Here and Now

Redemption?

2012-02-14T10:20:00.053-05:00

From Morguefile - edited

I came into the ER and it was not a pleasant place. The waiting room was dirty and cramped, sick and hurting people were waiting. The walls were marked up and broken, chairs stained and uncomfortable.

She had been waiting an hour - which happens in the best of Emergency Rooms, I know - but the staff was unfriendly and the triage was performed in plain view - and clear earshot - of everyone else in the waiting room.

And this kind of thing happens in the city, I guess, but this was a small town hospital where I would expect they would try to excel at the details - since clearly people with big problems are going to go to "real" hospitals, anyway.

But, really, this isn't a shot at this particular hospital.

It's about the choices we make.

I asked her husband, "Why here? Why not the bigger hospital that's just a few minutes farther from your home?"

He explained that her doctor worked from this hospital. But much more importantly for him - when he was young his family had a very bad experience at the other hospital - with near fatal consequences. People could say what they wanted about the other hospital - ANY hospital was better.

Perception colors our reality. Perception doesn't BECOME our reality - but it really does affect our reality which, in turn, can sort of become reality...for us, right? So, no matter the accolades heaped on hospital B - could be voted the best hospital in the world by the AMA - husband's family had a very bad experience which will haunt them and hurt them for the rest of their lives. So HUSBAND'S reality is...hospital B is a hospital not to be trusted, no matter what.

Same thing applies to churches. To people. To movies. To everything in life.

If we let it.

Here's the thing, though.

Redemption.

How does hospital B redeem itself? Well, for this family, maybe it doesn't. But could it? Should that be a possibility?

I think so. I think it should be for everyone.

But especially for people. Always for people.

We've been hurt. And we have to figure out how to get past it - to get over it. And I don't mean that in some calloused, dismissive way, either. We have to work through it. I watched an episode of Star Trek Enterprise* the other day and a Vulcan character had had some repressed emotions suddenly surface and she couldn't deal well with the fallout from the fact that she had committed a potentially questionable act and the captain said something like, "Not repressing our emotions means that we are able to deal with them and then move on with our lives."**

And dealing with our emotions means not writing anybody off - no matter what - no matter who - no matter where or when or why.

*Yeah, I'm a nerd with Netflix

**Still love that Star Trek is little morality plays, even in the post modern age

iPad Coolness...

2012-02-13T09:22:00.011-05:00

From Morguefile

...from a Daddy's perspective.

Read this article.

I never wanted an iPad. No, really, I've joked on here a couple times about it, but I really haven't seen a use for one. But it turns out, I guess, that once you HAVE it, you CREATE uses for it. And this just seems perfect - the connection of a dad and his sick at home daughter (my kids are 8 and 11, and I work pretty close to the house, but they still don't like to be at the house alone - who blames them?).

Maybe I still don't need an iPad - but I'm starting to get it now...

Vacation... Day One

2012-02-11T09:17:00.001-05:00

from Morguefile

...yeah, this has nothing to do with vacation :)

So, some people take vacation in February and go to sunny Florida or something. Whatever. We're heading to Monroeville this morning to the Greenberg Train Show :) In half a foot of snow.

Yeah, I'm a nerd, get over it.

So this morning, after reading the Bible ( online of course, 'cause that's what I do), I was reading c|net ('cause that's what I do) and there's an announcement of another lawsuit against Apple for patent infringement. And I don't know the details, it's just a brief article and I didn't dig, but it sounds like another lawsuit about ideas. And it drives me nuts. I mean, WAY back in the earliest of palm pilot days I said to Lori, "I won't get another one of these until it's a phone that does internet and video and is an mp3 player" LONG before the iPhone was on anybody's radar. So...should I sue Apple? Oh, wait, I didn't write it up and file a legal document. Dangit!*

It's not like the idea was exclusively one company's idea. It's been floating around there for...like...ever.** So the question is, did Apple steal the implementation of the idea. That's the big deal. And that's WAY harder to prove. Because there's only so many ways to do these things, right? Though Apple seems to have one way, and everybody else another...***

The long and the short of it is this. Become a success at ANYTHING, and you're going to get sued by somebody who wants a piece of that success. And the bigger you succeed, the more you're going to get sued, the more time you're going to spend in court...

Ask Mark Zuckerberg: maybe justified, maybe not so much
Or Microsoft: ahh, just Google it
Steven Spielberg: Homage?, Who Owns History?, Twister
And on it goes...****

Who wants to become successful? I mean, some of these people can't help it, right? The drive is in them. Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, they do what they do (or did) because it's who they are. And they're good at it. And that makes them a target.

At some point, though, wouldn't you just want to say, "Enough." Chuck it all and go retire on an island somewhere?

Or take a vacation in snowy Monroeville and look at model trains?

EDIT - Vacation day three and I see here on c|net and, yeah, Apple's suing just as much as they're being sued. The point wasn't "ooooo poor Apple" the point is - the bigger you get, the more time you spend in court - I guess on EITHER side of the...um...table?

*And then the iPhone came out and I said, "Not 'til it's on Verizon" and then it went on Verizon and I said "Not 'til it can hold all 16000 of my songs" and, well that won't happen for a long time, and THEN it will be, "Not 'til it's the FREE phone option on my plan" 'cause I'm the cheapest guy I know :)

**Since internet time isn't real time, forever in internet years is the half-life of a typical video game, if you/'re lucky, or, if you're not so lucky, the half-life of a viral video on YouTube...

***Yeah, I read c|net, but I don't really know anything about the nuts and bolts of this OS stuff...

****You can pretty much Google any successful person and the word lawsuit and find that they're the target of at least some kind of lawsuit - interestingly (to me at least) George Lucas - who openly admits to taking elements of all kinds of other movies for his Star Wars series - doesn't seem to have been on the receiving end of a plagiarism or copyright infringement lawsuit - though he's filed a number of them - and he has been the target of other lawsuits, of course...

End User Licenses...

2012-02-02T09:03:00.000-05:00

...so true :)

From Bonkers World

Personal Vision

2012-02-01T15:36:00.000-05:00

From Morguefile

Almost a year ago I posted as a "personal mission statement":

"Let my heart be broken with the things that break God's heart."

I didn't necessarily intend that as MY OWN mission statement, though it could, and maybe SHOULD be...

And now I'm reading another book - a journal of sorts - and day two of this challenge says:

"What is your personal vision (not your business vision)?"

Um... I can't go on with the book without answering the question.

But...

I don't know.

Not exactly. I mean, I can speak in generalities. But...do I have a vision for my own life? Really? And this isn't one of those hokey "where do you see yourself in five years" kind of things, either. This is a core question. "What drives you?" "Who are you?" "Why do you do what you do?"

I'm thinking... I don't want to answer too quickly, though I know it won't go into my permanent file or anything. But I gotta be honest, and I want to think it through.

I HAD vision.

But lately, what's been driving me has been inertia, frankly. I do what I do because it's the next thing that needs done. Now that's not to say there's no passion involved or that I don't love anything I do or whatever. And this is NOT some mid-life crisis, I don't have an identity moment, either, okay?

We're talking vision for the church. It's high time I really assess my own personal vision for ministry, too.

So I am.

I'll keep you posted...

The Cat Is Out Of The Bag...

2012-01-27T17:24:00.000-05:00

Not mine - found on 'net

Heh...no, I'm NOT revealing any big secret (oh, my, it IS appointment season, isn't it?). Anyway, I was just reminded of this when somebody used this phrase on Facebook.

Years ago, when I was getting ready to go to seminary, Lori and I lived with my mom in a big old farmhouse. Every fall we got, as you would expect, tiny visitors looking for a warm place to spend the winter. I hate trapping mice, and when you get a couple, well, let's face it, you end up with a LOT of mice... So, next spring we decide it's time to get a cat.

Now understand, I'm not a cat guy. I'm a dog person. I don't get cats, cats don't like me.* But we figured we'd get an outside cat. It would be an employee, right? Keep the house free of pests. His name was Splash. He was a semi-domesticated cat. Perfect, right? Okay inside (learned the litterbox in a day) but love, love, loved being outside.

Three weeks.

Cat versus car.

So, we had a friend who had a nice, white, adult cat they wanted to give to a good home (um...did you read the above?). Sadly, I don't remember her name. She was comfortable inside and outside, did a good job mousing (found some tails at the bottom of the stairs - no heads or...bleah...half chewed mouses). We had her for a few months but she got really sick. We took her to the vet.

Feline leukemia. Really?

That fall we got a beautiful black cat. And a dog. Bob Dog. The cat was Rufus. Bob was dumb - like doorknob dumb. I'll tell stories about Bob Dog some other time. Rufus was...well, cat sly. You know what I mean? Like walking just beyond the reach of the dog's chain. Waiting for the dog to go to sleep and then pouncing on him and running away - really fast. Rufus was, as I said, a beautiful black cat, a great mouser, actually caught a bird once, if I remember correctly. He almost won me over to becoming cat people. Almost...

We came home one day in the spring to see Bob Dog throwing something up in the air, watching it land, running to it, grabbing it, then throwing it up in the air again. Um... it was Rufus... We're not really sure what happened. My suspicion is that Rufus mis-calculated the length of the dog chain one day, but I'm really not sure. It's also possible that it was car vs. cat with Rufus, too, because he was really...flat...

Three cats in less than twelve months.

We decided to get TWO cats this time. I mean, one should make it, right? It was getting embarrassing and, well, I was beginning to wonder if we were cursed or something. You know?

So we went to a friend of Lori's (where we had gotten Splash, I think - or Rufus - or maybe both, I can't remember) who had some barn cats. We got two kittens. This time, instead of putting them in a box or a tote, however, they decided to put the kittens in two pillow cases.

Um...do you know how much kittens like to be in pillow cases?

Yeah, about as much as you or I would like to be in pillow cases.

So, we come to get the kittens and they hand us two squirming pillow cases. "Don't worry, they can't get out," they say. "Unless you open them up."

"Okay," I say, wearing shorts and a way too thin t-shirt.

"And don't open them up on the way home. They won't like it"

Yeah, no kidding.

So, Lori drives and I try to contain the precious cargo for the 20 minute-that-feels-like-a-lifetime drive home.

We get home and then comes the moment of truth.

Let the cat out of the bag.

I opened the bag and at the bottom was a little furry bundle of kitty cuteness. I thought, "This won't be so bad. I'll reach in and pull him/her/whatever out and cuddle for a minute and be the Rescuer!"

So, you've heard the hymn "We are climbing Jacob's ladder", right?

Yeah, my arm was the ladder.

Up comes that little furry demon at nine hundred miles an hour - fingers to, no lie, the top of my head in a nano-second. There it perched, shaking and screeching like a barn owl or something, until Lori pried it off.

That went well.

Blood pooling at my feet, I still have to figure out how to get cute little bundle of razor sharp evil out of the second bag.

Now, a rational human being would, I don't know, turn the bag out gently into a blanket filled box or lay the bag on the ground and let the tiny purring kitty find her way out into a safe and welcoming world.

Yeah, I didn't do that.

Reached in*** and grabbed the little bundle of joy thinking I knew how to do it differently.

Um...apparently the siren calls from her brother from the top of my skull were instructions on how to dig in deeper into my arm, how to get a better grip on my shoulder and how to launch herself halfway across the front lawn and find a hiding place under the front porch...

So a half an hour later (and a can of tuna or something) and we had two kittens in the house mewing and meowing...

Oh, yeah, by this time we were not sure they'd make through the week**** so we weren't sure we even wanted to invest in naming them. So, no kidding, they became Four (the girl) and Five (the boy). Eventually, since Five lasted like five or six years and Four something like twelve or more years, we ended up calling them Foursey and Fiver - but, officially, the vet knew them as Hansel and Gretel...'cause, you know, you can't really explain to the vet why you've numbered your cats... Well, not without a call to the authorities...

So, I have reasons to not be "cat people" okay? And scars to prove it. Maybe not physical ones... For some people it's clowns, some people it's monsters... For me it's little tiny kittens...

Shudder...

*Well, actually, it's a universal truth that cats will be attracted to the person in the room who least likes cats, then will rub up against them, purring and attempting to appear adorable - it is, however, a ploy - for once the anti-cat person deigns to pet, scritch or otherwise show any sign of affection to said cat, the cat will then turn away, aloof, having won the engagement. You are now the cat's servant.** Give it up. You lose

**Cat logic. You can't beat it. Well, not without a stick, anyway.

***I'm really smarter than this - but when the adrenaline kicks in...well, stupid is the rule of the day then, I guess...

**** NO, I was not going to do anything to them. Fate, however, seemed to dislike our cats, have you noticed?

Sounds of Math

2012-01-26T09:42:00.004-05:00

I've been meaning to repost this since I saw it on Aaron's blog a while back, just for the sheer awesomeness of it.

Take the number pi out to some long decimal place, assign note names numbers and...well, he'll explain it in the video. But it's MUSIC. It's not NEARLY as random as you think it's going to be.

And he does the same thing with Tau - and it's better, way better, because he starts right off, it seems to me, trying to make it a "song". You can even buy it for a buck from CDBaby... I LOVE this stuff:

God Wants Moses Dead?

2012-01-24T09:32:00.000-05:00

They probably didn't look like this

So one of my devotional exercises this year is to read through the Bible in a year. It's a nice pace - about 3-4 chapters a day. What I wanted was, of course, to read every verse of the Bible. I have my favorite books of the Bible and I'll confess that there are some things I haven't really read since Seminary ("Song of Songs" I'm looking at you). So it's good, because there's things I've forgotten since the last time I read through some of these books.

And I know Moses' story - but I had completely forgotten this story:

At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses* and was about to kill him. ²⁵ But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. ²⁶ So the LORD let him alone. (At that time she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.) (Exodus 4:24-26)

Did you remember that was in there? Man, I completely forgot. I have a hazy, vague recollection of talking about it in Seminary now...but not any of the details, of course.

God wants Moses dead?

Okay, you can do your own digging on this one. I found all kind of good stuff on it. It seems to be, by context, that Moses was struck down and prevented from doing this God-charged task of leading the Hebrew people to freedom from bondage in Egypt because his son is not circumcised.

Now...that's not a capital offense, even in the Mosaic Law, right? Okay - but one thing pointed out by commentators is that writers in the OT aren't concerned about secondary causes. If God allowed Moses to die because of this, then God wanted him dead. That's a theory, anyway. I get it. Jibes nicely with Job, I guess. And makes this fit neatly in our understanding of God on this side of the cross.

But I'm okay with the mystery too. With what's in the white space. How many times did God warn Moses? What all is going on? Was this a test of Mrs. Moses? There's no missing the unhappiness in her statement. So why is it she has to perform the deed?

I don't need to have every nuance of God's word neatly tied with a theological bow for me to believe that this is truth. I'm okay with the weirdness. I'm okay with the wondering. And the wonder.

*Hebrew just says "him"

Facebook Dichotomy

2012-01-20T07:16:00.000-05:00

Heh - I just love the juxtaposition of things on Facebook - these two posts were side by side this morning and stuck me as funny. Probably not funny to anybody else...but I loved the irony of it...

First Place...or Participant...

2012-01-03T11:51:00.000-05:00

From Morguefile

Saturday night, that would be New Years' Eve, the family went bowling with our church family. We got there a little late and the kids' lane with the bumpers lining the gutters was filled up so our family took a normal lane. Rachel and Elie threw a lot of gutter balls Saturday night.

Rachel was getting especially upset. "Why can't we have bumpers?" she demanded of me. Nevermind that I didn't like the tone, I replied, "You can go ask for them if you want to." But I knew she wouldn't. And I didn't want her to. Even though her frustration level was getting really high, I knew that the bumpers wouldn't help her any.

"Why does it keep going that way?" she asked after her ball went directly into the left gutter again. Now, I'm no bowler (that may become self-evident in this post, I don't know), but that was exactly the opportunity I was looking for.

"Try making sure your arm goes straight - I think you're kind of moving it across your body when you let go of the ball."

And so the rest of the game went with her questions and my (hopefully) common-sense tips. Okay, now it's going into the right gutter... Yes, but way down by the pins - try what you just did, but start over to the left one dot. Okay, how did that feel? Move over a little more. Okay, that's too far, huh? Okay, maybe you're twisting your hand when you throw the ball...

And on it went. A game and a half, til Lori's neck started hurting and she bowed out (I didn't play at all - had the flu) but the girls and our nephew, Ryan, kept playing. At the end of the second game, Elie asked if she could go play on the "kid's lane" - even though her brand of run up to the line and launch the ball had garnered her a hand full of strikes and spares by this time - she simply didn't want to "bowl" she only wanted to knock down pins. When we told her she could, Rachel chose to stay behind.

And I smile now thinking about that decision on her part. 10 frames before, she would have jumped at the chance to play on the lane with the bumpers - to just "knock down pins" - but then she suddenly realized that she was bowling. No, she wasn't very good. But every ball she rolled meant she learned something about how to keep it between the gutters - or how not to, as the case may be.

Failure, while at first frustrated her, didn't devastate her. Failing is not necessarily a bad thing. How else do we learn? My girls make me watch the Disney channel far too much - and there was an episode of Shake It Up (which is probably not the best thing on TV they could be watching...) where one of the characters gets a "participant" ribbon from the science fair and says something like, "I won!" and another character says something like, "You know that just means you showed up, right?" And the first is like, "Yeah!" We have a whole generation - and I'm on the edge of it - that gets awards for just showing up. That has lived our whole lives with bumpers on the gutters because "failing" was bad for our self esteem. Well, guess what? Getting commended for doing nothing is just as bad for our self esteem.

Rachel stayed on that same alley for three hours - I don't know how many balls she rolled, but I do know that by the end of the night she was keeping them between the gutters more often than not. And she was having fun again... Even though she didn't win.

Imagine that.

Some Assembly Required...

2011-12-28T11:47:00.000-05:00

Yeah, those are dreaded words on Christmas Eve/Day. I get it. When Rachel was like 4 I refurbished and decorated a homemade dollhouse that she still talks about today - AFTER the 11:00 PM worship service... Yep. I'm a procrastinator. I get it. My fault.

Baby Blues Sunday summed it up for a lot of us: (click to see the whole thing)

But...

Is it really that bad? And they LOVE it. And isn't love for your kids about sacrifice? That "some assembly required" sacrifice is really pretty small, isn't it? We act like it's such a big deal. But the day comes when they just get iPads or whatever that completely disconnects them from the family Christmas day and instead of "Dad, look how cool this is - come put it together with/for me" it's "Thanks...see ya later..." Or... "Thnx c u" or whatever...

I'm trying to be less like Darryl in Baby Blues these days. Savor the moment. They're still little. I want to still love it.

Some assembly required, of course...

Sweet, Sweet Smell of Success

2011-12-08T08:50:00.047-05:00

Success. How do you define it?

That's the big question in the digital world. In epublishing, in the new music world, in painting or photography or whatever: how do you know when you've "made it"? When you can retire on the residuals? Maybe, if that's your goal. But, if you don't have a definition for success, you don't know when you've achieved it.

For some it's recognition. Getting the most hits on a blog post, a YouTube video, retweet, whatever - that's success. Being at the top. There's no gain other than having achieved the top spot. It's beating the video game. It's a public recognition of who you are and what you've done. But for art, it's deeper. It's a validation that whatever the artist feels/experiences when creating the art connects with another person. Appreciation might be a better word. Enough appreciation leads to sales. Always. 'Cause that's how we show our appreciation. We want to own a piece of it for ourselves. And, if we think it's valuable enough, we want to own a unique piece of it, a limited piece of it, somehow. In music, I'd put almost any new artist in the top 40 here.

So for some, it's sales. Making a living from their art. Being able to express themselves in what they do, and receive payment for it. I can't think of a better position to be in as an artist - if you can sustain it. You are, however, at the mercy of a fickle public who will love you today and hate you (or, maybe worse, simply be so indifferent toward you as to ignore you) tomorrow. And then it's either sell out the art, the vision or give up, right? IF the only benchmark for success is sales. In music I'd put somebody like Madonna here - she keeps "reinventing" herself, chasing the next big hit song, the next sale, I think somewhere along the line she lost any sense of art (if she had any - I think she was a category #1 artist who got lucky to fall into category 2 and stay there). Hootie and Blowfish started, I think, as category #3 artists, dropped here by their third album, trying to recapture sales, rather than really pursuing the passion for music, though I could be wrong...

For some it's satisfaction. Doing what they love because they love it. Period. Recognition or sales or whatever may come or go but they do what they do because it's what they're driven to do. They can't imagine doing anything else. I'd put a band like Rush in this category.

There's probably a million ways to define success. The point is, however, that if you DON'T define it, you don't know if you've achieved it, right? So...what's the goal, what's the point? Is is just to make great music together? Cool, do that and love it and live it. I did that for fifteen years with some of the most awesome people I've ever met. We never made any money, we'll never have a rockumentary done about us. But we were a wild success - because all we wanted to do was make great music that honored God and enjoy playing it together with friends. And we did it.

Standing Out

2011-12-07T10:15:00.064-05:00

So if the digital world is flat, or nearly so, then how do we stand out?

Interestingly, Seth Godin just talked about that yesterday - the importance of not wasting people's time, their attention, their contact. The cliche is you only get one chance to make a first impression, right? Make sure you don't blow it.

A couple days ago Godin also talked something similar - the erosion in the paid media pyramid - the point being that in the old model, almost everybody "in the media" was part of the machine of "mass media" production. The future, he posits, is more like a patronage model. You pay more for what you like - but you only buy what YOU like, you don't just choose from the limited array of what's available. Sounds a bit like what Derek Webb was saying, doesn't it?

But...how do you stand out? How do you make it? It's no magic formula. It's vision, creativity and hard work. For every one artist who was "accidently" discovered by some freak conjoining of circumstances, hundreds of others worked hard, never strayed from their vision, and succeeded in getting their vision of their art to connect with people.

Now...here's the rub. Not everybody's art connects with "the masses." Get it? That's "mass media." That's what network TV is for (which, if you read the internet gurus is nearly dead, though my sources say not for a while yet) - that's what facebook is for, that's what MTV and the radio (does anybody listen anymore?) is for. That which "most people" or at least "many people" will like, watch, consume. And if you can make there, good for you. Enjoy your fifteen minutes. 'Cause that's what you get. Burn bright and burn out and then become a punchline. 90% of mass media, anyway.

Your art connects with your people. It may be a very small group of people. The songs that I have written will never sell. Never. Nobody wants to buy them. But I have a core group of friends who would listen to them, who would, I don't doubt, pay me money if I ever recorded them.* Might actually listen to them on occasion and appreciate them. But it's a small group. A micro group. My songs will never stand out enough to be mass media. I'm okay with that. I'd probably give them away anyway.

Make your art. Do it for you. If you love it, you will be passionate about it. Maybe no one else will get it. That's okay. Nobody got Van Gogh, either. Just don't cut off your ear or anything.

Vision. It's easy to drift on vision. Stay laser focused on your vision. Don't let anything distract you from your goal, whatever it is. I don't know any success story that starts with, "I didn't have any idea what I was going to do, I just happened into this..." It's always, "I had this vision...and it became clearer..."

Work really hard. There are no part time artists. Sorry. That's the truth. You do it or you don't. You live and breathe it, or you fail. That's the hard truth.

Make your art. Stay true to your vision. And work really hard. That's the formula. That's it. I think every "failed artist" fails at either selling out the art, selling out the vision, or selling out the work.

Next time. What is success, anyway?

*Yes, I was in a band and we did record some of my songs and we did sell the CD to recoup the recording costs - this was before the digital world was flat...of course we gave a lot of those CDs away, too. But, and to the point of this post - it was mostly people who knew us and loved us who bought those CDs at way more than they were worth.

Not Trickle Down, Seeping Out?

2011-12-06T08:49:00.000-05:00

Saw this at Bonkers World and thought it apropos of what I was talking about yesterday:

This is probably true whether you're famous or not - I have the occasional drop in here on the blog because of content*, but almost everybody who comes here knows me well. And that's the only reason they come back.

I read Aaron's blog and Michael's blog all the time because I know them.

Anyway, the point is that's how things work in the new digital economy, if you will. It's all relationship and word of mouth - it's all circles and who you know, or, maybe it's who you know who they know (no, wait, is that right? I need a flowchart or something...). Anyway, it's not "trickle down" anymore, it's...seep out?

*Like the day the Priest called from Alabama

52 Songs - 12 Novels - What's Next?

2011-12-05T11:43:00.001-05:00

A long time ago (5 years ago*), I posted a series here about grace, and in one post I mentioned a guy by the name of Greg Adkins who tried a creative experiment that just blew me away: write & record a song a week for a year. He called it, creatively enough, "52 songs in 52 weeks." He pulled it off (Ended up with 60 songs - check it out here**) As near as I can recall, he was the first on my radar to do it (probably not the first, but I do remember searching back in the day - like '03 - when he was doing this and not finding anybody else trying such an ambitious stunt) though if you Google 52 songs in 52 weeks, you'll find others who have done it or are doing it like Amy Raasch, Power, Donewaiting, David Ritter, and it looks like some guy named James Hersch has pulled it off in a marketable sort of way.***

So I happen on this post from Dork Tower about a guy who is writing twelve books in twelve months. No kidding, he put together a kickstarter project to fund it, contacted his Tribe via social media (he's a full time game designer and writer - so he's all over Facebook and Twitter - and just because you never heard of Matt Forbeck doesn't mean he doesn't have a tribe, right?), and bam! he's well on his way to funding the first trilogy of the the 12 books in 12 months...

Epublishing and print on demand (POD) have changed everything in the writing industry. Just like mp3s and digital recording changed everything in the music industry. Everybody has a seat at the table now - if they have the passion and the vision to see it through. There will probably always be a few blockbuster recording artists, authors, movie makers, etc, but it's all going digital, and everybody - and I mean EVERYBODY who has enough connections and enough creativity and passion can connect what they make with people who will appreciate it. Not everyone will make millions doing that - but more people will make more connections (and potentially some profit, if that's the endgame) in this age.

12 novels in 12 months might just be hype. Oh, he can do it. He is a professional writer. He probably churns out a hundred thousand words a month anyway - why not publish every one of them? I'm not being snarky. He's got an audience and a platform and the creativity and the gumption to do it. I say, go for it. I hope he pulls it off. I'm not a particular fan of his previous work, and the first trilogy doesn't interest me (and the next trilogy he mentioned was going to be "shotguns and sorcery"...yawn...so, yeah, I'll pass) but here's the point of this post.

I WANT HIM TO SUCCEED.

I want to see people pull off these huge ideas, make them work. Show that kickstarter projects make it. Show off what epublishing - what self-publishing (what we used to call vanity publishing, but in this day and age...the digital world is flat) can really do.

It's a new world - the digital world has, in some ways, evened the playing field, and in some ways made it way harder. There's TOO much competition now - anybody with a webcam can post their newest, greatest song on YouTube****, blogs are choked with content, Facebook...you name it. I could record a song today and sell it on iTunes tomorrow (now, the three people who would buy it would probably appreciate that), I could gather together all my wonderfully eloquent blogposts, or sermons, or whatever, do some formatting and publish a worst-selling ebook that Amazon would gladly list (for a fee, of course) - right next to the 33 million other books listed on Amazon...

Well, I might talk more about this later. Like, how do you stand out in the sea of competition, then? How do you define success? Does it matter?

*Which, in internet years, is technically forever...
** Yea Wayback Machine!!
*** I don't know any of these musicians or what their music is like - not an endorsement, may not be safe for work, I am not responsible for broken eardrums or shattered nerves, etc, etc, standard disclaimer...
**** And 1 in a thousand might be worth listening to...

Derek Webb on Free Music

2011-12-01T06:03:00.021-05:00

I tried to talk about this a while ago here: giving music away is actually beneficial to artists today.

But Derek Webb who started NoiseTrade (which is an awesome site for trying out new music for free*, by the way - go there, grab new stuff - you won't regret it) says it way more eloquently - and from the "insiders" perspective. Check it out.

*Okay, it costs you your email address - but you can opt out as soon as you get that first "spam" from the artist - and, really, I get like one email a month or every six weeks or so from each artist - sometimes not even that often...

Quote for the Day

2011-11-30T05:52:00.001-05:00

You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.

-L. Ron Hubbard (7 November 1948)

Who, later, did just that...interesting...

First In Line

2011-11-29T07:53:00.041-05:00

from
peloquin3.buzznet.com/user/photos/waiting-line/star-wars

Seth Godin asked the other day "Who Comes On Opening Night?" In other words, who stands in line for the opening of that play/ movie/ band whatever event? Who gets the hardback of that new novel? Why gets the actual CD anymore - on the release date no less? Or the "limited edition"? Who buys the video game at midnight:01 when it's released, waiting outside Gamestop in the snow?
True fans. True believers. Followers. Those who say, "You made it, I'll buy it." I don't need to wait to hear it's good. You wrote the book. You directed the movie. The game is the third installment in this franchise and I'm in.

I was thinking about the few things that's true for me anymore. Terry Pratchet's books I still buy in hardback and the late Robert Jordan*. But I'll take a chance on a paperback if I've got the money. I'll buy U2 on CD...but I can't think of anybody else unless it's cheaper than buying it on iTunes.** I do cull the used CD market from time to time and check the discount bin at Walmart. I would go opening night for a new Star Wars movie (yeah, I'm that guy***) but I can't think of a single other movie that I couldn't wait for the dollar theater or netflix or, heck, just to catch it run on TV sometime... I do buy a few DVDs every once in a while - like The Lord of the Rings and Band of Brothers, but even my DVD purchases amount to about fifty bucks a year, tops.

So what does that mean for anything we do? Who are the early adopters? Why does it matter?

* Yes, someone else is finishing his series for him. But I'll still buy them, dangit.
** 'Cause that's where it'll end up anyway...
*** But I won't dress up as a character, sorry - I'm not THAT guy...

El-Roi

2011-11-28T19:55:00.000-05:00

Wow - I just did a Wayback Machine search on an old website I used to update (not very well or very frequently) for the band we used to be in: El-Roi. What a trip down memory lane. Turns out, almost everything on the internet really is forever...

So, to my own amusement...and potential embarrassment:

El-Roi.net

Too, Too Much?

2011-11-28T10:55:00.000-05:00

We've probably all said it - or at least felt it...

"God never gives us more than we can handle."

But...see...that's not in the Bible. In fact, I think that's actually counter to what the Bible really says, isn't it? Don't we all the time really get a whole lot more than we can handle? I know I sure do. How does a 13 year old hear that his father has leukemia? How is that not too much to handle? A text from a friend who was watching someone he loved getting chemo...and it was overwhelming. Sitting in a pew with a young lady who is just destroyed over messy relationships and deeply hurt by how people who are supposed to love each other treat each other.

How is any of that not too much to handle?

Here's what we miss in that idea. God allows all kinds of stuff that's too much for us to handle...on our own. You remember what He said to Paul? "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." I know somebody wants to quote 1 Corinthians 10:13 "And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear." But we miss the context there - the next statement Paul makes is: "But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

God will provide a way out. God. It's not too much to bear...with God. Alone? Yeah, probably. And don't miss that the larger context there is temptation - sin. Not the "stuff of life" burdens that we usually associate with the "God won't give us too much to handle" notion.

What do you think?

Sign: Toto, We're Not In Kansas Anymore...

2011-11-19T09:41:00.003-05:00

Heh - Makes ME feel good....

2011-11-17T15:00:00.000-05:00

Saw this on another blog and felt great :)

Being the dad of two girls... I'm one of the beautiful people. Heh.

Of course, the book is probably junk :) :)

Sign: The Church of Unintended Consequences

2011-11-12T06:36:00.004-05:00

And let this be an opportunity for me to direct you to a favorite site of mine:

Crummy Church Signs Blog

Here's a Pic

2011-11-11T17:10:00.002-05:00

I saw on Facebook (thanks Aaron) - perfect for today:

Another Book...Summarized

2011-11-08T14:53:00.018-05:00

This is, I'm told, an amazing book. But I'm living into the principle that Michael Hyatt who runs Thomas Nelson Publishing (the biggest Christian book publisher in the world) that "most books could be cut in half and you wouldn't miss a thing." In fact, I believe that you could tweet most books and not miss all that much.

So here's the executive executive summary of The Five Most Important Questions:

What is our mission?
Who is our customer?
What does the customer value?
What are our results?
What is our plan?

There, not so hard, was it? That's what the whole book is about? I get it. You could have mailed that to me in a postcard. I hope there's a WHOLE lot more to explain how to live INTO those questions and how to answer them in positive and successful ways.

Of course, I bet it's with the caveat - you mileage may vary - because, you know, you live/work/whatever in a while 'nother context...

But...

They are REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTIONS to ask. Don't let my snarkiness about it being a whole book about five questions detract from that.

Can we honestly ask those questions about any organization we're a part of? Can we answer them? Can we live into the answers?

To Make Visible...

2011-11-07T07:43:00.027-05:00

from morguefile

Did you ever read an excerpt from a book and realize you've probably just gotten the core of the whole book?

I caught an excerpt from the book Pursuing Christ Creating Art here wherein Gary Molander says three things repeatedly.

We are all creative.

Christians donʼt need to create art for God - He doesnʼt need it. Christians need to create art in response to God - Because the world needs it.
We're making visible the invisible God.

Now, I don't know if I buy all of that, but I'm pretty sure those are the main points of his book - or at least the core message. Creativity is our response to the creativity of God - it is one that I've blogged about before a time or two.

Creativity is, in my opinion, that "image of God" in us. Or at least it's a part of if. How can it not be?

And it's not just the artists who are creative. That's the problem. That's the myth - the stereotype.

It's like spiritual gifts. I sat in a class of new believers and said, "Every one of you has at least one Spiritual Gift, I guarantee it, I promise you - if you are a follower of Christ and the Holy Spirit is in you, then the Holy Spirit gifts you." And they thought about miracles and prophets and speaking in tongues and said..."Not me." And even when we studied the passages and talked through things like "helping" and "mercy" and even "administration' they all went, "sorry, still not me."

Not creative.

Not gifted.

Society says so.

But God disagrees. You are creative. You are gifted. You are valued. You are more amazing than you give yourself credit for. And don't pull this on me:

"Everybody's special is just another way of saying nobody's special."

I call foul.

Everybody's in God's image. Everybody's unique - creative - important.

Enough.

Sign: Watch for Penguins!

2011-11-05T05:32:00.010-05:00

Kowalski, Status Report!!

THESE are the guys who are going to be under your car, I swear:

KING of the Procrastinators

2011-11-04T19:10:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah, I AM the king.

Two and a half YEARS ago I wrote this post in which I said,

I have a project that is 95% done - and I'm avoiding finishing it by writing about...um...not finishing it...

And here we are, two and a half years later...and the project is now 97% done...and holding... It was just a little nothing project - a writing project that wouldn't get me any money or attention...just a personal thing. But I just never finished it. I had too many other good ideas. So I went with them. Or, rather, I started them, instead of finishing what I started before.

Allegedly Leonardo Da Vinici* once said, "Art is never finished, only abandoned."** George Lucas*** allegedly riffed on this saying, "Movies are never finished, only abandoned."****

I get that - whoever said it first, last or whatever. Everything I do is unfinished.

A looooooooooong time ago I wrote a quick post, the summary of which was a quote I heard once:
Right Now My Life Feels Like An Unmade Bed. And I get it.

I live it...

*Or Picasso, or probably some guy sitting in his basement thinking he's wise...
**Unsourced...dangit
***Haven't quoted Star Wars in too long - the Blu Ray is awesome!!!!
****ALSO unsourced...of course!!

Sign: Um... Did I Need To Know That?

2011-10-29T05:30:00.002-05:00

Quick Note: Links: Leaders or Managers

2011-10-24T05:11:00.000-05:00

Managers vs. Leaders

Here's Seth Godin's take on it:

The difference between management and leadership

I've talked about it before too.

Godin is right in this: we need both - managers and leaders. But we ALSO need to know the difference between the two, and we need to know when and where we need the two...

And we need to know who we are in the church - leaders or managers.

Some other links on the topic:

Future Vision
Changing Minds
A Couple Steven Covey Quotes on the Subject
Leadership Tools

Melted Mountains

2011-10-23T16:00:00.017-05:00

I found this image on Morguefile* and, though I changed the background (it's a "sandcastle" and there was an out of focus kid in the background), when I saw it I thought:

"That's a world I wish I could explore."

And I write...so, yeah, I actually can.

That can be the Melted Mountains of Arias where Princess Emily and Umpleby and Fluffy have to go to escape from the Wood Witch in the stories that I tell the girls at night.

Or the Dragon Mountains where, as the name implies, the dragons live in the world of Daen Ral.

Or they are the Mountains of the Gerian Monks who live in utter silence, for whom speaking is a sin and to whom the sound of wind carries the sounds of prophecies.

Or the Halls of the Grey Watchers who wait for the return of the True King...

Images inspire all kinds of ideas, don't they? I love just surfing the 'net for pictures and artwork and inspiration...

What is this place?

What Are...

2011-10-23T13:05:00.000-05:00

Pre-Pork Rind... on the hoof
morgufile

We just saw a commercial for...was it really?... batter dipped pork rinds? Anyway, Rachel asked, "What are pork rinds?"

"Deep fried pig skin," says I, wise in the ways of junk food.

"Yuk. Who would eat that?"

"Um... Apparently, a lot of people. Not me, though..."

And so I did Extensive Research* and found out I was pretty much right...and convinced that I will, in fact, not ever eat pork rinds in the future** (not that I've ever eaten them in the past, though, either).

* Does anybody even use encyclopedias anymore?
** Not that I'm opposed to deep fried animal skin, 'cause deep fried turkey skin is mmmmmm... but pork rind just sounds so...gross for some reason...bleah....

Sign: Good Luck Is Right...

2011-10-22T05:44:00.016-05:00

So, yeah, I think maybe the "Good Luck" was photoshopped in (funny the verbs we've added to the language these days - like this on facebook, if you've friended me, that is...and if you don't know what that means, just google it...) - but even so... If this is real street sign... sheesh...

And the reason I think there's some possibility that it might be is that there ARE stupid street signs around. Check this one out:

Um...MOVE THE TREE!!! or cut it down. Or ... well, just, wow...

It's Not Math...It's Golden

2011-10-19T14:34:00.004-05:00

Seth Godin the other day posted the The Math of Favors where he talks about the transactions we enter into regularly thusly:

1. I'm doing you a favor
2. You're doing me a favor
3. Business as usual (he says, "favorless transaction" but later calls it B A U)

Here's another example of "the rest of the world" catching up to Jesus. Godin ends his post with this:

The shortcut to success is this: why not always act as if the other guy is doing the favor?

Of course a few thousand years ago, Jesus said it like this "Do to others as you would have them do to you."

Do you think it could work?

This Will Be A Slow Week

2011-10-18T06:40:00.013-05:00

from Morguefile

For Posting, that is. Probably be a pretty busy day here at Otterbein and Tidioute churches, though.

I was remembering the girls playing soccer as I was getting ready for my message the other day. I used a brief story in the sermon (which will soon be available here - the October 16th sermon from that page, probably toward the bottom once it's posted) of Elie playing soccer. Anyway, I considered using the video of that event, and I tried to find it. Maybe I didn't catch it on video, that's possible. But it's just as likely that's it's somewhere on one of the five different format video tapes that I have laying around...argh. What I searched through was some avi files that I had dumped from Lori's digital camera. Not the greatest quality...but...it was 5 year olds playing soccer... All we wanted to capture was the moment, the memory... That's all we wanted.

I've been on an endless quest for better quality video...and have missed out on capturing and keeping some memories because of that. It's gotta be portable and easy to transfer to computer - where I WILL archive it and copy it and burn it to DVD...but if it's on tape it's a hassle...real-time dumping the video files, etc...

So...yeah, I've got the memories...but the records of them...are everywhere... I gotta get organized. I wish it really WAS going to be a slow week. Maybe I could get some of that done...

Stop Reading...Anything

2011-10-17T06:15:00.021-05:00

So over on the right you see some great links (some are so-so, I keep them because...well, I keep them) that I read often. One is Home Studio Corner, which is all about recording. Now, maybe you don't care about recording, I get that. No biggie. But his latest post was Stop Reading This Website which, in addition to being a provocative title, makes a lot of sense.

To summarize: If all you're going to do is read about something, stop it. It's all about putting it into practice.

I know a lot of pastors and leaders who don't even read about leadership or church growth or evangelism or frankly anything that could remotely bring a new idea into their worlds. But those that DO read, most read voraciously. Lots of books.

And too many of us stop there. We read about it, it sounds great. And then we read the next book. And so it goes. Nothing changes.

We do that with the Bible too, don't we? We read it, daily. We read the Bible a lot. But too often it doesn't do anything to us. We just move on. Nothing changes...

I won't say stop reading the Bible... But read it with passion. Read it with a reason. Let it change your heart and mind and life. Otherwise...what's the point?

Lord, Save Us...

2011-10-16T14:55:00.000-05:00

My co-pastor and I were working with a church recently, talking about church growth, plateaus, difficulties in growth, etc. We said, "We often ask the wrong question, which is: What can we do to grow the church? We need to ask the right question: What is preventing the church from growing?"*

You see, we often focus on doing things to grow the church - strategies, gimmicks, programs, whatever - things that other churches have done, books have said will work, ideas we've dreamed up or something else that we think might grow the church numbers. Some things work, some things don't. The core thing that is guaranteed to grow the church is the movement of the Spirit of God, but we don't control that. What we DO control is how we act.

And that is the question we were asking. What do we do that prevents people from coming to church? And there's a lot. We act...badly. I read a book called Lord, Save Us From Your Followers that tries to answer some of those questions, and the book Jim and Casper Go To Church, as well as a book called When Bad Christians Happen to Good People and particularly the Lyons/Kimmel book unChristian - lots of research, anecdotes and observations about, particularly, the bad and the ugly of church life.

What we do badly...should we pay attention to that? I think we should. How we mis-represent Christ is probably as telling as how we represent Him. How we are unChristian is as powerful a testimony as how we are Christ-like.

And so the prophetic words of a saint in a church, when faced with the question of "Why isn't the church growing?" were thus:

"People outside the church look in and see what's going on in here and they don't want anything to do with it. They see the fighting and what the people in the church say and do, and they don't want to be a part of that."

And that church has a lot of work to do, a long way to go to reach the community. But they realize that there's a lot of history, some of it bad, some of it painful, some hurts they've caused. And it is a difficult, but very healthy, realization to come to. Just like it is for all our relationships. Where we have caused hurt, we need to bring healing. Where we have been wrong, we need to make amends.

Been burned in church? What does the church need to do better?

*Yeah, I know, not original, and not the MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS to ask in the grand scheme of things... but in the context, it was important...roll with it...

Sign: Because We Care About Your Safety

2011-10-15T05:43:00.000-05:00

Nerd Or Geek: Decidedly Undecided

2011-10-14T07:42:00.003-05:00

Both? Neither? Um... I'm on the Fringe, I guess...

True? False? You?

Compassionate Brokenness

2011-10-13T15:37:00.001-05:00

From Morguefile

Did you ever do something stupid and not realize it? Trample somebody's feelings and have no idea? Say something insensitive or do something unkind without a second thought?

Of course you have. Me too. Dealing with it right now.

Just heard about it this afternoon, in fact. Happened several days ago, I had no idea that what I said and did hurt someone's feelings, but it did. Immediately, I tried to make contact, I wanted to reconcile with this person, I wanted to make sure that the relationship remains intact (as Jesus tells us to do) but I couldn't - person won't be available until tomorrow...

And this hurts me.

And it should. I should hurt when I have hurt someone else. I should ache to make this right. When I am wrong* I need to confess to God, I need to confess to the person I have hurt.

Here's the thing about broken communities (churches, neighborhoods, families, etc): there's rarely compassionate brokenness. Oh, there's plenty of brokenness, of course - dysfunctional brokenness - backbiting, bitterness, hatred, despair, gossip... And the devil loves that kind of brokenness.

A lot of our communities are broken communities.

But I'm talking about compassionate brokenness here.

Jesus was going all through the towns and the villages teaching and preaching and the very broken people were coming for hope and healing and Matthew tells us that he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Compassionate Brokenness. Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and beside Lazarus' tomb, saying to an adulterous woman, "Neither do I condemn you"**, telling the disciples, "You give them something to eat" and a hundred other examples.

Dr. Robert Pierce, founder of World Vision, famously wrote once (in his Bible, if I remember correctly):

“Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”

Compassionate Brokenness...

*And I was wrong, even if I didn't mean to be, this person was not being "overly sensitive" or whatever, I messed up, I need to ask for forgiveness...

**Of course he then says, "Go and sin no more" - see, it's not just "bleeding heart liberalism", okay?

Race To Get There

2011-10-11T07:28:00.000-05:00

I was over in Tidioute the other day for office hours and did some visiting and some work around the church. When it was time to come home, though, I flew down the road to get home. I knew that I was going to get home about the same time as the girls were going to get off the bus, and I knew that Lori was going to be at the house and I just couldn't wait to get there and see the three people I love more than anybody in the world. So, yes, I pushed the car a bit above the speed limit a time or two (or three of four) but I was so excited to see my family - I just couldn't wait. I hadn't seen them for HOURS. It was important - urgent - I HAD to get home.

Yeah, you probably know where this is going, right?

That night I had a meeting at church.

Was I as excited to get there? Did I break any speed limits to get to the meeting? Was I as excited to see those people - who are also my family - who I also love (sorry, not quite the same way or not quite "as much" - but I do still love you very much) - and some who I hadn't seen in DAYS or even a WEEK?

Um...

Truth is, I was a little excited to go to the meeting. And I DID want to see these people. I do love them and I do want to meet with them. I NEVER dread the meetings we have because I don't see them as meetings - but as connections, opportunities, points of contact between me and you - especially the "yous" that I don't get to talk to very much through the week otherwise.

When we start to have meetings just because we have to have a meeting...well, it's time to stop having the meetings, right? And the first symptom of that is the dread in the pit of the stomach that says, "I don't want to go. I wish I was at the dentist's office instead..." Yeah, I've been to those meetings too...

And it's a choice I make. Every time. I go early to every meeting, class, worship, everything if I can*. Because being there matters to me - and you being there matters to me. 'Cause I know something's going to happen. Because God is there...

*I have kids, I have problems, I get sick too, I get it - sometimes life gets in the way. But if it really matters to me, I'll show up. On time.

Come Expecting Something

2011-10-10T11:06:00.057-05:00

from morguefile

So last Sunday we hit a wall at church - one we've hit before, but we keep forgetting about it... The parking lot was full. The sanctuary wasn't full, so it would be easy to not ever think about the parking lot, but somebody mentioned it and I had a facepalm moment... We've talked about it before, why do we keep back-burner-ing this?

Because things are going okay... But have we missed anybody because they pull up, see no spaces, and drove away? Church growth people say if the pews are more than 80% full (which ours aren't) then that's where you stop growing...but what about parking spaces? What if you're at 105% full? I mean, not every Sunday, or we'd think about it all the time. But we can't only think about it when it happens, right?

So this made me remember working at another church where we had some parking issues - again, not all the time, but just on occasion. So, during a staff meeting we were encouraged to park across the street in a business's parking lot (they weren't open on the weekends). I think it was Christmas. So I parked across the street Christmas eve and trudged through the snow, waited for the light to change, crossed the street, crossed the parking lot (which did indeed fill to capacity), go into the church.

So then every Sunday thereafter I continued to park across the street - rain, snow, heat, whatever - wait for the light, cross the street, cross the parking lot, go into the church. After a couple weeks other staff said, "Bill, you don't have to keep parking over there. What are you doing? We're not that full every Sunday." At first, I was just like, "In for a penny, in for a pound..." You know? But, then, I realized - wait a minute. What do you mean we're not that full every Sunday? Why not?

You know why not? Because we don't expect to be.

We come expecting to have plenty of parking.

So we do.

And I resolved to come expecting to not have enough parking - every Sunday. Yeah, I'm the only one, I don't care. Come expecting something...*

So I've talked recently about being an attractional church - you know, putting your best foot forward for when visitors come - I think that's a good thing. And I think that extends to parking lots too. Not too many years ago our parking lot was gravel and it could get pretty messy in the rainy weather. Not a big deal? No, in the grand scheme of the kingdom, not a big deal. Tough when you're wearing spike heels? Probably (though I'll have to take your word for it).

So this isn't really about parking after all. It's about attitude. We (that is the leaders here at church - at ANY church) we come week in and week out expecting what? The same thing as happened last week? Or something more, different, powerful? Do we really expect God to show up? In a powerful way? Do we park like it? Do we show up early like it?

What's going to happen this Sunday at your church?

*So the other philosophical problem I had at the time with the whole parking problem thing was somebody asked, "Do we have permission to park in the business's lot?" And the response was, "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission." Really? Isn't that the polar opposite of what we're supposed to be all about? Sigh...

Nerd Or Geek: Which One?

2011-10-10T07:30:00.006-05:00

Found this last week online (click it to see the whole thing).

So, which one am I? I'll post who I THINK I am on Friday...

Quote for Today

2011-10-10T05:25:00.000-05:00

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others. -Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)

I have been hit by the truth of this time and again the past couple weeks - as people keep saying the most obvious things...that OTHER people should be doing... but it's only when a person finds the truth within themselves that true change occurs. That's why we can't be Holy Spirit for other people, why husbands and wives can't change their spouses, why family members can't force addicts to quit... Even when it's obvious to everyone else in the world, until it's true for me, it's not true for me...

And that's why the Christian faith can't be second hand faith, either...

Sign: The Obvious and the What the Heck?

2011-10-08T05:41:00.000-05:00

Sometimes We Fight Funny Around Here

2011-10-06T08:35:00.002-05:00

Not my picture, not really relevant...
But, awww :)

This morning I hung out in the car with the girls at the end of the driveway, waiting for the bus ('cause it was a bit chilly out this morning). Well, I hung out in the car with A girl, Rachel, because Elie was bouncing around the outside of the car alternately making faces at Rachel or just laughing and dancing in the wet grass. At one point Rachel was play-teasing Elie through the window by looking at the wrong side of a homework page which, for whatever reason, really bugged Elie. She kept trying to open the door (which Rachel had, of course, locked) and kind of poking the window and saying turn it over...

I finally rolled down a window a bit and said, "You know, you can fight a lot easier if you get in the car." And Elie's face lit up and she got a big smile on her face and ran around the car. Rachel giggle-shrieked, "Dad!" as I unlocked all the doors and Elie jumped in the car... And buried her older sister in a big bear hug.

And, thankfully, that was how we fought this morning...

Sometimes we fight funny around here...

And I'm really thankful...

Living Bridges - More To This Life

2011-10-06T07:46:00.042-05:00

I know I've just scratched the surface with this idea of Living Bridges. The images, when I first saw them, captured my imagination, and I wanted to begin processing the ideas here. This is a place for ideas - for the temporary and the transient - to brainstorm and think out loud and welcome others into the thought process. So...it's like a living bridge, too, kind of...

The realization that there's more to this life than me occurs to everyone at some point, right?

Wikipedia's Questionable List of Philathopists

Nobel Prize

Bill & Melinda Gates

Warren Buffett

Oprah

Yeah, I could go on and on. But that's been the point of faith...well, from the beginning, right? God said of Adam, "It is not good for the man to be alone."

Jesus said, "Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do to Me." Among other things like, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."

Living Bridges are the connections that we make with the people around us because there's more to this life than just me. And, as Christ Followers, because of the love and grace God has poured into us, we live into others' lives. We connect, because in Christ, God has built a living bridge in us.

Quote

2011-10-06T07:17:00.001-05:00

We're here to put a dent in the universe.
-Steve Jobs, entrepreneur and inventor (1955-2011)

10 Ways Steve Jobs Changed The World as long as it stays at CNN.com...

As Much As I Say I Don't Like Apple...

2011-10-05T20:01:00.000-05:00

...I'm saddened by the news that Steve Jobs has died. There is no question that he was one of the great visionaries and geniuses of my generation and I can't imagine what has been lost - or what won't be created - with his passing.

Living Bridges - God Thing

2011-10-05T06:36:00.042-05:00

So let's move on here. Living bridges are those living, breathing connections we make, right? Okay, it's a metaphor, but I think it works.

Mission is the big thing in the church right now. Rick Warren's post Purpose Driven Life have been outreach oriented, there's a Missional Church Network and Ed Stetzer is plugged in. It's a huge focus of Ginghamsburg Church, Willow Creek, you name it. Now, don't hear this as critical. It's a good thing. It's a God thing. Really it is.

But, alone, it fails. Like Failblog fails...

"No, no, no," you may say (you may not, but it's my blog...), "Good John Wesley was ALL about the outreach stuff. Talk about Mr. Missional. Mr. 'The World Is My Parrish.' What about Jesus? What about 'Go and make disciples?' Huh? What do you have to say to that?"

Well... They didn't fail.

Because they didn't do Missional alone.

Here's the thing. Great article here called "Why the Missional Church Will Fail"* makes the point that mission without discipleship cannot succeed - it's heartless, soulless (my words, not his). It must fail because there's no real purpose behind it.

Living Bridges, however, are built when true disciples, acting out of the relationship they have with the Savior, reach out in compassion and love into the world around them. When we act more like our Savior because we are becoming more like our Savior.

So it's a two-fold Living Bridge - First is God's Word that connects us with our Creator. You know, it's the LIVING WORD that bridges the gap between this mortal being and the God who created me. It's the Living Spirit of God that dwells in me.

Second, it is the Living Bridge that I build between me and the people around me. Love God with all I am and love my neighbor as I love me (to paraphrase Jesus).

Living Bridges. A God Thing.

*Yeah, subtle...the followup here is equally subtle "Why Most Church Discipleship Plans Fail"

Living Bridges - Me to We

2011-10-04T06:46:00.067-05:00

Hmmm, thought I had talked about this whole me to we stuff before... I know I've preached about it...twice, even... but my blog-search-fu fails me...

So, our society has caught on to this idea of living bridges. The idea that it's not institutions that connect us, but it's in real, live, face to face ways that we are truly connected. Those are living bridges. I'm told (meh, you can do the research I suppose, you've probably read the books too) that the, say, under 35 generations are more and more committed to what we in the church would call mission - what society at large would call "social justice" - and what I think is more aptly called Living Bridges - than nearly any generation previous. People want to live FOR something - to have purpose and meaning - people want to connect - not just virtually (though that is HUGE important - as this commercial* mocks...but has a point nonetheless). Connecting matters.

Creating Living Bridges - making real, honest connections with people through some kind of service really matters - people take that very seriously. There was a book a few years ago called Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World ** that's all about the idea of getting a mindset of moving from me to we - but are you ready for this? To become a more fully realized me... Um... I think that misses the point a little bit...

But I digress. Whatever the motivation (and culturally, it seems, the motivation seems to be: to feel better about myself, to make my mark on the world, to change the world for the better, to be a better me - none of that is inherently bad...) over the past dozen or so years there has been a tremendous shift toward building these Living Bridges.

And I see it as a good thing (I'll talk more about seeing it as a God thing later this week). I look at something like the One Campaign, or the Red Campaign or something like Nothing But Nets or Hunger Strike or a thousand other ways people can make easy connections as one way to start to build Living Bridges. I know my girls pray for the girl we sponsor through Hunger Strike and write letters and want to know more about what Indonesia is like...

But there's also the Living Bridges we build all around us. I caught this on Facebook a week or so ago - someone I graduated with posted this and I happened to see it as it whizzed by that day... (Click on it to read the whole thing)

That's a Living Bridge. I don't know this girl's faith *** but I know she and her husband are building a Living Bridge in her neighborhood.

How about you? Building any Living Bridges?

* If it's still there - it keeps getting pulled by YouTube for copyright violation or somesuch nonsense - honestly, it's a COMMERCIAL - people are posting it FOR FREE - it's called FREE ADVERTISING. Sheesh... C'mon people...

** It's a popular title... Here's another Me to We for pastors, here's a Me to We that is an anti-Self-Help book. Here's a Me to We that is about moving on. And there's more similar titles, you can find them at Amazon: Choosing ME before WE; The We That Is Me; Me, We and Glee...and on and on...it's a virtual (no pun intended...well, maybe a little pun) circus...

*** Yeah, she's probably 43 too. But I graduated with her, so anybody I graduated with will always be a girl. Unless they're a guy...um... yeah... (Relativity)

Quote for the Day

2011-10-04T05:52:00.001-05:00

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
-Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

It is sad that 100+ years later this must still be true...

Happy To Go Back To School...Again

2011-10-03T11:50:00.030-05:00

So again this morning my 8 year old, Elie, was waiting for the bus (normal) and she said, "I really like going to back to school on Mondays." Really? I don't remember feeling that way.

Wise, like Yoda, I say, "Why is that?"

"Because it's not too much work, today. And we get to do science. I really like science." Oh yeah, I remember, they studied butterflies again this year* and I figure that's what she's excited about...

"Butterflies, right?"

"No. We're done with that. We released our butterflies last week. We're learning about insects. Did you know that ants have a queen?"

"Yep."

"And she has wings."

And so the excitement for school goes. It's partly about learning, partly about socializing. I know I've said this already recently but it bears repeating. She loves school - not just because second grade is easy (because it isn't) or because she's brilliant (because she is**) - but because what goes on there and who is there matters to her.

And that should be church, right?

I think I'll explore this a little more next week...***

IS that church? Does what goes on here matter to you? Does it matter who is here? Are you excited when Sunday morning or Wednesday evening rolls around?

*they learned about butterflies last year too
** yeah, I'm biased, get over it - she's really, really smart though
***more internet time travel - I actually wrote this post live - but I'll probably write the followups this week - for next week - because I wrote this week's posts last week - well most of them - some I wrote this week... yeah, it's complicated... welcome to my life :)

Living Bridges... Intro - What They Are

2011-10-03T06:55:00.021-05:00

This is maybe the coolest engineering thing I've ever seen (well, this week, okay?). Bridges, in India, that aren't built, but are GROWN. Talk about the ultimate "green" industry.

So here's the reason. They get a lot of rain. Okay, Seattle, I know you think you get a lot of rain. But this place in India - Cherrapunji - gets a LOT of rain. No. A WAAAAAY lot of rain. Like two Guinness Book of World Records for rainfall amounts of rain. In the 1860s in one month they got over 30 feet - yes THIRTY FEET of rain. And that year they got almost 75 and a half feet of rain. Holy cow. You put traditional wood bridges in that kind of rain and they'll rot in a couple years. Apparently some of these root bridges are a hundred years old - no cut wood bridge could last in the wet that long. But living rubber tree roots do just fine. 'Cause they're ALIVE...

Here's what they do. They cut and hollow out some trees to guide the roots over the streams or rivers or whatever the obstacle is they want to cross - this keeps the rubber tree roots from branching out and keeps them growing straight out through the hollowed out tree trunk. When they've guided the roots to the other side of the river, they allow the roots to... well... take root into the ground. The root structure continues to grow thicker and deeper and stronger - eventually strong enough to support people, paving stones, etc. It takes a long time - decades - but the bridges last generations. Poke around on the internet you'll find some more info about living bridges and some more pics. Cool stuff.

I'll spend some time this week thinking out loud about Living Bridges and Faith...

What do you think?

Sign: Falling Rocks, Falling Debris, Falling...Cows?

2011-10-01T05:40:00.000-05:00

Quote for the Day

2011-09-30T05:21:00.000-05:00

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.
-Laurence Sterne, novelist and clergyman (1713-1768)

Worth A Thousand...*

2011-09-29T11:02:00.025-05:00

Art is powerful. Sometimes a song will move me in amazing ways, sometimes an image. I found a great image painted by the artist James Tissot of Jesus on a mountain alone for a graphic I used and I started looking for more images by Tissot - they're all in the public domain. Search "James Tissot" Jesus and you'll find he did something like 350 watercolors of the life of Jesus and I don't know how many other works depicting the life of Jesus.

But, for whatever reason, these two grabbed me, brought tears to my eyes - they're powerful to me - the juxtaposition of what could have been and what was - of what IS - I guess...

Tears in my eyes even as I type this...

Here's a great catalog of Tissot's work.

I'm downloading the paintings slowly, I'll be savoring them, pouring over them, probably crying more...

What has moved you recently? How has God touched your life recently?

* Or, possibly two thousand, as there's two pictures here...or 350,000 since he painted at least that many...or...well, a lot.

You Don't Get In Trouble For Shouting "Fire"...

2011-09-28T20:57:00.000-05:00

...when it's the new Kindle Fire ...

cnet says it's the price, stupid.

Here's the thing. Nobody needs a tablet, right? I mean, really, what do you NEED a tablet for? Sure, the Fire is literally HALF the machine the iPad is (far less memory, half the apps, no camera, no 3G, etc.), most people are going to say, "So what?" It's 200 bucks. Can I watch a movie? Cool. Read a book? Cool. Do some cool stuff on it? Cool. Can't video chat? Meh, most people don't anyway... Can't call somebody? Um, I have a cell phone - works pretty darn well, too... That tablet thingy would be a pretty big phone... Though... it's smaller than the iPad too, and that's a pretty big strike against it, in my book. I've been looking at tablets and the two biggest factors that I want (that NOBODY else seems to care about, I get it) is internal memory (I'd like 128 GB, thank you very much) and a full 8.5x11 inch screen. I'll never get it. So while I'm asking for the impossible - can I have a color e-ink option, too?

So...it's almost cheap enough to be "disposable technology" - almost. The new lowest price (with the ads for screen savers) Kindle is only 79 bucks. People are going to treat THAT as disposable technology, I don't doubt it for one minute.

Is the Kindle Fire the iPad killer? Nah.

But it just might be the Android tablet killer...we'll see...

Fail? Not So Sure...

2011-09-28T05:25:00.016-05:00

So this was posted on Failblog some time ago

...I came across it via another blog.

But it really got me thinking. Is it a fail? Really? I mean, if that's the ONLY things going on at the church, well, there's room for some other kind of discipleship programming, but... it sure does read like a church trying to minister to the needs of the broken and hurting in the community - and then, on Sunday, bringing the message of the hope of the Gospel.

Yeah, I get the irony. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, it's the truth in every community I know. So, no, it's really not so funny, is it?

So, what are you doing for the broken and the hurting?

How about proclaiming the joyous future?

What? Wait...Really?

2011-09-27T16:00:00.000-05:00

You would want to know that?

(Click to see the whole picture...)

So...it's not bad enough that Wii Fit will tell me my "Health Age" or whatever (I'm 436, by the way), now I can figure out when I'll die? (What, last month? Stupid online calculators....)

Facebook...keep up with long lost friends...and figure out stuff you were never meant to know in the first place...

Sigh....

It DOES Feel Like This...

2011-09-27T06:00:00.003-05:00

From Bonkers World

Just 'Cause I'm In That Kinda Mood :)

2011-09-26T19:31:00.000-05:00

Liked the Old Cylons...but the new ones really are better.

Sorry guys...

He Could Be Talking To Churches

2011-09-26T09:18:00.000-05:00

Today, Seth Godin writes this on his blog today:

If you're going to count on the competition to bring out your best work, you've surrendered control over your most important asset. Real achievement comes from racing ahead when no one else sees a path--and holding back when the rush isn't going where you want to go.
If you're dependent on competition then you're counting on the quality of those that show up to determine how well you'll do. Worse, you've signed up for a career of faux death matches as the only way to do your best work.
Self motivation is and always will be the most important form of motivation. Driving with your eyes on the rear view mirror is exhausting. It's easier than ever to measure your performance against others, but if it's not helping you with your mission, stop.

I can't help but hear that as a challenge to churches to JUST STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO THE CHURCH DOWN THE STREET. Who cares if they have a great choir/ youth band/ coffee shop/ children's program/ youth pastor/ drama team/ chef/ LED church sign/ better looking or funnier or more spiritual pastor/ funky red door/ whatever? What do YOU have to offer to build the Kingdom of God? THAT'S WHAT MATTERS, DANGIT! Yes, I'm typing in all caps today...sorry...

Really, it's just as true in churches as it is in business. If your eyes are on the rearview mirror all the time, you'll never see where you're going. In fact, Jesus had something to say about that...

Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.”
Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Be original. Be bold. Lead. Reach. Proclaim. The Kingdom is at hand!

Church Shopping List

2011-09-26T05:41:00.035-05:00

It's a different time - I've said this before and I'll say it until I die - we can complain and rail against the fact that Christians shouldn't be part of the consumer culture - and that we shouldn't treat church like we do laundry detergent - but the reality is most people ARE living the consumer culture and DO treat their relationship to their church like their relationship to the doctor, their grocery store or any other service they subscribe to: if they can get "better" service somewhere else, they will. We live in that culture, and we can do what we can to affect change within our own churches, but if we are going to evangelize – if we are going to bring in people who are far from God and try to connect them with the Living Water, we have to think differently now.

I was reading this article a while ago – “5 Must-Know Facts About First-Time Guests” where this guy is basically observing our culture and the church and saying there’s a disconnect. Here are the bullet points (you really should read the article):

1. Visitors make up their minds regarding a new church in the first ten minutes of their visit.

2. Most church members aren’t friendly.

3. Church guests are highly consumer-oriented.

4. The church is in the hospitality business.

5. You only have one chance to make a good first impression.

Generally, I have to agree with him. When I visit a church, I pretty much make up my mind within a few minutes of what I think of the church and whether or not it’s a “good” church – and it has a lot to do with the atmosphere:

Does it smell funky? Not cool.
Is the prelude music bad*? Not cool.
Did I get snubbed on the way in? Not cool.
And so on…

And there’s just no denying that our guests are consumer-oriented: they came looking for something. Great preaching, great music, a friendly face, whatever, they came to find something. We hope they came to offer themselves fully in worship, in spirit and truth. But…that’s not the culture we live in right now. That develops often later, once they realize what the church has to offer them. Wrong? Probably, but it is the reality we live in. Deal with it. Or watch your church die as fewer and fewer new faces show up. I know a couple churches around here that hold on to the idea that “we teach the right stuff” and would scoff at the idea of being “guest friendly” as being “worldly” – who have not had a visitor in months, have had a steady stream of people leaving the church, have not had a profession of faith in months or maybe even years. But, hey, no donut crumbs on the sanctuary floor, right?

Check out these two comments from the article:

My only question about this article is: Are these first time guests sold out Christians searching for a church that delivers the truth and not some social gospel, or are they unsaved shoppers looking for entertainment, child care, coffee and donuts?

From a pastor:

This article contains everything that is wrong about the church today. We are NOT in the hospitality business, but in the evangelism and discipleship business, or should be. If a church is more concerned about visitors, numbers, and how "social" they are, they should install a Starbucks and forget the whole "church" thing; it will be easier in the long run.
Church is NOT for unbelieving visitors (although no one is turned away) but a sanctuary within which Believers are educated, reproved, corrected, and instructed in righteousness so they can withstand the fiery darts of the Accuser, and exhibit the salt and light called for in scripture, and all this accomplished in an environment of peace, safety, and spiritual familial support. Seeker sensitive doesn't work. Hybels confessed it. Why are you still doing the same thing, expecting different results!?! That is the definition of insanity, not church.

And so it goes. Worship is for “us,” not for visitors. Never mind that it’s the one thing that outsiders know we do, and when we do it (thank's to our crummy church signs).

Don’t come in visitors, worship is for the believers only. You should come to…um…well…I guess we don’t really want you to come at all, until you already believe what we believe – you’ll pick that up somewhere. Come back when you have, though, and you’ll fit right in…

Sigh…

*Note: organ, piano, worship band I don't care - is it very poor quality? I'd rather have silence. Yes, I think silence, the sound of people chatting, is FAR better than bad prelude music - or pop in a CD of bagpipe music or SOMETHING. But bad prelude music is often a - ahem - prelude to bad other stuff - bad worship, bad leadership, bad preaching, whatever... My 2 cents...

So Apparently...

2011-09-25T21:02:00.000-05:00

...it's Mark Hamill's birthday today... And he's...60...sigh, I'm getting old...

Sign: If You Have To Post It, It's Probably Too Late...

2011-09-24T06:03:00.001-05:00

Just...Really?

2011-09-23T07:20:00.001-05:00

Pet Parents? Sigh...

When did we go from being owners to Pet Parents? I mean... I like my dog and all, but...I'm not her "daddy" - I just don't get it. But clearly I'm becoming the minority - even among the people I know who have pets, lots of them treat their dogs and cats like children...

That's just weird to me...

Am I alone?

Quote for the Day

2011-09-23T05:20:00.001-05:00

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.
-Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

Managers or Innovators

2011-09-22T05:48:00.000-05:00

From Poul Anderson's short story "Esau":

A good manager is a very high-powered man, and we need a lot of him. But at bottom, he is a routineer; his aim is to make things go smoothly. No, for the wild places you need an innovator in charge, a man what likes to take risks, a heterodoxy if she is female -- somebody what can meet wholly new problems in unholy new ways -- you see?

Poul Anderson is a writer, so he's supposed to use language in really interesting ways - and, of course, to have really interesting ideas. Andy Stanley has talked about Managers and Leaders like this, "Managers manage to sameness, leaders lead to change"* From another blog** I found that Stephen R. Covey says, "Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out." Thomas J. Peters says, "Management is about arranging and telling."

So - I know a lot of managers of churches. You know, keeping the programs going, doing the same stuff that's been done forever, not stepping on any toes, not going in any new directions... The church is DYING for leaders...

Who are you? A leader or a manager?

* I remember him saying this at Catalyst last year, and I found someone who blogged it last year, here - it's on the internet, it must be true...
** Squidoo - I'll let somebody else do the heavy lifting, this is just a blog after all...

Organizational Charts - and a Church Comment

2011-09-21T06:26:00.000-05:00

Sigh - I discovered another "go to" website - it's all geek techie stuff (well, almost all) but it just resonates with me. Here's a sample cartoon and commentary following about why it resonates...

Bonkers World

I mean, it's funny, yeah, but I think there's some truth in it too - at least in how I "feel" about the different tech companies (I don't know Oracle much, but the others I do). Amazon is very traditional, top down, Google is very NON-traditional top down, Facebook is very relational and both Microsoft and Apple hold you hostage in different ways, so, yeah, that works for me...

But here's how it resonates with me a little more deeply. Which one of these is your church org chart? I've known pastors who kind of use either the Microsoft (threat) model or the Apple (center of the universe) model.

And, hey, maybe it's none of these.

But what is your church ORG CHART like?

Heh - It's Me Now...

2011-09-20T17:19:00.003-05:00

I'm an old, old man...

Yea! I Get To Go Back To School!

2011-09-20T08:23:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, Lori took Rachel and Elie to the doctor - Elie to get the flu mist up the nose (waaaay better than getting a shot - which took like three adults and 15 minutes and a chase down the hall I think last year...sigh...), and Rachel to get checked out because she's been sick...again... Rachel has croup and a sinus infection...again...sigh...

But that's not the point.

I got a text from Lori that said, "Still waiting for Rachel to be seen. El was supposed to be back at school half hour ago." I texted back that I would come get her.

When I picked up Elie, she said, "Yea!! I get to go back to school!"

Now, I'm no expert, but 8 year-olds aren't supposed to like school that much, are they? So I'm like, "Why do you want to go back to school?"

And she said for two reasons, one (sort of) negative, one positive:

First, she didn't want any homework, so the quicker she got back to school, the less she would miss and the less work she would have to make up.

Second, she wanted to be with her friends.

And I was really happy to hear that. She didn't want to miss anything, she wanted to be with people. School was a place she wanted to be. There was a "cost" to be paid for missing, both work to make up on her "free time" and relationships that she won't be engaged in.

So, are we saying "Yea! I get to go back to church!"? Are we concerned, when we have to miss church, that we're "missing something" and that we're "missing someone"? Probably, we don't have any "makeup" work to do, or not a lot (might catch the sermon online, maybe catch up on the journal if you're part of Otterbein church and you do the Transformation Journal), but would you have been concerned that you would have missed anything important?

Probably not.

I don't think generally we think much is going to happen on any given Sunday. The same old stuff. Sing some songs, hear a sermon, say hello to the same people. You know. No surprises.

Elie sees these same people five days a week - but doesn't want to miss being with them. And she has to do actual, sometimes difficult (for her level) work - but she can't wait to get back.

Some Sundays I hear people say they just couldn't care enough to get ready for church in time...

What's different?

Why Churches Fail*

2011-09-19T10:08:00.002-05:00

Okay, yeah, there are a million reasons why churches fail, I know. I can't get to the heart of all of them, but the other day Seth Godin posted another blogpost about artists (his lynchpin term) - this time the difference between talent and vendors and it struck me that a good bit of this applies to churches. Yeah, probably not a one-to-one correlation, but here's the heart of what struck me:

...if you treat an artist like a vendor, you'll often get mediocre results in return. On the other hand, if you treat a vendor like an artist, you'll waste time and money.

Vendors happily sit in the anonymous cubes at Walmart's headquarters, waiting for the buyer to show up and dicker with them. They willingly fill out the paperwork and spend hours discussing terms and conditions. The vendor is agnostic about what's being sold, and is focused on volume, or at least consistency.

While the talent is also getting paid (to be in your movie, to do consulting, to coach you), she is not a vendor. She's not playing by the same rules and is not motivated in the same way.

How many churches "happily sit in the anonymous" corner of x and y street "waiting for the buyer to show up and dicker with them." Or seeker, as the case may be, willingly filling out paperwork, "spend hours discussing terms and conditions." Yeah, that sounds like some churches I've been involved with. And it was really the last line in that paragraph that got me thinking: could the church be "agnostic about what's being sold,... focused on volume, or at least on consistency"?

What I mean by agnostic here is not that churches don't care what the stand for, don't get me wrong - they stand for Christ, I get that. But agnostic about HOW they stand for Christ and HOW they speak into people's lives. It's how we do it, like it or leave it. It was good enough for Martin Luther, it should still work today... As if things aren't any different today than they were 500 years ago - or 50 years ago - or even 5 years ago...

And then there's the endless debates about "being right" and all that - or, just as bad, the endless focus just on numbers (which our denomination is quickly sliding toward).

Godin's contrast here is the "talent" - the artist - the person (or, in my mind, the church) who thinks differently. Numbers may still matter, but aren't the driver. Quality, relationship, authenticity, honesty to the Gospel - those might be more accurate drivers for the "talent" who doesn't worry so much if the pews aren't full, but worries a lot when the people who are supposed to be there aren't there two weeks in a row, maybe.

What does the "talent" church do differently than the "vendor" church? Am I way off base here?

* Yeah, reason #347 out of 5,872 I know, but it's still A reason...

Sign: Directionally Challenged...

2011-09-17T07:01:00.000-05:00

I think I've been on these roads...

Quote for the Day

2011-09-13T05:19:00.000-05:00

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1945)

Sunday Morning...

2011-09-12T12:56:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning was ten years since the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the flight that crashed near Shanksville. Sunday morning was a worshipful time for us.

We invited representatives from the fire departments and the police forces of the area as well as the boy scouts to join us in worship - we wanted to acknowledge them and pray for them as we acknowledged and commemorated the solemn occasion of September 11th as a Nation. I guess a lot of people did that. I know there were services and ceremonies all over the country...

We had a really powerful time of prayer Sunday morning. But we only kind of planned it. We asked Ray to sing a simple, quiet worship song (he chose a Willet song Come to Jesus which came about to him in such a God way anyway, but a story for another time) and we asked people to speak out names of those who serve - police, fire, EMT, volunteer, military - in any way put their lives out there for others. It was amazing. Then we called up our fire representatives and police officer and we prayed for them specifically and for all who serve generally as part of our time of remembrance of 9/11. We had an opportunity to connect with the community in a powerful way and we still communicated the Gospel clearly and unwaveringly (I thought Pastor Steve was right on point with his message, especially as he wrapped up - when the devil tried to tempt Him to run away, Jesus chose to run TO the cross for us).

It occurs to me that we don't really do this stuff with a lot of fanfare - we don't advertise and hype up that we're doing this kind of stuff, and I think that's probably for the better.

Just some Monday afternoon thoughts...

Sign: Irony...

2011-09-10T06:59:00.000-05:00

The Idea Is Free - and Eventually a Comment on Lifechurch

2011-09-08T09:06:00.002-05:00

So I had this conversation a few months ago with a guy who has since gone off to college - but it went something like this:

Me: "Ideas are free. Ideas have always been free. Everybody has ideas. You hear people say them all the time. Wouldn't it be great if...and then there's the idea." And then we started talking about music and the internet and stuff and how now that digital music is available, the genie is out of the bottle and so many people can get songs for free - often illegally - but more and more bands are releasing songs into the wild legally, too, especially independent artists.

The guy said something like, "Maybe because they can't sell them they put them out there for free."
Me: "No, they know that the song is the idea, and the idea is free. The song is what sells you on THEM They are the product, the song is just the idea, and ideas are free."*

You hear the song or see the video on YouTube or NoiseTrade or a thousand other places where the song has been released into the wild and you like it - and it's free - no commitment on your part, so you're free to walk away from this idea and that's the risk the artist takes by releasing the idea for free - but if you engage, you might seek out the artist.

We're way more internet savvy these days - so it's a quick search to Google seven words in a row from a lyric to find out what a song is, who did it, link to a fan made YouTube video to make sure that's the right artist, then go to the artist page - takes about a minute or two, really. Go ahead.

"Isn't it nice to know that the lining is silver"

Easy to do, that's the hook you'd remember from the song - and the whole first page in Google is going to get you the right song. Major bands** are doing that - releasing official videos on YouTube or elsewhere - because they know even though you're going to download the video to your iPod - and that a lot of us are able to rip the audio and consequently not purchase the single, the song is the idea, and the idea is free (LOTS of people are still going to buy the song - but more and more, bands and artists are going to find alternate ways to make money - that's a topic for a different post maybe).

Here's the video that inspired this post:

I got an email from Andrew Belle because I checked out some of his music on NoiseTrade - all that was required was that I submit my email address. I could tip him if I liked what I heard and I could share on Twitter or Facebook if I wanted to - all that is optional. And I could opt out of the email once I signed up, but I don't mind the once every 4 to 6 weeks or so emails from these independent artists that I get for having received sometimes whole albums for free. And a couple of the artists I've become true fans. If they come into the area close enough, I'll pay the money to go see them. Because the FREE IDEA sold me on the real product, which was THEM. But, my point, how cool is it that this guy releases a HD video on YouTube of his new single? Pretty cool video too, even if it is a little stalkerish - though I've only watched it once - I really like the animation technique.

Ever notice how there will be a run on a certain genre of movie? Like asteroid hitting the earth movies or whatever? A script will get shopped in Hollywood (and no one will admit this, I'm sure) and they'll pass on the script, but say to themselves the IDEA is a good one, but we can do it better. And so you get three movies in one summer about alien invasions - and the one with the biggest budget or the most famous actors...or, probably, the biggest advertising budget (or makes it into the McDonalds happy meals) is the big hit. But the IDEA is out...

Here's the point for me. Lifechurch is on to something. They have created millions of dollars worth of resources that people can use absolutely free - graphics and videos and whole messages if you want to - but that's not all - have you heard of YouVersion? Yeah, that was them. And they have church metric stuff and family ministry stuff and personal stuff and... yeah, you get it, right? That goes WAY beyond the notion that the IDEA is free - but it started with someone saying, "Hey, I have an idea." And while there are lots of churches who don't have a single unmarketed idea (too many churches, if you ask me), Lifechurch ain't one of them.

So... My point is this. What are some of the areas where people would typically expect in the OLD ECONOMY to be paying for something that we can leverage it as being the IDEA that could be free - to sell the product, which is us? The "us" in this case being the local church, the, as we say here, family of believers serving God. How do we connect with people in a new and innovative way? Bands are now giving away what was once their most precious commodity to make a more real connection with the people. What about us?

*Turns out there's a book with this title - a haven't read it, can't recommend it or decry it. Interesting times we live in...ideas are EVERYWHERE. heh...

**Switchfoot Coldplay LOTS of others... U2's I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight video was the first I paid attention to being released on YouTube (how out of the loop I was - licensed to Vevo...

I Really Should Twitter

2011-09-07T07:35:00.001-05:00

Yeah, you've seen the posts here - they can go on forever...and sometimes say nothing. And I noted in a footnote (yes, a freaking footnote*) in this post that blogger is dying according to this article. My friend Andy says he gets all the news he needs from Twitter. Really?

But don't you have to sort through all that ""Hey, I'm at the mall" or whatever junk too? I know it's all who you follow, right? Maybe I don't know who to follow...wait, that sounds like the beginning of a sermon... Sigh, I gotta figure this Twitter thing out. I think the week I signed on to blogger - or was it myspace...or facebook...can't remember - anyway, I know I HAVE a twitter account - I signed up... I had no idea what it was then... I have less of an idea now... (except this is like 6 tweets long...holy cow!)

Can you do footnotes in Twitter?

*EDIT - I just checked the character count in that FOOTNOTE - too long to be a tweet - this one barely makes it.

Quote for Today

2011-09-06T12:56:00.001-05:00

Don't mistake pleasure for happiness. They're a different breed of dog. -Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (1818-1885)

I would say this: pleasure is a moment, happiness is season, joy is lifetime. Pleasure quickly passes. Happiness lingers, but fades. Joy is a choice, a way to live, a perspective on life that depends little on either pleasure or happiness. And it's the rarest breed of dog there is.

More On Tribes

2011-09-05T07:27:00.048-05:00

If you're getting tired of stuff about Seth Godin's idea of Tribes...I don't care. It's my blog. It's what I'm writing about... Go read Michael's Blog* or Aaron's Blog* and come back tomorrow. Well, might be more of the same ** but check back anyway.

I had a realization while I mowed the grass about this tribes stuff (makerbot post) that while these are my people - I AM a part of these tribes - these geeky, fringe, nerdy tribes - the Star Wars, model railroad, guitar playing, Lord of the Rings reading, movie making, computer grokking, role-playing gaming, fantasy reading, Doctor Who watching tribes, I'm a FRINGE member of these FRINGE tribes.

Here's what happened. The same conversation where I realized that I'm not one of the cool kids, Lori and I were talking about leisure time and disposable income - neither of which we have. But we talked about what we would do if we had both - lots of free time and lots of extra money. And we realized that we'd probably just be way more generous with both. You see, both of us have our tribes - I've listed mine, right? And Lori's a big Steeler fan, for example, but neither of us is really a member of those tribes on a social level.

Here's what I mean. I like to watch Star Wars, I read about it sometimes, I know a lot of trivia. I HATE to talk to people about it, I don't want to see your action figure collection and if you show up to the premiere of the new movie dressed as a character, I will pretend I don't know you. No, I don't want to go to a Star Wars convention. I don't want to hear about your 23rd level paladin or how you totally kicked Demogorgon's butt.*** I'm not really interested in your guitar rig and I don't want to talk about mine, either (though I'll gladly read all about what Edge plays and the details of his delay settings for Where The Streets Have No Name or watch him talk about his rig**** - but you, sir, are not the Edge).

My point is, while I'm sort of a part of these tribes...I'm more, kind of...like a desert father or something. You know, they were still Christians - very dedicated - part of the tribe and all...but hermits, off on their own, not "in the mix."

So...maybe I don't do this tribe thing very well... and that makes me wonder if I do the whole community thing well. I mean, I'm an off the charts introvert. In EVERY assessment I've ever taken, I'm completely introverted - that is I get energy from being alone. So am I doing the whole church thing wrong, too? Am I involved enough in community there? How's our tribe?

*Seriously - if you haven't read these blogs, you should. They haven't updated in a while, but read the archives. Great stuff. They both have a lot to say about...well, a lot of stuff...
** It won't be. More internet time travel. I'm writing tomorrow's blog post last Thursday, so, I know, you know?
***Back in the day I went to a couple of gaming conventions and walking around I thought to myself, "This is unbelievable. I'm the only remotely normal person in the whole building." And I'm not that normal.
****Like here and here

My Blog Now Sucks 40% Less

2011-09-05T06:08:00.021-05:00

After a Dependent Survey** it has been determined that my blog now sucks 40% less than it used to. I mentioned a while ago that I have gotten rid of some regular features that even *I* didn't really care about and am again posting semi-regularly so, it seems to me, that the blog sucks a little less than it used to.

So, read on, if you will. It's a blog, I know, which really is something like this:

**Yeah, most surveys are INdependent, I know, but here's how I did MY survey. I asked myself, "How much less do you think your blog sucks?" Answer? "Maybe 40% less." There you have it. A dependent survey...

Speaking of Signs

2011-09-03T14:10:00.002-05:00

Seth Godin had a post Thursday on his blog that was, at least in part, about signs. Go there. Seriously. It's about truth and transparency. Good stuff.

If you don't read Seth's blog, you should. His posts are really short, to the point, and very engaging (the one from earlier Thursday actually made me laugh out loud in McDonalds while I was waiting between my dentist appointment and my tire appointment). Best of all, they'll make you think - even when you don't agree with him.

Sign: I Know What They Meant, But...

2011-09-03T06:57:00.001-05:00

...no

MakerBot

2011-09-02T06:30:00.058-05:00

I've had a lot of nerd interests for a long time. If you really know me, you already know that. I'm into model trains, army men - well, miniature anything, really, role-playing games, Star Wars, computers - hardware and software (networking is still a mystery to me, though), movies (especially how they're made), guitar stuff, and on and on...

So I'm tooling around online and I see a link to MakerBot** - which is so cool...'cause it combines a bunch of my nerdiness all in one - you can get the MakerBot as a kit to assemble yourself (and save a LOT of money, which appeals to my cheap self), and you use it to make 3D plastic miniatures, which I'm all about, of course, and you use 3D computer modeling to create the 3D plastic models...woohoo!! The video in the link shows them using a kinect as a 3D scanner to create a model of the webshow's host. Is that cool or what?****

Yeah, the final products are still kind of crude. But...you get to make something that has never existed. That's the pull that I just can't resist, you know? That's where the nerd and the buried artist in me collide.

So it's about creativity, in part. But also, I think, about being in a group... a "tribe" Seth Godin calls it. There are only so many people who would ever care about something like this. You who know me, if you're even still reading this, most of you don't care about the MakerBot...but you know that I'm part of that small group of people for whom this is in some way just "the coolest thing." And that's a tribe that, in some ways, I want to be a part of.

I think...

Well, anyway, MakerBot...tre cool...

** Which was apparently created by a group of guys sitting around going, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could do this 3D printing stuff? Kinda cheaply? Why couldn't we?" And so they get together and do it. Seven layers of awesome! This is the kind of stuff my friend Dan does all the time. I don't have THAT kind of creativity - he wants to make a robot trellis that will follow the sun around your yard, for crying out loud. It's all I can I do to mow the grass on a normal lawn mower...

****Of course, it's like $1500 bucks for the kit alone...and then there's the plastic...and the accessories... and... and...

I'm One Of the Cool Kids!

2011-09-01T14:05:00.001-05:00

Last Thursday, reacting to Steve Jobs' announcement that he was leaving as the head of Apple, DorkTower posted this:

I was telling Lori that I remembered the Newton, though I thought it came out earlier than it did (really, like around 1990?**) and how the strip said something about the Newton and being one of the "six people who get the reference..."

And I said, "I got it. I remembered the Newton. I'm one of the six. I'm one of the cool kids."

And she said, "It was on DorkTower. One of the cool kids? Really?"

And I said... "Um...okay...yeah, I'm...one of the six...really nerdy people who remembers the Newton."

But in light of tomorrow's post****, this is my tribe.****** These are my people. And, yes, I was happy to be one of the "in people" on DorkTower. Even if I'm not, as Lori was so very quick, yet gentle, to point out, "one of the cool kids."

If you don't get, you don't get it. And that's okay.

**Though I might have heard about it around 1986 or so, which I thought I was in high school when I first heard about the Newton...but memory is a tricky thing...
****Which I wrote three days ago - the internet makes time travel possible.
******Seth Godin talks about Tribes in this book

Customer Service

2011-08-30T07:37:00.030-05:00

I just called to get my car serviced at a local place. Every time I call, they answer the phone like this:

"It's a great day at NAME OF THE SERVICE CENTER. This is Joe, how can I help you?"

Every time. Now it can't be a great day every time. I know that, 'cause I've sat in the waiting area for hours while they've worked on my car before - while they've dealt with some really difficult people at the counter, unhappy with something - maybe their fault, maybe not, but in the middle of dealing with those problem people, the phone rings, and, sure enough, "It's a great day at..."

So, I called today to make an appointment. Set it up, no problems, no hassles, no "let me fit you in" but "what time works for you?"

Had to call three hours later to change the time (of course I did, my life is crazy sometimes). He said, "So what time works best for you that afternoon." I said, "About 2:00 okay?" He said, "That's perfect. See you then."

Customer service still matters.

At least to me.

Did He Really Mean What He Said?

2011-08-29T10:54:00.000-05:00

Quote from an article here

Here’s publishing’s dirty little secret: most books are not worth finishing. Most books could be cut in half and you wouldn’t miss a thing.

That's from this guy:

Michael Hyatt, Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishing which is like the hugest Christian publisher in the world or something.

Which begs the question in my mind... Why not cut the books in half then?

Read the article. I'm not taking anything out of context here. He says there are too many great books out there to get bogged down reading merely good good books. And mostly he's talking about saving time. Yeah, I get it. But he's the world's largest Christian book publisher - and he's saying that most books published should only be half as long...so, again, why aren't they?

I don't know Michael Hyatt. This is actually more about the nature of the internet and the need to produce continual content that we too often think is disposable content...but it's not. Side comments, the kind of statements we used to make off the cuff with a diet Coke in our hand at the backyard barbecue are now bullet point #2 in a tweet - that becomes a blog post...that becomes a headline (if you're, you know, somebody famous...and not, say, me) that becomes an embarrassment that your handlers have to "spin" for you... via twitter, of course...

And never mind the fact that we forget social** media is forever. And we say and do stupid things. And then post them on Facebook, YouTube, blogs and we tweet them for all the world to read... And there are no takebacks anymore.

None.

You say it. And you post it. And it really is forever - somewhere, someone has it. Or can get it, if they really want it.

There's a guy who has been trying to trying to sue Mark Zuckerberg saying he is co-owner of Facebook or somesuch - but he's tried to fake the documentation. Emails, faxes, etc. He's chemically treated documents...but that's all oldschool stuff. It's the digital age, baby, and there's way too digital trails to try to cover up and even if you had the resources of somebody like Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs or Bill Gates...I don't know if you could really do it completely, regardless of what Hollywood tries to tell us...

So...that's the rant for today.

The internet... Yeah, it's forever. ****

**ESPECIALLY #3, #6, #10, #16, #17, #19, #20, #3, it bears repeating #3, really, #3...we don't want to hear about it. EVER.... Seriously
**** I'm told that Blogger is dead...'cause nobody reads more than 140 characters these days...sigh... probably true - maybe that's the REAL reason why most books are twice as long as they need to be - books really should be tweets...

Stupid Sign

2011-08-26T09:57:00.004-05:00

Made Me Think...

2011-08-25T09:57:00.001-05:00

...and that's all it has to do, right?

I've never read this book by John Stossel - truth is, I barely know who he is (he's on, like, TV somewhere, right?). But I hit on a link to a link to a link to a Fox news article here with the great title "Almost Everything We're Taught Is Wrong."*** I mean, how do you pass that one up?

So, anyway, one of the things the article (and presumably, the book) suggests is that while we would all agree that child labor is a bad thing - bordering on human rights violations - abuse - evil even, maybe... BUT... well... they suggest that if you pull children out of the sweatshops in the poorest of poor countries...there's a good chance they end up as child prostitutes. Okay, now I know it's not a one-to-one correlation. What they say is something like there's a dramatic increase in child prostitution... So, yeah, that actually kind of makes sense, though. The kids are going to have to work somehow. Take away the "legal" method of working...there's going to be the seedy dark underside of "working"...

The article is all about economics - but it all "makes sense." So, of course, that's what makes it so suspicious to me. You know, "price gouging" during emergencies is a "good thing" because it forces people in the emergencies to only buy what they need or something and ticket scalpers are really just allowing me to pay extra for my saved time (I didn't have to wait in line to get the tickets...of course, I can't tell you the last time I waited in line for tickets...but that goes against the grain of the article...so nevermind...) and if you have the money, well, you should be able to buy extra body parts (after all you can buy hair and reproductive stuff and whatever...) and their argument about blackmail...well, they lost me...whatever.

But it got me thinking. That first example especially. An act of justice that could lead to a greater injustice. How complicated life becomes... I would have NEVER thought that through. End child labor. That makes sense to me - because I live in a country where, when we ended child labor, families had options for their children. Different culture, different era, different economy, different...everything...

Well, it made me think, anyway...

*** I do get a little sick of the sensationalizing of the "news" these days...but it obviously works...I mean, I clicked on the link, didn't I?

Sigh...Broken...

2011-08-19T14:21:00.034-05:00

So (and I just checked the date to make sure) May 31st I sent an email to a customer service account for a webpage with an issue (that had been going on for weeks if not months before that) and they responded right away - which was really cool. Actually, here's the email exchange, which I've edited to keep them anonymous (ish)....

ME: Message: So when go to print a two page article (click on the print friendly button) - I can print page one, but at the bottom there's a page 2 which takes me back to the HTML page 2 - when I click on the print button, it takes me to the print friendly page ONE again... both Google Chrome and Internet Explorer...

THEM: Hi William,
I see what you mean. The same thing happened to me. I passed your email along to my manager.

ME: Thanks for the response. It's good to know the comments don't just go off in the aether somewhere never to be seen again :) Blessings, Bill

THEM: Here is the response from my manager. We have a bug at the moment, but users can see the additional pages in the print version by adding &p=2 or &p=3 at the end of the URL.Here’s an example: http://NAMEOFTHEWEBSITE/pastors/pastor-articles/143blahblahblah.html?print&p=2I’ll work on getting this fixed.

August 18th - 3:30 PM...still not fixed...sigh....

I Probably Shouldn't Tell You This, But...

2011-08-18T13:44:00.000-05:00

There's a whole litany of things that pastors shouldn't hear - and we self select out of a lot of them. Dirty jokes - or sexual talk in general - we shouldn't really listen to very negative talk and so on. But one kind of talk is hard to avoid, because it masks itself so well.

Gossip.

I hate it. But it comes at me so fast and so well hidden, that sometimes I'm repeating it before I realize it's gossip.

No, really. Here's what I mean.

"Pastor, you really need to pray for Edna***, she's having a really hard time with her husband right now..." and on come the so called details. And, no I might not repeat the details, but I might pass on that we need to pray for Edna. Which might be a surprise to some people.

Especially Edna.

Who is NOT having trouble in her marriage right now, thank you very much, but is now having a problem with her pastor.

So, it's easy. Now, I really try to guard against it. But it happens (and no, this wasn't prompted by anything in my life right now - but by a quick article on sermoncentral that I realized the whole article was really just saying don't listen to gossip...heh) and it's insidious in the church.

It can be a mindset. "Did you hear what happened at the post office the other day?" That can be a teaser line for a juicy bit of gossip. We live in a society of gossip. Our news programs thrive on the mindset. Our lives are built around it in some ways...which is sad.

And it's one thing I really never need to hear.

Facts. Just give me the facts. The truth. And...try not to embellish it this time...

***I don't think I've ever had an Edna in any church that I've served - at least not an Edna I've known personally. So, if there's and Edna that knows me, no, this isn't really about you...

Correcting The Obvious Stupidity

2011-08-16T13:12:00.000-05:00

So I've finally corrected one of those things that I've somehow missed for...well, I don't know how long. And it was so stinking obvious...anyway, I finally added a link to Seth Godin's blog to the links section. And the REAL problem is that I don't read Seth's blog as often as I should... Now I don't have an excuse... It's linked here on my blog, so I don't have an excuse.

Seth is my hero for presentations. He uses like 100 slides for his 30 minute talks. Now, I do like 30 minute talks and I use like...10 slides... um... So, yeah, I get it, he does the same talk over and over and I think I would get fired if I did that, but, still - images are engaging - and they engage a VERY different part of the brain than the ears that are hearing words - often to reinforce words - that's why we use images. Yes, some of the images are kind of throwaway images (and if you see Seth Godin's talks, some of his are kind of throwaway, too) but some of them are really memorable - like this:

or this:

Of course, he's pretty memorable himself:

So I've read some of his books - and I want to read several others - go buy one, you won't regret it.

Anyway, that's my point for today.

Oh, and look for more images in the future... Heh....

Tickets

2011-08-15T08:03:00.001-05:00

Yesterday in my sermon I talked briefly about the last speeding ticket I got - I was talking about taking responsibility for our actions and the consequence of sin (yep, I WAS indeed going 54 in that 35 MPH zone - lots of "reasons" for it, but...I did it). So, anyway, that's not what I want to talk about here. It just reminded me of it.

A couple weeks ago I got a parking ticket (did you know I was such a law breaker?). Now, parking tickets aren't like speeding tickets. Speeding is related to reckless driving. When was the last time you heard of reckless parking? In fact, I think it's even called a non-moving violation (which sounds kinda bad in its own right, doesn't it?).

But. I'll take a hundred of these parking tickets. Here's the deal. I met a guy for coffee in Tidioute, the community down the road that is working with us in ministry and I was so...eager to start the conversation that I didn't even see that there were parking meters on the street. We walked into the little cafe, I think somebody just told me it changed hands so I'll have to check it out again, had some breakfast (all I remember of the food is some of the best homemade bread in the county) and coffee and lots of conversation. No, I mean LOTS. Like, three or four hours worth. A little discipleship time - we were talking about the book of Job that week, if I remember correctly, but then we spent hours talking about life, and the community and ministry and dreams.

It was awesome.

The perfect morning meeting.

I learned a lot about the community, a lot about my friend, we talked a lot about the Bible and about ministry possibilities and I met some new folks in town. And we walked out of the cafe and...

...there was a parking ticket on my car....

...sigh...

But, you know what? Even if I HAD put money in the meter, we would have been in there way longer than the maximum time allowed and I was far too lost in the conversation and the possibilities that I might not have even have remembered to "feed the meter" two hours into it, or whatever. Or we might have watched the clock too closely and missed out on a lot of what we talked about. So it was a couple dollar parking ticket. It was worth every penny. I'd pay it again with a smile. But some tickets are worth paying.

Parenting Reality Check?

2011-08-10T06:16:00.000-05:00

So I ran across this post this morning:

http://www.blogher.com/why-our-parents-put-us-shame

And she says that our parents were better for lots of reasons - our parents' generation cooked real meals, and disciplined kids (generally), and knew the value of money and weren't parenting philosophy zealots and made us play outside (until after dark) and didn't throw Hollywood birthday parties.

And I get it.

And she's right.

But she's also so, so wrong.

'Cause this ain't 1978 anymore. And I've checked the Megan's Law website and the pedophile DOES live down the street (sometimes...they move around a lot it seems) and I don't know why we don't always have time to cook a "real" dinner...but we don't. And I remember the lady who spanked her kid at the mall getting "caught on tape" and being national news for a couple weeks and... well, it's not 1978 anymore...

And while most of what the woman said in the article still holds true for us - we still make our kids play outside (more closely supervised than I think I was), we still eat real meals at the table, birthday parties are pretty much family and a few friends (though we might spring for the theme cake from the grocery store - or go to the roller rink and get a cheap cake or make our own) and so on - I still can't imagine it's anything like it was 30+ years ago... But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you can go back.

Probably not, though. If you could, I think we would have by now...

Quick Geek Note

2011-08-09T05:11:00.000-05:00

Next week there's a new tablet breaking. The hype (which I have apparently missed up til now...but I'm out of the loop on everything) has been buzzing for a while. Probably won't live up to it. They hype that is. Few things do, you know...

The link

Quote for Today

2011-08-08T08:55:00.003-05:00

It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.

-Moliere, actor and playwright (1622-1673)

Quote for the Day

2011-08-05T07:39:00.009-05:00

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

I've always found this curious too.

2011-08-04T08:53:00.011-05:00

When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.

Otto von Bismarck, statesman (1815-1898)

Jesus said, "In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." (John 18:37)

Several years ago I was running really late for a meeting. I was new pastor, this was my second time on this committee which was made up of lots of pastors who had lots of years of experience - I was the new guy - and I was late. So I'm doing everything I can to shave seconds off the trip and focused on what I have to do when I get there and when I walk I and sit down everyone is staring at me expectantly.

Crap. I forgot to make up an excuse. Think quick. Come on, you can do this.

"I'm sorry I'm late everyone... I... forgot about the meeting." WHAT?! The truth? Idiot...

But...Everybody laughed and then someone said the most curious thing. "Wow. It's so refreshing hearing the truth."

Really?

Um...

Wow...

So that was years ago. And maybe I've told that story here before, too, I don't know. But I find the truth to be refreshing. It's far too common to hear people spinning, weaving, or nuance things that to hear the truth spoken plain and simple is, well, sometimes disarming.

I'm getting really good at at telling the truth.

Like when there's conflict. I used to avoid conflict. I mean I still hate it, don't get me wrong, but I don't dread it with the sick in the pit of my stomach feelings I used to have. Especially when I'm wrong.

Nobody wants to be wrong. But we all are sometimes. But I'm finding fewer and fewer people willing to step up and admit it. But it's important - absolutely necessary, in fact - in relationships to own up to our own failures, our own blame. To be wrong. And to be completely honest about it.

It's disarming.

Of course, that's not why you do it. But in this era, in this culture, it is disarming to people. "Look, I completely failed here and here and here." Now, this gives party B the opportunity to say, "Yeah, and I messed up here and here..." But that usually takes some time. I usually get a stupefied look for a few seconds.

And it shouldn't be that way.

And it isn't always. But particularly in dealing with people who have jobs where they have to constantly defend themselves or "play politics" at work (I can think of some ceo types and school administrators*** and people in those types of positions that I've met over the years) who simply can't ever put their guard down at work, hearing plain unvarnished truth can be...unexpected. And sometimes even suspicious.*****

But the truth is the truth. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

*** No, I'm not picking on these two professions. These are the two that leapt to mind because the relationships I've had - but there's lots - lawyers, pastors, bankers, teachers, housewives, machinists, etc, etc - you get the picture - it CAN be anybody whose life is such that they feel they have to guard their every word (at home, work, school, whatever)

***** I've almost never had a hidden agenda in something that I've done - except a good one - like secret Christmas presents - and almost every time, even the good ones, it has backfired terribly and messily. About 15 years ago (about when I entered the ministry, now that I think about it) I really became a what you see is what you get kind of guy...sorry that there's not more depth to me than that. But there's not more subterfuge, subtext or hidden agenda, either. So it's a bit of a tradeoff. But I think a worthwhile one...

Trash Talk...Beatty Style

2011-08-03T07:23:00.003-05:00

So we play games at our house. A lot of Uno. Sometimes Parcheesi or Trouble (Star Wars Trouble with the beeping R2D2... yeah, we're THAT family - we have talking Battleship, too - neener, neener) and whatever else the girls want to play. Anyway, we taught them a card game called Hand and Foot. Actually, we taught them a variation of a variation of the game that we were taught by someone who probably didn't fully have a grasp on the rules. But it's how we play it.***

At some point during a game the Beatty trash talk starts. Someone (usually Lori or I) will realize they are losing and look to see who is winning and say, "You're winning because you're a cheater." Or, like last night in Hand and Foot, I said to Lori, "Of course you're winning, you're keeping score and whoever keeps score always wins. Cheater." Now, you can't hear tone on a blog post, I get that. No one ever walks away from the table in tears. It's just part of the banter of the game. It happens almost every time. But nobody ever means it.

And when some "cheating" really happens - you know, somebody accidently****** moves extra spaces or puts a Jack in a pile of cards thinking it was a Joker - nobody leaves the table in tears, in fact...nobody uses the word cheat then. Now I don't know what the girls do when they're with their friends and playing games and this happens, but at home it's just, "It's okay. It was a mistake."

So for all the Trash Talk Beatty Style (and we have our silly moments), the play's the thing. The time at the table is what matters. It's a legacy from my family. We sat around playing card games of all kinds - from poker to rummy to...what was it called, "Shanghai Rummy"******* Pineochle, uh... Penichole...um... Pinochle (what a stupid word) and Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit (by the time I was a teenager I could give my dad a good run for his money - though he still won probably 2 out of 3 times...won't be long before the girls are taking me to the Trivial cleaners...or...well, you know what I mean) and on and on.

I don't remember any single time we played anything. But we played. And I'm trying to pass that on to the girls. Playing. Together. It's about Face Time.

Oh, and Trash Talk...

*** Yeah, when we play Hand and Foot with people who know the "RIGHT" way to play it, we smile and listen patiently as they explain to us all the things we do wrong, we play it the "right" way with them, then when we come home we forgot all about that stupid wrong way they showed us and play it the REAL right way again
***** So....accidently isn't a word? Why is there a red line under it? What the heck?
******* I think this is now a game called Phase 10 - but we played it with *gasp* ordinary cards back in the day....