the scriptorium

Sunday, November 03, 2002

We had a great time last night at "Come Together and Worship" last night, a concert of Michael W. Smith and Third Day ("with special guest, Max Lucado"). There ended up being five of us all together, the VBCC Singles Group (Matt, Brian, and myself) along with my friend Lisa and her friend Kim. The concert was held at Rupp Arena, where the Kentucky Wildcats play ('kay, that may be the only reference you may ever see in here to the Wildcats, so savor it). The place holds about 20,000, I think, and it looked to be a sellout crowd. Our seats were in the Upper Arena, row Z (what I like to call the "nearer my God to Thee" seats), but there were several Jumbotrons, so it was cool--except that I thought I was going to need a Sherpa and an oxygen tank to get to my seat. :^) At least we didn't have to worry about the clouds of illegal smoke that usually accompany that section of the arena.

I was stoked when we got to our seats to see a couple of friends in the row in front of us that I haven't seen in a long while--John and Crystal Clark, children of fellow Ireland-lovers Jan and Dave Clark. John had cut off his prodigious ponytail, so I almost didn't recognize him. It was good to see them.

I mentioned the Jumbotrons earlier; as it turned out, they weren't necessary for a good bit of the concert as far as I was concerned--I had my eyes closed in worship for about half of the time. Third Day played first, and did mostly songs from their worship CD, "Offerings". One thing that was really cool about both artists was that they posted the words to most of the songs played on the Jumbotrons so we could all sing along. Excellent idea! Max Lucado's time was mostly in between songs, reading Scripture and telling a couple of inspirational stories that were very cool, especially the one about going boating with his father when he was a boy. Michael W. Smith played mostly songs from his "Worship" CD, and also a couple from the new one, "Worship Again". One song from that CD was particularly touching--I'm not sure of the title, but the chorus went, "Lord have mercy/Christ have mercy/Lord have mercy/on me". I had to weep a little during this one, it's such a beautiful song.

BTW, Andrew Careaga had asked in the comments of my previous entry about the prominence of the sponsorship of Chevrolet. As I commented on his site this morning, there wasn't much to let you know that this was even the case. The only mention made during the concert was Max Lucado at the start, during his "welcome" remarks, when he was thanking the other artists for working together, us for coming, and then something like, "...and thanks to Chevy for helping us put this on", or words to that effect. Very tasteful, I thought. As I also mentioned to Andrew earlier, I didn't actually get around to finding any merchandise booths that may have been set up because the place was so crowded, so there might have been more of a presence there. If anyone else attended and has more info, feel free to chime in.

"In other news..." :^) I about wore myself out yesterday morning, getting the apartment in shape for visitors. Hey, Kevin, I had opportunity to use that new skill y'all at VC taught Matt and me--you know, that "hands-and-knees-floor-scrubbing" trick? It came in real handy yesterday cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. Anyway, the place looks so much better I almost feel like I'm visiting someone else's apartment. Maybe I should practice hospitality a little more often--I might keep up the place a little better. (Hey, it could happen!)

posted by #Debi at 4:33 PM | permalink | 0 comments