Some days and some weeks are just tough.  The great thing about humor is that it can pull us out of a funk faster than anything else.  Today’s laugh offering is a great example of that there is always someone else with a slightly more difficult situation than yours.  And if you’re not having a bad day or a bad week, then just watch this and enjoy the fact that it could be worse.

You’ll have to click here to go watch

I’m no big fan of BK commercials. The King really creeps me out. But they hit on a pretty good series of commercials recently when they played a trick on their customers by telling them they were no longer serving Whoppers. It was funny because when people don’t get what they expect, they can do some pretty weird things. So what do people expect when they go to church? One church decided to experiment with this concept. There are three separate commercials below.  Don’t Freak Out!

Part 2

Part 3

I’ve always thought most of us need to lighten up a bit. We tend to take ourselves far too seriously. So it’s refreshing to me whenever anyone can poke fun at themselves, or at least laugh when someone else does. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by a recent discovery. “America, the National Catholic Weekly” is showing that they have a funny bone and have placed a video of Stephen Colbert on the website commenting on his preparation for the Pope’s visit. It’s really funny (if you don’t take yourself too seriously) Click here to go view it on their website.

By the way…. Colbert is from South Carolina… another homeboy!

Normally, I like to post something with a bit of humor on Friday. I always try to get up early and get something out before the start of the day, but failed to do so. But I can’t let the day slip away without a dose of humor. We had 10 teenagers leave for a conference in Chicago today. It should be a great experience. But it also made me think of the typical “retreats” and training opportunities that church teenagers have to deal with. The following post is like a stroll down memory lane for many of us. I’ve posted it in full here, but I hope you take a few minutes to drop by this blog and read the comments that follow the article and enjoy a wry sense of humor that the blog author offers in all of his posts. You can read his stuff by clicking here.

#137. Holding retreats at locations that could double as horror movies.

It’s possible that all your church retreats were held in lovely fields of flowers. After making friendship bracelets with your best friends you had a big tickle fight with baby deer and bunny rabbits before eating smores around the amber glow of a bonfire.

My retreats were different.

Especially the ones that were held at Cape Cod Sea Camps. During the fall this otherwise full camp, pressed hard against the ocean, was empty. And we must have received a good deal on it, because for a few years running that was where my youth group went. Until the whole “demon possession” thing.

Walt Mueller was the guest speaker and in typical Saturday night retreat fashion, he had told us to go off alone to think about what we had heard that night. I wasn’t thrilled. Cape Cod Sea Camps is a series of concrete bunker type buildings hidden in the dunes and sea scrubbed forests of New England. Steps from any door you are swallowed by darkness and ocean air and sand.

After a few minutes in solitary thought, we were supposed to return to the basement entrance of the building we were meeting in. When I came back there was a single candle lit in the middle of a circle of chairs. (I need to post about youth group “special effects.”) When we all finally came back we realized that someone was missing. That’s when we started hearing the screaming. It got louder and louder and louder, slowly circling the building. Youth leaders scattered like my grandma at the opening scene of the movie American Beauty.

In the only window in the basement I saw Karen, a dog groomer by day, lean back and slap a girl in the forehead. She passed out. They drove her home. We all went and had ice cream and pretended nothing had happened.

Turns out it was a nervous breakdown. She was fine. We talk about it to this day. And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you had the field of flowers experience, but I have to believe that somewhere down the road your youth minister saved the church some money by booking your retreat in the most terrifying place in your state.

It’s Friday, and my weird sense of humor is surfacing. Another church planter who’s blog I read posted this on his blog and I almost hurt myself laughing.

WARNING - This is a beer commercial and it is guy humor. I’m not promoting the product, but I am promoting the laughter associated with it.

OK readers. If you’ve dropped by a time or two, you probably realize that I really love to laugh. And since I’ve been blogging about American Idol, it just makes perfect sense to drop this laugh bomb on you for a Friday Funny Edition. This was sent over to me by Lee (not the “Lee” in “Ken Lee”), one of the blokes from the UK that are located on my blogroll. They’ve got a great sense of humor too (as well as some really good info), so do yourself a favor and check them out later.

Now….without further ado, enjoy this version of Mariah Carey’s “Ken Lee” ????????

I posted this last week in my blog about Daylight Savings Time (which included some other helpful hints from USA Today), but some of you may have missed it. So like all good things, here’s your second chance.

By the way, you might want to keep an extra bag or two with you at all times for the next few weeks. Which is advisable since there is a buy two, get one free special for this week only!

Caution: May cause excessive hyperactivity. But if that irritates your co-workers, so much the better.

(Catheters are extra)

That annual “mess with your body-clock” day is upon us. It’s a mysterious event that happens this weekend somewhere in the night between Saturday (3/8) and Sunday (3/9), which begs the question “does it happen on Saturday or Sunday.” Somehow all the clocks that matter change by an hour except the one inside of me. While I really enjoy the ultimate benefits of longer days in the summer, it messes me up for at least a week or two on the front end.

And…each year, there are always the questions about why. You can read about that here in the history of DST (which still does nothing to readjust by body clock).

USA Today had an interesting article about the coming time-shift that you can read here. For your convenience, I am posting some of their suggestions for helping you prepare for change: Read the rest of this entry »

EDIT NOTE: If you came by the blog earlier today, the link below was bad. It has been corrected.

You just gotta love a church that will not only be brave enough to go outside the box, but that will, on occasion, stomp that sucker flat. Kudos to the guys at Lifechurch in OK. They are truly proving to be one of the most creative forces in the church world today. Plus, they have a great sense of humor to go with it. You can keep up with their thinking over on their blog, which is also listed in my Blogroll.

Enjoy and share!