Month: February 2008

  • .7 and falling on the frozen tundra of Romeo

    That’s the headline. At least in my house. I think the furnace will run all night long.

    It’s butt cold. It’s frozen nose hair cold. It’s punch your mama cold. It’s so cold the dog won’t go out to pee. Brrr.

  • Saturday Tunes

    saturday tunesIt’s snowing. Kristen said, “It’s like we live in Antarctica or something.” In Antarctica it’s the middle of the summer and their weather is a little like ours, just no snow! Other than the snow it’s a quiet morning in our house. The kids are playing on the computer and daddy is listening to music. Here’s a peek into the next 10 tunes humming from my iTunes shuffle. As always, no cheating and ratings included.

    1.  All the Young Dudes by Mott the Hopple *****
    2. Here with Me by MercyMe ****
    3. Lightning by Eric Church ****
    4. O, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing by David Crowder Band *****
    5. Glad About It by Joe Pace ****
    6. Agnus Dei by Barber ****
    7. Deliver Me by David Crowder Band ****
    8. Oh Lord Your Love by Caedmans Call ****
    9. Revolution by Grey Holiday ****
    10. What do we Know by Thousand Foot Krutch ****

    Holy cow is that a crazy shuffle. Classical, Gospel, CCM, Worship, Country, Metal. The next hour is going to be interesting.

  • Another live video channel

    I’m testing out Y! Live. This is Yahoo’s knock-off of ustream.tv.

    Here’s what it looks like.

    I will say this, it uses a lot more CPU than Ustream.tv seemed to. I turned it on and within 1 minute I could hear the fan kick on with the MacBook.

  • Money Management Lesson from Paul

    Paul, 4 years old, is learning about money management on WebKinz.

    Dad: What’s the secret to saving all that money?

    Paul: You just have to stop spending money. And then you’ll have a lot.

    Pretty good advice. What is your money management lesson?

  • People long for someone to talk to

    I am sitting here at a local eatery quietly writing. Unintentionally, I’m observing the people around me. Here’s a fascinating observation about the world we live in.

    Directly in front of me is a mother of a 1 year old interviewing a babysitter so she can go back to work.  It’s pretty clear that this married mother of a one year old needs someone to talk to. For the last hour she hasn’t stopped talking. She has shared with this stranger all sorts of personal information dating back to getting pregnant with Elliot. I keep thinking, “Does this babysitter need to know all of this? Does any of this have anything to do with her role as a babysitter?” Of course it does. This mom wants to know that her babysitter understand her. She wants to know that she is hiring a co-parent. In a way, she is hiring a friend. She needs to know that this person is trustworthy. And for this lady, being trustworty includes listening to her yack for ours at a time.

    More importantly, my observation is that there are a lot of lonely new mom’s out there. This mom needs a playgroup, she needs a Bible study, she needs a church family, and most importantly… she needs to get a life outside of Elliot.

    The reality is that if people don’t have someone to talk to on a regular basis, they’ll go crazy. God created each of us to connect with others, we crave human interaction that is empathetic and just says “uh huh” 200 times per hour. It’s kind of like sleep… when we don’t get that on a regular basis we just data dump on the nearest person who will listen. In this case it’s a babysitter. But it could just as easily be her cable guy, the checkout person at the store, or a random person at Starbucks.

    What can we all do to help this happen for new moms? 

  • The Preference Wars of Church

    Perry Noble of NewSpring Church has a couple of funny, yet serious, points about heaven and the preference wars of church today.

    I was reading through Revelation a couple of weeks ago and I had this thought, “I really think that some people might not like heaven!” Especially when I got to Revelation 7:9-12…seriously, take a second to read that passage and then come back here as I share a thought or two about it. If people approach heaven the same way some approach church then here are my fears… 🙂

    #1 – For Some People Heaven Will Be “Too Big.” We have people that say, from time to time, “I really do like your church–except that it’s too big.” My reply is always the same, “Heaven isn’t going to be a small group/house church!”

    #2 – The Focus Will Be On Jesus…And That’s It! Apparently the music in heaven is going to be loud…and will not be sang out of the Baptist hymnal. (See verse 10–they cried in a LOUD voice…apparently they didn’t get the “reverence” memo!) No one will be asked in heaven, “Did you like the music? Was the sound too loud? Were you totally comfortable?” Nope–the focus will be on Jesus Christ…NOT consumeristic ego maniacs who church hop because they think everything exists for them. 🙂

    I think Perry is right. And I think he brings about the new battle in churches, personal preferences. If 1990-2005 were all about music wars 2005-present are all about preference wars.

    Should church be like Burger King and the parishioners be like Frank Sinatra?

  • Update on Paul & Becky

    Back in November I posted a prayer request for Paul & Becky. I got an e-mail from them yesterday giving an update on their situation. A couple of praises:

    • Their new baby boy was born with no complications. Mom and baby are doing great.
    • They didn’t have to leave Russia and their son was born right in their hometown.

    Isn’t it cool when God answers your prayers?

    Sidenote: Congratulations to other folks who had babies in the last 48 hours. Jason and Tracy Raitz welcomed Madison. And Brian and his wife welcomed a little girl this week as well. Must have been something in the water 9-10 months ago?

  • You have to be blunt

    stop watchThis morning I was reading an appeal from a ministry. The crazy thing about this appeal was that it wasn’t clear what it was asking me to do. Will you join us? Will you help us?

    I thought to myself… How can I join you when I live so far away? What is it that you’re asking me to help with?

    In today’s culture you have to be blunt. The internet moves a million miles a second and we all get dozens of emails, read tons of well-written blog posts, check out news stories, and basically see thousands of messages a day. Studies show that you have 0.7 seconds to catch a readers attention or they will simply move on.

    If you want to catch my attention you have to be blunt and you have to be quick about it. Make it quick, make it count, and make it visual.

    Otherwise, you’re just another blog, another email, another news story, or something else I will quickly move past.

    What was that ministry asking me for? I have no idea. It never said.

  • Snow day

    Foot O SnowNo complaints today, we got dumped on last night. At our house we got about 10 inches or so. It was a weird snow too as it slushed all afternoon yesterday and then as it got colder the snow got more and more fluffy.

    Kristen loves to shovel, so she jumped out there early this morning. I begrudgingly pitched in and  picked up a shovel. It took us about an hour or so to do the driveway and sidewalks. It was an annoying snow to shovel since the slushy stuff on the bottom built up on the shovel and it got progressively heavier.

    When I came in my shoulders were shot. Kristen’s back is a little sore but she is obviously in much better marathon shape than I am.

    They canceled school last night about 10:15 PM. I totally agree on their call this time.  I tried to make it into the office this morning… but the snow plows had built up snow in the drive about halfway up my door… so there was no way the Camry was going to make it in.

    Note to self: Save up some money for a snow blower.

  • New release: How to Boil a Frog

    How to Boil a FrogI saw this on Tony Morgan’s blog and thought it was interesting. So I gave it a whirl. (2 minutes on PhotoShop)

    This is my random album cover for my latest release. My band is “How to Boil a Frog.” We’ve been together for about 15 minutes now and are releasing our debut, “The Tediousness of Life.” The bats in the picture represent the tediousness of life in youth ministry. Those little details are like the gnats the bats eat… just swallowed up in a blur leaving nothing but inaudible communication in its path.

    Create your own!

    The Rules

    1. Band Name The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

    2. Album Title The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

    3. Album Cover Art The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

    Post a link to yours here. I’m kind of thinking this could end up being a contest over at YMX. Thoughts?