homer simpson
books are useless! i only ever read one book, “to kill a mockingbird,” and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds! sure it taught me not to judge a man by the color of his skin…but what good does *that* do me?
that's funny
i don’t care what your feelings are on the 2000 presidential election this farce article, “gore wins nobel prise, high court gives it to bush“, is funny.
SIDE NOTE – pam and i saw bill cosby in concert at uwsp. naturally he was great. not as great as seinfeld would have been but still great.
outside church
church marketing sucks posted this today about cornerstone church in simi valley, california. cornerstone was in the process of building a $60 million facility when they realized it did not fit into their understanding of their faith. so instead they decided to build a mulitpurpose building for when it rains and a 140 acre park that the community can use with an amphitheater in it that the church can use for worship services during the vast majority of california days when it doesn’t rain.
to quote the reasons they give for their change of plans:
- We love the poor: People around the world desperately need aid (Romans 12:13).
- We love Jesus: He says that He is the One suffering (Matthew 25:35-36).
- It’s best for us: We’ll be more joyful if we give rather than receive (Acts 20:35).
- It affects unbelievers: They are impacted when they see good works (Matthew 5:16).
- It models Christ: Laying down our lives is how we imitate Christ (1 John 3:16-17).
- We gain eternal rewards: God rewards those who care for the poor (Matthew 9:21).
i don’t know all the details of what they are doing but from what i do know i think they are definitely pushing the envelope. i love it when people of faith truly break the mold rather than just talking about being “extreme” or “radical.” in my opinion, other people should be the ones to use those adjectives when talking about you or your church. you should never use them of yourself – that’s one of the surest signs that you are not “radical” or “extreme.”
brad wenner is the greatest human being alive today
i love brad wenner and if it were not “against the laws of nature (and the fact i am already married) i would make him my wife (random simpsons paraphrase – willy says this to his tractor).” brad sent me an invite to grand central – a previously unknown to me google acquisition. it appears to be the perfect solution for my tapestry phone problem. i just signed up for it and it looks great. here’s what it does for me:
- a stevens point phone number
- sends notification of a new voicemail to my email and a sms to my cell phone
- personalized greetings & specialized greetings
- and best of all it’s free (at least for right now)
so tapestry has a phone number (715)952-4478. thanks brad.
by the way, you should check out his photography (flickr stream). he’s incredible.
determination
if you ever want to learn about determination all you have to do is walk two basset hounds. i love walking my dogs but i hate it when they see a chipmunk. they are a pleasure to walk until they see those small furry vermin. when they see a chipmunk they go after it with all the strength they have, which is quite substantial. since they weigh nearly fifty pounds each they are decent size dogs. unlike a labrador or other dog of similar weight the basset’s center of gravity is about six inches off the ground. it’s like have a small tractor on a “choker” collar and a leash. speaking of “choker” collars i need to point out that once they see a chipmunk my bassets apparently no longer need to breathe and therefore they no longer seem to view the “chocker” collar as a deterrent to running. the only thing my bassets care about in those moments is the chipmunk and they dig into the ground with the determination of a mountain climber about to summit. i weight 185 pounds and these two dogs do a pretty decent job of pulling me along towards any chipmunk they want to chase. my only hope is to i slow my two dogs down long enough for the chipmunks to disappear. it takes all my strength to accomplish this goal. once the little “rat” vanishes my dogs are suddenly more than happy to continue our walk. i’m sure they are secretly doing all of this as a joke on me.
SIDE NOTE – i’m still trying to figure out the phone situation for the church. if anyone has an idea for aquiring a church phone number on a low budget without a physical address i’m all ears. skype won’t work because they don’t have a local number for stevens point. i’ve looked through a couple of internet services tha offer voicemail services but none of them have a local number either. the other options i can think of right now are vonage or a local cell phone but both of these cost a little more than i would prefer for something that will merely be voicemail.
SIDE SIDE NOTE – i am very excited about the movie “into the wild“. jim got me hooked on jon krakauer’s writing. if the movie is true to krakaeur’s story of the life and death of chris mccandless then it will be great.
can i get a woot! woot!
even though i haven’t bought anything from it yet i love woot. as the slogan goes “one day, one deal.” it’s fun to go each day and see what they are selling and how they describe it on the blog.
to quote from today’s items (a 9.6 inch lcd television designed for kids):
studies show that the average american child is exposed to 40,000 tv commercials per year. this shocking statistic should be a source of shame for all of us. but with a hannspree 9.6” lcd tv in every kid’s room and a hands-off attitude in every parent’s heart, we can reach 50,000 and beyond!
ah what fun.
SIDE NOTE: i watched “last one standing last night” and it was pretty interesting. i’ll have to see if it continues.
window shopping
right now i feel like i’m in a peculiar situation with the birth of tapestry. the issue is that i have been dreaming about this for quite some time, where as the people i have been meeting with are just now beginning to consider it as an option. so i’m at the point of slowly moving from the dream of tapestry to the reality of it. yet i can’t really start moving too fast until others are on board with the church. so what i get to continue doing is dreaming and hoping for other people to join in on the dream.
so today just for the fun of it i went to view some leasing property in downtown stevens point. i have mixed feelings concerning leasing property. on one side i would prefer to be rather nomadic. i think it sends a powerful message when a church decides to place it’s resources towards priorities other than a building. on the other side of the coin i think store front churches send a powerful message also. for me it connects very strongly with the original concept of the “ecclesia” being a body of those called out from within the city. there is something amazing symbolic in a church building that is completely physically connected with the other buildings of the city around it, rather than a church building that is a separate little fortress from the other buildings within it’s community. i also think it is just plain cool that anyone walking by a store front church building can look in and see what the people of GOD are doing in the room (hopefully they will be able to see the people of GOD doing many other things all around the community). it’s open and inviting. i’m ready for some other people to start joining the dream of tapestry so we can start deciding what messages are most important to us.
so without any real agenda, other than curiosity, i went downtown today to look at a few of the buildings currently available for lease. after looking at three buildings (one of which had a large side room that could be separated off from it and would work perfectly for what who i believe we will be in a year and a half). it was so cool to walk into a room and imagine a group of people dreaming about and living out the life GOD wants for them. of course, we’re a long ways from being in any type of building. still it was nice.
SIDE NOTE – i presently have a huge scab on my forehead from hitting the exhaust pipe of pam’s minivan saturday. from a distance it looks like a large “mole” on my forehead. because of this “mole” i battled in my mind over whether or not i should get my wisconsin driver’s license today. i finally came down on the side of getting it today because i thought it would be funny to see an chasier’s, security agent’s, or officer’s response (hopefully it will never be an officer’s) when he/she looks at my license and sees a huge “mole” on my photo forehead but not on my present head. it made me laugh continually while i was in the dmv waiting for my photo. i’ll post the photo when i receive my license in the mail.
how many trips to the hardware store does it take to install a new dishwasher?
four. definitely four.
sunday night ramblings
first, it’s really fun being a packers fan this year for two reasons 1) even though i have been a packers fan since 1978, until this year i had never been a packers fan in packers’ country – oh it’s fun, and 2) the packers are kicking butt! (of course, we just lost to the bears.)
second, i have an inch long burn on my forehead now. i went under pam’s minivan to check out something and bumped my head on the exhaust pipe. it instantly burned the first layer of skin off of my forehead. i feel pretty stupid.
third, the nekoosa giant pumpkin festival was a blast. they hollowed out 1000 pound pumpkins and used them for a pumpkin/boat race up the wisconsin river. not something that i ever thought i would see in my life but it was a lot of fun.
fourth, i spent monday through wesdnesday at a pastors’ conference at green lake conference center (which was gorgeous). during the conference i was involved in a couple of conversations concerning what type of marketing i would do to start tapestry and what type of marketing had been done to start various other churches. while i’m not the biggest fan of marketing in general (we have taught our kids to shout “that’s a lie” when certain television commercials come on), i do realize that there is a need for a little. still, i have no interest in “marketing” tapestry. JESUS said “and I, as I am lifted up from the earth, will attract everyone to me and gather them around me.” that’s how i would like to draw people into the community of tapestry – lift JESUS up. i would like us to be involved in doing some things where only JESUS can get the glory and then let HIM decide if he wants to get any of these people involved in tapestry or not. i picture this being something like the commercial where the guy says he found the internet in a swamp. i like to think of a guy or girl seeing what we are doing one day and thinking “well there’s where JESUS is.” i guess this means i need to find out who the “lepers” and “sinners” are within our community and do something JESUS would do with them.
my word
i have mad respect for lsu coach les miles. i can’t remember the last time i saw a coach so concerned about winning the game that he wasn’t afraid to lose it all. those fourth down plays were extremely gutsy. dang it that was impressive.