Category: reflections

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.

Things in the fire…

Well, haven’t posted much the last few days. Sorry about that — been busy with other things in the fire.

Laurie had her sinus surgery yesterday to repair her deviated septum, and give her some relief from a sinus infection she’s had for nearly four months now. Yikes! All went well, the surgery lasted between 1.5 and 2 hours yesterday and we left the surgery center a couple hours later.

She’s been resting and recovering since then at home and I’ve been able to play “nurse” to some extent.
“Not a lot of male nurses are their Focker?” (sorry, random Meet the Parents quote).

Luckily I was able to work from home today so that made things a lot easier, rather than heading off to work and hoping she would be Ok today. I’ve been helping her when I can and working on several random projects I’ve been putting off to some extent.

Hopefully I’ll be able to have everything done by this weekend – if not before.

  • …finally finished uploading over 1700 photos to Flickr for the CWF.
  • …added several new videos to GodTube as well. I’m not a big fan of GodTube myself, but folks requested we add some of the CWF videos there now as well.
  • …plan to add several more videos to GodTube and probably YouTube.
  • …hope to build a new light box for our lights at encounter.
  • …hope to finish a keepsake box I started for Laurie as a wedding gift (long story there…)
  • …plan to launch the new encounterthis.com around midnight tonight if not before. We’ve been working on numerous design ideas and layouts since Dec. 2007 and I think we’re finally ready to launch.
  • …tomorrow is a men’s event for SniperInstinct – a cool blending of outdoor paintball and laser tag.
  • …finish updating the HTML files for various degree plans for work. Hoped to get more done today but found it easy to get sidetracked with so many other things on my mind.

I think that’s about it for now – we’ll see just how far I get.

Love wins

I was reminded of this quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today.

“I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up against our most bitter opponents and say: ‘We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you…. But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”

Sounds like Dr. King saw a third-way. It wasn’t running. It wasn’t hitting back. It was standing up – reaching out – and loving.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” – Jesus (Matthew 5)

marketing to kids

Some great thoughts/information from the latest Nick and Josh podcast…

When TV was deregulated in 1984 – educational programming was no longer required – and “program length commercials were allowed.”
So shows like Care Bears were created not for educational purposes but to sell Care Bear products.

In 1988 a total of $100 million dollars was spent on advertising towards children.
In 1998 it increased to $2 billion.
In 2007 it jumped to $17 billion.

What should our response be?