Got Soul

I think maybe I should do the ol' Soul Survivor wrap up. Ever since my digital camera packed it in, things as photogenic as Soul aren't nearly as exciting to blog about.

Actually, I wouldn't really call Soul photogenic, except when the mist rolls in every night. That's when things look good, and you wish for your shutter skills and tools.

I think I'll just talk about the whole week in one big chunk, I can't be bothered trying to put things together in any ordered fashion.

The thing everyone has been asking me is "How'd Donny go?" So I guess I should debrief on the Donny experience.

Doing the show was lots of fun. My favourite time is always interviewing the guests. Especially when things go well. I think the interviews are where the magic comes out or it's the place where you crash and burn. But it feels good when Donny and the guest are bantering, the absurdities are coming out, and the audience is enjoying it.

Or there are times when everything just falls flat and you can't find anyway out. You're struggling to find the funnies, and the interest. You feel like the whole audience is just waiting for something to happen, but you've got nothing. That's tough. But that's the adrenaline of it I guess. Knowing you're out on stage in front of hundreds of people, no script, very little plan, and the only thing between you and boredom is the wits of you and the guest. Maybe it's like jumping out of a plane with no parachute hoping you'll grow wings.

Anyway, this year was a pretty good year for guests. Maaike from Holland was the find of the conference. She was a great guest, she gave as good as she got. She made Donny work hard for the audience. She really kept me on my toes. It was good fun.

Mike was fun as usual though I don't think it was our best year. Ben played well. He's a good sport.

The rest of the show was ok. Tabitha was quite tense this year. I think I found the line you can't cross with politically incorrect humour at Soul. While it's hard to know exactly what's going on from the stage, most nights the video would run and you could feel most people thinking "Is this actually funny? Should I be laughing at that?" I could be wrong, but I don't feel like people came with Tabitha as much this year.

I didn't hear any complaints though. Maybe they're yet to come.

Our live satellite feed segment was kinda fun, though I feel like we needed to spend more time on it. It wasn't as obvious as it should have been. Oh well. It wasn't bad, it just could have been a lot better.

The games were fun as usual. Some were more fun than others, but I do like to make a mess.

I generally end every year wondering what Donny actually does for the conference. The show rarely makes any important commentary (except perhaps in the videos), it really is mostly foolery. But I figured this year my job is to get people in the tent before the main meeting, and that happens, so I guess I'll count the year as a success.

On the rest of Soul...

I really did enjoy eating this year. Especially having bacon and egg muffins from the Kiosk in the mornings.

I didn't find much that was world changing this year. I might be more to do with where I'm at, rather than Soul. I did get challenged to keep working in faith to see God do stuff. It's easy to only pray prayers that are safe to pray. Prayers that you'll never know if they were answered or not. But I want to trust God in how I pray. I want to pray so I can see when God answers. I don't want to just believe God answers, I want to see God's answers. (There's the sermon line right there.)

I really enjoyed the week with my youth group. As usual that was the highlight of the week. They're much fun to spend time with. Perhaps because they're just as happy to be stupid as I am. And I think because they're so much more willing to be changed by God. To change an adult you have years of defenses and habits to break through. To change a teenager, God normally has a much more willing heart to work with.

I did like doing my seminar. I think it went pretty good. I didn't feel like it was earth-shattering, world changing stuff. But I guess I was trying to inspire people in the everyday, not put them on eagles wings. And that's God's job anyway.

And that's where I'll leave it.

Except perhaps to say, I did really like sleeping in my bed these past three nights.