Category: personal

infocus just posted the results from their “worst powerpoint slide” competition (these slides were actually used and not false creations). the slides are awesome.

i am constantly amazed at some of the presentations i see. sometimes these are in churches and other times they are in lectures (community and classroom). some of the presentations are horrendous. why should i listen to you when i can read your information off the screen faster than you can talk about it? why use presentation slides that actually distract from the message you are trying to convey.

TED talks and death by powerpoint changed the way i use presentation software. they both use presentation software amazingly well by keeping it very simple. if you watch a TED talk video you will normally find that their presentations slides are VERY SIMPLE. the speaker’s slides are usually just images or small phrases.

here are the simple design rules from “death by powerpoint” that i try to follow

• one point per slide
• few matching colors
• very few fonts
• photos (not clip art)

i generally use my slides for the small segments of scripture, single words, and LOTS of imagery. i believe most of the threads would tell you that they remember the points of the message better by the images i use than they do anything else.

the irony is that i have actually seen someone do an absolutely terrible presentation on how to use powerpoint effectively in sermons. it was an awful presentation that demonstrated the exact opposite of what the presenter was trying to convey.

the above image is of a zimbabwean 100 trillion dollar bill (worth around $1-$1.50). i just read a story about them being sold on ebay for around $5 as collector’s items. i may have to get one of these or convince my kids to buy me one for father’s day.

for 11 years i have been carrying around a 20,000 rubel and 50 cordoba note in my wallet. i’ve kept them there to remind me to pray for GOD’s work in belarus and nicaragua. they serve as a pretty good reminder for me. every time i buy something i see them and try to say a quick prayer.

life has been pretty busy recently. it has been good also … but busy. therefore, i have been more focused on the tasks at hand than i have been blogging. this makes me a little sad because every now and then i like blogging. the busyness will subside soon because i am about to be through with the seminar work for completing my d.min. woohoo!

of course, this means that i will now begin working on my project (since the d.min is a professional versus terminal doctorate it means that your dissertation MUST be practical in its nature, i.e. i have a project rather than a traditional dissertation). i finished my preliminary proposal last week (you can view it here) and we’ll see how that goes. i like the idea of it. it’s basically a study of how trinitarian and incarnational theology should effect the preparation of weekly sermons. in other words, should the fact that GOD is community in his very nature (i.e. the trinity) and the fact that GOD typically preforms HIS work through the agency of HIS people (i.e. incarnation) effect how many voices from HIS church are involved in the preparation of the weekly sermon and, if so, how can the church collaborate on the sermon?

this may not interest you but it does me. if you are thread then there is a chance that you might be asked to participate within my project. i’m going to do an A/B/A/B test to determine if sermons that involve collaboration within preparation have more impact than those that don’t.

i went to amazon today to look for a resource and was surprised by the books it recommended for me. i really thought the books i read would lead to better recommendations than this. apparently amazon has a different view. here are the book that have been most recently ordered on my account":

• how to read the bible for all its worth
• why we run: a natural history
• once a runner: a novel
• numbers (the preacher’s commentary, volume 4)

i’m not sure how these book equal the above recommendations but i am really disappointed in the books i read because they apparently correlate to trash and photoshop manuals.

i will try to start reading better.

last week adam and i were out at night because he needed to grab a text book from his school. we stopped at spash (stevens point area senior high) and i waited in the car while he ran inside to get his book. spash is a pretty busy high school and there is always something going on at night. so the building was full of people and the front entrance had a large number of teens standing around waiting for parents to pick them up. from the crowd of waiting adolescents i noticed a young man and girl walking away from the front entrance. he was obviously walking his young lady friend out to the car that was picking her up. don’t ask me how this was obvious to me, it just was. there was something in his manner that seemed to indicate that he was walking her out just to say buy, open the car door for her, and then close it behind her. it’s always nice to see a young man being a gentleman.

i thought it was cute so i watched him them. i continued watching them as they walked straight at adam’s car (which i was sitting in). i thought to myself “i bet they think this is her parents’ car.” i kept thinking this as they continued to walk straight to the car and then opened the passenger side door. that’s when i started laughing and shouted out “i think you have the wrong car.” apparently the girl’s dad has a great sense of humor too because i heard her say “funny dad” right before she looked in and started to scream.

the guy was real embarrassed and apologized before quickly walking away with the girl who had her head in her hands. i just laughed real hard. there is nothing quite as much fun as embarrassing a teen without even having to try.

SIDE NOTE – pam and noah have developed a guilty pleasure of watching ”toddlers and tiaras” which shows some of the culture of child “beauty” pageants. i watched an episode with pam tonight and i have to say that i just don’t get it. i don’t understand how these parents can think these activities are a good thing. i’m sure the show edits some normal stuff out but most of it just seems nuts to me and some seems to cross into the realm of exploitation.

i was talking with joe h last week while in nicaragua about blogging. he was talking about how he wanted to write some because he enjoyed reading some of the blogs by people in tapestry. he specifically mentioned pam, and then was nice enough to mention my blog also. i’m pretty sure he mentioned my blog just to be nice because he had that “”whoops, i left robert out” look on his face. i get that look a good bit.

you see pam is the blogging champ of the family now. i used to be the champ. i was the first terrell to start blogging and i used to blog a great deal. i don’t do it as much now – which is my own fault. pam writes better than i do, more often than i do, has better skills in grammar, and she is better looking than me (i’m not exactly sure how being better looking than me effects her blogging powers but i’m fairly sure it has some effect). therefore, she will remain the blogging shamp. all i can hope to do is to make a better show of it.

as most of you know a group of threads from tapestry are going to diriamaba, nicaraua sunday. we will be working with some of our nica friends to do this. i say “working with” because we are not going down there to build the house. a lot of groups go places to build things as though the residents in those places can’t build things. out goal is to work with our nica friends. they will take the lead and we will work along side. so why are we going? because the relationship that we have with our friends down there is important to both groups’ faiths in CHRIST and because it helps us to figure out how we can be of more assistance. you see the baltadonas (the family we work with down there) are real heroes. they love GOD and they believe that GOD wants to transform their community you can see this clearly when you watch how they love on the people of their community. being around them pushes me to be more involved in spreading GOD’s love in tangible ways in the point area. so we go down there to learn from and work with our nica friends. they are amazing.

anyhow, here are the threads that are going down this next week.

• joe hasenohrl
• amanda martin
• joseph metallo
• pete metallo
• robin metallo
• eileen newsome
• casey shadis
• joel stokdyk
• me

we also have one of my former students, eric landry, doing this thing with us. please remember all of us in prayer.

SIDE NOTE – at last count we raised around $1,400 of the $2,000 necessary for the house. of course, we’re still building the house and we’ll just take the remaining $600 out of church funds. if you want to contribute to the building of the house you still can. any money we receive at this point would go into putting those money that was missing back in the church funds and any extra would be put towards our next trip in august.

pam and i both consistently make new year’s resolutions. we’ve done it for years. we’re both pretty goal-oriented people and our resolutions serve as those goals. if you are curious you can find pam’s here. so here are some of the things that i am hoping to accomplish during 2011.

• love GOD in more demonstrable ways
• love others in more demonstrable ways
• take pamela, adam, and noah fishing 5 times each (this harder than you think because they are all busy and the canoe is meant for two)
• pray with at least 2 people each week
• go through the ransom fellowship bible reading program for slackers and shirkers
• plan and do at least two large surprise dates for pam (since she reads my blog it really won’t be too big of a surprise but i want this to be a priority and therefore it gets publicized)
• finish 40 books this year (i finished 36 this year)
• run 1,100 miles (i finished 1,000 this year)
• bike 800 miles (i rode 424 this year)
• help tapestry to grow even closer to being the church GOD wants her to be – this could be scary because i am already constantly amazed by how amazing the threads are.
• get a runners world t-shirt by getting a “letter to the editor” in the magazine
• 1 planned photo a week on flickr 
• catch 4 muskies of any size this year
• play different practical jokes on 3 different people in the same day
• improve my marathon time by 30 minutes
• bring faith, hope, and love to as many people’s lives as possible in significant manners
• catch 1 muskie longer than 42”
• post to my blog at least 4 times a week
• participate in 1 fly swap
• refurbish the boys’ bathroom

these are my goals at this point.

SIDE NOTE – here is a fascinating map of the dialects within the us. it’s well worth a look at.

i am so proud of my boys for the gifts they gave this CHRISTmas. advent conspiracy has been a huge thing for helping us as a family celebrate the birth of JESUS in a proper way. it has redefined how we give gifts. this year the boys put an amazing amount of time, creativity, and love into gifts they gave. i could tell you some of them but i don’t think you would recognize how great they were because these gifts involved a great amount of intimate knowledge of the person receiving the gift. pam and i have great kids. i hope your gifts and your celebration of the birth of the SAVIOR was just as meaningful.

SIDE NOTE – we have raised around $1,000 for the house we are building in nicaragua. we don’t leave for nicaragua until the 9th so there is still time to give if you would like to. of course, if you want 2010 tax credit for your contribution you need to do so before january 1st.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – thanks to my recent discovery of our local library’s online audiobook website i am presently listening to “the blind side: evolution of a game” by michael lewis while i run and walk the dogs. this is the second book of his that i have gone through and i really like his style of writing because he reminds me of john krakauer’s style of writing. i’m going to have to read/listen to some other works of his.