money

when pam and i came to wisconsin to plant tapestry we did so with the knowledge that i would receive some salary support from the minnesota / wisconsin baptist convention but without any idea where we would get any initial funds for starting anything up. obviously we would be tithing to the church but we figured that it would be for quite some time before anyone else was contributing financially to ministry of the church. that was going to be okay because i am a firm believer that ministry is not dependent upon money. yes, you need a little money for certain things but most things can be done with very little money if you have a great abundance of time, energy, creativity, and initiative. so pam and i figured we would be doing this thing with our tithe and as much time, energy, creativity, and initiative as we could muster together.

thanks to some of y’all the plan has changed in one detail. we’re still going to use as much time, energy, creativity, and initiative as we can possible put together but we no longer have to depend upon our tithe alone. some of you have made some very generous contributions to tapestry. i wasn’t expecting them but i am very much appreciative of them. thanks guys.

i love lifehacker

if you don’t have lifehacker on your rss reader then your are missing some incredible things. i always pick up the best ideas from them. today they posted about email addresses that automatically convert your attachments for you. koolwire had four of the addresses. it’s so cool. you email your document to koolwire and it emails the pdf file back to you. no registration required. now i may grow to hate this later (i have a little fear that it’s just a way of getting my email address for throwing spam at me) but right now i love it.

the jungle

i finished reading upton sinclair’s book “the jungle” yesterday. it was amazing. sure the socialism that is blatantly preached within the book has been proven a failure (the book was written during a time of socialist revival) but the book is still powerful. the book was great before i reached the last chapter but then it got better and better. even if the rest of the book sucked it would be worth reading for the last chapter.

“I am not defending the Vatican,” exclaimed Lucas, vehemently. “I am defending the word of God–which is one long cry of the human spirit for deliverance from the sway of oppression. Take the twenty-fourth chapter of the Book of Job, which I am accustomed to quote in my addresses as ‘the Bible upon the Beef Trust’; or take the words of Isaiah–or of the Master himself! Not the elegant prince of our debauched and vicious art, not the jeweled idol of our society churches–but the Jesus of the awful reality, the man of sorrow and pain, the outcast, despised of the world, who had nowhere to lay his head–”

“I will grant you Jesus,” interrupted the other.

“Well, then,” cried Lucas, “and why should Jesus have nothing to do with his church–why should his words and his life be of no authority among those who profess to adore him? Here is a man who was the world’s first revolutionist, the true founder of the Socialist movement; a man whose whole being was one flame of hatred for wealth, and all that wealth stands for,–for the pride of wealth, and the luxury of wealth, and the tyranny of wealth; who was himself a beggar and a tramp, a man of the people, an associate of saloon-keepers and women of the town; who again and again, in the most explicit language, denounced wealth and the holding of wealth: ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth!’–‘Sell that ye have and give alms!’–‘Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of Heaven!’–‘Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation!’–‘Verily, I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of Heaven!’ Who denounced in unmeasured terms the exploiters of his own time: ‘Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!’–‘Woe unto you also, you lawyers!’–‘Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?’ Who drove out the businessmen and brokers from the temple with a whip! Who was crucified–think of it–for an incendiary and a disturber of the social order! And this man they have made into the high priest of property and smug respectability, a divine sanction of all the horrors and abominations of modern commercial civilization! Jeweled images are made of him, sensual priests burn incense to him, and modern pirates of industry bring their dollars, wrung from the toil of helpless women and children, and build temples to him, and sit in cushioned seats and listen to his teachings expounded by doctors of dusty divinity–”

“Bravo!” cried Schliemann, laughing. But the other was in full career–he had talked this subject every day for five years, and had never yet let himself be stopped. “This Jesus of Nazareth!” he cried. “This class-conscious working-man! This union carpenter! This agitator, law-breaker, firebrand, anarchist! He, the sovereign lord and master of a world which grinds the bodies and souls of human beings into dollars–if he could come into the world this day and see the things that men have made in his name, would it not blast his soul with horror? Would he not go mad at the sight of it, he the Prince of Mercy and Love! That dreadful night when he lay in the Garden of Gethsemane and writhed in agony until he sweat blood–do you think that he saw anything worse than he might see tonight upon the plains of Manchuria, where men march out with a jeweled image of him before them, to do wholesale murder for the benefit of foul monsters of sensuality and cruelty? Do you not know that if he were in St. Petersburg now, he would take the whip with which he drove out the bankers from his temple–“

now i’m starting “the shack.” i guess i’ll finally find out if all the hype is true.

super tuesday


tomorrow will hopefully settle some politics for me. i’m politically independent. i know that my progressive friends think i am a fundamentalist and my conservative friends think i am a liberal. i’m okay with that because within the faith community my calvinist friends think i am armenian and my armenian friends think i am a calvinist. i am a man of mystery. “grin”

actually the issues that i am concerned about are broader than the partisan talking points of each of the political parties. in the past i have voted for republicans and i have voted for democrats. my problem right now is that there is a candidate on both sides (obama & mccain) that i could vote for and there is a candidate on both sides that i simply don’t trust and therefore wouldn’t vote for (clinton & romney). so today either makes my choice easy (one candidate i like & one i don’t), difficult (two candidates i like), or impossible (two candidates that i throughly don’t like). i’m hoping for “difficult.”

SIDE NOTE – i can not believe that hillary teared up again. don’t people see through this crap. i so hope barak kicks her butt.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – i wish to express condolences to my friend debbie at the lose she suffered last night. i know the fact that another new york team stole another boston team’s chance at making history has to be hard for her and the other bostonians. i would say i was sorry that the giants won but i can’t.

guiding voters where?


i love the church that i preached at today so please don’t take anything i am about to say as a statement concerning the church. the church body didn’t have anything to do with the “voter guides” that i am about to discuss. one individual decided to pass these things out – he was a nice guy i just disagree with the “voter guides.”

these guides are from a website called wall builders. as stated on their website the organization’s goals are to …

exert a direct and positive influence in government, education, and the family by (1) educating the nation concerning the GODly foundation of our country; (2) providing information to federal, state, and local officials as they develop public policies which reflect biblical values; and (3) encouraging CHRISTians to be involved in the civic arena.

my main probably with the voter guides is that i believe they have much more to do with a certain political persuasion than they do with a “GODly foundation.” I’m not sure that many of the topics that the “voters guide” addresses are in line with what the JESUS of scripture would. more importantly than the issues that it includes are many of the items that it ignores. if you use the “voters guides” as your source you would come to believe that GOD cares nothing for the weakest of our society because the “voters guides” never mentions them. Seriously, do any of us really believe that JESUS is more deeply concerned about the presidential candidates committing to not raise taxes (which is on the guide) than HE is concerned about the candidates committing to fight poverty (which is left off the guide)? or do we honestly think that JESUS is more concerned about a federal marriage amendment (which is on the guide) than HE is about reforming welfare in such away that it encourages marriage rather than penalizing it (which isn’t on the guide)? i doubt seriously that most of the items on the “voters guide” have anything to do with the kingdom of GOD. It seems more like an organization trying get churches to vote there way.

thankfully the church i was at still sees that JESUS is very concerned about the weakest of our society. one lady carried so much about it that she had to say as much in the middle of the sermon i was delivering. i like it when that happens.

super no

i just thought i would let everyone know that they should not watch the superbowl at a church with a screen larger than 55″ because it’s against the nfl’s copyright. here’s the washing post article on the nfl cracking down on churches showing the superbowl (churches that don’t charge a dime or use the event as a fund raiser). the article says:

for years, as many as 200 members of immanuel bible church and their friends have gathered in the church’s fellowship hall to watch the super bowl on its six-foot screen. the party featured hard hitting on the tv, plenty of food — and prayer.

but this year, immanuel’s super bowl party is no more. after a crackdown by the national football league on big-screen super bowl gatherings by churches, the springfield church has sacked its event. instead, church members will host parties in their homes.

i actually think it’s great that the church is getting people to invite others into their homes to watch the game BUT the nfl probably needs to get over this. i know they have the right to do this but it is a little ridiculous. if the nfl sees no harm in sports bars showing the game legally (sports bars are specifically excluded within the copyright) then i think they probably wouldn’t be harmed by churches doing the same thing.

anyhow here’s the article.

photographic lies


a friend, brad,, mentioned something awhile back that has stuck with me. he talked about how deceptive photographs are. they look like a slice of reality but they aren’t. i read susan sontag’son photography” soon after brad’s statement and began to understand a little more of what he meant. that’s why i thought i would share this article today. it is about one of the best known photos of the vietnam conflict. to quote the article.

Adams wrote in Time magazine, “The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn’t say was, ‘What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?’

if you have a minute and you’re into photography it is well worth the few minutes it will take to read it.