Month: May 2007

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facebook & teAMerica

i cannot stand myspace. i think it’s okay for organizations and media but bugs me for individuals. besides there always seem to be reports of creepy people lurking around on myspace. i’m not as familiar with facebook but some of the college students swear by it and i have seen many reports recently concerning the wonders of communicating through facebook. so i figure i’ll give it a try and see if it is something that will be useful in stevens point.

speaking of stevens point pam and i are back from our teAMerica church planting assessment week. the point of the assessment is to see if i should be able to hack it when it comes to the nature of planting a church. apparently about 85% of new churches fail within 5 years. that’s not a good percentage. yet with the right assessment and training that figure flips over on itself. the teAMerica week takes a person and sees whether he/she would be a good fit for planting a church. the way they do this is through a series of personality inventories, written interviews of your friends, surprise group projects, planned presentations, a series of interviews, and basic teaching time. truthfully the whole thing was kind of similar to a church planting version of “the apprentice” without the “you’re fired” part. everything you do is watched and analyzed to see how you work with people, how you lead, how you follow, how you think, etc. it was very tiring but cool.

at the end of the week there are 4 options of what they will say to the candidate.

  • recommend
  • recommend – with conditions (usually this is to attend a couple of conferences and do some more homework – this usually slows things down by a few months or so)
  • recommend – with strong conditions (intern with someone and do allot more homework – this usually slows things down by 12 to 18 months)
  • not recommend – (which means that in the assessors’ opinions it would be best for you to do something else)

we left the week with a “full recommend” and therefore we have crossed another hurdle on the path. now we continue working with namb to see if there is any possibility of getting some funding through them. if we get some funding from them that will mean that i can focus all my efforts on planting the church rather than being somewhat distracted by the need to hold down a part time job for financial reasons.

[tags]church planting, teAMerica, facebook, myspace[/tags]

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never join me for a trip

it’s 2:01 a.m. and pam and i got back from our teAMerica church planting assessment about 10 minutes ago (more on this later – it was great). never ever go on a trip with pam and i. we always seems to have something happen that messes the transportation up. tonight the final leg of our transportation was delayed because of a thunderstorm. we sat in the plane on the tarmac for 4 hours! it was awful. actually we only sat in the plane due to the storm for the two hours. our first hour on the tarmac was due to the runway having to be checked and rechecked due to a prior plane having hit a bird during takeoff. the final hour was due to the fact that our plane had run out of fuel sitting on the tarmac waiting for the bird carcasses to be cleared off and the storm to go away. the good side of the wait is that i finished my third book of the week.

if you’re a “lost” fan and have emailed me (i.e. debbie) please don’t be offended if i don’t answer your email until later. pam and i haven’t watched this week’s episode yet and i’m scared to open those emails because i am afraid they will give something away. i hope it was a good one.

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desperately seeking susan

okay this post has nothing to do with the movie from 1985 and i’m not really looking for anyone named susan – it just seemed like a fun answer. earlier this week i decided i would start emailing some friends of mine that don’t really like the whole “church thing.” some of them are followers of CHRIST and some of them are not (if i haven’t emailed you yet it probably means that i couldn’t find your email address). i’m seeking their thoughts on what church is like and what they would like to see it like. i know and belief that CHRIST sets up the church and is the head of it but i also know that most of what goes on at church has nothing to do with JESUS. i don’t think JESUS cares at all if we have organs or guitars at church and i think HE really dislikes some of the stuff that we do in the name of being HIS body. so i’ve emailed them and asked them the following questions:

  • what things with churches have offended you? i don’t mean core biblical values here – i’m okay with someone being offended by a core belief of my faith (i.e. believing that JESUS is the only way to GOD, that we were created to be with GOD, etc) – i’m not changing that. instead what i mean are the other things that people latch onto that have nothing to do with their core faith – i.e. being a republican, buying cheesy paintings, not standing up against hate, that churches shouldn’t meet in bars, etc.
  • what things have you seen within a CHRISTian community that you do like? i guess what i’m asking here is what type of church would you possibly go to even though you don’t believe their faith?
  • what types of things could a body of believers do within the community that would make you glad they were within your community?

now i was wondering what you guys & girls thought. if would greatly appreciate any thoughts or opinions any of your had. you can either leave them in the comments or email them to me at robert.terrell (at) gmail.com.

thanks a bunch guys.

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we are now a two basset family

roux has now been a stray for at least two weeks (he may have been gone from his house for longer for all we know). we’ve advertised finding him in every manner that we can think of – from signs to an add in the newspaper. so we’ve reach the point where we are going to start his heartworm treatment and claim him as a member of the terrell family. roux is now officially one of us.

now we no longer have to say “can i get a roux, roux?” because we already have one. 🙂

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mindmeister

i’ve been using freemind mind mapping for awhile now for organizing everything from studies to our church planting adventure. today lifehacker listed mindmiester on their website. mindmeister is collaborative mind mapping and it was just what i’ve been hoping for. i love using the mind mapping software but i’ve been desiring to be able use it with other people so that we could map out an event, idea or whatever together. that’s exactly what mindmeister seems to be for. i haven’t used it in a group yet but the single version is just as good as freemind. i think i will probably use it for organizing our nicaraguan mission trip in july.

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you should probably take a shower then

our church’s preschool has a chapel every tuesday. these chapels consist of a group of 3 to 5 year olds singing a few songs and then being led through a short bible story by one of the ministers. this means that i get to lead one of these chapels every month. this past week was once again my turn to lead the preschool chapel.

when i lead these chapels for the the kids i like to involve a good bit of participation from the kids so i usually pick a story that i can get the kids to interact with in at least a small way. tuesday i decided to use the story of JESUS healing the 10 lepers. as a part of telling this story i had ten kids get up in front to help me tell the story. when our kid/JESUS walked close to our kid/lepers they were supposed to shout “JESUS, master, have pity on us” as loud as they possibly could. that was the plan and nine of them understood and followed it. one of the kid/lepers apparently misheard me because while the others were shouting “JESUS, master, have pity on us” she instead shouted out “JESUS, he peed on us!”

needless to say all the adults in the room lost it at that point and the chapel devotion was over.

[tags]JESUS, pee, preschool chapel[/tags]

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spidey 3

the fam and i just got back from watching spiderman 3. i’m not real sure of my overall impression of the movie yet. i’ll probably figure that out in a few days when i know if i would actually like the watch the movie again or not. so these are just my initial thoughts:

  • spidey 3 was quite good – not as good as the second one but it was still a good movie.
  • it’s nice to see the spidey franchise do better than the batman franchise did with it’s initial movies (i exclude batman begins from this characterization because it was, in my opinion, a very good movie).
  • i didn’t like stan lee’s appearance in spidey 3 as much as i did the others – it was too obvious. it’s better to sneak him in.
  • i really enjoyed the first 1/3 of the movie, was a little bored by the middle third, and then won back over by the final part of the movie. the first third was the best part in my opinion.
  • i’m not sure how i feel about a fourth spiderman movie. i kind of hope they stop while they are ahead – of course, they won’t though.
  • i do not enjoy watching movies in full theaters unless the theater is filled with fanatics. fanatics understand how to respond to the movie without missing anything (star wars and lotr fans are a good example of this). the theater we were in was filled with people who wanted to talk about their day and let their kids run around the theater during the movie.
  • the popcorn at the rave 16 cinaplex barely had any salt on it – this almost ruined the whole experience for me.

no matter what i think about spiderman 3 it is still head and shoulders above rambo 3 which is on superstation wgn as i type this. i liked sylvester stallone in the original rockie because it was semi original but all the sequels pretty much killed my opinion of him.

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a crisis that will sting us in the end

there is a honey bee crisis developing within america. for some unknown reason or reasons millions of honey bees are randomly dying across america. this is actually no laughing matter because honey bees provide almost 90% of all insect pollination and approximately 90 different foods that we eat (mostly fruits and nuts) depend upon insect pollination. in the past few months u.s. beekeepers have lost about 25% of their colonies due to what is now being called colony collapse disorder. this is five times their normal winter loss.

pam and i have always wanted to raise honey bees. maybe this means that we should start when we move up to wisconsin. if this happens i expect everyone of you to thank GOD for me when you eat your meals. 😉

[tags] honey bees, colony collapse disorder[/tags]

[Listening to: Useless – Imogen Heap – I Megaphone (5:19)]
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JESUS talk

if you have ever walked past “free speech alley” at l.s.u. then you have probably experience the wrath that is the consuming fire fellowship. this “church” brings members (adults and kids) over to l.su. regularly and spouts hatred at pretty much anybody who walks by. if you’re wearing shorts, are walking beside someone who is wearing shorts, know somone who is wearing shorts, or you have ever looked at a pair of shorts then you are ripe for their condemnation. the consuming fire fellowship (hence forth cff) don’t mind it when people shout back at them because they rest in the confidence that JESUS said that those who followed HIM would be hated and persecuted (luke 6:26 & 2 timothy 3:12). the irony is that the nonCHRISTians who hear them don’t usually hate the cff. instead, they love them because the cff is great entertainment. people will bring their lunches outside and cheer as the cff spews their hatred. the only people who don’t really like the cff coming around are the CHRISTians because the cff fits into a hollywood stereotype of CHRISTians. the CHRISTians on campus end up getting painted with the same brush as cff and nobody really wants that.

one man has finally come up with the perfect answer for the cff. i haven’t met him yet but many of our students have. from what i know his name is ivan and he goes to free speech alley each week and sits close to where the cff preaches its hatred. he brings his newspaper and wears a shirt that simply says “JESUS talk.” ivan sits there until someone approaches him and asks what his shirt means. he then tells them that he is a follower of JESUS and has come out to free speech alley to listen to, pray with, and talk with people concerning his LORD. he doesn’t beat anyone up verbally. instead he is more concerned with getting to know these young men and women who were created by his LORD. ivan freely shares the gospel with anyone who approaches him but he never uses the gospel as a weapon to inflict hurt on someone. it has now reached the point that people track him down to ask him to pray for them. ivan gladly puts his paper down and shares GOD’s love with them. cff lives and says that GOD hates the students of l.s.u. and merely desires to condemn them. ivan lives and tells them that GOD loves them and wants to lead them to true life – the way it is supposed to be.

“JESUS talk” is a brilliant answer to the lies of the adversary. i wish i had thought of this seven years ago when i first moved to baton rouge. i guarantee that if there is a cff-like movement up at the unversity of wisconsin – stevens point that i will be following in ivan’s shoes as he follows in our LORD’s.

[tags]free speech alley, louisiana state university, JESUS talk[/tags]

[Listening to: Getting Scared – Imogen Heap – I Megaphone (4:53)]