Month: August 2007

  • CSR: Peppers

    Csr_great
    Location:
    In the Fiddler’s Cove shopping center on Van Dyke and 33 Mile Road. Peppers was one of the most anticipated store openings we’ve seen in the 4+ years we’ve lived in Romeo.

    Description:
    Romeo is short on variety for dining out. There are plenty of places that offer the same types of food. So when Peppers came to Romeo, there was a lot of excitement that we were getting a decent Mexican restaurant. (Bear in mind that most Romeo people think Taco Bell is an acceptable Mexican-style food.) Inside is a well decorated and clean restaurant. The food on the menu is… Mexican! One thing that I love about Peppers is their $5 lunch specials. And while Peppers got a bad rap for poor food when they first opened it has consistently gotten better. While I wouldn’t label it "true, authentic" the food there is pretty good. Staples like tacos and burritos, chips and salsa.

    Service:
    I’m a repeat customer as we go about once per week for lunch. In the process we’ve gotten to know most of the wait staff. They are always friendly and thoughtful. (Most be those big tips I give!) They are always quick witted and most important for a lunch crowd… they are fast.

    Cost:
    A typical lunch stop at Peppers cost me about $8 with a drink and chip/salsa. (One of the few places that charges for chips. There’s are homemade and worth getting.) I’ve always been surprised that more people don’t go there after church as their lunch specials are featured on Sunday as well. All-in-all, it’s a very reasonably priced local eatery.

    Rating:
    Decent food at a good price with fast, fun service. While not perfect, they are definitely changing my first opinion of Peppers. (When they opened we spent an hour before we got our food and the food was bad.) There is a reason Peppers is high on my list, that’s why I’m labeling it "Great."

  • Tell ‘Em God’s Gonna Cut You Down

    This isn’t brand new, but it is powerful. I know from a musician standpoint the celebrities and musicians involved likely did this as a tribute video. But considering the words and the people involved…. it’s powerful. The music if obviously from the late Johnny Cash.

    Who do you recognize? You may have to watch it twice to place all the faces.
    ht to Think Christian

  • Big Storms Rumbling Through

    Tonight a big thunderstorm blew through the Detroit area. While I’m happy to report that Romeo wasn’t hit too hard, (from what I’ve seen) some communities to the west of us were hit hard. A town about 25 miles west of us, Fenton, has some heavy damage.

    As the Detroit area seems to flood easily… it’s been a messy night.

  • I Work at Kroger

    This has a bit of a slow start… but it is well worth the wait. This young man is involved in student ministry at nearby Woodside.

  • Site issues at YMX

    From a site development perspective, we’ve had a couple very stable years at YMX. That seems to be unraveling right now because two major groups of people aren’t getting along in the "open source" world.

    The people at Joomla and Simplemachines aren’t co-developing a bridge anymore. To existing members, they may notice a couple of old features aren’t working anymore. But the major annoyance is that our system of paying for stuff (like subscriptions) seems to be busted. I’m in the process of looking at a solution to get that working.

    So, our bread and butter main things for our existing members are working just fine. But we’re going to have to be creative to sort out a couple other issues. Right now I’m looking at a forum module that will allow people to take care of their subscriptions right through the forums. This may actually be a blessing as it handles renewals and everything.

    More on this later.

    In other news, there was a power outage at the church last night and I get to get reset the network there. This is the first real test of our new server system. If it worked correctly, the battery back-up should have shut down the server correctly. If it didn’t work… my day off may be ruined.

  • Are You Crazy?

    Last night at Light Force we asked the following 3 questions…

    Are you crazy enough to change the world?

    Are you crazy enough to believe the Bible is true?

    Are you crazy enough to change what you are doing to reach people?

    Call me crazy, but I hope they answer "yes" to all 3.

    (more…)

  • Blackle

    I saw this on an old high school friends Facebook. Sorry Sharna, you aren’t really old… but you are an old friend.

    It’s called "Blackle" and it’s a Google alternative that is essentially Google with a different style sheet. The theory is that by making the screen black/gray that the combined monitor energy savings will save 750 megawatts of power in the world each day. I don’t know if that theory is really true. But I do think it’s actually a very cool idea.

    Slick marketing!
    From a tech geek perspective what I like about Blackle is that it’s really just a super slick way for its developer, Heap Media, to get people to use their custom Google search… which they will make a tidy profit on the ad referrals. That’s right, they’ve rebranded something that is free for their own profit. Gotta love America. Oh wait, Heap is from Australia. With the Google custom search just around the corner expect to see a lot more sites like this one. No judgment one way or the other, just in awe!

  • The language of goal realization

    Realization = the process of making something a reality.

    In my context, my goal at Romeo has always been the same. Kristen and I moved 2150 miles from Northern California to the suburbs of Detroit to help lead a church into being "dumb enough to think they can change the world." In other words, despite the fact that studies show our area is headed into the abyss, the message of Jesus Christ will penetrate so deeply into our community that it will actually change the DNA of the community. It takes a brave people to venture into that goal. But they assured me they had it in them and we came east 2150 miles.

    Over the past 24 months this has really taken shape. It started first as our staff jelled together. We are a very diverse group of people who always love one another but aren’t afraid to bump heads. As our working relationship became cohesive, that started to spread as the church really grabs hold of a crazy vision… we all want to deeply impact this community for life change. And now we are all agreeing on the methods we chose to use to reach those goals.

    Over the past week or two I’ve started to pick up on some language cues that have changed as we think and talk about our mission in Romeo. Here is how the language has changed as people, from the staff to the newest attender, talk about our mission.

    My guess is that this is the language of goal realization for a lot of organizations and teams as they set high marks and try to move forward. Let’s learn from Romeo.

    1. "Want to" This was the step where we talked about what we wanted to do. You heard it everywhere, "If we do this, we want to _____."
    2. "Should" This was a step where all of us started to deal with the Biblical rationalization for our goal. It wasn’t that we wanted to do it anymore, it’s that the people started to see how God’s Word compelled us to act. People would say, "We should do ____ because it will help us accomplish our goal."
    3. "Can" Once our team hit a few home runs (metaphorically of course) and our plan started to play out as good or better than we had hoped, I started to hear people say… "Hey, we really can _______ if we all just work together."
    4. "Will" This is where Romeo is at right now. I heard it at the fair from every volunteer who helped me at the booth. I even heard it from other church people from our community when I talked to them about what we were doing here. They say things like, "If you keep ______ then you will reach your goal." This step is absolutely infectious as your goal is now within site. This goes back to one of the very first chapters the leadership team listened to from Andy Stanley and Reggie Joiner… everyone loves to play for the winning team. With a couple of big "wins" behind us, people are very excited as they see that the plan God laid on our hearts so long ago can actually be a reality if we just keep going.
    5. "Are" This is where I want to go. This is when we are stupid enough to change this community for Jesus Christ. I hear the phrase "We are reaching _____ with ____." But those are merely shadows of what is to come if we just see the plan all the way through.

    What is so powerful about this is that it’s not a gimmick, it’s not a "thing I learned from a book," it is a thing that is happening right in front of me. This is an organic thing that has happened. We never sat down and said… "How can we manipulate people to talk like this?" This is much more simple than that as it’s simply how people’s language patterns change as they realize that the goals set are attainable. In reality, it’s the exact same language that the golf team used when they realized how good they were. And the converse is the same when they realized that using the wrong language ("We are the reigning champions, we are going to win by just showing up.") led to the complacency on not accomplishing the goals. (Losing a championship they were talented enough to walk all over.)

    Question: For those who are leading a comeback process in their organization (job, team, small group, youth group, church, whatever you lead) how does language that is coming from the people you lead change?  

  • YouVersion Alpha Test

    Alpha2
    I’ve gotten a sneak peek at Lifechurch.tv‘s new Bible resource called YouVersion.  (To see full-sized screenshots, click on the images) Just in my initial look at their alpha test there are some features that are absolutely going to revolutionize how some people read/use the Bible online. As a Web 2.0 junkie… let me highlight what I mean.

    It’s a Bible homepage, not just a place to look stuff up like on Biblegateway.com. (Which is an amazing Web 1.0 site) Alpha1

    • Obviously, you log in and have an account.
    • One panel is the Bible with a search feature, multiple versions, etc
    • The other panel is what makes the whole thing cool.
      • When you click on a verse, the community tab shows you public comments, audio, sermon texts, videos, and other stuff.
      • When you click on "my version" you get a list of all the stuff you’ve posted publicly and privately.
      • When you click Journal (not ready yet) you can obviously blog/journal about passages or whatever.
    • The top menu bar isn’t active yet, but there are tons of cool things coming.
      • The dashboard seems to be your one-page look at everything you’ve ever done on the site. All your tags, starred verses, etc.
      • Favorites for stuff you really like
      • Contacts for having friends, etc in a Facebook kind of way
      • History for seeing what you’ve looked at over time
      • Groups… not 100% how that goes.

    Alpha3
    The thing I kept thinking as I gave this a first look… (I’ll be back to do more testing over the next few weeks too) is that a church is doing this. Not a major media player or even Gospel Communications… a local church. Granted, Lifechurch.tv isn’t your average ordinary church. But still, this is like taking on the Gutenberg Bible project as a local church only to give it away. Yeah… this seems like it’s going to be 100% free.

    What’s missing?
    Well, loads and loads of content will make this an unreal resource for small group leaders, pastors, and people interested in knowing what others think about certain passages of Scripture. All-in-all, I think this is going to be a web addiction for a lot of people for a long time to come. Bravo Lifechurch.tv. I can’t wait to see the beta test, and of course the production version.

  • It’s Official: Worst Housing Market in America

    Michigan
    According to Forbes Magazine, the Detroit Metro area maintains it’s hold as the worst housing market in the United States. Don’t know about other home owners around here… but consecutive years leading this list is kind of expensive. (More than 15% decrease in 2 years!)

    When you turn your gaze to the Midwest, the issue becomes where the
    money is not coming from. Based on MBA calculations, Ohio, Indiana and
    Michigan account for 8.7% of the nation’s loans but account for 20% of
    all loans in foreclosure nationwide. The reason this is happening is
    because people are losing their jobs and leaving the area.

    And this trend should continue into next year.

    "We
    expect another two to four quarter of modest rises in delinquencies,"
    says Duncan. "And foreclosures lag one to two quarters behind that."

    Read the rest at Forbes

    What is truly disturbing about this is that the morons in Lansing see fit to continue to raise our property taxes in line with the nations cost of living. (Not dependent on Michigan’s economy) When coupled with the county assessor who valued my home at 10% more than I paid for it despite the 15% dip in home values in the last 2 years, there is a 25% difference between what our home should be taxed at and what we are actually paying.

    And people speculate why Michigan’s population is shrinking? Who can afford to live here? We’ve got inflation all around us and politicians telling us it isn’t inflation.