Category: FREE

redemption stories – FREE e-book

redemption stories e-book

over at the podcast, we’ve just released a FREE e-book, redemption stories.

(I say “we” but Stewart did most of the hard work in bringing it all together and doing the layout.)

The e-book includes stories, pictures and verse, but all of them tell a story — a redemption story.

We received great input from Adele Sakler, Ben & Joy Thomas, Laura Bridge, Jason Duke, Adam Howie, Christine McIntosh, Trent Yaconelli, Emma Boyd, Angus S. Mathie, Paula Spur, Avril Cutler, Emma Boyd and Rob Griggs-Taylor.

Every submission was wonderful but these few paragraphs from Ben Thomas really grab me…

John Wesley said, “catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn”. This reminds me of Jim and Patty. Ten years ago, their neighbors wanted their boat. Today, they are a inspiration to hundreds of others in our community of what God can do when you allow Him unrestricted access to your life and resources. Our lives may become less predictable, but as our desires slowly start melting away and blending into God’s desires, our hearts become oddly comforted by the uncomfortable.

I think being a fixer means being okay with these messy, imperfect situations. Doctors mustn’t be squeamish, mechanics mustn’t be afraid to get oil on their pants. Being fixers with Jesus means we’ll encounter questions we can’t fully answer and pain that can’t be explained away by pat answers and bumper stickers. Often, the fix is simply our presence, reassuring the broken world around us that “no, God has not forgotten about you”.

Its hard-wired in us all to fix something. If you want a neat and tidy situation to fix, you should probably stick to fixing up your kitchen. If you’re up for something a bit more adventurous and long lasting, consider following this Jesus character, who invites us into a Fixers’ Collective called the Kingdom of God, where we’re invited to enter into the broken mess and tell a story about a God who loves the unloveable, reassuring them that “it’s okay” because “you’ll get better soon”.

I hope you’ll take some time to download the book, read it, chew on it and then share it with friends.

Thanks again to everyone who took part!

testing the new wordpress blackberry app

WordPress is by far my favorite blogging software and I love the community that’s built around it and supports it. And I love even more that the developers have shown some love to BlackBerry folks by releasing a new WordPress application just for BlackBerry.

So if you’re seeing this – you can know that it works – and its awesome!

Woot woot!

Oh and I’ve included a photo from lunch yesterday as well (tacos from Fuel City in Dallas) ::

UPDATE: Was able to send this to my WordPress site – but it took FOREVER. Not sure if its something on the server side or the BlackBerry App. Will keep working with it.

Helping those in need – for FREE

homeless

I think its safe to say that we’d all like to be able to help a friend in need. It’s probably even safe to say that many of us would be willing to help a stranger if it didn’t take too much out of our own wallet or time or energy.

I personally wish I was less selfish myself and more giving — even when it stretches my wallet or time.

But perhaps we can all re-think a corporation’s generosity (aka marketing) to help those who are hurting and in need.

This week @sgalloway re-tweeted an idea that while many were jumping on Oprah’s FREE KFC coupon offer for themselves — perhaps the better idea would be to print out the coupons and give some free food to the homeless or others in need. (unfortunately you can no longer print off the coupons – but if you’ve printed the coupons off – they’re still good for a week or so.)

I had ignored the e-mails I had seen up until that point, but after seeing the idea, I quickly jumped on it and printed out my 4 coupons to buy a meal for someone else.

Today I saw another freebie from Sonic :: FREE CroisSONICâ„¢ Breakfast Sandwich with purchase of a large drink.

I’m not sure what the normal price of this CroisSonic is but I’d bet you’re saving $3-$4 with the coupon.

So you buy a drink for yourself and get a FREE breakfast sandwich to give to someone in need. Or better yet, spend a buck or two and get a sandwich and a drink for someone else in need.

I bet there are promotions like this popping up all over the place. Perhaps we can re-think these promotions and rather than scoring a great deal for ourselves – we can better help someone else in need.

What promotions have you seen recently? Anyone else put this into practice?

Photo from strandloper

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.

WIN :: For Couples Only

I received a copy of the new For Couples Only Box set just before setting out on our cruise. Waterbrook Press has been gracious to send me the books to give to one lucky reader of my blog. The newly released box set includes a copy of For Men Only and For Women Only by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn.

Laurie and I’ve read both books and I think we’d both say they’ve been super helpful. Brian also uses them a lot in his marriage counseling.

These aren’t the “how-to” or DIY type of dating books. Like the other books in the series, the books are really about debunking the common misconceptions guys (including myself) and women have about that “mysterious other sex.”

Something I found helpful while reviewing For Young Men Only (another book in the series) was to simply ask Laurie about the things the Feldhahn’s reported in the book.

Because after all, no two women (or men) are exactly alike. Even if the Feldhahn’s surveys reported one thing, it was helpful to talk with Laurie about it to see exactly how she felt about the question/scenario. Sometimes she agreed with the majority, sometimes she didn’t and sometimes her response was a mixture of the two.

And of course this would make a great set for you and your spouse — especially just in time for Valentines Day (keep reading to find out how you can win a copy).

I mean really, what better way to tell your spouse you love them, than by telling them that you’re committed to learning more about them and sharing more about yourself? And not only that – but proving it by following up and using the books as some great conversation starters.

Diamonds-smymonds. Chocolate-bocolate.

Pass on the typical Valentines Day gifts and spend some time with your spouse over the next month or so really getting to know one another and I think you’ll see which one is the better investment.

For Couples Only Box Set:

Since their debut, these revolutionary guides have sold well over a million copies, been translated into fifteen languages, and sparked much fascinating water-cooler conversation around the country. Now together in the For Couples Only boxed set, these books provide the perfect resource to help you understand what you never knew about the woman or man in your life.

Each volume is based on input from more than a thousand members of the opposite sex—including an unprecedented nationwide survey and hundreds of personal interviews. This innovative approach yields candid and surprising answers about everything you don’t “get” about your significant other—even what that person deeply wishes you knew. It also produces simple but groundbreaking awareness of how you can best love and support the one who is most important to you.

So whether you are newly dating or have been married fifty years, get ready to know each other in a whole new way. The adventure is just beginning!

Author Bio:

Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn hold graduate degrees from Harvard University and are popular national speakers, authors, and entrepreneurs. They are also active church members and the parents of two young children, and they enjoy every minute of living life at warp speed.

How to enter/win:

Of course, if you really want to be the star this Valentines Day, go out and pick up a copy of the book for your Valentines sweet right now (you can even order it on Amazon via the link above). But as a way of saying thanks to folks who read this blog, follow me on Twitter and/or listen to the something beautiful podcast, I’ll pick a random person on Friday, Feb. 13th to send a copy of the box set to. Yes, Friday the 13th could actually turn out to be your lucky day.

To enter, simply tell the world via Twitter why your spouse is the best of the best. And just to be sure that I can track your entry, be sure and add #SSLwin as a hashtag at the end of your Tweet. If you don’t use the hashtag – I won’t find your “entry.”

If you’re not on Twitter, you should be, but I’ll also accept your entry if you post your comment below.

Finally, if you want to be extra certain I see your Twitter message, feel free to copy the message and the url link to your Tweet into the comments below.

I think that does it! If you have any questions about the contest let me know. And good luck!

re: What would you tell Obama?

I took a photo tonight for my memo to Barack Obama. Took it in the midst of another photo shoot with Laurie (so that’s the brief background on the suit and santa hat :-)).

I posted the photo to Facebook and Flickr and then decided – hey – why not create a Flickr group to let everyone share their memo’s to the president-elect.

So, I’m hoping that by the time you read this – this slideshow will be full of photos (and not just mine). But regardless – share yours and then tell a friend.