Author: Jonathan Blundell

I'm a husband, father of three, blogger, podcaster, author and media geek who is hoping to live a simple life and follow The Way.

Library of Congress joins Flickr


[Electric phosphate smelting furnace used in the making of elemental phosphorus in a TVA chemical plant in the Muscle Shoals area, Alabama] (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

I’ve always loved using Flickr’s Creative Common search for pictures to use in websites, design and other projects. You can always find some great stuff there – but now the Library of Congress has joined Flickr and with it – added several thousand pictures to the site that are Public Domain.
Both Flickr and the Library of Congress are encouraging people to search them, browse them and tag them to make finding photos that much easier.

You can find out more on the Flickr Blog, the Flickr Commons page or just search the Library of Congress for yourself.

re: Social networking and the church

Here’s some more Intranet/Social Networking info from across the pond:

Robin Farr, editor of the employee intranet for the provincial government of British Columbia, is humanizing the way it communicates with its employees.

She does this by continuing to transform the government’s intranet from the neglected, dull afterthought it was less than two years ago into a living Web where 30,000 employees can see themselves talking about their jobs, find ideas to make their work easier and more fun, shop for bargains, buy and sell personal items, send e-cards to colleagues for a job well done, and more.

Farr has done all this with a staff of three, including herself. She does most of the writing, and until recently did it all. She manages a videographer and one Web administrator.

The employee response is spectacular. The site averages 170,000 hits a month—a 2800 percent jump in traffic—among the 30,000 province employees.

How did she do it? In hindsight, it’s simple. Conversing with employees like ordinary people through video and even archived content.

Read the full story

Superconducting Maglev Train Models

IFW-Dresden Superconducting Maglev Train Models

IFW-Dresden Superconducting Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) Train Models

This is way cool. Can you imagine DART trains riding through Dallas powered only by liquid nitrogen and floating above the track?

10 horrible group icebreakers for your church group

No Parking sign
No Parking Please! | Photo by Jonathan Blundell

Aaron shared this list with his group the other night and with our community group leaders…

These are the 10 worst ice breaker ideas so please never try these in your small groups! 😛

10. Share the worst sin you’ve ever committed.

9. If you were God, who would you punish first?

8. Which person in this group do you think needs to find Jesus the most?

7. Which people at your church do you wish would find a different church, and why?

6. If you could erase any verse out of the Bible, which one would it be?

5. Share the juiciest piece of gossip you know so we can pray about it.

4. If you could have anything from your neighbor’s house, what would it be?

3. What’s your favorite of The 10 Commandments to break?

2. If you could change anything about your spouse, what would it be?

1. If you could commit any sin and get away with it, what would it be?

Community testimonies

Last week James and Mary shared their testimony for our community group. I wish you could have all heard it – but what happens at community group… stays at community group. 🙂
As a follow up to last week’s testimony Gaylan shared his testimony for us as well last night – just as awesome.

There’s just something about people sharing their testimony and how God has worked in their life that is encouraging and helps build community. And when we can see others being honest I think it encourages us to be honest as well.

Both weeks I modeled the testimonies after our November series at encounter. Each year 3 or 4 people (or couples) have been interviewed by Brian during the month of November to share their various testimonies. These seem to be some of our most highly attended services as well as our top downloaded podcasts throughout the year. So it was great bringing this idea down a few notches and making it work in our small group. In fact for James and Mary I just used the list of questions that Brian asked them several years back in the early days of encounter.

But I got to thinking last night, this is something that any group can do with little or no preparation – just a willing individual or individuals. The questions may differ but they are built around 3 main questions:

  • What was your life like before Christ?
  • How did Christ call you to be His disciple?
  • What is your life like after coming to know Christ?

Those are the basic questions to build an interview from. Hopefully with people in our community groups we know a little more background of the individuals and we can ask more detailed questions about specific situations – but even with those three questions I think we can all add transparency and honesty to our community groups.

Any other thoughts or ideas that you’ve seen work?

re: Ragamuffin thoughts


grace – dearoot

Finished chapters 3 and 4 tonight after our community group (on a side note I think I’m feeling a bit queasy after an e-mail I just received)…

Here are some more quotes I loved from Manning:

We miss Jesus’ point entirely when we use his words as weapons against others. They are to be taken personally by each of us.

The trouble with our ideals is that if we live up to all of them, we become impossible to live with.

…we don’t comprehend the love of Jesus Christ. Oh, we see a movie and resonate to what a young man and woman will endure for romantic love. We know that when the chips are down, if we love wildly enough we’ll fling life and caution to the winds for the one we love. But when it comes to God’s love in the broken, blood-drenched body of Jesus Christ, we get antsy and start to talk about theology, divine justice, God’s wrath and the heresy of universalism.

The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. … the sequence of forgiveness and then repentance, rather than repentance and then forgiveness, is crucial for understanding the gospel of grace.

I LOVE THAT! How true and how often we forget. “You must repent and live up to our guidelines for membership before we’ll forgive you.” “You must repent and clean yourself up before we’ll let you into our fellowship.” “You can’t hold on to any of your bad habits if you want to be a part of our fellowship.” Oh if only each of us could understand God’s grace.

“Grace, grace. God’s grace. Grace that is greater than all my sins. Grace, grace. God’s grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within.”