The Oscars were on tonight, so I figured I would get a little running commentary going, to get back into shape for when American Idol kicks off with the top 24 this week.

James Franco and Anne Hathaway get off to a great start with the film parodies as they enter the dream within a dream of Alec Baldwin. You can watch it below.

Kirk Douglas gets a standing ovation. And then it gets awkward. Makes me long for the clarity of Dick Clark.

Anne Hathaway sings a song about Hugh Jackman. Then James Franco enters as Marilyn Monroe. Weird. Not funny, as far as I could tell.

Fast forwarded through a ton of other stuff. The sound, the costumes, the science awards.

Kevin Spacey sings for a while and then says "Good Evening, I'm George Clooney."

I think Randy Newman is running out of ways to adjust and repackage the same three chords...

Funny bit involving auto-tune re-worked into movies, and the "year of the musicals" - My favorite fake song was "he doesn't own a shirt" from Twilight... check it out below...

Standing ovation for Billy Crystal - doesn't bode well for how James and Anne are doing... I like that they gave him some time to monologue, and the Bob Hope story was great.

The Bob Hope effect attempt of having him introduce Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, however, not so much...

Can Purple Rain get nominated again? Maybe that could be Randy's fifth...

Celine sings Charlie.

Kathryn Bigalow just swallowed up Hilary Swank. And King's Speech just shut down the Social Network. A best director usually leads to best picture...

Star Wars fans are vindicated as Queen Amidala wins Best Actress!

Colin Firth wins - he says a lot and I can't understand a word. Is it over yet?

And yet another unnecessary costume change for Anne Hathaway...

Spielberg is out there to announce best picture. Would love for Social Network to win, but it's gonna go to King's Speech I'm afraid. Don't get me wrong, it's a great movie. I just wish Social Network would win.

But it didn't. Oscar loves itself some British period pieces...
Hope you enjoyed the blogging! See you on Tuesday after American Idol!

Happy Valentine's Day from Stu! (Stu is a love coach who may be the younger brother of Cupid - but don't call Stu by his full first name...!)

Hope you're having a great day!

If you are with a church who would love to show these ridiculous videos at your church, you can purchase them right here!

In the meantime, enjoy this playlist of some of Stu's greatest moments!

Wow.

So as I've mentioned before, I am drawn to and have been enjoying the new judges on American Idol - and apparently, so has the general listening public, as sales for Aerosmith music have gone through the roof since he began appearing on the show. (both CD sales and digital downloads...)

And to think that his bandmates were critical of the move!

You can read more about that here. No word yet on how appearing on AI has had an impact on sales for JLo...She should probably start singing some of her hits on the air too...!

Last week we crafted a couple of moments in our weekend service that seemed to work very well. We were pondering the ups and downs of a spiritual journey, and used our worship leaders at each campus to do a mini-sketch of sorts.

I wrote the script, and then set out to score it. I found some very cool ethereal music, and matched it up nicely with the text. If you want to follow my train of thought during this creative experiment, then watch the video below before reading more of my post...

If you want the full effect of the weekend service - you can watch the videocast here. Our teaching then explored the back and forth nature of spirituality - and how it isn’t about just what we get, it’s about what we give, and the paradox that when we give all, that’s when we get the most.

So we had planned to then move from the teaching into a "silent" communion time, where the simple instructions of taking the elements would be on the screen, and the meditation would be simple and quiet.

But then the bookend showed up in our creative brainstorm. Since we had already been using the screen as thoughts of someone, Tim Sutherland, our teaching team guru, suggested that the communion meditation be a creative interpretation of how Jesus might have encouraged us during communion.

And as I was working on that video, it became clear that rather than a silent communion experience, that we should bookend our moments with the same music. And so, what you see below is the net result of those brainstorms coming together...

There is a lot of power in bookends. You see them all the time - It's how the best beginnings get through the middles and to the best ends.

It really seemed to work at Community this weekend. I'm grateful to our team for its collaborative spirit and desire to tell the best story in the best of possible ways.