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ignored beauty


there is some great stuff on some of the blogs i read. one of those blogs is len evans and he had the above video on his blog yesterday. the video is amazing. the video is from an article in the washington post on the world renown violinist joshua bell playing for 45 minutes as a street performer in a plaza. the whole thing was done to see how many people would recognize the beauty and talent that was along the path that they were desperately rushing through.

how much beauty did we walk past today without giving it a second look?
[tags]joshua bell, beauty, ignored, washing post[/tags]

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the brain of a teen guy

i saw this illustration (to view the illustration you have to go to my blog – for some reason it is not showing up on rss aggregators such as bloglines or google reader) in an usa today article linked to by marko’s blog. the article is okay but the illustration is great.

basically the article says that teens involve themselves in risky behavior not because of a lack of knowledge (the mindset behind “let’s educate them more”) but because their brains haven’t developed to the point to put the brakes on certain dangerous situations. they can’t act like adults because they simply aren’t adults yet.

the summary of the article is found at the end:

“we’ve given them too much freedom,” he says. “we don’t monitor and supervise them carefully enough.”

now that’s a big surprise. 😉 it would be nice if we were okay letting kids be kids rather than trying to force them to be adults at too long of an age.
[tags]youth ministry, teens, development[/tags]

[Listening to: Youth of the Nation – P.O.D. – Satellite (4:19)]
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easter welcome video


since i’ve combined my ministry blog with this (my random thoughts blog) you guys & girls from the random thoughts blog are going to have to put up with various ministry related things that i like, dislike, struggle with, or just want to remember. the above video is something i like.

it’s the welcome video from powell church in knoxville. i thought it was a different way of welcoming people to the service. i wasn’t there so i can’t say this for sure but it seems to me that if you walk into a service, the lights go out, and this pops up on the screen, i think whether you agree or disagree with the gospel story that you are probably going to at least think that something interesting is going to happen within that worship service. of course, i’ve been wrong before (allot). maybe some of my non-believing or non-church going friends could comment on that thought.

of course, i don’t have the technical know how of doing a video like this so don’t expect to see anything like it at parkview.

[tags]video, welcome[/tags]

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small things

you’ve already noticed this if you read my blog directly instead of through a feed aggregator but i’ve made a few small changes in the blog:

  • i’ve changed the blog theme. i like the new one better (obviously or i wouldn’t have changed it) and if you get tired of it all you have to do is click one of the boxes above to change the background.
  • i’ve combined another blog with this one – for the past three years i’ve run another blog with a different focus. it was more about ministry, rather than random thoughts, and thus i had kept it separate. it no longer makes sense to me to keep them separate and therefore i have imported all of the other blog’s entires into this blog.

i went to baton rouge laser tag with some of y’all tonight and it was a good, though tiring, night. i am convinced that GOD has some form of special punishment planned for little girls who pick just one person to follow and shoot during a game of laser tag. i’m not sure why but two middle school girls thought it was their lives’ mission to spend their entire night shooting at just me. everytime i started to get on a roll one of these girls would find me and kill me (they were so small that i couldn’t see them over any of the barriers). they would then stick with me and kill me for the rest of the game. i finally reach the point that picked one of the girls up and threw her over the rails. i then turned to the other runt and screamed “if you get within 25 feet of me i’m going to do the same to you!”

okay, maybe i only imagined that last part but i was really frustrated. the worst part was that they would just sit there and giggle while they were shooting me. argh!

[tags]laser tag, youth ministry, middle schoolers[/tags]

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the elctric shock

i love n.t. wright and this brief article shows why.

here’s an excerpt:

and whatever matthew, mark, luke and john were doing in writing the final sections of their books, they were not telling the story of JESUS’s resurrection as a happy ending. they were telling it as a startling new beginning. easter morning isn’t a slow, gentle waking up after the difficult operation. it’s the electric shock that brings someone back to life in a whole new way.

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monday night laser tag

i know this is last minute but i figured i would still put it up on the blog. we’re going to be joining university baptist for some laser tag at baton rouge laser tag tomorrow (april 9th). we will have the whole facility to ourselves from 10 p.m. to 12 p.m. it only costs $20 and you can bring any friends that you would like (as long as they are youth aged). if you’re interested email or call me and then show up at baton rouge laser tag at 10 p.m. your parents can pick you up at baton rouge laser tag at 12 p.m. snacks are on your own. pass the word on to anyone you see.

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he is risen

he is risen indeed.

i hope all of you have a great easter.

photo – happy easter!
by jonnybaker.

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sunrise service

easter station
i know it’s just a part of church culture and i am trying more and more to differentiate between what is church culture and what is biblical CHRISTianity, but i love easter sunrise services. tomorrow i’m preaching at one in a local cemetery and i still need to work on the message a little but i felt like wasting enough time to say that i really do enjoy sunrise services.

the above photo is from good friday’s outdoor stations of the cross.

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it’s true

i know it’s clichéd but in 1978 my family did really drive to caliornia (from alabama) in vw bus and the bus did actually catch on fire (only minorly). we had a cb in the bus that we used to talk to trucks, i slammed the sliding door on my brother’s index finger and broke it, and yes we did visit the grand canyon during our journey (i’m fairly sure my parents still have the petrified wood bookends). every now and then i am almost convinced that every travel/vacation movie has some how stolen my life.