Neil Cole writes ::
We must transition from seeing church as a once-a-week worship event to an ongoing spiritual family on mission together. Then people will see church as something worth giving your life for. Honestly, people need one another more then they need another inspiring message. You would be surprised what people will do for Jesus, or for a brother or sister, that they will not do for a vision statement and a capital giving campaign.
(HT @emergentvillage)
Thomas shares a great post on how to be interesting.
I think I’m a pretty interesting chap – but one trap I find myself sinking into is sharing so much with the world via the interweb that I don’t stop and take time to share that with others in real life. And other times, I forget to take the time to find out what makes other people interesting and sharing those things with others.
I think that’s one thing I try to do when we host dinner parties, or work on the something beautiful podcast, or introduce friends – make each person see what makes the other person interesting.
In other words – this person must have some qualities/values that I find to be interesting – so be sure and share those qualities with others when you introduce them.
And also, find the beauty in each person around you. Each person has a story. Each person has value. Each person already has “interestingness.” Find it & share it.
Something I’ve also found that helps add to a person’s interestingness is reading and responding to those random surveys on MySpace. I’ve found out so many random thoughts, ideas and history behind so many of my “acquaintances,” friends and family through MySpace surveys.
Twitter has also helped bridge the time/space gap between many (new) friends as well. In fact, many of the suggestions above can be done with 140 characters or less via Twitter, rather than a full blown blog… or you can incorporate the two together.
Related ::
Thomas’ blog post
the original post from Russell Davies
share your photos for free on flickr
get a free blogger (google) blog
get a free wordpress blog
get your own free Myspace profile
micro-blog for free on Twitter
Twitter tools for WordPress
The latest from Sara:
I just wanted to let everyone know that Elliot Skaggs will be born this upcoming Monday, April 28th. I have a c-section scheduled for 7:30 that morning, so please be in prayer for us, for Elliot, for the Doctors, for everything surrounding that day.
I am confident that God’s grace is going to cover us on Monday, just as it has for the past three months. He has been so good, so faithful, and so abundantly compassionate towards us, and I know He won’t stop now as all that we’ve expected for 14 weeks comes to a head.
I still believe that God can perform a miracle, and that He alone can make Elliot perfectly healthy. That He can place normal sized, fully functioning lungs in Elliot where there were none on the sonogram just a week ago. That He can give him a functioning kidney, completely void of cysts, though the doctors have told us it’s impossible. I believe that He can. But even if He does not, I believe that He will take care of us, and that He will take care of Elliot – even if that’s by taking him to Heaven. The five year old son of one of my best friends reminded me that I shouldn’t be sad if God takes Elliot to Heaven, because “it’s so beautiful there, and Elliot will be much happier there anyway”. And Parker is right. There is suffering and pain and sin on this earth that my son will never have to know. He will be immediately swept into the loving arms of Christ, and though I will long to hold him in mine, I know that there’s no better place for him to be.
Today is Laurie’s 25th Birthday (for a third time :-)). As part of her celebration she took the day off and is enjoying some pampering at the spa today. I planed to take her to dinner tonight to California Pizza Kitchen but last night she mentioned she may prefer Johnny Carino’s instead. Either is fine with me. Just look forward to spending the evening with her.
On the topic of birthdays, saw this video today that gave me a chuckle. It’s been said that the key to a man’s heart is through his stomach – I guess it may be through his coffee mug too. But have no fear – I know all of you are concerned – I’m not using this video to suggest I got Laurie a cup of coffee for her birthday (although that might not be a bad idea ;-)).
My Aunt Joyce found this in some notes of my grandmother and great-grandmother.
I’m not sure if it was written by my great-grandmother or she copied it from somewhere – either way it’s worth remembering.
It was sent via e-mail as it was written (hope I got the line breaks correct):
”Tell Her So”
Amid the cares of married life
in spite of toil or business strive
if you value your sweet wife
tell her so
When days dark and very blue
she has her troubles same as you
show her that your love is true
tell her so
you love for her is no mistake
you feel it dreaming or awake
don’t conceal it
for her sake tell her so.
Never let her heart grow cold.
Richer beautys will unfold.
she is worth her weight in Gold
tell her so.
– found in notes of Marie L. Scherbarth
date/author unknown
I LOVE YOU LAURIE! Thank you for being my bride, my life, my joy and inspiration. Can’t wait to experience the rest of my life with you!
Wow! It’s mid-December?! Holy Cow!
It’s been a fast and crazy two weeks. Let’s see if I can play catch-up in one post.
1. I have a new job. I started a new position with the Dallas County Community College District on Dec. 5th. I’m not completely sold that this is the career for me, but I think it’s a lot closer in the right direction. My official title is: Curriculum Management Content Specialist. And guess what — that’s actually what I’m doing so far!
I enjoyed my time with the county but the further along I went, the further I realized it wasn’t quite for me. My boss was great, my co-workers were great, the hours and benefits were great, but in the end I felt like the money could be better spent on paving roads than on paying my salary. Also this opportunity came available when I wasn’t even seriously looking and I felt like it was where God was leading me next.
The job itself is working with the district’s catalogs and maintaining, posting and revising them online, as well as putting together a “print” version that will be stored as a PDF on CD for various groups. I’m also getting to do some graphic work along with the web and database work so it should be a great experience either way.
2. Well that’s about it. Just kidding.
3. Things around the house have been busy as well. We had our community group Christmas party on Dec. 7th, followed by a men’s gathering/challenge at 10 p.m. that night. It’s part of a 9 month series we’re doing on challenging men to be stronger men of God. I put together a website for the challenge and just now finished editing the video from our first gathering.
The basic idea behind the challenge is that once a month we’ll pass out GPS coordinates on Sunday morning and post them on the website. The following Friday night – at 10 p.m. – the men in the church will meet at that location for discussion and a challenge from Brian. He’s also following up with a challenge that is e-mailed/txt’d/ or printed out for those interested.
The idea is that there is a bit of a challenge in finding the location as well as coming at the scheduled time. You have to make some sacrifices to be a part of the event – just like we have to do to be men of God.
I’m looking forward to the other meetings. Our first meeting was on an island in the middle of Lake Waxahachie. The coordinates simply took us to a boat ramp where we gathered and 3 john boats carried us in pairs to the island where a bonfire and Brian were waiting. Very cool.
Brian mentioned yesterday that he’s amused at the difference between our church and others. He told another pastor about the idea and the man responded, “Yeah that sounds like a great way to get deacons and elders for your church. That’s when you find out who you want to lead your church in official capacities.” Too bad we don’t have deacons or elders. Ha.
4. We had four parties to go to last weekend. Our community group Christmas party, a birthday party for Gracelyn, a Christmas party at Daniel and Allison’s and the CWF Christmas party. Whew! What a weekend. And our friend Andrew was “bab-a-tized” Sunday morning (I’m working on that video too).
5. Monday, Dec 10 brought work again and then we went to Mesquite that night to enjoy an After Hours Improv show at our parent’s church. Always good entertainment.
6. Wednesday, Laurie stayed home from work to rest and catch up on her sleep. All the going, going and going along with her heart working overtime wiped her out.
I was somehow able to convince her to hold off with painting our bedroom during the day, but after I got home she went to work. She painted one wall a cool rich dark purple to match the comforter on our bed. I’m just surprised she hasn’t posted pictures of it yet. That took up most of the evening, while I worked on “tweaking” a (Unit 4) photoshop project.
Thursday evening she finished touch-ups in the room.
7. Friday was another Christmas party at work. I think that was the 4th one I’ve been to since I started at DCCCD. Let me think back… We had a chili cook-off the 2nd day I was there, a pizza party the 3rd, the Chancellor’s Christmas brunch earlier in the week and then the lunch/party at a Mexican restaurant in Mesquite for another team I’ll be a part of. And there’s one last party on Wednesday of this week.
8. Once the party was over, I tried to do a little Christmas shopping but gave up after visiting three stores. Just couldn’t get myself in the mood to fight the afternoon crowds.
After Laurie made it home we went to Bob and Vickie’s for some dinner with the rest of Laurie’s family and then headed over to Jed’s house for a Christmas party there. Jed will be marrying Jen, Laurie’s maid-of-honor in June. I think Jen’s enjoying taking the “bachelor” out of Jed and his house. I’m not sure who’s worse – me or him. I guess we’ll have to quiz Laurie and Jen after the wedding.
9. Saturday we slept in finally and then got up and cleaned, ran errands and cooked dinner for friends to come over for dinner. Matt, Kathryn, Daniel, Allison, Richard, Amber and Gracelyn all came for dinner. We had a great time – and took no pictures :-(. We usually end up playing games after dinner but it was nice to just sit and talk around the table afterwards.
Laurie fixed her infamous potato casserole and I cooked up a green been casserole and a pot roast. We decided afterwards that we’d stick with the cheaper roast meat when doing pot roast – chuck roast doesn’t seem to be as tender and also seemed to be a lot fattier (there’s more on that story but I’ll save you the details for now).
10. Are you still reading? Geeze. Bored at work I presume.
11. Sunday we had church as usual and then Brad and Jen came over with their kids and Laurie took some family Christmas photos of them. Lots of pictures – hopefully some of them turned out good. Getting two kids to sit still for too long is pretty hard so luckily we had lots of room for pictures on our camera disk and lots of time ;-). It was great to spend some more time with Brad and Jen and the kids as well. Brooklyn even volunteered to help me clean the back door where Presley has left her muddy paw prints.
And sadly, in the midst of it all, the Cowboys lost… dang that Jessica Simpson.
Well that’s about all I have on December for now. I’m sure I’ve left something or someone out and hopefully Laurie will get a chance to stop and fill in any gaps. But of course if you’ve been following my Twitter feed you already knew a lot of this anyways ;-).
Hopefully I’ll give my tips for riding DART before too long. It’s been cooking in my head since the 5th.