You've all seen daft hands and daft bodies. Now you can have your own daft keyboard I knew there was a reason I sometimes stare at my keys and wonder which one I need. Apparently my brain is declining
I have March madness, but I'm not ever doing this
This is an impressive win
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X88Yi4EBTNQ]
Today is my favorite TV watching day of the year. I love the NCAA tournament, especially the first two rounds. I will be working some today but with digital cable and 4 games at a time most of the day, I'll be pretty distracted. Also I have read somewhere that the NCAA office pool is the most popular workplace game of all. With the advent of the internet it's easy to join many groups and play at multiple places. I assume that everyone is in at least 2 bracket pools.
Now the age old question.
Do you enter the same bracket (a sheet of integrity) into all your groups or do you play multiple brackets for multiple groups.
[polldaddy poll=1469083]
If you are the sheet of integrity type, let us know your final 4 in the comments.
In 1992 I was 17 years old and a member of Concord Baptist Church in Hopkinsville KY. One evening our pastor invited in a guest speaker named Fred Overton. During the PM service he gave a lecture called "Is the Bible Reliable?" This was my first ever exposure to something called apologetics, and I was fascinated. The lecture was 2 days long, so I invited my mom to come along with me to the Monday night session. Normally, Mom went to another church, that's why I remember this story.
After the session we bought the workbook and I recall on the ride home saying that the seminar was completely fascinating and that I would like to do apologetics for a living, but, "Nobody could make a living doing that." Smart, I know.
Mom's reply was predictable. "He does."
This was long before I really had any idea what I wanted to do with my life and long before God called me into ministry. At that point I was just concerned with where I would go to college. (Even though I never seriously considered any school other than UK.) In fact, at that time I was fascinated with chemistry, and began college as a chemistry major.
Then in 1997, God called me into the ministry, and I answered. (Just an aside here - I hate the term "surrendered" to the ministry. That sounds like I lost some fight. I just agreed. There was no battle needed.) My calling was clear, I was called to youth ministry, but that doesn't mean I have no other interests. I was convicted further that in order to be the best youth minister I could be, to the glory of God, I needed to attend seminary. I went to Southeastern Seminary and began in the youth ministry program. During my second year, President Akin came on board and his administration began some curriculum changes. When the M.Div. in Christian apologetics was added, I didn't even need to pray about it. I changed my major within the week.
So what's the point of all this?
Yesterday I began teaching a course in Christian Apologetics at Carolina Bible College. Though it is a very small class at a very small college, it felt like a dream realized. It is amazing how God can work the circumstances of our lives to bring things about. The ramblings of a very silly 17 year-old become reality 16 years later. I for one, am excited about the future and to see where God will lead me next.
p.s. I have shared with this blog before my dream of becoming a NAMB Certified Apologetics Instructor. Fee free to click here to see how close I am financially. (You'll probably need to use my gmail address)
This is mid-March. Normally this feels like a holiday to me. And even this year I feel like next Thursday should be a holiday. But It's a very different feeling March than I can ever remember. UK does not deserve to be in the NCAA tourney and I am simply a lot less excited than usual.
I'm going to reserve comment about the program except for this LOL[wild]cat I made earlier. Enjoy
Urban Camouflage - Realtree is replaced by realbox I often say that love is not a feeling. Here's an example of why I say that
This is probably the awesomest toilet ever
Here's some inspiration for your Friday.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgU4CrMO9N0]
And the best video of the week...Ricky Gervais and Elmo
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr9_5uZn6ds]
Every so often I enjoy writing a rant. It is a good way to take out some anger against some person, thing, or circumstance. Back in the fall I wrote a rant about fire ants but I never posted it. When I'm feeling angry about them later, I will. The fire ants will never read it, so it doesn't help anyone but me. Today the object of my ire is my wireless phone. The LG CU720. This rant may be slightly tongue in cheek, but the complaints are all very real. Dear LG Shine,
I cannot wait until my contract with you is finished.
I chose you as my current phone because my previous phone, a Sony Erickson, quit working after 3 years of use. I was drawn in by the allure of your shininess. And you are very shiny. That shine is diminished significantly by a phenomenon that is not your fault, smudges I should have known that any polished silver phone with a flat glass front would be easy to smudge with fingerprints and face grease, but I guess I was too impressed by the look and your slick sliding format.
I know what you are thinking, CU720, I could greatly reduce the amount of smudges if I would just use your built in bluetooth and pair it with a headset. Good thinking, I wish I had thought of that myself. Oh, I did. Your bluetooth doesn't work at all. Maybe once every 75 tries you will pair with a device, but you are too finicky to be useful and I just gave away my headset so that someone would get some use out of it. Thanks for helping me throw away that $50.
Your lack of bluetooth is made into an even more awesome feature because your speakerphone functionality is so excruciating. So loud and warped is the sound, that I can hardly understand anybody, and you have such a weak microphone that everyone asks me to repeat everything when you get more than a foot from my mouth.
At least once a day, you turn off when I slide you open. Do you know how frustrating it is to race to the phone and open it up just in time to find out nobody is there because the phone shut down? It doesn't matter if I open you gently or with force, it's the same thing. Regularly you just decide that I apparently don't need to talk to the caller at this time. Maybe you just need a rest.
Another feature I particularly enjoy is the way your battery goes from fully charged to empty with no warning whatsoever. I'm sure something like this is going on in your little phone mind. "What? I know you just charged me last night, but I'm jonesing for some more of that sweet, sweet electricity. Come on, if you don't plug me up right now, I will bleep at you every 15 seconds until the battery is fully discharged even quicker. I know I said I had a full battery just 10 minutes ago, but I NEED that electricity." Unfortunately I have no choice but to indulge your addiction.
Any time I'm in a different part of the country the internet is hit and miss. I suspect this is actually AT&Ts fault, but when you say you are on 3G, I should at least be able to check my gmail.
Finally, your camera is an utter piece of garbage. Just thought your should know.
Sincerely, An unhappy customer
I'm about to go fishing for the first time in 2009. So I thought I'd post this vid of a bird using bait. Here's hoping I catch more fish than he did. Although I probably won't catch 2 fish in under 2 minutes, I should have more lbs. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNTw7GH325U]
I do not know if I can convey with words the awesomeness of the guys who did this. You know you want to know if you'd be safe.
So brilliant. I need to make a set of these for my pastor
This is one of the best mashups I've ever seen. (actually I only watched the first one of these)
Usually I avoid links that contain swears, but the next two things are very interesting and have at least one curseword
Making War funny - Genius!
What a great prank.
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.791247&w=425&h=350&fv=]
Since I have posted so many times about Twitter in the last 2 months, I thought this seemed appropriate. [vodpod id=ExternalVideo.790878&w=425&h=350&fv=autoPlay%3Dfalse]
I said that today's post would discuss some specific ways you or your church can use technology to enhance your ministry. But since I have already written about RSS and Twitter, you can just go back and read those posts. I will focus today on your church website.
So here's the question - Is your church website important?
The answer is yes and no.
Yes it is important, because it demonstrates to both your church members and prospective members that you are not complete luddites. Why on earth would people assume that the church is made up of luddites? Let's have a look at David Kinnaman's unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters
Number 6 on the list is that the church is out of touch with reality. Now, we know this not to be true, every member of every church lives in the real world. We have the same struggles and difficulties as everyone else. We just have our faith to carry us through these difficulties. But the fact is, everything has a website. Every book, movie, elementary school, hospital and teenager has a website. If a church does not have one, they are somehow disconnected from the reality of the world.
Number 4 on the list is that the church is old-fashioned. Read the previous paragraph. What better way to prove the old-fashionedness of your church than to be stuck in an era before the internet.
I said that the answer to this question was yes and no, so let's briefly deal with the no. In reality, no website is going to bring hordes of people to your church. The lack of a website will certainly turn people off, but even the greatest church website ever will not bring people to your church.
Interested people will visit your website and they will want to learn as much about you as possible. I personally believe that they would rather visit your website and learn about you anonymously than to be visited on Tuesday night as part of church visitation.
So what must any good church website include?
Who we are What we believe Info on Church programs Directions Staff information Current Information
By far, the most important of these is current info. Having a badly out of date church website may be worse than not having a church website.
Feel free to tell me in the comments how wrong I am. That your church is awesome without a website, or that the church website is directly responsible for doubling your church size.
Yesterday I spoke at the NSRBA pastor's conference. For years I have been attending that meeting, but I usually stay quiet. Most of those men have been pastoring longer than I have been alive, so I often feel unqualified to contribute. I always thought that when I had something to contribute, I would. Back in December I realized that I did have something to add to the conversation in that room, so I asked to speak. I taught on technology and the church. It was very well received, and since it's already written, I thought I'd post about it here on my blog. That concept works for Ed Stetzer, why not for me?
We'll begin with a video. You've probably seen it before, it's been posted on many a blog.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8]
To me, largely a product of the information age, this video is a bit frightening. But I think it illustrates the neeed for the church to embrace technology. We are already losing ground in the culture wars, and without tech, soon we will find we are fighting a war on different terms. (Mennonites and Amish likely live fulfilled lives and people admire them to some degree, but they are not evangelizing the world.)
What is Technology? It's hard to define, but I'd call it the use of engineering to interact with our world differently. For almost everyone there is a certain era of technology beyond which they never advance. Some folks never get beyond movable type, invented by Gutenberg. (Though I'll admit, I've never heard anyone say, "Scrolls were good enough for Isaiah, they are good enough for me.") Some maybe never advance past the television. Even though they are no longer made, some people may be stuck on the VCR even though the DVR is superior in every way. And many preachers especially never got past the wireless phone.
Why does technology matter to the church? Well for one thing because it is changing the way the youngest generation interacts with the world. According to neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, our brains are literally being rewired. I think I can demonstrate the way technology has changed your life with just a short quiz. When is the last time you memorized a phone number? I literally only know one phone number today that I didn't know when I was 15 years old. When you are searching for a Bible pasage, how often do you use a software or internet Bible instead of your concordance? I wrote a blog post about this quite a long time ago I call the phenomenon, the death of remembering stuff.
If it's afecting me, in my 30s, what about the millennial generation?
Is the digital divide equal to the generation gap? What I am asking in this question is; is the inability for one generation to relate to other generatons caused by, or even equal to, the differences in the way we use technology. Barna published a recent study that highlights the digital divide and the generation gap. The younger you are, the more central tech is to your life. The moral of the study is that the digital divide doesn't cause the generation gap, but it highlights it.
Is the technological takeover wrong? In short I would say that the technology is morally neutral. Surely there is a moral component to the utter dependance upon tech to communicate and function, but the technology itself is neutral.
Can't we just call the younger generations stupid and get on with our lives? Certainly you can, but you might as well be telling them to go to hell. Jesus died for kids who only know how to talk through a cell phone, just like he died for fogies who think putting hymn lyrics on a screen was thought up by Satan.
If you are of a certain generation and simply cannot understand the mind of millennials, maybe you should view them as a people group to be reached.
Tomorrow in part two, I will address some specific ways your church can use technology.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9r01fqmLWw] ht - jawbone radio for this
[Usually] I like to highlight the most interesting and odd search terms that brought people to my blog in the last month. There are certain trends that become obvious from these searches. One is that I am currently a very popular source of Bell's Palsy information. Also, there is a mixing of things from posts so that they are combined in sometimes very interesting ways. Here are the best ones from February. They are not edited in any way, simply cut and pasted from my stats page. Oddly, this month one search was vulgar. I am disturbed that that search lead someone to my blog
Bell's Palsy related searches
Lent related searches
This is an amazing picture. I've seen a heron swallowing a bluegill whole, a hawk eating a snake, and an osprey flying over with a fish in it's talons, but I never even dreamed of catching it on film. This completely cracked me up (seriously, this one is hilarious)
I knew it - Mosquitos are indestructible
Some guys just know how to use technology
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKL6elkbFy0]
This is enjoyable as well (ht - Phil for this one)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpdYqqdNGl0]
Monday I am speaking to the NSRBA minster's meeting. I have been attending those meetings for 4 years, but usually keep my mouth shut. I finally feel like I have something to contribute so I asked to speak. I am speaking about technology and how churches can use the internet, and other technology to enhance and simplify their ministries. One of the technologies I plan to speak about is Twitter. I know that some of my readers are tired of hearing me talk about it, but I want to run my thoughts by my blog before I talk about it at the minster's meting. I would appreciate your feedback.
It is my belief that for most people in a church, the pastor is a bit of an unknown. This phenomenon has two causes. One is that people view the pastor as some sort of superman, not at all like them, with the same struggles and sins. The other is that in many churches the pastor changes so often that the people don't get a chance to know him. This goes both ways, because many pastors change churches often enough that they don't develop deep friendships within the church body.
What does this have to do with Twitter? I believe that Twitter is a great tool for fellowship (or community, if you prefer cool-church language;.) Why is Twitter great for fellowship? Because it allows people to see into your life, combine it with a camera phone and it enhances this.
One of the great things about Twtter is that you can keep up with a multitude of people at once and it takes almost no effort on your part. For example, I have a friend whom I haven't seen in almost 3 years, that I follow on twitter and I feel like I know as much about what goes on with him now as I did when we were riding to school together once a week.
If you are on Facebook you understand the power of the status update to keep you informed about people. Twitter is like the status report on steroids.
I follow about 50 people and I have absolutely no trouble keeping up with that number. I'm sure that somewhere around 200 people the ability to feel like you have a grip on everybody fails, but with some sort of client and just reading regularly it is easy to keep up with many people.
Recently, our church has even created a Twitter page. It contains announcements, web links and prayer requests. A very different use than a personal feed but still valid.
If you just want to test out Twitter and are not sure you are ready to commit and begin doing so yourself, you can simply subscribe to the RSS feed of any account.
Do you find Twitter to be a useful tool for fellowship?
Late Night with Conan O'Brien began during my senior year of High School. I watched it with regularity throughout college and less frequently in the last few years. Since the show is no more and Conan is moving on to a more famous time slot, I thought I would share my all-time favorite bit from the show. Enjoy Mr. T picking apples. [vodpod id=ExternalVideo.787725&w=425&h=350&fv=]
You don't have to know much about me at all to know that I am not a Catholic. I am an ordained Southern Baptist Minster, but for the last few years I have been in the practice of observing Lent.
For the benefit of my uninformed protestant readers, Lent is a 40 day fast leading up to ressurrection day. (Remember my ban on the word Easter?) Actually according to this wikipedia article it is 46 days. Why is it 40 days? Because it recalls the 40 days of fasting that Jesus endured in the desert prior to his temptation.
As a protestant, I observe Lent because, for the most part, western Christians have abandoned the fast all together. I fast periodically from food for a day, but not with regularity, and Lent is the only prolonged fast I participate in. I do not believe that it earns me more of God's favor, or that more grace comes to me as I participate in the fast. But I do believe that it is worth the effort.
Many people have written well on the spiritual discipline of fasting, (I particularly reccommend Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life
In the case of a prolonged fast like Lent, I use the desire to participate in the forbidden activity as a reminder that suffering is a part of the Christian life. This is made more important because of the fact that I live in the US, where we have true religious freedom.
I have narrowed down my Lenten choices to 3.
Which do you think I should do?
[polldaddy poll=1396425]
This year Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent) is February 25th. I'm putting up this poll for your input before fat Tuesday so I can gorge on sugar or Facebook or non exercise tomorrow.
I think this is not a fail, but rather an entrepreneur win I would really like to live here. If I had money, I'd buy it in a second
I don't know if this is real or fake, but it sure is scary
This is the best of the SBC blogs this week
This is simply unbelievable.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCJ3Oz5JVKs]
Geek in any language... I especially like how the "lyrics" to this are sound effects. The guy does sound just like Mario jumping
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK3DZAJ-ZPs]
I had really planned on being done with writing about Bell's palsy since it was over a year ago for me. But there was a recent search that landed someone on my blog that requires a postscript. Here is that search:
noise in my ear when i close my eye afte
I have writen about all the symptoms in a previous post, but I never mentioned this one because I didn't know how to describe it. I realize that my bells' palsy post is helpful to people and very popular, so I want to make it thorough and comforting to people who are freaking out and just share with them my experience.
There is one symptom I didn't write about when I described my symptoms before and it still persists. Whenever I touch my right eye, I hear a noise in my right ear. It is difficult to describe but I'll try. It sounds like a rumbling or maybe very light drumming on my ear. In reality I think it is a spasm in the muscles that move my ear. It is not a loud noise, but it can be distracting.
Even in the last 2 months it has improved. Although it is still an active symptom, it doesn't last as long (I mean it doesn't rumble for as long as I am touching my eye) and less of my eye is sensitive. Also, my eye is less sensitive than it used to be.
I hope that is helpful to someone, and the rest of you feel free to think I am a freak.
After reading this story recently about President Obama lifting the ban on using federal funds to conduct embryonic stem cell research I was left with a question; Why is what we have not enough? Despite the first paragraph of the article I linked earlier, there is no law against embryonic stem cell research in this country, there never has been. There is only a ban on using federal funds for that purpose. There are dozens of private foundations that fund this type of research, and the state of California passed a resolution funding it specifically. There is also plenty of federally funded research done on non-embryonic stem cells. (which I fully support) All of this is not to mention the research of this type that is being done all over the world. So why are so many people so insistent on using tax dollars to fund something so controversial? Or why is the fact that the government won't pay for it "an embarrassment for American science"?
Here is a similar issue - I understand that the pro-choice faction wants abortion legal. But even they all say that abortion is bad, so why insist on federal money being used to provide them? I believe it is because there are a lot of people who profit from abortions, and more money for abortions means more money for them.
I am obviously opposed to abortion and embryonic stem cell research and I would fully support bans on both because I believe they are murder, but even if you disagree, can you not see that it is bad policy for the government to be in the practice of paying for these controversial procedures?
There is my question to the supporters - Why is the fact that is legal and ongoing not good enough? Why must I be forced with my tax dollars to pay for something I am morally opposed to?
The question is on the table - but a word of caution. I will be moderating the comments. Please guard your tone keep it polite and free of incendiary rhetoric. No name calling or insulting the intelligence of those who believe either way.