Month: February 2009

The Hero within

Sunday we talked about becoming Jesus to our neighborhoods and what that might look like and how it might change our neighbors and neighborhood. And we talked about how even the smallest things can have the greatest impact.

I received an email afterwards from someone who explained how it was all the “little things” people had done recently for them that made a world of difference in their life.

I also heard from someone who said he wants to put a “prayer box” at the end of his driveway for his neighbors to share their needs with one another.

I’m excited to think of all the small things we can do for one another that can change the world for each person. “You may not be able to change the world, but you can change the world for one person.”

I love that no matter what your skills are, or talents, or passions are, God can help you find that “hero within” and use you to impact countless people around you.

Kinda like Carlos…

(HT Mosaic and Eric Bryant)

note: I’ve had some problems with the CD from Sunday. it may not have been finalized or recorded completely. hopefully I can get that fixed next Sunday and share audio from Sunday morning for those who’ve asked for it.

Facebook to users, ‘We own you!’

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The headlines a little misleading. They don’t claim they own you… just own all your content and everything else you post to their site.

They’ve changed a little paragraph in their terms of service to read ::

You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.

posted this earlier this evening on Facebook….

Facebook claims ownership of everything you post on their site

As of Feb 4, Facebook updated their terms of service to claim ownership of everything you post to their site — even after you might choose to cancel your account with them.

I’m not real happy with this at all. I’ve made 99% of my creative content available with a Creative Commons 3.0 license. That basically says that you’re free to use and share my content as long as you give me credit, don’t use it for commercial reasons (make money off of it) and you don’t change the licensing of it (i.e. Copyright the material).

But Facebook now claims they have ownership of everything I post on their site. That includes my recent cruise pictures, random videos of me and my friends eating sushi, pictures of my wedding and honeymoon as well as content we’ve created for the something beautiful podcast.

They claim they have the right to it all – and can do with it as they please. Of course now that there’s a lot of hub-bub going on, they finally clarified their changes as of 5 p.m. today — 8 days after they quietly changed their terms of service.

So, until they change their terms of service back to what they were, I won’t be posting any new content of my own to Facebook.

It’s still easily accessible to to those who would like to view it.

I have an RSS feed setup so you can have everything that automatically posts to Facebook already sent to your favorite RSS reader (I like Google — especially with their 10 guiding principles—including #6, “You can make money without doing evil.” Or, in short, “Don’t be evil.”) or you can have it emailed to you.

Simply visit my blog and click My Life in RSS and you’ll be able to subscribe to the same information I post here on Facebook.

Sorry for the hassle, but hopefully if more and more people are made aware and more and more people take action, something will be done.

For more information check out Steve Knight’s great blog post

And check out how other services like Google, Flickr and Twitter compare to Facebooks Terms of Service

And if you want to abandon Facebook all together but still have some fun online, check out these social networks :: encounterthis.ning.com and somethingbeautiful.ning.com

UPDATE: Here’s the license info from Ning.com…

Ning does not claim any ownership rights in Your Content. After posting Your Content, you continue to retain ownership of Your Content, and you continue to have the right to use and license Your Content in any way you choose. The Content that you upload to any Social Network needs to comply with the terms of this Agreement. At any point, you can take Your Content from Your Network and cancel your account and Ning does not retain any license rights except as provided below.

Peppermint Filled Pinatas

I’m currently listening to the audio book version of “Peppermint Filled Pinatas.”

Some really good stuff in there!

The author just told a story (in chapter 3) about a 16-year-old girl who invited him and his wife to her birthday party at a skating rink. They reluctantly decided to come and brought a few teenagers along with them. Turns out other than a few members of the girls family, they were the only ones to come to the party and stay.

A couple weeks later, the mother of the girl, who had been against her daughter being a part of a church showed up at the church and wanted to become a follower of Christ.

Her reason, she said she changed her mind after the author and his wife showed up at the birthday party.

“Now if we get an invitation and it happens to be the night of our small group not only do we miss the small group, but we invite our small group to join us. We need to say ‘No’ more often to our business so that we can create room for spontaneous adventures with others.”

That’s hard for me to swallow. I tend to see my small group as “my ministry” or “my calling.” I tend to get really frustrated when people who know I have small group on a particular night of the week make plans during that time and expect me to forgo our small group in favor of their event.

Perhaps there’s still a whole lot more that I need to surrender!

Let go and let God!

Thoughts? Anyone else struggle with this?

Bono on “non-believers”

Reading a great article on U2’s new album and Bono’s activism and all things in between ::

He says that a lot of people he most admires are non-believers. Bill Gates. Warren Buffett. “People who are prepared to spend their entire life’s fortune trying to make the lives of people they don’t know a lot better. These people are more Christian than the Christians. Zealotry and certainty are worrying for me. Love keeps religion from zealotry.”

SOH So without love, it becomes another kind of fixed ideology?

Bono “Yeah, that’s right! Anyway, there’s loads of pops in there about zealotry, religious and otherwise, and you’re the only person who’s picked up on this in the lyrics. I mean, ‘Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady.’ Come on?”

SOH That’s a pop at the militant atheists.

Bono “And at myself. I mean, I have a bit of it, myself. I have a bit of the helping God across the road like a little old lady.”….z

“You know, it’s like that thing that people said about U2, that most bands start off writing about girls and end up writing about God, but we started off writing about God and ended up writing about girls. But we found the God in the girls, that would be my retort.”

U2’s new album drops March 2 (3rd in the US). You can pre-order all five versions here.

44/365 a revolution

44/365

44/365
Originally uploaded by Jonathan D. Blundell


a revolution

“‘What a strange way to start a revolution… and a strange way to finish a world tour.’ We worship the seed that died. The revolution will not be televised. It will not be brought to you by Fox News with commercial interruptions… It will not be sandwiched between ads to accelerate your life or be all you can be. There will be no reruns. The revolution will be live. The revolution will be in the streets. The revolution will be cleaning toilets and giving another blanket to Karen. The revolution will not be talking about poverty in hotel ballrooms. It will be eating beans and rice with Ms. Sunshine and watching Back to the Future with our neighbor Mary. Get ready friends… God is preparing us for something really, really — small.”

-Shane Claiborne as quoted in Tom Sine’s book The New Conspirators

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note: wish i had some mustard seeds on hand, but went with celery seeds instead.

How to annoy me // How to charm me

Ragamuffin Soul asks, so here’s my response…

How to annoy me…
Somehow thinking you’re better than someone else and refusing to associate with them and refusing to show them the same love, grace and humility you’d want them to show you.

How to charm me…
A steak dinner and showing love to the least of these – like you would your own father, mother, brother or sister.

Your turn…