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you don’t have to cry

lifehacker posted a link to a yahoo article on “how to beat a speeding ticket.”

their desire to get you in and out can work in your favor when fighting a ticket. attorneys who specialize in traffic court cases have very high dismissal rates based simply on technicalities. in many cases, with a little effort and research you can obtain the same results.

i would never want to encourage breaking the law (it’s bad and wrong – it’s badong) but for those of you have a habit of getting speeding tickets i thought you might could use this article.

here’s the article.

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starting the process

i know about next to nothing about planting a church. i am not an expert nor am i the son of an expert. the idea of planting a church scares me, even though pam and i am sure that is the next step on our journey with GOD. i figure pam and i aren’t the first people to have no idea of how to do this and therefore for the sake of helping out all the future ignoramuses like us, i’m going to record as much as possible along the way.

for organizational purposes i thought it would be great to setup a blog category for putting all posts relating to the subject in. the problem is that the obvious category of “church planting” doesn’t really work for me. as of right now i don’t really know what i’m doing and therefore it seems a little egotistical to mark these as posts on “church planting.” i also think it would be nice to have all these posts within the history of the church once we actually do have a church. of course i have no idea what the name of the church will be – naming the church seems to me to be something that the church does, rather than one person – so i don’t have a church name to use as a category for these posts. i know it’s not a big deal, but to me it’s a big deal.

when pam was pregnant with our boys we gave them “fetal names.” since we refused to learn what sex our kids were before they were born these names gave us a way of talking about our baby with out reducing the child to an “it” (calling a baby an “it” drives me nuts – just because you don’t know if the fetus is a “boy” or a “girl” doesn’t mean the child is an “it”). we picked gender-neutral names that could be either sex – like “pat” and “joe.” the fetal name was useful for reminding us that our child was a human and not an “it” but the amorphous name left the mystery alive that came from not knowing.

since we are in the early initial stage of the birth of a future church i am reducing myself down to using a fetal name for the church. that way i can talked about that church that i am getting excited about with out trying to define or limit anything by naming it. once we have a community of believers together we’ll come up with the real name. for now i’m going to use a name that i often answer the phone with. if you call my cell phone and i’m in the right mood i’ll answer the phone with various made up businesses. the most consistent one is “joe’s auto repair.” i’m not sure why but i like the sound of it (i also like “harry’s house of jalapeños”). so starting with this post all blog posts dealing with our future church family will be under the category “jar.”

i know this is a long post for such a stupid thing but it has helped me work out all my mental issues.

SIDE NOTE – i don’t like my “about me” photo (i think it looks pretentious) but several people said my previous one was kind of scary. so i have to take another one (one that’s fun but not scary). i haven’t had the chance or an idea for accomplishing this so it will probably be a few more days before it happens. if you have a brilliant idea please pass it on. i can most assuredly use it.

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the boob tube

is anyone else disturbed by the new chrysler commercials where the kids are acting unruly until the dvd player is pulled down and started. then the little hellions turn into perfect little stepford children. the add says “give them what they want and they’ll give you what you want.” i know that this is what most people use the built in dvd players for but is it something we actually want to encourage?

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the most boring hour of “24″ ever

tonight’s episode of “24” stunk. before tonight i had never actually been bored with an episode of jack bauer’s escapades. there was at least 5 minutes of action at the end of the show but i was so sleepy by then that i had a hard time focusing on it. at least reading dave barry’s take on it was funny.

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it works

just a few minutes ago i used some cilantro from the salsa garden. nothing else is ready to be harvested yet and won’t be for 50 days (the cilantro can be harvest every other week or so). the cilantro works pretty well and it was really cool to simply walk outside cut some off, wash it, and throw it in the blender.

SIDE NOTE – i think all the one square sheryl crow stuff is pretty funny. sharon (don’t go to her blog because she never updates it) said that the whole thing is meant to be a joke and she should know since her hubby, david (a swell guy), is driving one of the biodisels for the tour (from what i understand the biodisel is actually clogging the fuel filters – which stinks because i’m all for fuel that smells like french fries). the whole suggestion is stupid enough that it has to be a joke and thus i’m taking it as such. score 1 for sheryl crow. now i probably wouldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt on her and laurie david’s argument with karl rove since according to their own blog says that they walked over and started the policy discussion. i’m not the greatest fan of rove but i’m usually blaming the one who initiates the conversation rather than the one who responds. of course, if you’re going to be in politics you should have pretty tough skin and be able to handle people being rude. so i guess i’ll call that one a tie. score 1 1/2 for sheryl crow and 1/2 for whoever is against her (rove, big toilet paper, etc.).

[tags]cilantro, salsa, salsa garden, sheryl crow[/tags]

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here’s what i announced in church today

as some of y’all know (because you were there) today i asked the church to pray for my family and i as we work through the process of being church planters with namb and the minnesota/wisconsin baptist convention. we know a lot of people who we love who really like JESUS but are burnt out by the churches they have experienced. we want to be a part of starting a church that will be just for such people.

we want to be a part of a church…

  • that is okay with people’s struggles and mistakes because we believe in a GOD of grace.
  • whose members walk through life together (in the successes and the messiness) because we have a SAVIOR WHO walks with us.
  • where the weakest people are fought for because we have a KING WHO said that when we do so we fight for HIM.
  • where questions are welcomed because we have a LORD WHO is not afraid of our questions.
  • that is not concerned with being powerful because we have a GOD WHOSE strength works through weakness.
  • that does not believe that it must either spread the kingdom of GOD or fight for social justice because we have a MESSIAH WHOSE plan includes both.

we’ve experienced such things within many churches because we knew what we were looking for but a lot of people have been turned off by the church and don’t see our wonderful JESUS.

after this summer we are moving up to stevens point, wisconsin were pam (my cute amazing wife) will begin a tenure track position as an assistant professor of speech language communication at the university of wisconsin – stevens point and we will work as hard as we can to be a part of GOD’s plan for a thriving community of believers.

now you may be asking yourself how are we going to do this? we’ve got the same question. we have no idea. i’ve never been a part of starting a church before and neither has pam. we’re clueless but we’re sure that it’s a part of GOD’s will. so we’ll depend upon HIM, learn everything we can, mess up a lot, and keep plodding along to accomplish HIS will.

i’ll tell you a whole lot more about this as we go along. for now the next step is for us to go to a week of assessment and training in may. we would appreciate all of your prayers and opinions (we’re open to anyone’s advice) as we start down this journey.

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the grapevine

sometimes it is really interesting to see how “the grapevine” works. it’s interesting to see what random people hear something and what random people do not. just a side note that i thought i would type because i am pretty tired right now. i’ve spent yesterday afternoon and all of today down at new orleans baptist theological seminary for a church seminar led by harold bullock. it was a pretty decent seminar except for his brief discussion on postmodern thought. i disagreed with about 90% of what he said on the subject – but hey nobody’s asking me to do seminars so what do i know.

probably the best thing that bullock said was that people do what makes sense to them. i know that’s simple but he connected it with everything that goes on in church. i know it’s really simple but it was good.

it is a continual surprise how much is still desolate within nola.

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idea bucket

at the 2005 national youth workers’ convention i went through a seminar with rob bell. he used the phrase “idea bucket” (something i’m sure came from someone else) to describe writing down various ideas, events, objects, etc. that might connect with a ministry idea later on. he has a secretary to organize these ideas. i usually just write my ideas down within my journal. it’s a great way of saving the idea but a lousy way of finding it later on when i need it. i’ve been looking for something that would allow me to organize and search my ideas. i think i’ve finally found what i was looking for in google notebook. notebook gives me the ability to store lots of random thoughts and then search them later. it would be even better if i could tag the random thoughts (which may be possible – i’m too new to google notebook to know for sure).

[tags]google, notebook, idea bucket[/tags]

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yuck

tonight after “the view“, our youth worship service, i went out to chili’s with a few people to talk over what i talked about tonight. i enjoyed the conversation with eveyone but i didn’t really want to eat because i was going to go home soon and watch “lost” since everyone else was going to eat i decided to just get a small appetizer and i decided upon chili’s bottomless bowl of chips and salsa. their salsa is about the most disgusting thing i have ever tasted. it was as though someone had taken a can of spaghetti o’s, strained out the the pasta, and added a few lame mexican spices. it was all the worse because we were supposed to have gone to casa lavida (my favorite mexican restaurant in baton rouge) but the plans were changed because blaine had eaten mexican food for lunch.

oh it was nasty and the chips weren’t any better.

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ys resources with virginia tech in mind

as always seems to be the case youth specialties has thrown up some valuable resources on their website to help youth workers help their youth deal with the uncertainty within the world that we have once again been reminded of through the absurd violence at virginia tech.

you can find the resources here. i personally am very appreciative of the letter from jim hancock and rich van pelt

the whole letter is great but i especially appreciated the following paragraphs:

Tell them it’s not supposed to be like this.
Tell them the God who spoke through the prophets at many times and in various ways—and in these last days has spoken to us by his Son—tell them this God takes no pleasure in the suffering and death of his creatures.
Tell them it’s not supposed to be like this, and someday it won’t be.
Tell them the hope of the gospel includes a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness—we haven’t seen it, but in faith we see it coming.

In the meantime, tell them, life is grace and bad things happen; people are capable of breathtaking displays of love and staggering acts of oppression; the sun rises and the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Tell them about the mercy of Jesus who promises the good news will one day prove every bit as good as the bad news so obviously is bad in these days. Tell them life is hard and God is good.

BUT FIRST listen to them. Listen to their denial and fear and anger and confusion. And don’t be afraid to admit your own.

i love ys.

[tags]violence, youth, resources[/tags]