Month: June 2007

  • My only iPhone post this month

    Iphone_and_jobs
    I promise to not talk too much about the iPhone. It’s got some pluses and minuses. And the simple fact is that while I would love one if it were free, I will never make enough money to justify getting one. (Unless it were for resale alone.) That said, I do know one person in my life who is desperate to get one. He will remain nameless. Wink wink.

    Here’s a funny iPhone diary that came from the New York Times. Yes, the New York Times did something funny. Write that down.

    Seth Godin has an excellent post on how Verizon screwed up the marketing of the iPhone release as well as what they should have done. I like the fact that Seth isn’t just smart enough to articulate why a marketing campaign sucks, he also takes the time to let Verizon know how they should have turned this into a positive.

    Here’s the best argument I can make against lining up to buy a $600 cell phone:
    – I already have a smartphone that I like. It’s too big, but so is the iPhone
    – I already have an iPod nano that I like. It’s not like I want my big old phone strapped around my neck when I’m moving the lawn!
    – I already have a laptop. It’s not like I could use the iPhone to do web administration or open up PhotoShop or upload via an FTP client to my web server.

    With those 3 factors, there is no sensible reason to get a phone like that.     I do predict that it will be good for Apple and it will be good for the cell phone industry. But in 12 months, AT&T will still suck because they always have.
    I also predict that the first generation iPhone will look like a massive brick in 12 months compared to the new, smaller, colored iPhone to come up Christmas 2008.

    That said, when people do buy the iPhone and it breaks. I suggest sending it to PodDrop and not Apple. You’ll get faster service and it’ll be reasonable… and it’ll get done faster.

    HT to Billy for the video

  • Light Force was fun!

    Last night was fun. The students who came were playful and engaging. We played a couple new games that went well. The new series kicked off just fine.

    Just proof that summer in Romeo can work.

  • Girlfriends Unlimited

    Gf_unlimitedI was surfing a website this morning and came across an ad that said "Need Girlfriends?" Since the ad was appearing on a popular Christian site I thought… "Uh, that’s weird enough to click on. That’s out of place!"

    Here’s what I found:

    Imagine a place where women find friendships, relaxation, and just plain fun.
                
    Okay, now imagine that place being your church!

    Girlfriends Unlimited is
    a fresh approach to women’s ministry that casts a new vision for
    reaching and connecting women — one that is filled with fun and energy.
    It adds another dimension to your current women’s ministry program — or
    guides you in launching one

    I’m not judging this ministry one way or the other. But I’ll document what I see based purely on their website.

    1. A cool marketing idea, but your one click away from just another Group "thing."
    2. This is obviously marketed to women in their 40s. (Graphically)
    3. This is selling a program, not changing a church.
    4. The first thing I thought of when the page opened was "Jesus Junk."

    Gf_unlimited1
    I’m sure it’s a lovely program. And I am sure they’ll have many happy customers. And I am positive this was just too weird for me before some coffee.

    I just can’t wait to start seeing their slogan on church signs.

  • Summer Series at Light Force

    Our summer series kicks off tomorrow night. It’s called "What were they thinking?" We’ll be looking at examples like this one and looking at some equal evidence from the Bible to see that everyone and anyone can be used by God.

    Not sure how that’s going to fit together? You’ll just have to come and find out.

  • Lappy go poo poo

    It finally broke. The little connector thing that connects my laptop to the wall busted. I tried to repair it and it ended up shattered in several large chunks. $42 dollars later at the Dell.com store and I’ll have a new one in the next 24-48 hours.

    And yes, I said this to Paul and he politely told me, "Daddy grow up."

  • QUESTION: mediocrity vs. excellence

    What’s the difference between the two?

    Isn’t the difference between the two a matter of perspective?

    What if my mediocrity was the most excellent thing someone has ever seen? Would it be excellent or mediocre?

    What if my excellent is considered mediocre by someone?

    Since I’m a perfectionist, is there ever excellence? Couldn’t I get to "most excellence?"

    What if mediocre is the best I can do?

    Isn’t striving for excellence in all areas really leading to mediocrity?

    What if I can’t be excellent at anything, is my value diminished?

    Can an excellent plan produce mediocre results? What about visa versa?

    What are synonyms of excellence and mediocrity?

    Is it arrogant to think I am excellent? Why isn’t it arrogant to say I’m mediocre?

    When I hear nebula terms like "excellence" and "mediocrity" I am left with more questions than answers.

    (more…)

  • he’s a good dog

    Kittens002
    A couple weeks ago we picked up two baby kittens.     Both 7 weeks old, Lovely and Explorer are quickly growing up. While this isn’t a big problem for us that they are growing up, they are a growing annoyance to our dog Stoney.

    While Stoney tries to nap they climb on his back, bite his tail, and nibble on his ears. They clinch their sharp claws on his neck and bite his ears when they play. Stoney is very patient to not kill them. Think about it… they weigh about 1/100th his weight! It’s the equivalent of a full grown horse to an adult. He could accidentally swipe at them and send one of them flying for miles. He could sit on one and squash it like a bug.

    Another thing that Stoney has been good about is his health. I had been buying him cheap food. I mean, how tempting is it to buy the cheap food when the dog eats more than 50 pounds of food per month. Over the winter he developed two ugly black spots on his back… each about the size of a dish towel. At first we thought he had just worn a spot bare by laying around all winter. But the more I read online about it, the more I became convinced that it was the cheap food I was buying that had caused this.

    So about 6 weeks ago we started him on a new diet of high protein "expensive" dog food and daily vitamins.
    While he has enjoyed his "treats" he has really benefited in a lot of ways. He has more energy and is his old ornery self. (Complete with leg humping!) And his black spots have progressively gotten much smaller to the point where they are barely noticeable.

    Stoney joined our family about 18 months ago. What a great addition! It’s hard to imagine our family without the big goofy yellow lab.

    Now, if only he could catch that squirrel. We can all dream.

  • Trends vs. Problems

    Numbers at YMX are down. Not terribly down, but down. One thing is true in life… when quantifiable numbers go down I always seem to take notice.

    This is why I am not panicking. This is why I don’t really even care. Less is normal right now.

    While the calendar has 4 seasons, youth ministry has 2.
    School’s in: Defined by youth workers daily/weekly routines of weekly meetings, retreats, lesson planning, etc. YMX gets more traffic when school is in for obvious reasons… they are looking for help on curriculum, issues raised, retreat programming, etc.
    School’s out: Defined by a crazy schedule of daily/weekly routines interupted with the schedule of summer. Students are out of school so they are more free. Loads of churches do VBS and week long camps, mission trips, etc. Obviously, less time spent in the office looking for answers to questions you have leads to less time spent at YMX.

    I think a lot of areas of our lives would be better if we would recognize high seasons and low seasons and expect stuff out of people accordingly.

    Herein is the difference between are real trend and a real problem. If your trend has a traditional downturn and you panic… it’s counterproductive. If you see a downturn right on schedule you should just be able to look at the trends and say, "OK, it’s down now… let’s gear up for an upswing there… when the trends takes us back up."

    Understanding the difference between a trend and a problem is the difference between good management and bad management.

  • Exclusivity in the church

    There has been a quiet, yet interesting discussion going on behind the scenes at YMX. It revolves around a very touchy issue for us: Are all people invited to join the site, or is it exclusive to a certain type of person?

    Exclusivity in anything labeled "Christian" automatically makes people nervous.     To one extreme some feel like since salvation is free and open to all, that most parts of Christianity and the church ought to be accessible to all as well. To the other extreme, some feel like there should be private areas of Christianity that allow for frank discussion away from the eyes and misunderstanding of those outside of Christianity, and in YMX’s case… outside of youth ministry altogether. (The reality is that the discussion is clearly in the middle of these extremes as no one is to one extreme or the other.

    (more…)

  • error report

    You know… YMX is a pretty complicated beast. What started as a tiny little site for my friends now reaches all sorts of people, attracts a lot of attention, and has some pretty complex coding that makes it happen.

    Yesterday I discovered a mistake. I’m in the process of trying to fix it… but the result is that the site is generating 2-3 errors for each forum post that people view. Amazingly I discovered that there were nearly 300,000 errors in the error log!

    There is a spiritual metaphor here, isn’t there? Sometimes in life we know there is a "known issue" that we can chose to ignore. It may seem small but it ends up affecting all sorts of things. James 5 talks about some people even being sick because they have a problem (in that case, unconfessed sin) that is actually making them ill. Whoa… a little thing can not only cause spiritual havoc, it can result in physical havoc too!

    James provides the answer: Just like the code on the site has to reach out for help in order to fix the
    root of the problem, James tells us that if we want to get better… we need to confess that sin in order to move on.