photo by mlsnp

When deciding where to go to church on vacation, we thought we’d dip our toe in to water of a mega-church. The closest one to where we were: Lakewood, where Joel Osteen is pastor.

Since it is such a huge church and because it was mostly out of curiosity that we were even going, Rachel and I discussed whether or not it was appropriate to bring our camera. I opted just to snap a few discrete shots with my phone.

Once we found the parking garage, we took a shuttle to the arena/sanctuary.

We were greeted with a firm handshake and a “Welcome to Lakewood.”

Right inside the front doors and up the escalator was a huge bookstore and what was apparently the mission statement of the church emblazoned on the wall.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. — Jeremiah 29:11

Seemed quite obvious based on everything we’d seen so far that this verse was a central to everything at Lakewood. I found it a little odd and disturbing that Osteen’s book Become a Better You was on display in several places around the sanctuary. Perhaps it would have made more sense to have a huge display of his book inside the bookstore. Maybe a with a cardboard cutout of the man himself. I digress.

We looked around a bit and headed over to the help desk. They pointed us in the direction of the floor where they had children’s church. The children’s ministry was divided up between two different floors.

The check-in process was impressive. You can’t tell very well from this picture. Each kid filled out a card that was immediately entered into a database at one of the eight check-in kiosks. We got 3 stickers — one for each of the kids and one for us parents. We had to present the parent sticker when we picked up the kids.

Rachel and I headed for the sanctuary. Most all of the “good seats” were already filled. We ended up in the upper level stage right section, right next to the platform. Here’s a good shot (that I didn’t take) of all the whole sanctuary.

The service started out real nice. The music and band was amazing considering where we were sitting. I think I knew only one of the songs. There was a choir on both sides and up from the platform. The band was behind it and in front of the spinning “golden globe”. The worship team consisted of about 8 vocalists. Once the band was done, the whole platform the band was on sunk into the floor and all of the musicians walked out into a lower level. That was pretty slick.

It pretty much went downhill from there, IMO. Osteen’s wife and “co-pastor” got up and did a little sermonette after one of the songs. Made me want to throw up in my mouth a little. Man, she is annoying.

She had another little spiel before the offering after which there was fervent clapping when the word “offering” was uttered. Blecch.

I wish I could find the sermon that Osteen preached online somewhere, so I could post it here for you to have a listen. It really was all fluff and no substance. The Scripture he used was a partial verse taken out of context to the point of some shock and disbelieve on my part.

It was basically a steady stream of God’s blessings on your life, prosperity, destiny, just believe it, free will, nothing is impossible, ad nauseam.

We picked up the kids with our sticker and headed back to the shuttle and then to our car. We quizzed the kids about their worship experience. Something about confidence and Peter in the Bible.

I’m so disgusted just pondering it all again, that I’m not even going to write about the altar call, and my thoughts about whether Osteen is a Chuck-E-Cheese robot or a real person.

If I find that sermon, I’ll post it.

We ate lunch at the Goode Company Hamburgers and Taqueria which was pretty close to the church. We got there when they were still serving breakfast. I ate a fajita dish. It was pretty good. It just happened to be right across the street from the Houston’s that I ate at while attending NYC in Houston in 2003.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel, changed clothes and hit the road for Galveston. Not only was there construction on the road, but everyone from the whole United States of America was heading there for Spring Break. It really wasn’t that far from the hotel, but it ended up taking almost 2 hours to get there. Once there it was cold, very windy and frankly, not that great.

The highlight probably was the dead jellyfish on the beach. Caleb had fun poking it with a stick. I think I’d rather visit a tropical beach next time — one with out the Spring Break, my stereo / car / girlfriend / motorcycle / six-pack-is-better-than-yours morons.

You can see all of the pictures here.

After recovering from the self-inflicted late night, we headed to Johnson Space Center. It was just down the street from our hotel.

The plan was to spend the whole day there. That’s what we did. We pretty much saw and did everything we could.

A few highlights:

Mission Status Center

This started with the Blast-Off Theatre and then moved into an impressive array of screens, monitors and live feeds. The guide in this area was very knowledgeable about what exactly was going on with NASA, like, right then. Since there were astronauts actually in space when we were there, it was especially interesting. She talked in certain terms about returning to space and the upcoming goals and timelines for NASA expeditions. It was fascinating.

Historic Mission Control Center

This was the mission control center that was used from 1964 until 1998. The Apollo missions, including the Apollo 7 and 13, and several Shuttle missions were all controlled here.

Saturn V Complex

This is particular building held the Saturn V rocket used in many of the Apollo missions. Huge is an understatement. The rocket itself was nearly as long as a football field. Toward the top you can walk in-between the last booster stage. It was amazingly complex for being so old.

Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory

This particular facility was a 15 minute charter bus trip away. It’s as close as the astronauts get to the extended weightlessness of space. It’s a pool that’s 202 feet wide, 102 feet across and 40 feet deep. I was a little disappointed that we couldn’t get down closer and see inside. You can see the viewing area on the other side of the pool from this Wikipedia panorama shot.

Here’s the other pictures I took.

A family in our church gave us three tickets to the Third Day concert last night at First Baptist of Raytown, MO. Rachel, her dad, and I went.

A surprisingly good band from Australia named Revive opened up. Then it was Decemberadio and then Sanctus Real before Third Day.

I thought that Revive was the best of the bands that opened up. I’d never heard of Decemberadio before. Their lead singer was a little more show than substance.  At least that’s how he came across to me.  I was familiar with Sanctus Real.  I’d heard a few of their songs before, decided against buying an album after listening to their other songs.  The most all sound the same.  Revive was more of a style of music that I like — rock worship.

Couple of other cool things:

They had a stage light malfunction that blinded all of us in the stage-right side section of the sanctuary.  About that same time Mack sang all the way up to us.  I shook his hand and he climbed up on the pew in front of us and the guy next to Rachel sang along with him.  That was awesome.  He’s so unassuming, warm and charismatic (in a non-speaking in tongues kinda way).

Mack mentioned having the great BBQ here in Kansas City. According to a post-concert blog post by their lead guitarist Mark Lee, they ate at Jack Stack. No doubt in my mind it’s the best in Kansas City. This endorsement is just another confirmation.

The latter part of the concert, primarily Third Day, brought back lots of memories of my high school days and how gifted musicians — ones that used their talents for the Lord — helped lead me to faith in Christ.  I recalled how I felt standing in the balcony of a David Meece concert in a Baptist church in Wichita, KS in 1990 — the warmth of God’s presence speaking to me about how is love for me is not like anything I could comprehend or earn on my own.  Good times.

Sad, real sad. So it goes with the Bucks.

After a long day at Seaworld, we turned in for the night. The next morning we got up and had a nice breakfast at the hotel and headed for what we missed in the Riverwalk area — mainly the Alamo.

The plan was to go to the Alamo, eat lunch at the Buckhorn Saloon (for which we had a really good coupon) and head to Houston.

I thought the Alamo was very interesting. I’m not saying I didn’t pay attention in history class, but I really had no idea about the history of Texas or the battle for it’s independence. I spent a lot of time reading the chronologies in various places around the main building. The famous picture of the Alamo was just a small part of the huge fort area. You can see more from my pictures here.

We walked down the street to the Buckhorn Saloon & Museum for lunch. It was crammed with stuffed animals and little creepy according to my daughter. Reminded me of Frank Phillip’s lodge at Woolaroc in Bartlesville, OK. I ate a pretty darn good bacon cheeseburger. We didn’t pay to go see the museum upstairs. It looked pretty interesting. I snapped some pictures inside. They’re along with the Alamo pictures if you follow the photo link above.

After lunch we headed east toward Houston. That was one dull drive. We finally made it to the Comfort Suites in Webster, TX. Very nice hotel. I would recommend it highly.

We checked in, lugged all of our luggage up to our room, jumped back in the car and headed toward the downtown Houston to the Toyota Center.

The Houston Rockets vs the Charlotte Bobcats at the Toyota Center was one of the highlights of the trip for me. First of all, it was an NBA game, which I always enjoy. Second, Rachel found us $10 tickets.  (BTW, despite what people say, nosebleed tickets at an NBA game aren’t really that far up. )  We were on the top row at one end.  Third, it was Clutch’s (the Rocket’s mascot) birthday and he invited mascots from around the league to celebrate — one of which was Bango, the Bucks mascot. Rachel, being the cool wife that she is, snagged an autograph from him on the back of our Rockets program. “Go Bucks Go — Bango” looks real nice framed on the wall next to my computer. She also took the cool picture you see here. Finally, the Rockets set a franchise record for the most consecutive wins — 21 when they beat the Bobcats. The crowd was absolutely crazy. What a fun atmosphere.  Here’s the rest of the pictures I took at the game.

On the way home, I somehow missed an exit and we ended up stuck in traffic right next to Reliant Park.  Don’t ask me how we ended up there after being at the Toyota Center.  Guess a Clay Walker concert had just let out — whoever the heck that is.   He must be popular based on the amount of traffic.   Rachel gave up on helping me with directions at this point — for the entire rest of the trip!  I was on my own.  Sniff, sniff.

We made it back to the hotel eventually.

People are rightly outraged that Apple has included Safari — clearly a second-rate browser download — along with the iTunes updater.

I’m OK with iTunes, because it’s a stellar product. Safari isn’t. It can’t stack up to to Firefox.  Apple certainly has a monopoly in the music delivery and player market, but even the evil Microsoft doesn’t do this kind of thing.

Here’s the CEO of Mozilla on the subject.