Here and Now

Sermon site  updated with yesterday's message. Hopefully, our volunteer will get the audio sermons page  caught up soon...

Morguefile The other day Seth Godin posted a marketing post about " You Can't Change Everybody " The point being you can't reach everybody with marketing anymore - maybe you never could, but in the days of three networks and PBS, you could reach a LOT of people with a 30 second TV commercial, in the days of Time and Newsweek, you could reach a TON of people with a full page ad. But, he likes to say, we live in an age of a billion channels (and it's true), so you can't reach everybody. Why try? You have to be VERY selective now. So...who you gonna reach. And since marketing is about change, whose mind are you going to try to change?  He then lists a bunch of questions to figure out once you can answer the who - the very specific who - and, face it, if you can't answer the who, don't bother going on. So, what follows applies to church too, I think. Generally. We're not trying to sell, so much, as reach. But it's still about connecting a...

from history.com The History Channel finally started their 10 hour miniseries, The Bible , last Sunday night. The first episode, Beginnings, pretty well done. Sure, people are going to quibble about details, what was left out, what was added. That's fine. Quibble away. I found it well done for what it's intended to be: a dramatic presentation of the Biblical story . Story. Tell the tale, get the point right. Will it be embellished? Will some details be dropped?** Yep. So I really liked having Noah re-telling the creation story to his family on the ark as the opening scene. CGI in the scene was better than average*** and the acting was good enough to draw me in (important, I think, when opening your series) though Noah with a strong Scottish accent was an interesting choice... So, this isn't intended to be a review so much as a reflection, I guess. I liked the focus on Abraham - hit the highlights - the theme of "trust in God" was prevalent. It's int...

This remains true at the Beatty household... But the day is fast coming when it'll just be a box... I'm not looking forward to that day...

From Morguefile The other night, Lori and I watched Flight , the newest Denzel Washington flick to hit DVD. I had been warned that it was...not to be taken lightly. I knew it was rated "R" so we shooed the girls out of the room for the duration of the film. I checked IMDB to see why it received the rating , so I was prepared for what was to come. So, it wasn't quite the story I thought it would be. I expected it to be the story of a pilot who heroically saves the day when the plane crashes (a la Sully in the famous Hudson River ditching) but he's got a checkered past and, well, I thought it would be about him being framed for the crash and him trying to clear his name. It wasn't. It was, instead, a story of redemption. A fall from grace, the crash (both literal and metaphysical) and the aftermath, and the denouement of his life after a life-changing decision. Yeah, I don't want to give too much away, I guess. Here's the thing. I had been...