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had some fun with this candidate match thing via usa today. it is a little more thorough than the last one i took. what is cool is that you can scroll over the color coded issues and see what the particular candidates stance actually is. i noticed i didn't do the 'importance' grading, which i guess would change my results, but again, i have a series of dropped out democrats. so what is a guy to do for super tuesday? tip to thunder
look what the mail brought me today. this was not the primary book i was looking for, but i got sucked into the free shipping deal that amazon gives you. so, figuring i would pick up this book at some point i thought i would go ahead and take the plunge. the actual book i was looking for came in the mail as well, but it has become an unintentional surprise for erin. so you will have to wait to hear what that one is.
funny was that we had some conversation about jim & sojourners yesterday at the cohort. we mentioned his recent appearance on the daily show. a few things from that conversation, don't try to be the funny man on the daily show, stick to your message, answer the question you want to answer not the one asked. that is how you play the game. &:~)
a pretty interesting, very informal interview by robert scoble of rick warren at davos or world economic forum. i didn't know to smile or cringe at the 'you can't have catechism without tech' quote.. kinda corny and i don't think i would be caught dead saying that myself. the ted talk he gave and the slamming rebuttal are worth seeing as well. tip to clif for the davos vid
having a little fun with the kids. threw together this promo video for our ski trip this evening on a whim. 1 minute that i hope will give you a laugh or two.
fun. this group of folks has done up some pictures in the nature of google earth shots, but they go back to biblical times. this one is the parting of the red sea. tip to john
i picked up my copy of "the wesley project" by carl thomas gladstone. carl i got to know at the umerging back in kansas city and the emergingumc last fall down here in nashville. before that i knew of some of the work he was doing that was leading up to this project.
simply put, he was taking wesleyan hymns & themes and blending them into new music stylings. it isn't your generic praise & worship set, check it out on itunes. he doesn't have it on hard copy cd as of yet.
hans rosling in his 2007 ted talk presentation on new insights into poverty.
i hear quite a few horror stories from parents and teachers about a number of churches in our area that market to kids during school hours. to these folks, these specific churches get some sort of preferential treatment. i don't get too bent out of shape about it myself, but when you have a school call a general assembly to promote a student event at a church, that is just bad form.
when I asked a Powell High administrator this morning whether the Grace Baptist event underway is of a more evangelical and/or religious nature, he replied "Oh, it is."
Given that confirmation, I asked the administrator why this invitation from Grace Baptist was not extended through some before or after school channel, rather than through a general assembly during school hours. He indicated that it was because "nobody would come." He added that the general assembly was approved by school system personnel.
i get that some people feel they work on behalf of higher power and the separation of church and state is something to subvert for your greater good. but when i don't believe your leader or mine ever said anything of breaking the law, or manipulating the law, to spread my word. if you don't think your gospel message is good enough that youth would not invite their friends in the first place then think of a new way to spread your message.
besides, a motivation bait and switch to salvation isn't going to help anybody. ugh!
update: the folks at nashvilleistalking have picked up the debate talk & this post. one thing i shared in comments there was a quote of tony campolo, "democracy is not where the majority rules, but where the minority is safe."
still more on the slideshare exploration. this one is based off lifeway research on young adult (18-22yrs) dropout from church.
i have been sorting through slideshare tonight looking for some new stuff to add to this workshop i'll be doing at warmth in winter in two weeks. this one was based on pew research, it isn't downloadable like other slide presentations, but i will most likely be linking it at some level.
saturday evening erin & spent our life savings to get out and watch a movie in a theater. something we never do. we had a choice of three movies depending on when we arrived. due to the line at the theater we ended up watching juno. we knew very little about the movie, teen pregnancy, many people liked it, a lot of people thought it would promote teen pregnancy, the writer of the movie was a former stripper, beyond that we were clueless.
to the point, we loved the movie. somewhat fantasy in that i have never met any teenager that talks in the manner that all the teens do, but that is just about every teenager in every movie, so pass over that quickly. the character development is great, people are as human as you would expect them to be & there were a bunch of subtle funny moments to laugh at.. we liked it.
juno has also given us some talking spots as a family unit of what we appreciated about the film. this could be spoiler material, but if you haven't seen the movie by now i am assuming you probably won't.. we are usually the last people to watch any movie.
there was a lot of buzz saying that juno would promote teen pregnancy because it is all sunny or happy. we never got that impression, more of a moving through life with best intentions.
this is so me! and i know this is soooo youth ministry. i have become better at throwing away paperwork, but it still pulls me back in. so i had to throw this out. also wanted to highlight a new series by tim schmoyer on surviving in youth work at church. tip to john (where the cartoon showed up first in the reader) thanks to dave for all his great work
it is monday, my day off.. so some links i am finding in the blogosphere
the folks at fresh expressions is handing out their mission shaped course series for free. complete with flyers, brochures, leaders notes, powerpoints and video it is a great treat. not sure how or if it will be something i will implement at church, but i will be checking it out as they release the future weeks. download the intro week.
their most recent update shared messy church, which just feels like such an enjoyable place.
funny little mix up of a clinton campaign stop and our infamous tom cruise scientology rant. tip brittney
today i learned of "hide and go poop" and that mount juliet high school has a pretty cool ongoing game. i laughed hysterically hearing about it. this is the official rules video for those interested in getting a game going themselves. the next youth ministries game? maybe..
so i have this issue. some part of the electrical has gone out in my car. i can't get my car to fail or pass inspection because. so i take it to the service department where it is under warranty. the diagnosis.. "this is some computer thing that you will need to take to the dealer to get fixed."
beautiful! thus goes my day
further adding to my project 365
one of my parents tipped me off to this site "God in music city." then i noticed that sam had linked to an article in the tennessean about it.
i am hoping to make one or two of the dates in the coming 'semester.' i would like to catch up with one of the folks involved as it seems their collaborative is similar to what we are starting with our artistic communities.
dg tipped me off to this video, which is another amusing parody of the mac ads. i like the sacred cow mock. certainly in our church structures, no matter the size or grouping, we have sacred cows..
the site for the "change without compromise" conference is kinda cool. it has a neat little fun intro video series that is worth checking out.
todd rhoades did an interview with the pastor about the "sacred art of cow-tipping" last year in conjunction with the conference last year.
fun nothing but nets promotion video
these are some great links for those of us who are confused by the tom cruise scientology video stuff and wish to be enlightened. note: it will not do anything to curb how disturbing the video is.
linkage via revland
tonight we started "eikon" an arts initiative within & outside our youth community. eikon, we hope, will become small communities of artisans that help us to practice a medium as well as frame our art as spiritual practice. tonight we started our photography community with around 20 youth & adults. i was pretty stoked for the number, but mostly i was stoked for the people that showed interest. i thought i'd share some of the why behind "eikon" since it was apparently asked about around the gbod.
To be an Eikon means, first of all, to be in union with God as Eikons; second, it means to be in communion with other Eikons; and third, it means to participate with God in his creating, his ruling, his speaking, his naming, his ordering, his variety and beauty, his location, his partnering, and his resting, and to oblige God in his obligating of us. Thus, an Eikon is God-oriented, self-oriented, other-oriented, and cosmos-oriented. To be an Eikon is to be a missional being - one designed to love God, self, and others and to represent God by participating in God's rule in this world.
-a Community Called Atonement, by Scot McKnight
i thought this did a pretty good job of defining some group identity
i am pretty stoked to see what God does with this grouping
darren rowse @ problogger has an thorough piece on how to use twitter to benefit your blogging. me, i've just started using twitter with frequency. at times i have used it to link to blog posts.. my stats say, no one cares to hit the blog from twitter links... so what does darren have to say?
jim wallis was on the daily show last night. as i am not the political talking Christian i would love to have a pocket sized jim wallis that i could pull out when, inevitably, people get into the religion / politics conversation.
how cool. next level church has started putting shot glasses with the church logo & invite message in bars around their area. i thought it was odd seeing adverts for worship services on those bar bathroom adverts, but i got used to them. so i have to assume that i'd get used to doing my jack daniel's shot with a church name on it. now if the church people decide to show up at the bar to help with my body shots i might have to pass. &:~D
i have heard God speak to me.. "loose weight chubby!" well, maybe not God, but in a funny turn of events erin & the folks at the family biz and marko and folks at youth specialties are putting together a biggest looser contest.
i've been wanting to loose weight for a year or two now, just wasn't too willing to do the work to loose weight. i am the heaviest i have ever been which is not a wonderful stat to claim. i haven't been too concerned as i have never been a uber thin person. for years i never weighed myself or had a scale to find out. but i have started to grow a little too round for my climbing harness, which can get dangerous for climbing.
so i am going to shop some detox methods & diets for the next week. give one of them a shot. i'll take advantage of that gym membership. all this to see if i can be the biggest all american youth worker looser. &:~)
oh, the image is the screen capture from the ys update highlighting the biggest loser campaign. ironic that is blonde brownie day to go along with loosing weight.
buddy dixon asks what would happen if we fasted from public worship.. would we give up on our obsession with numbers?
“You mean you go to church every Sunday?” The assumption being that commitment to Christianity involves first, foremost and (this is my thesis) simply the attendance of a new meeting – “church” on Sunday morning.
Here, “Christianity” is reduced to yet another extra-curricular activity. It is like community league soccer, gymnastics or guitar lessons.
...
Think about the discipline of fasting. Classically, it involves giving up something, good, healthy and indispensable for life – food – for a certain amount of time in order to connect to God in a new way. A fast is about abstaining from the necessary to reconnect to the eternal. A fast shakes up the fast-er , often providing vital re-orientation and spiritual clarity.
it is okay, you can be jealous of me. i'm uploading adobe creative suite 3 tonight. i am pretty stoked.
it is actually a funny story. i have been using an old version of photoshop and all the other adobe apps on my old ibook. which, as the ibook got older, it seemed to take longer and longer to make stuff. erin & i had planned on getting creative suite for the both of us through the family biz, but she was contemplating going pc. she just couldn't find a contact manager that she liked for mac. that was until the one she was using did an upgrade which met all her needs. she decided to stay mac.. the family was happy with that. she didn't however tell me that she went and order the cs3 cds. so i went on taking forever making graphics, posters, and web stuff with the old computer. till i went on a complaining rant one day last week and she said "well i have those cs3 cds at the office." ... (imagine my dumbfounded stare).. "uh.. and you never thought to bring those suckers home?" "i didn't think you wanted them." .. (continue with stare) "bring those suckers home!" so she did and i am happy.
the youth and i spent the day green. playing in front of a green screen. this wasn't my normal youth community. this was my communications committee for our upcoming event "warmth in winter." we do the videos throughout the event. this year's theme is "eye of the storm" so our charge was to do a bunch of weather related & news room stuff. luckily one of our kids has an unusual amount of filming equipment, green screen, lights, boom mic, all that.
now we will have to get to work on the finished product.
i've added this pic to my project 365 which i have now updated as far as monday. more pictures of this day on our youth flickr site.
as a rule, i try and find some videos to show that relate to our theme. it is hard to get the kids to make one video each week, so i use our handy friends at youtube. plus, someone has already done it, why create the wheel. i liked this video, but for added spice i am throwing in this one.
if you have had a chance to watch this tom cruise scientology video that keeps getting taken down by youtube then you will love this parody by craig ferguson. i thought this was pretty darn funny. partly because if tom did this same stuff i would have look at the video in exactly the same manner. "huh"
if you have not had a chance to see the video you can try downloading this file (tcsvideo.flv).
sometime last week "hit the back button to move fwd" passed 100,000 visitors. that may seem lame to you, but it's pretty cool to me. it helps me know that more than just my wife & mom read my insanity. &:~)
here's to the next 100k over another 3 years.. &:~(
oh why not. some links for no apparent reason
update: i have become a caption contest
classic! revmom has too much time on her hands today. she's doing her ministry of assimilation which john started.. nothing good comes of stuff that john starts. i'd say she is much better with the photoshop than my youth community.
i guess after going emo it is easier to assimilate.
this afternoon i am meeting up with my district superintendent and a group of other eclectic pastors, many i call friends. we were 'required' to be part of this group as we are teaching our ds about progressive ministry anythings. a learning group of sorts. however, when i said sure to the group (in honesty, i am laity and i don't see myself being required by my ds to do anything) i thought we'd be talking culture, technology, mission, monasticism, worship, etc... but instead we have been required to read this book together.. and we have to write a one page paper on a required chapter (mine is chapter 9). this is our 2nd meeting of this gathering and i am confused to know what to expect or think. i don't even know if i will enjoy it it.. though i probably will enjoy somewhat if some of my buddies are there. i even like our ds, he's a dreamer and i can appreciate that. might even be an ambitious slacker.
interesting.. a map showing the average ages people are loosing their virginity via furfy. tip ypulse. i found it somewhat interesting to see the youngest and oldest regions. my explanations circled around cultural norms of marriage to life stage milestones, like driving ages.. hmmm
i would have thought there to be younger ages. i suppose there is a decent population averaging out those crazy cases you hear about on news sources or jerry springer.
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