Month: June 2010

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little help?!?!? – menu-wise that is

the terrell family eats very well. among her many wonderful attributes pam is an excellent cook. just ask anyone who has ever eaten at our home. my wife knows how to cook and brings a great deal of variety to the terrell family menu. this is yet another reason that i am a very blessed boy. i on the other hand require an open flame to cook. i’m not helpless. we will not go hungry while pam is gone. still, i realize that most of my cooking is specialized in it’s nature. it is event cooking. it is meal preparation for when we have guests coming to join us. basically this means grilling out.

i can grill a world of things. i have entire meals (except for dessert) that are cooked on one of my weber grills (i have three so there is plenty of grilling space). pam would tell you that you don’t really know what corn should taste like until you have tasted my grilled corn – it really is good. i love cooking on a grill but it is a good bit of work and not something that i want to do every night until next weekend.

once i start cooking in the house i am a little more limited. years ago, thanks to a start from my father-in-law, i worked on perfecting a chilidog recipe. my father in law taught me a recipe that was from a chili dog place in Alabama. I continue to adapt it little by little.  it’s pretty good and the whole family loves it but i don’t want to eat chili dogs for 7 days. i can cook some other simple things but i don’t have as much variety as pam.

so here’s where i need your help. since pam is gone to brazil for a week the boys are depending upon me for sustenance. as a family we try to avoid processed foods because they are not as good for you and they are relatively expensive. do any of you have easy recipes that you would like to share with this single dad for a week?

thanks.

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i am a hardened criminal

the police came to our house to get me today.

as the father of a 16 year old son the first thoughts that run through my head upon seeing the village of plover police parked in my driveway are not typically good. once they assured me that they were not their to report an accident or any trouble with adam i felt better. instead of being their to break this parent’s heart they had driven to my house to ask me a few questions. the officer’s first questions was had i gotten any fuel at our local quicktrip today? that was easy, the answer was no. the office looked at his report and rephrased his question. had i obtained any fuel at the quicktrip yesterday. yep i had. i bought fuel, a diet coke, and two donuts. the officer’s next question was, “do you remember paying for the fuel?” i thought i did. i definitely remembered going inside getting a diet coke and donuts and paying for them. yet i wasn’t as sure about the fuel.

you see i usually pay for my fuel at the pump. i try not to go inside if it can be avoided (this is just for fuel stations – ironically i prefer avoiding fast food windows). the problem is that goes inside can’t be avoided when i have decided to get a diet coke. while it would be a brilliant idea to place diet coke machines beside the gas pump no one has been brave enough to do it yet. i hope that one day a promising entrepreneur will have the fortitude to place diet coke fountains outside by a station’s gasoline pumps but until that day i will have to walk inside the store when i stop for fuel and a diet coke.

yesterday i did walk inside to pay for my diet coke, donuts, and fuel. unfortunately i only paid for 2 of those 3. that is frowned upon by most businesses and municipalities, especially when you forget the most expensive item. the officers directed me to go back to the store and pay for my fuel as soon as possible (i.e. immediately). i thought that while i was there i would also buy a diet coke and two donuts. it seemed only right that i accomplish the purchase i was trying to make yesterday.

SIDE NOTE – pam is gone to brazil to lead a study abroad course for uwsp. this will be a long week.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – i enjoy scott mcknight’s blog. one of his many posts for today concerns tithing within american CHRISTianity. it is an interesting and short read.

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come on out

comeonout

first, i love asbo jesus. his cartoons hit so many things on target. like the one above. every now and then as i dream about the future of tapestry i wonder what will happen when/if we have to move our worship gatherings. i love the fact that we meet in rented space and that the space is a public school. it fits with who we are and since one of our dreams is to form new churches from our growth instead of just getting bigger we shouldn’t need to move. it is a part of who we are.

i’m not opposed to church’s having buildings. all the previous churches that i was involved in had buildings that they owned. sometimes the buildings were used incredibly well and sometimes not so much.

the problem is that often the building becomes the center of everything. it is the focal point that people try to convince other people to come to. that’s why people say “where do you go to church” or “where is your church located.” sometime in the past we reached the point that we associated church with a building rather than a group of people. every now and then i am real thankful that tapestry doesn’t have a building. it’s a ton easier to focus on the church being the people when you don’t have a building to mistakenly think is the church.

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moltmann directed study

while it is not finalized with nobts yet the syllabus for the supervised self directed study i want to do for my next d.min seminar has been approved by dr. holcomb, the prof who will be supervising my study. i’ll finish up going through the paper work with nobts tomorrow. for now i am pretty pumped about getting to focus on studying the TRINITY and jürgen moltmann’s thoughts on it.

for those that are interested here is the syllabus that i developed for this study.

i know most of you do not care a bit about looking at the syllabus but i thought i would post it for the random searches that have come my way because of people doing searches on seminars for d.min programs.

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the week in tweets – 2010-06-06

  • I love going to sleep while it is storming. #
  • using my jambalaya pot make me thankful for friends like @jesslawrence1, @meganckelly , and @joshcausey. today my neighbors are thankful too #
  • religion is the affair of the godless man – karl barth #
  • @theboy1der – i will begin now. i hope things improve. in reply to theboy1der #
  • "it is not me that has been exposed, but you, for i have seen the nipple on your soul!" #
  • anybody have a summer camp & need a preacher? i just got the estimate on repairing the "swagger" van's a/c – $2,100. i could use some work. #
  • why do people like to eat rhubarb? it just doesn't make sense! #
  • anybody have an old computer they want to get rid of? i want to make a home theater pc with xbmc but i don't want to spend any money. 🙂 #
  • @allimill – either works in reply to allimill #
  • @dhaltom7 – sure – how much sugar did you have to add to make it bearable? in reply to dhaltom7 #
  • I think I have somehow landed in some type of dark comedy road trip movie. #
  • @Keannan5390 – old is acceptable. it will be a linux machine. in reply to Keannan5390 #
  • anybody associated with @sptapestry possibly able to go to washington and pick up one of our projectors. i need it for the member mtg #
  • @pagitt – you guys were selling babies? i don't really expect a church to do that 😉 in reply to pagitt #
  • anybody involved in @sptapestry interested in doing a "financial peace university" group during the fall? http://bit.ly/cpYT1d #
  • i love living in the upper midwest but i do wish people would buy diet coke for meetings instead of diet pepsi. darn yankees 🙂 #
  • Meeting is better now. Diet Coke found! http://twitpic.com/1u5mmu #
  • I'm reading "After Our Likeness" by Miroslav Volf. 1st time I have read Volf. He's interesting thus far. #
  • thanks to @woot i'm now has running tv on my computer! *ati tv wonder install √ *ability to watch "the office" on tbs √ *happy robert √ #

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my favorite recommendation thus far

azzas status-cropped

many people have had some very nice things to say about tapestry, our faith, and the manner in which we love each other. for example, i once hired an atheist to come in and critique one of our worship gatherings. i wanted to see how she was received, experienced, and understood from one of our gatherings. she said some incredible things about the group that i get to lead. there have been others with varying beliefs that have come in and said very positive things about the group, both when and when i had not asked them about their experience. YET the above facebook status is my favorite critiques of tapestry thus far. it comes from the status of azza, a muslim citizen of egypt, a fullbright scholar, and the uwsp arabic instructor for the past year. she started coming to tapestry about 6 months before she had to leave the states. everyone who makes up tapestry immediately started loving on her – we all know how it feels to be a stranger in the land. she ate supper at many of our homes, went to movies with us, hung out with us, and even went camping with one of the families that make up tapestry. basically she was made to feel welcome and then shown a GOD WHO loves her by a group of people loving her.

she didn’t leave wisconsin as a follower of JESUS but she did leave knowing that a group of followers of JESUS loves her passionately because of their love for JESUS. so passionately that she decided to use her facebook status to tell other people to give tapestry a try. i like it when people do that.

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heartless – the tin man

i have never read or heard the back story of the tin man but this short film is incredible. really it’s worth the 20 minutes it will take for you to watch it. i wonder how many people are forced into efficiency because of things placed on them, decided they like that efficiency, and then lose sight of who/what they were working for in the first place. as a pastor i know this this is personally a temptation for me. it is real easy to work to reach, provide, care, etc. for people  you love and in the process begin to focus more on the work than on the ones that you were working for. it is real easy for us to lose our “hearts.”

i hope and pray that all those who have lost their “heart” will find it again. even better than that – i hope and pray that non of us ever lose our “hearts” in the first place.