sometimes something simple can become something amazing. the tsunami blogathon is simply a guy named darren posting 100 blog entries during a twenty-four hour period (around 1 every fifteen minutes) in hopes of raising some money for the asian tsunami victims. this is really not a huge thing – even though the thought of posting twenty-four original posts is quite daunting in my opinion (at my present rate i post 100 entries every three to four months). yet a large number of people are starting to get behind this small little endeavor. you can be one of the ones who are behind it. go and donate to the cause, watch darren sweat, or even send in a post suggestion. who knows this could become something amazing if we all get behind it.
youth ministry website
i constantly struggle with keeping our youth ministry website current. i’m too cheap (an overriding theme of my life) to actually hire someone else to do the website for me or to pay for one of the “ministry related” website services that you can get through truewell or other organizations that host and design your site for you. nope my cheapness makes me try to do things on my own. the result of this has been that i buy the cheapest web hosting i can find, make a site, and then typically don’t update it for quite sometime.
after a while i feel guilty about the state of the youth ministry website and start a major redesign of the site. i update the site and it looks okay for awhile but then i typically let it get out of date again. it’s a vicious cycle that repeats itself over and over.
but not this time. i think i’ve reached a solution that will last longer than normal. i’ve decided to use the blogger interface to run the youth ministry website. this will make the website look like a blog. i can update it regularly without having to change the code behind it all the time. blogger also let’s change the style of the website simply by changing the style sheet within it. hopefully this thing will work out.
nailed it
you’re not going to believe this!
this article tells the story of patrick lawler a construction worker who went to his dentist complaining of a toothache that has lasted for four days. when the dentist looked into mr. lawler’s mouth he discovered that he had a 4 inch nail embedded in the roof of his mouth. lawler had been working with a nail gun, shooting a nail through a piece of wood. what lawler didn’t know was that while nailing the piece of wood he actually sent out two nails. the spare nail somehow bounced into the palate of his mouth embedding itself into his skull and going 1 1/2 inches into his brain.
he walked around with this nail in his head for six days thinking he had a bad tooth ache. he actually ate ice cream to help lower the swelling of this supposed “tooth ache”. he ended up having to go through a four hour surgery to remove the nail and now seems to be doing well.
my word!
new website design
i recently figured out how to how to use blogger to continually post updates on the website. this has some incredible advantages, suc as:
- easy web-based updates from anywhere – i presently really need to be at my church computer in order to update the website or i have to use a test editor which takes me awhile to do.
- an rss feed for the website – this means that you can use bloglines or another rss fetcher to automatically “fetch” updates from the website.
- easy c.s.s. updating so i can change the look of the website easily.
- comments – you can now place your own comments on pages of the website.
so if you haven’t looked at the youth ministry website you might want to do so.
so proud of my wife
my wife, pam, recently sent in an application to be a part of the game show jeopardy. it’s been a life long goal of hers to be on the show. she received an email today saying that she needs to be in atlanta february 12th for her try out. so of course, she’s going. i’m sure she’ll blog about this later. i’m very proud of her.
sabbath retreat – final report (maybe)
we got back from the sabbath weekend and things went very well. for an experiment this thing turned out wonderful. all the reports i have received from the kids who went have ben fantastic. to the point of having the majority of the teens who went ask me if we could start doing “mini-sabbaths” every month or every other month. of course, the purpose of the weekend was not to start another program so i don’t know if i’ll start something regular from this. here are some basic thoughts on the weekend:
- the time periods of silence were very well received. the last about 45 minutes each time. i do think that if i do this again i will probably stretch this out some more. a couple of the teens made the very good point that they felt like it took them a good fifteen minutes to really get going with the silence. they said that they wished they had more silence each time. i think next time i will probably go for periods of 1 1/2 hours of silence.
- the parable of the lost sheep was a HUGE hit. it really brought up some deep seated issues for some of the participants within the weekend. i divided the parable into three periods of contemplation 1) in the pasture with the other sheep, 2) being lost, 3) being found. each time we focused on what it would be like to be within the parable as the lost sheep during that time. the danger of reading scripture is to think it is about other people. so we focused on the parable knowing that it was about us. this was not a bible study per se, rather it was a discussion of what would be running through our minds at the various points within the parable. i didn’t try to then connect this to the kids’ lives. they figured out how it connected on their own. it was amazing to hear some of their comments.
- cooking our own meals. i did not bring or hire someone else to cook the meals for us. instead the kids and adults did it. they were not allow to cook just hamburgers and such. instead the meals were decent meals – homemade chicken noodle soup, french dip sandwiches, etc.
- spiritual autobiographies. each person discussed where they had been, where they were presently, and where they were going with CHRIST. they were deeply personal and very moving.
- the free time. everyone loved the fact that we had a ton of free time.
it was a fantastic weekend and i’m so glad that it went well. if you’re interested in doing anything like this i’ll gladly send you all the stuff we did which you can then adapt any manner in which you want.
my lame attempt at copying
i figured y’all would get a kick out of this. yesterday, i posted about a guy named micon who is taking a picture of every meal he fixes for himself. i was very impressed by the time and effort he had put into each meal. since i am a hugely pathetic human being i of course tried to make my lunch as nice as possible. here’s my sad, pathetic picture.
blue like jazz
i’m presently reading “blue like jazz” by donald miller. thus far it IS really good.
reading the book has brought one thing to the forefront of my mind and that thought that has come to the front of my mind is that i have become sick of the word “story“. i love the fact that so many have begun to focus on the importance of conveying truth through stories. i love that we have begun to recognize that JESUS was and is the master story teller and that HE conveyed real truth not through propositions but through the use of metaphor, allegories, and well … stories. i’m not feed up with the concept of stories, rather it is the word itself that i have become feed up with. it seems like presently you see it everywhere within ministry. the word “transparent” was the same awhile back. “story” is simply one of the hot words right now and therefore it just seems like people say it as much as possible.
the good thing is that the truths of telling metaphors, allegories, and “tales” as a way of conveying truth and becoming better story tellers are here to stay. that’s a good thing. i just wish the word “story” would not come out of everyone’s mouth 90% of the time.
that’s my story and i’m sticking to it. 🙂
about time
i’m a “johnny come lately”. i’m never on the cutting edge of anything. rather, i hear about things that are supposed great, i then usually ignore those great things or think up reasons why they aren’t really very good at all, and then eventually i come around to try whatever it was that everyone was saying was so good before hand. this is my usual mode of operation. sometimes i love those things that i initially ignored.
i’m sadden to admit that it has happened again. this time it occurred with a television shows that i have been hearing was great for two years. the show is “24” and i have been ignoring it for awhile. i heard wonderful comments concerning it. several people i know have brag about. i’ve heard stories about people having marathon “24” weekends in which they watched an entire season in one to three sittings.
yet i ignored the television show even though i knew it sounded like one that i would like. that’s all changed now. tuesday night i saw my first episode of 24 and was blown away by it. it was incredible. so incredible in fact that i went out today and rented the first 8 hours of the first season. i watched the first four hours of the show earlier today while i was working on the material for the “sabbath” retreat that we are doing this weekend. it was great t.v. i can’t wait to watch the next four hours tomorrow while i finalize the last minute details for the retreat. the problem is that i’ll then have to figure out how to watch the remaining 16 hours of video and still have a semi-normal life. actually if anyone has the first series on dvd and can loan me the remaining four discs you would save me about twenty bucks and i would be very much appreciative.
then i have to get the next two seasons of “24” in somehow. that’s allot of video to watch.
set up for the view – january 12, 2005
below is the set-up for the view for wednesday, january 12, 2005. we setup for “worship in the round”. it’s been awhile since we have done this. we basically do this by setting the band in the middle of a circle of 70 to 100 chairs or so. we set up three “isles” for movement and for purposes of viewing the three screens. we use our one stationary projector and hook up two additional lcd projectors on the floor so that you can view a screen from all angles.
tonight i continued talking about the “kingdom of heaven” by focusing on matthew 13:31-33. this is JESUS parables of the mustard seed and the yeast. we talk about letting GOD invade all areas of our lives rather than just compartmentalizing HIM.
