The other night I was working on a project and I downloaded a pile of shapes, a couple brushes, and an action. I thought my collection might be worth sharing. If you like them, awesome. If you don’t… well it didn’t cost you anything! They are all royalty-free (as best as I can tell) and seem pretty cool. I think they are worth sharing. I use Photoshop CS4 but I’m pretty sure they will all work with CS3 as well.
[download id=”2″]
Like any person who comes up with a lot of ideas… I’m used to getting shot down. The pill of reality I swallow every day is that only about 1 in 20 of my ideas are worth seeing to fruition. Thankfully, God has put people with the gift of discernment in my path so I don’t go insane.
Knowing that– I know this phrase to be true: A vision unfunded is merely a dream.
A lot of people in my life are learning that their vision is merely a dream. Tough economic times mean that their ministry, their business, their job, or even their early retirement dreams are now unfunded. Grandiose plans usurped by a new need for freelance or part-time work. The people they trusted/hoped/prayed to fund their vision disappointed them.
Kristen and I are chosing which visions to fund and its hard! We have to look inside ourselves and ask which are dreams (the big house, living abroad) and which are visions worth funding. (our local church, building short/long term savings) Hard choices which reveal what’s really important. As you think of that with a wider lens of millions of people doing the same thing you see why the people in my life are struggling when families like ours our choosing one vision over another. It’s painful to witness.
What does this all mean? I don’t know for sure. But I do know that even when the funding isn’t there vision, dreams, and big ideas are still worth having. The world won’t change without visionaries and dreamers. Even unfunded ones.
I’m aghast at the reality that my alma mater continues to stray from its stated mission and goal. Here’s a quote from its website:
Moody is driven by the belief that people committed to living and declaring the Word of God can actually change the world. Beginning with our founder, D.L. Moody, generations of Christ-followers at Moody have committed themselves to learning the Bible and sharing it with the world.
This is a great goal. It’s a goal that brought me to Moody as a wide-eyed idealistic 18-year old kid. And it’s a goal that kept me going back despite every obstacle until graduation as a 25 year old. And yet, in 2009, they continue to want that statement to only be true for men.
With hundreds of millions of people to reach for Jesus Christ today why does a place like Moody add to their doctrinal statement a position limiting who they will train to reach those people? Why limit their impact by 50%? Why water down the talent pool of candidates by 50%? If the goal is to train people for ministry… why make a value judgement to only train men for pastoral work? They are not a denomination. They are not a church. They are a training school who serves both. And plenty of alumni work in all types of churches, conservative and liberal alike.
Two thoughts and a call to action for alumni:
1. Moody offers a fantastic education. I am the leader I am today, largely, because of the men and women who invested in me on the undergraduate level. I know some people’s undergrad experience was lame, mine was not. Moody does not offer a wimpy undergrad. It does a pretty adequate job of preparing its graduates to serve in pastoral ministry without requiring a degree at the next level. It’s a unique place and I would love to continue to recommend it as a place to get training for ministry.
2. Moody started as a school to train women for ministry in the local church. While the school bears a man’s name, it was started by a woman named Emma Dryer. Moody was one of the first colleges in Illinois to admit women. It’s first students were women. It wouldn’t have gotten started at all if it had been a place just to train men! Moody’s school was always progressive school when it came to women in ministry. But that changed! Somewhere along the way it became more important to please conservative donors than it was to simply prepare all who wanted the training for ministry. During my time as a student the undergrad school took a major academic swing towards the conservative right, ousting most of the Bible and theology department who encouraged students to think progressively, and issued a statement on women in ministry. (Roughly in 2000)
Call to action for alumni: If you are like me, you love MBI but weary of the policy which limits who can study what, who can come to certain conferences, and who can serve where, based on gender alone. You need to do something about it. You need to email the new president, Paul Nyquist. You need to let their conferences know that you will not plan on attending until all are welcome to attend as a full attendee and not just a spouse who can come to parts. Let them know you will not send students their way until they deal with this. Ask them to take you off the mailing list soliciting donations until they address this. Blog about it. Talk about it on their alumni Facebook page. Call into Moody Radio and bring it up. Talk about it with staff and employees that you know. Moody does a pretty good job keeping this policy under wraps. If we want it to change we need to let the public know that the policy exists and that a minority of alumni would like to see the school open its doors to men and women alike for all majors.
Make them live out this statement, “Moody is driven by the belief that people committed to living and declaring the Word of God can actually change the world.” There is too much work to do just to rely on training 50% of the population. To make this vision a reality, it’ll take everybody.
Agree with me? Disagree with me? I welcome all feedback.
I’m not into numerology, at all. But I’m smart enough to know that this is the only time in my lifetime the calendar will read straight nines. With nine being the operative number of the day here are nine things I’m in love with.
1. Simple routines. Every day, every week basically looks the same.
2. Mega-family time. This has been a big change in our lives. At least once a week we all do something together. It’s not always big, but it’s a big deal and I’m pumped about it.
3. The job lottery. More than a year into my time at YS and I still get fired up and think… I work there? For real?
4. Church peeps. You can’t sell this short. We dig our church peeps. I love feeling like I need to step it up to keep up with their faithfulness.
5. Riding the trolley. (relates to #1) That simple discipline has taken so much stress out of our lives. Big ups to SDMTS.
6. Vietnamese food. This is the next craze to sweep across the nation. I’m a big fan of the noodle soup, pho. (pronounced “fu.” Yes, like half of the f-word.) Best food on the planet.
7. iPhone. I know something will replace it as the coolest device in my world. But it is an amazing tool for me. I can now go on vacation laptop free.
8. Nikon D60. I never thought I’d really love photography. I am no artist, but thanks to this little camera I can now take pictures that don’t suck.
9. My baby’s mama. Seriously, Kristen is a rock star. 12+ years of marriage and she’s still my best friend. She still laughs (politely) at my jokes and likes my crazy dreams.
Here on the blog I’ve talked early and often about our church, Harbor Mid-City. One of the things that we like most is the expression of arts in weekly services. In the last year I can’t think of a time when we’ve had a musical solo. But in that time we’ve had spoken word performed, rap performed, and an artists representation of the message. These are amazing wrinkles to worship. Very cool.
The role of our worship leader is unique. (Based on my observation– not something anyone has ever told me.) It’s a role which I love in view of the rock star worship leader model we see so prevalent in the Evangelical church. First, Matt Cromwell’s job in leading worship is to elevate the rest of the group above himself. He simply won’t take the spotlight. No lead guitar. His mic isn’t louder than the rest. He’s rarely the visual leader of the service. Second, he facilitates the people of the church writing the lyrics for the songs we sing as a congregation.
It’s that second thing that I want to point you to today. Matt and the worship team have put together a CD of the songs we sing at church… and I think you should check it out. Head over to CD Baby or iTunes, sample some tracks, and consider supporting Harbor’s worship team by purchasing a song or their entire album. If I could suggest one track, Trial By Fire. Yeah, I like that one a lot. You need that one.
Heading into the big game at the Big House (the only week I cheer against Michigan football) the Fighting Irish looked pretty solid. Lots of offense, lots of defense, and an entire 4th quarter played by 2nd and 3rd stringers.
I found this video on YouTube. Also pretty solid:
Yesterday, the family spent some time down in Little Italy at their Mercato. It was super fun for mom and dad– the kids just kind of put up with it and were placatted by free samples. (Paul’s love language is food.)
Here’s an exceprt from Kristen’s review over at Beyond the Zoo:
Not just a food market, the Mercato offers something for everyone. I was initially side-tracked by a display of locally made jewelry. With a little help from my family I refocused and let my nose guide me to the heart of the market, the food. Never able to turn a blind eye to food, our kids loosened up when offered samples of juicy softball-sized peaches. It should be noted that the Little Italy Mercato is a great location for selecting locally caught seafood, as well. One unusual sample my husband could not resist was live sea urchin. He’s still alive after trying this spiny wonder! He said it was tasty with the texture of an overripe peach with a hint of brine flavor.
I don’t know about you, but I’m growing a little tired of the lack of progress and new ideas coming forth for health care reform. I wonder if instead of making private citizens scream at their elected officials we could get those causing the problem to scream, instead? Here’s how.
Instead of reforming health insurance (which is what we mean today by “health care reform“) what if we reform the industries at the root of the problem? What if the government opens up distribution channels to the raw supplies so you can buy the stuff you need on the open market?
Let’s say you need a new knee. The doctor says, “I could buy the part and it’ll cost you $2500 or here are the specs on what you need, you may be able to find the exact same part cheaper.” (Take away the fancy titles, this is not unlike going to get a new muffler!) The doctor gives you the specs for the item you need, and you go to Amazon.com and price the part you need for the operation. Amazon.com works directly with the manufacturer in Warsaw, Indiana to carry the most commor specs and carries them in stock. Based on the laws of supply and demand, you are able to go to Amazon.com and buy the exact part you need for $800. A week later it is delivered to your house and you take it with you to your surgery.
Same thing works for medical equipment. The current system will not allow you to go to Walmart.com to rent a wheel chair that you need after your surgery. Instead, your doctor calls the local medical equipment distributor and they rent you a wheel chair for $500 that they’ve rented 25 times already but paid $322 for from the sales rep. Under the new system, since you can now work directly with the manufacturer, you go to their website and buy the thing for $280 or you go to Craigslist and pick one up for $50.
Naysayers will toss out this right away… “what about drugs? You can’t open up the drug market!” You actually can open this up as well. Your doctor could provide you with a unique code which grants you a certain prescribed drug. You make that purchase online and cut out the middle man, it’s delivered to your door. For drugs that are abused, have it delivered to the doctors office. Since the office won’t be meeting with endless drug reps and DMEs they should have plenty of time to sign for stuff from FedEx.
This really isn’t that complicated. It just opens the system up. Currently, everything you have delivered to you in the health care system is based on a closed distribution model. You have no ability to determine what the manufacturer made the item for, what the mark up was when they sold it to the distributor, what the sales rep made when he sold it to the hospital, nor what the hospital paid for the item. You only know what they are charging you for on the itemized bill. And you know that it is all negotiable because that’s what Medicaire, insurance companies, and private individuals do. So you may see that the hospital billed $5500 for the replacement knee but because it’s a closed system you have no way of knowing that the manufacturer in Indiana made it (at a profit to themselves) for $600. Consequently, the closed system is bloated with mark-up. It’s a closed capitalist system.
We’ve done this same thing in almost every industry. Why not do this to health care?