-0124) or email me (ryankirksey@yahoo.com).

2. Brunch at the Gibson's house - This Sunday, June 4, Dave and Karen Gibson have invited all of us over to their house for brunch. We will start at about 10:15-10:30 right after first service. The menu will be eggs, bacon, waffles, cinnamon rolls, bagels, coffee, milk, juice, and anything else that we decide will be good comfort breakfast food. (Suggestions are welcome)
Directions:
Turn right leaving the church parking lot on to Bay Area Blvd.
Turn right at the second light, Friendswood Link road. Stay on Friendswood Link . After stopping go straight at the stop sign The street turns into Signal Hill.
Turn left on Lighthouse View.
Turn left on Rolling Fog.
Turn right on Serenity Cove Circle. Their address is 16923 Serenity Cove Circle (at the end of the block in the cul de sac). 281-648-0062

IMPORTANT: Please RSVP to Karen at kagibson30@yahoo.com so they can know how many to plan for. If you don't know right now, come anyway as we will have plenty of food.

3. Rob Bell - The author of Velvet Elvis and star of the Nooma videos will be speaking in Houston on Wednesday, July 12 as part of the Everything is Spiritual Tour. There will be a group of us going that night and tickets are $12.50. Doors open at 7:00 and the show begins at 8:00, so we will probably leave from the church at about 6:45. He is speaking at Numbers on Westheimer.

More information about this can be found at www.Nooma.com. If you plan to go, please let me know by Sunday, June 18 so we can get tickets ahead of time.

4. Wednesday night programs - As most of you know, Summer has different programming for Wednesday night events. In a week or two, Soul Survivor will start up again with dinner at the building for everyone at 6:00 PM and then a combined service at 7:00. One Wednesday night, our group will volunteer to help with the meal and the clean up afterwards.

I also received a message from Matt Semanek saying that the Wellspring will be dismissed until August and will resume then, perhaps with a different format and a few changes. Suggestions are welcome for this praise/devotional time (aliveinchrist1010@hotmail.com).


Beyond these things, a ton more is being planned for the next three months. There are parties, baseball games, worship times, and - of course - weddings.

As you can tell, so much goes on, that is almost too much for one person to manage. I am currently looking for someone to help out and be a "social coordinator" of sorts. Primarily, it would be a job of reasearching and planning all of these things that we do, figuring out new and creative things for the group to participate in, keeping the calendar up-to-date, etc. Pretty much you would have free reign to plan and suggest things for us to do, as well as looking at everything our group suggests. Let me know if you are interested - (ryankirksey@yahoo.com).

RK

A little walk through history

Some of you have seen this, but I'm posting it because I die laughing every time I watch it. Watch this somewhere you can have the volume up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg&eurl

Thanks, Billy for sending it to us...

Yes, you can all feel a little more important because we have a Gmail account and a Google Calendar

So after navigating through the mess of having to be invited to have a Gmail account with Google and the corresponding Google Calendar, I am proud to announce that the Young Adults Calendar and Young Adults Email is up and running! Maybe I am the only one who thinks that this cartoon is funny - who sets up an email system where you have to be invited to use it anyway?

Moving on. You can now keep up with everything that is going on with our group and at Southeast by going to:

www.google.com/calendar

To login to the calendar, the username is seyoungadults and the password is southeast. When you log in, you will see something similar to this. Feel free to navigate it, explore it and see what needs to be added. My hope is that this calendar can be regularly updated by me, by you, or whomever wants to add something. We will put specific events up that are happening, mark people's birthdays for everyone to see, and tentatively hold things that might be of interest to everyone. All at one place. You can add it to your favorites and check back from time to time to see any updates and what is upcoming.

The email address that has been set up is seyoungadults@gmail.com. If you have any ideas of things we should do, you run across anything that would be fun or want to make any suggestions, feel free to email and we will mark it on the calendar. Besides emailing me ideas, email me your birthdays as well. I will put them up on the site.

This will not in any way take the place of the weekly email (that all of you eagerly anticipate) or announcements, but is just one more place where you can keep up with everything. My hope in all of this is to make things easier on everyone and have avenues where we can all be connected. If you have suggestions, or criticism, please let me know and I will be happy to consider anything.

Summer is here and a lot is going to be happening. Things already in the works are baseball games, a summer kick off party, a crawfish boil, guest speakers in class, and others. The most recent news is that Rob Bell (of the Nooma videos) will be speaking at Numbers on Wednesday, July 12 and we will be taking a big group there.

I hope you are all excited about the next few months to come - I sure am.

I promise early next week to write something of substance again. Any suggestions? Leave a comment and let me know.

RK

....And thanks to Katie Hamilton at work for inviting me to Gmail

Dinner 4 Four and Don Miller

No, Don Miller is not coming to Dinner 4 Four this Saturday. I will get to him in a minute.

First - Dinner 4 Four is this Saturday night at 6:00 PM at the church. We will all meet as a group there first and then divide up into our groups of four to eat. What I have found is this is a great time to bring people who may not be comfortable coming to our church or Life Groups, but you want to introduce them to our group and get to know them better. If you bring a friend, we'll make sure you stay with them.

Afterwards, we always meet back up at the church and do something together. Hopefully, when I send out the email on Friday, I will have a better idea of what that will be. Any suggestions on what to do? Leave a comment and let me know.

Now, on to Don Miller. David Cady and I are working on a proposal that would bring Miller to Southeast to come speak sometime in summer or early fall. To do this, I would like to get some feedback from you guys. So, if you have ever read Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What, or any of Miller's books, leave me a comment or send me an email (ryankirksey@yahoo.com) telling me what you like about them, what those books mean to you, how you relate to them, how they speak to you, etc. Just let me know your thoughts and I will incorporate them into the proposal.

So if you have any questions, about any of this stuff, be sure and let me know. I will do what I can to help you out.

Have a great rest of the week.....

RK