Category: misc

Steven Curtis Chapman’s daughter killed

My heart goes out to the Chapman family today. It was announced at their church service last night that their youngest daughter, Maria (adopted from China), was killed yesterday afternoon after she was struck by a vehicle driven by her older brother.

I can’t imagine the pain, the hurt and probably guilt the family is feeling right now.

Lots of questions from folks I’m sure but I know this – God wasn’t surprised by this. Just like he wasn’t surprised by my sister’s death, he wasn’t surprised by Pearl Harbor, he wasn’t surprised by 9-11.
He didn’t turn around in Heaven yesterday and say, “well why is Maria here? I wasn’t expecting her for another 70 years.” He knew and saw this long before any of us came into existence.

Psalm 139

God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and you’re there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can’t take it all in!

Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.

Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
all the men and women who belittle you, God,
infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Your enemies are my enemies!

Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.

HT – Kevin Hendricks

A National Tragedy?!

The Insider – another junk celebrity/entertainment show just said, “ABC News broke into regular programming to report the news… as the country comes to grip with a national tragedy.”

ARE YOU SERIOUS?! Ted Kennedy has a brain tumor and it’s become a national tragedy?!

I feel sorry for him and the family, but a Senator from Massachusetts who’s served since 1962, gets a brain tumor and it’s a national tragedy? Yet 100,000 are dead or dying in China and Burma and more than 3000 soldiers have died in Iraq and a politician getting a brain tumor is a national tragedy?

Am I just too cynical or am I missing something?

(open) church social networks vs Facebook

If Robert Scoble is right and Facebook is blocking Google search bots for a reason far more reaching than just “user privacy” and Microsoft is planning a new buyout of both Yahoo and Facebook (can someone else buy Flickr and del.icio.us first?) which will lead to a more closed Internet, would it not make more sense for churches and other organizations to begin building their own online social networks based on an open social platform?

I know I’m not ever a big fan of “Christian ghettos” but does it not make more sense now for churches and organizations to offer open networks where their members, friends and family can share in an online social network without the threat of Corporation M or Corporation S mining all their personal information in an effort to sell loads of targeted advertising to each user?

And if churches do begin to offer their own social networks without the threat of advertising and they become super successful, how will the infrastructure to support these sites be paid for? Will churches have to resort to more pleads for money from the church itself or will the online networks begin fund raising drives like Wikipedia does – or maybe even “pledge-a-thons” like your favorite local Christian radio station or NPR?

And if churches do begin to offer their own social networks, will we allow members to transfer their profile, information and such to other church networks if they decide to leave the physical church body as well?

Could these same questions, ideas work for other organizations, non-profits, schools and such like UMHB or DCCCD?

Just thinking out loud. Would love to continue the conversation via this blog, twitter or wherever (preferably in a public forum). What are your thoughts, questions?

Re: Things in the fire

Well the Dallas Stars lost — another Dallas team fell short of the championship after making it to the playoffs. I should say I’m mortified, saddened, in a state of disbelief – but I think I’ve lost some of my competitive nature and/or just lost interest in most professional sports. In fact I’ve probably lost any real interest in just about every professional sport other than the Dallas Cowboys and maybe the Green Bay Packers (although that’s now diminished a lot since Brett Favre retired).

Thought I’d go back and check up on my “things in the fire list from last week.”

Let’s see…

* …finally finished uploading over 1700 photos to Flickr for the CWF. – CHECK
* …added several new videos to GodTube as well. – CHECK
* …plan to add several more videos to GodTube and probably YouTube. – FAILED
* …hope to build a new light box for our lights at encounter. – “DELEGATED” TO ANOTHER VOLUNTEER – CHECK
* …hope to finish a keepsake box I started for Laurie as a wedding gift (long story there…) – CHECK
* …plan to launch the new encounterthis.com around midnight tonight if not before. – CHECK
* …tomorrow is a men’s event for SniperInstinct – a cool blending of outdoor paintball and laser tag. – CHECK
* …finish updating the HTML files for various degree plans for work. – CHECK

New things on my plate…

I think we finally decided on a name for the pending podcast that Thomas and I are working on. I think we’re going with “Something Beautiful – conversations with ordinary radicals.” Now we just have to figure out some of the logistics in setting up interviews and such with a six hour time difference between us. The name comes from Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change:

If we believe, we can be transformed into agents of something beautiful that is trying to be born in our world. We can be caught up in the unfolding, emergent, spiraling process of God giving birth to a beautiful whole, the Kingdom of God.

Thoughts? Our idea for the podcast is a unique blend of This American Life & All Things Considered on NPR with a focus on “ordinary radicals” and those finding ways to live their life based on the Third Way of Jesus. We’ll primarily focus on those ordinary folks who as Acts says, “have been with Jesus.” Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a few “celebrities” along the way but we’re really interested in hearing and seeing how the Jones’ are putting the teachings of Jesus into real life application. So if you have ideas for a topic or show, let us know.

Also, I finally ordered a couple new books from Amazon today – Pagan Christianity? and A Christianity Worth Believing. I wish I had been one of the lucky ones to get a PDF copy of Doug Pagitt’s A Christianity Worth Believing, so I could blog about the book and review it right away – but then again folks may have gotten upset when I printed the entire book out on my home or work printer.

I’m looking forward to starting both reads – now I just have to figure out which to start with.

Well that’s about it. I thought I’d wait up a bit to see if Thomas wakes up in time for us to do a little pre-podcast Skyping/recording. If not – no biggie we’ll catch each other on the flipside.