• Rate Your Stuff

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    Over at Youth Ministry Exchange I finally got around to finalizing the launch of a cool new feature called Rate Your Stuff. Honestly, it’s the coolest feature I’ve ever added to the site. I think that it may actually become as or more useful to youth workers than the forums themselves.

    Basically, it’s the only spot I know of where youth workers can submit and rate the stuff they use to do their ministry. The reality is that there is just mountains of stuff available for us to purchase for our ministries and we have a hard time telling what is good and what is just… for sale. "Rate Your Stuff" is just a simple place where youth workers can tell other youth workers what they thought of a product they’ve used. Since we’re not linked up with a publisher… we think that our users will pick up on the fact that "user ratings" are really and truly independent. For me, when I see a review of a book or resource in a magazine and it’s advertised or even publishing that resource, books, DVD, CD…. I always wonder if that review is reputable.

    Plus, I want to know what my friends think about what I’m thinking of buying.

    Want to help get this thing off the ground? The #1 way people can help is simply to go to the site and rate a few things. We’ve got books of all sorts, movies, and a bunch of "to be filled" categories. All you have to do is be a registered member of the site. (Free) If 4-5 members would review 3-4 things… that would help greatly.

  • at least we aren’t giving away a car

    Saw this cruising some blogs this morning and it made me chuckle in light of the puny gifts we are giving away at our church tomorrow.

    HT to Gman

  • Only Begotten Son

  • Sneak peek at Easter Sunday

    Raisethebar_cover1bThis weekend is pretty big for little Romeo. In just a few hours we will have our Good Friday service, The Journey.

    And everything is looking forward towards Easter morning. We’ll jump right into a fresh series for the Easter season called "Hearing God." A sample of where we are going with imagery is here. I’m very excited about the graphics of this series. Not just because I created them… but mostly because I think people will really get the ties between the terminology of cell phones and connecting with God.

  • It’s official, Jesus is a bad product

    I first heard this phrase "Jesus is a bad product" from author/speaker Donald Miller at the National Youth Workers Convention. I thought he offered an interesting perspective in light of the multi-billion dollar Jesus industry and the fact that his books would constitute a "Jesus product." But I digress.

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    This recently appeared in a news story and makes it official, Jesus is a bad product.
    Coca-Cola, the worlds most recognized name and reigning king of pop (soda for those outside of the midwest) thinks associating with Jesus is a bad idea.

    Coca-Cola Co. is suing producers of an Italian film titled " 7 Km da Gerusalemme"
    (Seven Kilometers From Jerusalem), that shows Jesus swigging Coke from
    a can in the desert. Coke said the scene would probably give the soda a
    bad image. A spokeswoman said, "We are not interested in this kind of
    product placement."

    First off, shame on Coke. I mean, who really cares? And by making a stink about it only means infinitely more bad publicity for them instead of allowing the small budget film to do it. But more importantly, it strikes me as odd that Coke would be perfectly fine with their product appearing in all sorts of films, with all sorts of product placement, and yet sue a filmmaker over this? I just don’t understand this issue.

    This is just stupid on so many levels and proves the lengths that seperationist will go to remove religion from daily life. It makes you wonder, if corporate America is this interested in not associating with Jesus, what do they want to associate with?

    HT to Sallyb

  • Will it Blend? Glow sticks

    Not sure if I’ve posted this one yet. But in my "tired, slappy happy" type of mood… this just makes me giggle.

  • 1 for 1

    Mainstreet_color_logo_transparentLast nights MainStreet went great. We had a great turnout, which always gets the performers all jazzed up, which lead to the best performance they’ve had to date.

    As the un-official kick-off to a big Easter weekend, this was as good as we could have expected. All sorts of kids ministry goodness last night. From the virtue being taught clearly, to Bob’s message coming off super, the skits… let’s just say Professor Caesar (Richard C.) is a great sport for letting us cover him in a gallon of nacho cheese, to POPS doing a great job, to the worship team coming right along, and of course the game and snack time was a massive hit… I’m rambling to just say… Wow.

    Deep thoughts for a Thursday morning.

  • Way Out West Promo

    Need a taste of tomorrow’s MainStreet? Check this out.

  • Imposters

    ImposterIt seems like my life is full of people who think they are experts but lack the education, experience, or resources to actually be an expert.

    As a result they waste my time and energy as they pretend to be more resourceful than they really are. It’s frustrating beyond belief because I can see through them right away… but it’s really hard to tell an impostor "It’s OK, you don’t know." Instead endless streams of "blah" come out of their mouths. And it drives me insane.

    Take the internet for instance. I’m no expert, even though I own and develop a lot of sites I would still call myself a novice in most areas of web development. So when someone asks me a question I use one of three options:

    1. I know the answer and offer it.
    2. I don’t know the answer and punt.
    3. I want to know the answer and I tell the person "I don’t know, but I’m going to try to find out."

    That’s a pretty honest answer. I expect the same thing from the people I interact with about things I’m seeking advice on. I’m teachable, inquisitive, and I have loads of problems I need solutions for.

    Here are the options for an impostor responding to a question approached with:

    1. I know the answer and offer it.
    2. If I don’t know, but I’ll talk your ear off out of embarrassment of not knowing.
    3. Even though I don’t know the answer, I will talk out of all the orifices of my body to convince you that I know.

    I just wish I could come up with a polite way of telling impostors, "You are wasting my time right now. I’m going to talk to someone who is an expert now."

    The cool thing about truly intelligent people in my life is that they are unafraid to punt. In fact, one sure fire way I can tell if someone is an expert on something or not is by mentally noting if they ever punt. If they don’t… I know they are an impostor.

    Of course, the real problem with impostors is that they are persistent and ever-present.

  • YMX Hosting goes live

    This is only significant and fun for me, but YMX Hosting has gone live. (Beta testers still needed though, got a sweet discount just for providing feedback) I spent a little time Saturday and Sunday working out the final bugs. Getting the YMX Hosting site to talk nicely to the domain registrar and to automatically set up folks accounts, collect funds, issue invoices/receipts.

    I created this thing hoping that we could help youth pastors launch whatever site they needed set-up for a great price. I think that $60 for a years hosting and domain registration is a super deal. I suppose the only way to truly know if it is super is to wait for feedback from customers. A product that makes YMX Hosting unique is that I’m willing to do everything if you’re willing to pay a small service fee. (Like moving your site from one host to another, for simple set-ups this is just $30. I’m just floored at the amount of small business and churches getting hosed by their low-ability, high cost web hosts.) Of course, another thing which I think makes YMX Hosting unique is that if you needed more service than I can provide, I’ve got no problem referring someone to a host they’d be happier with.

    OK, that quickly turned into a commercial. I suppose that was just me telling myself my sales pitch.