The fourth week in the series was my personal favorite. I began the sermon sitting on the bandstand, singing the classic pop song by Gemini, "Feelings, whoa-oh-oh, feelings . . ." After I sang the song, I didn't explain why I sang it. People didn't know whether to laugh or to take me seriously, as if I were really singing a special number. After the song, I just stood up, as if this performance was perfectly normal, and started reading the story about Jesus' encounter with a prostitute in John 4. I went from singing "Feelings" to Jesus talking to a prostitute about worshiping God in "spirit and in truth."

What's that got to do with feelings? Well, I brought the talk around to the misconceptions that many have about worship. We cannot focus on the spirit to the exclusion of the truth (that's overemotionalism). And, conversely, when we focus only on the truth and ignore the spirit, we step over the line into legalism. Spirit and truth are interconnected and interdependent.

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The fifth week, in a message on the names of God, I began by describing a common scenario where you see someone you recognize at a party, but can't remember their name. And to your horror, they come over to you as you are chatting with a group of friends. "You have two choices during the awkward moment when this person is expecting to be introduced to your friends," I told the audience. "One, hope they take the initiative and introduce themselves first, or two, tell them the truth — you are an idiot and can't remember their name."

This led to the idea that God introduces Himself to us in the Bible with various names that describe His relationship with us. I won't go into each name here, but the names of God correspond with a way in which He provides for us, protects us, saves us, and leads us. Later in the message I said, "You may be able to introduce God — sure, you know what His name is — but can He introduce you? Does He know you as a friend?"

Finally, in the concluding session of this series, I did something I've never done before. I came out on stage totally drenched. I had just been dunked backstage and came out drying my sopping wet hair with a beach towel. Water was dripping on stage as I began to recount several events in the New Testament. I told of John 1:29 where John the Baptist sees Jesus in the distance and shouts, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" I talked about the day of Pentecost when three thousand people became believers. I mentioned Philip's encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch and how this man came to faith. And then I talked about Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10 and the spreading of the gospel to the Gentiles.

I ran through all of this very quickly in the introduction, and then I said: "What do these things have in common: Starbucks coffee, a jet ski, a catfish, a lily pad, a rose, and a Christian? The answer is, for each of them to realize their full potential, you have to “just add water."