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FreePlay Friday Logo for FredMcKinnon.Com by RussHutto.Com

Hey Gang – it’s FRIDAY!  Let me hear it now, let me hear it now, it’s FRIDAY!
This is “Freeplay Friday” – I typically use this day to bypass the normal conversations on worship, church, leadership, etc., and just talk about family, life, or whatever comes to mind.

We’re taking some time together as a family for Spring Break.  I’m taking the two older boys (Jon Michael and Will) to see the Atlanta Braves play the Detroit Tigers tonight … I can’t wait.  We’ve got some incredible seats over the Braves’ dugout on the 1st baseline.  (Thank you God, for American Express Membership Rewards points).

For today’s FreePlay Friday I thought I’d share a video that was forwarded to me from my pastor (who now joined twitter @dysscc!) … so enjoy!

Playing For Change | Song Around The World “Stand By Me” from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

So what’s your WEEKEND look like?  How many of you are starting Spring Break?

Hey Everyone -

Can you say “It’s Friday”!?????   Woo-Hoo!  FreePlay Friday is a fun day for me and you – we talk about whatever we want here on Friday, and break the routine of discussions on faith, church, worship, worship leadership, music, etc.

The last few days of this week have been me sneezing, itching, coughing, dripping, blowing (ok, I’ll stop).  Spring time and pollen counts seem higher than ever before.  The normal cocktail of allergy meds for me aren’t doing it this week.  NyQuil was my friend last night.

Here Goes the Randomness

• I can hardly type, I’m bobbing my head so hard … side-to-side … rock … back and forth … that’s because I’m listening to the brand new Israel Houghton CD, “The Power of One“.  Holy smokes.  Groove galore.
• Rebekah’s birthday is this weekend.  Family coming to town, “Marriage Live Beach Bash” tonight at church, soccer games in the AM on Jekyll Island, and then Bekah’s birthday party.  Hope it doesn’t rain.
• Twitter … it’s definitely here to stay for a while folks.  I’m taking over social media and networking “officially” for our church . We already have a twitter account for the church @sscc … but just got a new one going for our missions team in Kenya @sscckenya.  Way cool, they are sending live twitter updates “from the field” in Kenya.
• FREE GIVEAWAY:
  March is almost over, which means it’s time to have the monthly FREE GIVEAWAY drawing over at HighestPraise.Com.  This month’s freebie is Lincoln Brewster’s “Today is the Day” CD and WorshipToolBox resource (DVD with instructional videos, chord charts, lyrics, sheet music, etc).  All you have to do is signup for the E-News from HighestPraise.Com.  You can expect maybe 3-5 emails per month, usually announcements about worship-related resources and new songs from HPP and some of our friends.

Wassup for your weekend?  Back to the Twitter thing … do you use it?  Does your church?  How is your church, ministry, or business using Twitter or other social media?

BRING IT ON.

Hey Gang,

It’s “FreePlay Friday”.  This is the day when I break away from worship leadership, church ministry, etc., and make it “free” – I can talk about life, family, politics, fishing, playing, or whatever … and so can you.

So today … I have nothing really to share!

(how pathetic is that!)

Seriously, I’m not much in the mood to “blog” about anything today.  So, feel free to share your thoughts.  I’ll be back Sunday for “Sunday Setlists” … probably.

Hey Everyone,

What a great start to “FreePlay Friday”.  Joy has been after me to be more proactive in creating family traditions.  Not a bad idea, right?  Any other wives reading this who keep wishing that?  Joy’s been a great encourager, and she really has been the one to lead here, for which I’m both ashamed, and grateful.

Family Time

So, we kicked off our first (of hopefully, many) “Friday Breakfast” dates.  We all packed in the car and drove to our favorite breakfast spot, “Sweet Mamas” on St. Simons Island.  I didn’t wake up as early as we’d planned, so we were a bit rushed and really didn’t get to make “quality time” out of it, but I think if we are consistent on this, it will mean a lot to the kids.  I had the chocolate cheese danish and pork pops with coffee.  Joy had some yucky looking egg pie stuff.  JM and Will both had the chocolate cheese danish, and Rebekah and Andrew each had a chocolate donut.  Healthy, huh?

We dropped JM and Will off at school, and Joy’s off to get a haircut … Bekah and Andrew are at the brother/sister-in-law’s house.  I didn’t rush to get upstairs to my home office this morning – I spent the last thirty minutes finishing up “Quiet Strength” - “The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life“, by Super Bowl winning coach (now retired), Tony Dungy.

Can I just say this was one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in a long time.  If you are a football fan, you’d love this book.  Read about trades, drafts, the pains of winning and losing  – both in football, and in the loss of their son, Jamie.  This book will provide enjoyable reading and will quietly challenge your leadership as a father, role model, and Christian at the same time.

Kudos and thanks to my friends Deane and Dana for giving this to me on my birthday last November.  Yeah, it takes that long for me to read through most books.  It was worth it.

Now I’m in the process of planning something special for Spring Break.  Last year we hung around St. Simons and we found ourselves just doing the “same ole”.  I’m learning more and more that these times with kids, though demanding and crazy most of the times, are precious and won’t be here forever.  I’m determined to make more of that time, so we’re checking out some “get away” cabins up in the North Georgia Mountains.  For those of you who read my blog that have kids – please … BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT MAKING MEMORIES.

Prayer

Please continue to pray for my friend Will Pufall who is fighting for his life in the hospital in Pensacola, FL.  (see yesterday’s emergency prayer post) They don’t know what is wrong with him, and have called in an “infectious disease” specialist.  Pastor Bobby Lepinay (Will’s pastor, boss, and my friend) is updating his blog several times a day.

Highest Praise

I’ll devote a full blog with more information to this shortly, but those who follow me on Twitter have seen a few posts about my relaunching HighestPraise.Com, my original site for my company.  It’s been neglected for some time, but I’m re-working it from a fully static .html site to a dynamic site driven by WordPress.  The main focus of HighestPraise.Com is to provide resources, specifically – original praise and worship songs from HPP-Published writers to the Body of Christ.  There is still a lot of work to be done, but I’d be grateful for your visit, RSS-subscribe, email-subscribe (Free Giveaway every month!), and support over there.

Comment and Check-In

OK – As always, it’s “check-in” time … for those who are reading, please leave a comment, check-in, let me know about your weekend plans, who you are, and where you’re hiding!  (oh yeah, I’m trying out the Disqus comment system now!)

(thanks to Russ Hutto for creating this cool FreePlay Friday logo!)

Let me hear you say it now … IT’S FRIDAY!

FreePlay Friday is the “anything goes” day where we talk about random things, family, life, and you.  I’d like for you to comment and chime in with your own random thoughts and comments.

Here we go:

1. The Flu has hopefully left our home.  Jon Michael went back to school today.  It started with Rebekah, then to Andrew, then to Jon Michael.  Will’s had a little touch of something, but nothing serious.  Joy has also had a nasty cough but no fever.  So far, I’ve been great.  Woo-hoo!
2. Andrew (our 2-year old, soon to be 3 in April) is starting potty training today.  Yep, he’s sporting some “big-boy” pullups with Diego.  I had a long talk about him not peeing or poo-poo’ing on Diego.  He laughed.  He nailed the potty this AM.  Joy gave him a big ole’ chocolate.  Rock on.  Once this mission is completed, we’ll be DONE with diapers.
3. Tomorrow is the Super Dolphin Race, a fundraiser for our elementary schools here on the island.  Joy will run the 10K.  Immediately afterwards, she’ll join Jon Michael and Will in the 1-mile “fun-run”.  WHO THE HECK EVER CALLED A RUN “FUN”?  I’ll be cheering from the sideline.
4. As most of you know, I’ve been using IntenseDebate for my commenting system here on the blog.  I’m sure it works great for some, but for me – it is broken.  I’ve been trying to stop using it, but I’m trapped – their servers host my comments, and if I try to break off the relationship, they keep my comments, and I’m stuck.  It’s not supposed to work that way.  For some reason, their system that “syncs” the comments back over here to my blog doesn’t work on my site.  So, when I de-activate their plugin, about 99% of your comments are lost.  I am giving them one last change today to help me export the comments back to my blog.  If they don’t help, I’ll just have to chalk it up to a big mistake, de-activate, and lose all your comments and start over.  I won’t be hostage.  I can’t say it’s their fault, it could be a screwy server setting on my site.  All I can say is that I’ve been asking for help for a month and it still isn’t resolved.  My last email of 3 days ago still hasn’t been answered.

And now – some link love … these are items that I “starred” in my Google Reader this week that are worth to share:

1. Jan Owen discusses “The Dangerous Act of Worship”, a book I’ve heard a lot about, and I’m tempted to read.
2. Chris blew me away with this video of an incredible sounding “fake grand piano”.
3. Ben Arment posted this quote that is so true, and needs to be read.  READ THIS!

And I saved the best from last … if you’re on FaceBook, you’ve probably gotten a kazillion of those dang “25 Things About Me” tags.  I delete every single of them.  (yeah, I know half of them came from all of you reading this).  Well, thanks to Ben for this hilarious video:

OK – so gimme come comment love – what’s happened in your week – what’s your funnies – share your stories!