As much as I talk about her, I just don’t seem to mention her enough. My wife, Kara, is… well… amazing. I met her back January 1998. I was a freshman at Southwestern Assembly of God university, studying to be an "preacher-boy", and she was a sophmore with a great hreat for the mission field.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw her… The very first thought that came to my mind was "Wow… She looks like one of those chics that works at Bath & Body Works!" I think it was the way she looked… she just looked like she smelled good (and she did). We’ve been married almost 8 years now, and it gets better every year… she amazes me.

Yesterday we went outside to let the girls ride their bikes, and as I sat there eating my dinner Kara turned and started snapping photos of me. After a quick sprint for my hat I decided to give in and "pose" for her. I thought this was a great pic… especially with my "other" baby sitting just behind me

This weekend, Kara, the kids, and I enjoyed some much needed family time away from Northwest Arkansas. We were in a big city and I thought “Hey- we ought to be able to find a dozen churches that we would really like.” With the help of a friend we narrowed this search down to 3 churches. I chose the one I saw on my way to Starbucks Saturday night because it was very visible and the architecture was fabulous… and because someone once told me it was very similar to the church where I am on staff.

Sunday morning came and I awoke with great enthusiasm. I was ready to be a Christian this sunday morning, as opposed to the “professional Christian” as my buddy Scotty Priest would put it. Now, you should now that I’m a sucker for going to churches as often as I can to gain insight from other like-minded churches. I do the whole “take every piece of literature you can find” and I pay close attention to the “personal touch factor” as well. I think this sort of thing is good to do from time to time.

Along with “borrowing” literature, I also take pictures. For instance, I wanted to snap a photo of the large sign displayed on the front of their church in big metal letters…. it was very nice… so I thought “Man I bet they have some cool stuff inside too”, so I brought my camera bag in with me. When I entered I was greeted by many friendly people wearing identical vests. Nice touch. As I made my way through the “foyer” I found a sizable bookstore that sold coffee. I also saw a children’s play area that would have any toddler begging their parents to “bring them back to church”. Now this entire time I saw many things that I wanted to photograph to show our staff team, but out of respect, I thought I would wait until after service to do so.

We checked our children in with no issues. In fact, the lady at the front was very helpful and she walked along side of us while we went to 3 different to classes to drop the girls off. Now, at this point it is 8:50 a.m. and I am enjoying my Sunday morning. At 8:51 it went downhill- quickly.

Kara and I made our way into the Sanctuary which was very nice and “roomy”. We were about 30 feet into the worship center when I was stopped by a man with an earpiece and radio. The conversation went something like this:

Stern Voiced Man: “Excuse me… What’s in the bag?”
Me, visitor: “oh…. it’s My camera and laptop. I’m from FBC Springdale, and we’re building a new campus and I thought I would take some photos for everyone to see”
Stern Voiced Man: You can’t take pictures during the service”
Me, visitor: “Oh- I understand- I was going to wait until after the service.”
Stern Voiced Man: “Well you can’t bring that bag in here at all”
Me, visitor: “Ok….”
Stern Voiced Man: “Hold on… ”

Now at this point the man starts calling for someone on his radio… all the while drawing stares from the hundreds of people already seated in the worship center.

Stern Voiced Man: “Yeah- we have a guy from FBC Springdale here with a camera…”
Me Visitor: “Please tell him that I will not take them during service.
Stern Voiced Man, Raising his finger to my face and now speaking in a forceful voice: “It don’t matter sir!”
Me, Visitor: “well.. I was just saying‚Äì”
Stern Voiced Man: “Ok- I’m going to have to ask you to step outside…
Me, visitor: “Ok - that’s fine”

We are now escorted out of the sanctuary and are brought before 3 men who are all hanging out near some couches. They talk about me and my bag in front of us like we’re not there, never even saying “hello” or “Hey, I’m sorry about this.” Finally after the guy in charge says “He’s going to have to take it to his car ” I put my hands in the air and say “Hey - don’t worry about it… I’ll take it back outside… no big deal.”

Now at this point I just want to leave, and if I had been a “real” visitor, I probably would have. But not wanting to turn my anger to God for man’s mistake, I decided to send Kara in to find us some seats. She was very embarrassed at this point, but handled herself well and hurried back in. After walking all the way to the back of the parking lot and putting my camera (which apparently looked like a bomb in the hands of a… well… I won’t even go there…) I run back in and barely get in under the 9:00 mark. Little did I know just how pivotal 9:00 was to these people. I have to be honest here and say that I did not enjoy worship at all. I couldn’t even focus on God… man- did I feel like stupid. Here I am on a gorgeous Sunday morning with my bride at my side, but I feel like I have been profiled or something.

Now- let me stop here and say that what I am sharing here is not what I believe to be the intent of this body of believers… it is simply what my experience was, and how that experience made me, the visitor, feel. I’m also not posting this to be a finger pointer or to rag on a church, which is why I have done all I can to disguise the identity of the church. It is simply my intention to do what I set out to do early this Sunday morning: To learn from another church.

Well after finally settling down a bit, I realized my wife was pointing at her bulletin. She was shaking her head in disbelief. These are the words that appear on their worship guide: “WORSHIP CENTER POLICY: [The Church] has adopted a no re-entry policy for those with restless children, late arrivals, or anyone that must leave the service during the message…”

Is it me, or is this church just way to paranoid? Listen folks… I understand that some measures need to be taken to ensure our safety, but to slam the door on a visitor because you don’t like the size of his satchel… it’s just not Christ-like. Yesterday I was publicly humiliated. My wife was humiliated. I was treated the way I have come to expect to be treated at LAX, but never in a million years did I expect to be treated in such an unfriendly manner at a church. Never in a million years would I ever want my church to do the same. Never in a million years would I ever think of visiting this church again.

The new Nikon D200 arrived home to the Armas household tonight, and man- are we pleased. After charging the battery for about an hour I popped in the 1Gig card and filled it up within 3 minutes. Here are a few shots of the girls I snapped. The original raw files came out just over 15mb, so needless to say, the quality is amazing.

It never ceases to amaze me how much the internet and technology have revolutionized the way we live. Last month, The internet turned 15 Years old, and it’s absoutely crazy to sit back and look at that time line. I would post it here, but I don’t have it, nor do I know what that timeline is… I just thought it sounded cool.

This morning, as Malachi and I ran to the car it began to rain. As I drove away from the house I relized the dark low clouds overhead. I tought… “Man- I might want to go back.” But after a few minutes on the phone with Kara I noticed it was just going to be a strong thunder storm, so we went on. As I walked into my office my daughter called me.

“Daddy?”
“Yes Baby?”
“Is it raining over there?”
“Yes baby- it is. Are you ok?”
“Yes Daddy. I’m brave.”
“That’s my girl!”

Well- I knew that although my baby girl wanted to be brave she was scared. So I asked her to pass her mom over to me. After a brief conversation and 30 seconds of waiting my daughter appeared on my computer screen… big blue eyes and all. We both smiled… yada yada yada… it was so cool! I’ve done this hundreds of times before, but today was the coolest. My daughters are home with mom and they’re scared because Daddy’s not there to protect them. A phone call would be great… but iChat (on Macs I might add) is just way better!

Anyway- below is a screen cap of my daughter Sara and our iChat confrence call… so stinking cool!