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the iphone is truly the "it" thing

this article was just put up on the holy observer. it details a “miraculous” image in barcelona of JESUS using HIS iphone.

BARCELONA, CATALONIA, SPAIN – Normally, when Jesus mystically appears in a plant or a piece of food, only his face is visible. But when Eulàlia Beltran recently noticed the Lord in the bark of a beech tree in Barcelona, his left hand drew more attention than his face. Even the expected nail print in his hand was obscured by what he was holding in his hand: today’s hottest electronic device, an Apple iPhone.

so apparently i’m going to have to get me an iphone if i’m really going to follow JESUS. truthfully, i kind of expected a little more from JESUS. 😉

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red hot sex

a church ticked off its community by sending out 50,000 racy flyers titled “red hot sex.” one of the complaintants in the video below raised an interesting question, “why didn’t the church use the money within the community instead?”

ht church marketing sucks

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love

ian has a fun post on children defining love. my personal favorite is:

love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs.

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dreaming of woven paper

anybody know how to weave paper? and if you do is it possible that you also know if you can print on it? i know this sounds odd but i’ve been thinking of doing information flyer’s or cards on woven paper. it might not work at all but you never know until you ask and try.

earlier tonight i was listening to ten shekel shirt’s song “cheer up.” it’s a great song. one part of the song kept nailing me. the song ends saying:

wake up it’s time to dream bigger. wake up it’s time.

i’ve heard people talk in church many times concerning dreaming big but it usually came across as “get more people to come to church and do it within the budget that exists” (it was probably just me thinking that). not a very big dream in my opinion. don’t get me wrong, i’m okay with a church growing in size (after all, at the moment tapestry consists of only four members and all of them are named terrell – it would be nice to have at least a little variety of names) but i don’t usually find GOD-given dreams within scripture being about getting more people to come to church. often GOD-given dreams are about fighting for the freedom of people (which is about salvation but not necessarily church membership) but other times these dreams are about dynamic changes in the way we understand our faith (consider peter), or changes in the direction we are going (consider paul), or challenges that press our faith onward (consider jacob, or lead us to act one way knowing others will disagree (consider jospeh), or many other things. these were dreams that pushed the followers of GOD to do dangerous, risky things. these were things that other people might not always understand. these were things that required GOD’s presence to be accomplished. in fact, if GOD didn’t show up then catastrophic failure was just around the corner. i think dreaming and risk may go hand in hand.

so what are some big dreams?

i hope we all (and i in particular) can dream bigger and risk much. if we did it might be a scary adventure but it would definitely be a great one.

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oh yeah, i like the dog park

oh yeah i like this place
yesterday we took the dogs and the kids to the dog park at the standing rocks park just outside of plover. it was awesome. it’s a 37 acre fenced area where montana and roux were able to run and sniff till they were ready to collapse. the area even has an agility course but i really can’t imagine my basset hounds being very interested in it.

i actually think my kids enjoyed the dog park as much as the dogs did. they spent most of their time playing on the agility course. i’m not sure if i can enter them in agility competitions or not but i do know they can do the course faster than a basset hound can.
adam & noah at the dog park

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über

earlier today i was quizzed by my youngest son concerning what armor i thought sounded tougher. if you have a child who plays the mmorpg runescape then you are probably used to such questions concerning armor and weaponry. today’s question concerned which armor sounded tougher, über armor or barrows armor. i told him that since über is germany for super i would guess that über armor is the strongest (which apparently it is). thus this online game introduced my child to the word über and knowing that word has changed every thing for him. anything that is great, extreme, or super is now “über.” he just announced that he was going to be taking a shower and so he was going to need to be über naked. i’m not sure what über naked means but it sounds more powerful than barrows naked.

SIDE NOTE – when pam makes soup the angels sing.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – the scab has come off of my forehead. i am now “mole” free.

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RANDOM QUOTE – to kill a mockingbird

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?

ht jordon cooper

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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.

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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:

  1. We love the poor: People around the world desperately need aid (Romans 12:13).
  2. We love Jesus: He says that He is the One suffering (Matthew 25:35-36).
  3. It’s best for us: We’ll be more joyful if we give rather than receive (Acts 20:35).
  4. It affects unbelievers: They are impacted when they see good works (Matthew 5:16).
  5. It models Christ: Laying down our lives is how we imitate Christ (1 John 3:16-17).
  6. 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.”

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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.