Category: Uncategorized

I missed seeing the Texas gubernatorial debate. Apparently not too many networks in Nigeria were concerned about it, but I found this interesting bit of “fact checking” on Chris Bell’s Myspace page.
What do you think? Who do you think won the debate? Did the debate change your mind on who you’re going to vote for and if so, why?

From e-mail:

One day God was looking down at Earth and saw all of the rascally behavior that was going on. So he called one of His angels and sent
the angel to Earth for a time.
When he returned, he told God, “Yes, it is bad on Earth, 95% are misbehaving and only 5% are not.”
God thought for a moment and said, “Maybe I had better send down a second angel to get another opinion.”
So God called another angel and sent him to Earth for a time too. When the angel returned he went to God and said, “Yes, it’s true. The Earth is in decline: 95% are misbehaving, but 5% are being good.”
God was not pleased.
So He decided to E-mail the 5% that were good, because he wanted to encourage them, to give them a little something to help them keep going.
Do you know what the E-mail said?
No? Okay, just wondering. I didn’t get one either.

From a recent study:

Overwhelmingly, people say they get most of their news from local TV: 65.5 percent. That’s more than double second-place newspapers (28.4 percent) and almost six times the figure for the Internet (11.2 percent). The Internet came in below national network TV news (28.3 percent) and local radio news (14.7 percent).
When asked if they could get the same news whenever they wanted — on TV, radio, newspaper, online or a handheld electronic device — almost two-thirds (63.3 percent) said TV. Only 17.8 percent chose newspapers and just 11.1 percent chose online.

That last number seems to get me. I’ve read a number of other sources that tend to give more readership to online sources… but who knows?

I thought this was an interesting post and worthy of at least sharing here in the main blog, rather than simply staring it.

What Radio Has Taught This Print Reporter About Writing
Beer.
It’s stuck to NPR media reporter David Folkenflik’s computer.
Reminds him to write as if he’s telling a story to his buddies at the bar.
And there’s radio lesson number one, according to print-reporter-turned-NPR-correspondent John Hendren:
Write conversationally.
Ask yourself: Would I say it this way?
You don’t have to sacrifice detail for style, he said. “You can be descriptive and still write conversationally.”

I find that writing for a newspaper is much simpler when you just write the way you would tell the story to a friend but I think so many times we get caught up in trying to write to impress rather than just writing to tell the story that we lose sight of that.

Thomas has a great entry on record stores and churches. What can we learn from the fading record stores? From the NYT:

The neighborhood record store was once a clubhouse for teenagers, a place to escape parents, burn allowances and absorb the latest trends in fashion as well as music. But these days it is fast becoming a temple of nostalgia for shoppers old enough to remember “Frampton Comes Alive!’
Around the country, he (Eric Levin) said, shops like Grimey’s in Nashville, Shake It Records in Cincinnati and Other Music in New York are hanging on to young customers by evolving into one-stop hipster emporiums. Besides selling obscure CD’s and even vinyl records, many have diversified into comic books, Japanese robot toys and clothing. Some have opened adjoining nightclubs or, in Mr. Levin’s case, coffee shops.

Thomas says, “The lesson here is to adapt or die… its a sad lesson… I’ve lost Our Price and Impulse in Hamilton… and apart from Woolworths and ASDA there isn’t anywhere to by music in Motherwell. I have to go to one of the 2 Fopps in Glasgow… or HMV… or one of the Virgins (no laughing… but there are at least 2 Virgins in Glasgow).”
I wish I had more time to delve into this and spit out my opinion before I head out to Nigeria but I better not right now.
But read the entry and leave your comments. How is your church adapting? Is your church adapting? Or should we bring back the hymnals, the King James Version (if it was good enough for Jesus and the disciples it’s good enough for me), and the old pipe organ?
What are your thoughts?

It’s Monday morning, around 11 a.m. and my list is full of things to do today.
We fly out of D/FW airport tomorrow afternoon on our trip to Nigeria, so the clock is ticking away.
We arrived back in Rockwall yesterday morning around 11 a.m. after a long 13 hour drive. We were very pleased with our time, as we had predicted it would take at least 14 hours to make the trip from Iowa to Dallas.
It was an amazing trip overall. We saw 15 decisions made by folks in Branson, Missouri, seven or eight more the first night in Ottumwa, Iowa and another 15 or 16 the second and final night.
The Bible tells is that the angels rejoice when one sinner comes home. They were throwing some parties this weekend and it was an amazing blessing to be a part of it.
As I finish packing an running errands today, I’m reminded of a challenge a very close friend and supporter gave me last night, “Find at least one miracle a day and let us know about it.”
So I’m going to do my best to meet that challenge.
Here are a few miracles I believe I’ve seen since leaving for Branson Wednesday night.
1. We arrived safely. It may not be that big of a deal, but when you consider how many accidents there are each day across the country and consider we’re towing a two-ton wrestling ring behind a 15 passenger van and you consider all the distractions that could take place when you throw a bunch of testosterone in a small confined place, I think it’s a widely unreported miracle that we arrived to each of our destinations. We also had a tire fall apart somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma, early Sunday morning, but God protected us and we were able to pull off the road and change it with no incident.
2. We managed to get our visas for Nigeria. I received an e-mail while I was in Iowa, passing along information that our visas had been secured. They group we’re going with has had trouble securing visas every year since they started going, and I believe God had his hand in this one as well. We had a little help from a chance friend who was introduced to us by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. When he found out we were still waiting our visas he made a call and got the ball rolling. It’s amazing to think about how God is so sovereign and puts in our places for “such a time as this.”

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ – Acts 17:24-28

3. I woke up almost 98% sore free this morning. When I consider I’ve been sore for nearly a week and a half, and consider the horrible positions I fell asleep in on our trip, its nice to wake up pain free. My only real soreness now is in my legs from playing catcher last Wednesday night and that’s about worked itself out. Sure I had some help from my chiropractor Tim Lehmann, but God uses people to do His work. So I’m counting it as miracle number three.
Well I could probably keep typing, but then I’d get behind on my to-do list. So I better get back to work.
Thanks for your prayers and interest.
I’ll post again soon, but it may be after we arrive in Nigeria on Wednesday.