I am the KING of the local morning radio contest. Over the past 5 or 6 years I must have won 8 or 9 times and I have only lost once. So here's how it works (for all you non-local people).

They have this segment called Her vs. Him, Mark vs. Kim (names of the morning DJs). Each morning they ask for callers to participate in a game against the other sex. The first female caller to get through works with Kim while the first male caller to get through works with Mark (Mark is MUCH more intelligent BTW). There are three different types of games that they play, which rotate throughout the week.

The first is a version of the game Taboo where Mark creates a list of ten items that Kim has to explain to the female contestant and vice versa. This is the most hit or miss type of game because there are usually "themes" to the lists and if you either don't catch on to the theme or have no connection to the theme (Harry Potter for example), you are basically screwed.

The second is a version of the game Buzz Word where the third DJ (Frank) creates two lists of words. Each list has one word in common (the Buzz word). For example, if the Buzz word is LION, the clues are things like "Character in the Wizard of Oz (Cowardly Lion)" or "Sang Endless Love with Diana Ross (Lionel Richie)." Mark works with the male contestant and Kim the female. The team to get the most corect, wins.

The third type of game is a straight up trivia game. Each DJ comes up with 7 questions and asks them to both contestants. The contestant to shout out their name first and correctly answer the question gets a point. Oftentimes a DJ will have a theme to their questions (local celebrities, comic strips, etc.).

My favorite game to play is trivia followed closely by Buzz word. I despise the "Taboo" type game because sometimes the list for the guys is so much harder than the list for the girls (and vice versa). It is also the only game type in which I was defeated. My list contained words like "Greek Shipping Tycoon" while the female contestant's list was all about New Years Eve and had things like "Times Square, Dick Clark, Ball Drop, etc." This also took place on January 2nd so naturally I got stomped.

These morning competitions are great because you don't have to be the 10th, or 100th caller (which is totally luck). They just take the first guy and girl to get through. So if you have your phone ready and push dial as soon as they ask for contestants it is pretty easy to get through. Because you can only play every few months you really have to make sure they are giving away good prizes and not waste your "eligibility" on stupid prizes.

Luckily, I heard on Monday that the prizes were very good. So I called on Tuesday, Wednesday, and finally got through on Thursday. I had to play the "Taboo" game but got 9/10 words on the list and won by a landslide.

So now, courtesy of Star 102.1 I won the following.

- $50 gift certificate to a local jazz club/restaraunt
- Haircut/Style/Shampoo to the Tennessee School of Beauty (not sure I feel comfortable letting trainees cut my hair)
- 4 tickets to WWE Smackdown (wrestling)
- 2 tickets to see the Goo Goo Dolls at the historic Tennessee Theater

I'm very psyched. I don't get to go to many concerts and the Goo Goo Dolls certainly bring back memories of high school.

So tell me, has anyone else been very successful in winning radio contests? What is the coolest thing you have won?

In the words of Randy Jackson, "if you can sing, it doesn't matter what you sing." A "bad" song sung Amazingly!

We may as well face it: the whole level of spirituality among us is low. We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone... We have imitated the world, sought popular favor, manufactured delights to substitute for the Joy of the Lord and produced a cheap and synthetic power to substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost. -----A.W. Tozer

Tomorrow I am beginning to teach our Young Adult class. While I am in no way qualified to do so, I am going to lead our group in a discussion of the Holy Spirit. To assist in our study we are going to be using Francis Chan's newest book, Forgotten God: Reversing our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit

I have really enjoyed reading it and I look forward to getting other's thoughts on it. Please pray that God will give me/us the wisdom to better understand how The Spirit works and moves in our lives. I hope everyone has a great day of encouragement tomorrow!