A few days ago, I mentioned a clearance on VHS and audiocassettes of Joel's packaged message series. At $2 a clip, it was pretty difficult to leave that section of the bookstore unattended to. I initially figured that it might be a long while before I broke down and either dragged my tape player over to the computer at home ... or had enough free time alone at the office to drop a tape in and listen while I worked. Well, that was before I went through about three of the five series in a matter of days. So last weekend, I decided to drop a few more bucks down on some of the older material. Good thing, too. Among the pleasant discoveries was that the Grand Opening DVD had been included. I've been long overdue in picking that up. Considering that it captures my own initial visit to Lakewood, I figure I owe it to myself to have it on record. But I also managed to download the episode of Praise the Lord that was recorded at the Grand Opening on Sunday. The Crouches even manage to interview Nancy Pelosi and Israel Houghton afterwards. But still ... a DVD is a DVD. One pleasant discovery that I noticed on the DVD that I may just not have caught while watching the PTL episode was a performance done by Dakri Brown and the ensemble. It's a great clip of Jemine Leigh as well as some that are still familiar faces during praise & worship.

The other series I managed to pick up on audio tape are as follows:
» The Power of Words
» Living a Life of Peace
» Living an Abundant Life
» Living Stress Free

If they keep that shelf loaded up over the next week or two, I may have to eventually drag a list of my complete inventory to fill in some blanks.

I took one to the office while I slaved away on a lazy weekend. What I think makes them so relatively easy to listen to in the background is that so many of the older sermons found their way into Joel's book. Having gone through the devotional version several times over, the audio doesn't seem to require as much attentiveness on my part.

The ironic part of all this is that I'd once thought to get the audio version of Joel's book. Upon listening to a sample clip of it, however, I concluded that the style of delivery on the audiobook was just too stale for me to listen to. Catching many of the same points in the sermon series, however, strikes me as a far better means of delivery.

One other sidenote while I'm on this topic. From time to time, the mail at my apartment is delivered to the wrong apartment number within my complex. So from time to time, I get someting incredibly late. Turns out one of those late deliveries was a decent-sized package from Lakewood. Unable to imagine what it could possibly be, I ripped through it first. Seems it was a nice thank you letter, apparently for folks who had volunteered throughout the church ... and one nice gift to go along with it. The gift? Well, more like The Gift ... as in the Christmas CD with Lakewood's choir & band along with the Houston Symphony. Now, I've already had my copy of that CD and not complained one iota about the bargain it represents to me. And the online bookstore is selling them for a mere $5 each. But since I've got one extra copy on my hands, I figure I'll make The Gift someone else's gift in order to spread the blessing a little further. Want a free copy? (Yes, I'm even shipping on my own dime) Drop me an email and I'll pick at random from whoever emails me before Friday. Did I mention there's a really great Aimee Beard song on there?