On blogging sabbatical.
but I'll leave you with this:

and this:

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struggling for beauty


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Labels: church B, Fun, leadership

Someone reprogrammed two city construction road signs near the University of Texas early Monday morning in an attempt to warn Austin of an imminent zombie attack.
Messages that typically alert Lamar Boulevard drivers to a detour for Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard splashed several warnings like “Caution! Zombies Ahead!” and “Nazi Zombies! Run!!!”
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The problem is that I ended up pretty much liking Black Spiderman about 1000x better than normal Spiderman. Let’s review the major “evil” choices that “evil” Spiderman took:
1. He was mean to his landlord. This seems like fair play to me, that dude was always yelling at him. And while we’re on the topic, why does Spiderman have rent concerns? Doesn’t his inability to make even a small financial arrangement with the New York for his living conditions hinder his ability to fight crime effectively? Isn’t Spiderman just hurting New York due to his love of personal poverty?
2. He jazz danced down Broadway. Don’t even get me started with that damn scene.
3. He ate too many cookies from the landlord’s daughter. Was never quite sure while this was “evil”, she seemed to enjoy the whole thing.
4. He exposed a fraud whose lies endangered their mutual employer. The movie never even touches that it is a just thing to right a wrong, it only deals with emotions. “Oh, you hurt my feelings because you exposed me for the fraud that I am.” Batman wouldn’t deal with that crap.
5. He told whiny Harry the truth about his a-hole dad. Seemed like fair-play to me, the kid needed to know the truth. Especially since enabling his lie made him your mortal enemy and endangered your crime-fighting operation.
6. He was mean to Mary Jane by jazz dancing (again?!?) at her jazz club. This is the Mary Jane who brutally broke his heart by acting like she had an affair with his best friend. Seemed necessarily cathartic to me. She is a selfish girl who can’t sing well. She ain’t the Queen of Sheeba.
Caller: Well, I'm on staff at our church, and there's a good reason we charge $500 for people to use the building for a wedding.
Me: That's what the church charges members who've actually paid for the building over the years?
Caller: Yes. It's really expensive to run the power and clean up and everything.
Me: Of course it is. So if the pastor wants to have a "Let's Celebrate Our Grads!" night in the sanctuary, do you have to pay $500?
Caller: Well, no, because that would be an official church function.
Me: Okay, I'm just curious: Joining members of your church in holy matrimony in front of witnesses and God isn't an official thing?
Caller: No, that's an extra thing.
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Next caller: I can speak for our church. If we DIDN'T charge, we'd have people lined up, wanting to use the place every Saturday for years.
Me: But if they're people who are members, and paid for the building, and it's their's, too, shouldn't it be free and celebrated and --
Caller: It would be too crazy if you just let people do that.
Me: But if they paid for it to start with --
Caller: You have to charge a fee to discourage people from using it.
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Mark DeMoss, former chief of staff to Jerry Falwell and now a leading Christian public relations executive, is hoping that Palin turns out well but has been shocked and worried by the reflexive Christian embrace of her.
“Too many evangelicals and religious conservative are too preoccupied with values and faith and pay no attention to competence. We don’t apply this approach to anything else in life, including choosing a pastor.” Imagine, he said, if a church was searching for a pastor and the leadership was brought a candidate with great values but little experience. “They’ve been a pastor for two years at a church with 150 people but he shares our values, so we hired him to be pastor of our 5,000 person church? It wouldn’t happen! We don’t say, ‘He shares our values, so let’s hire him.’ That’s absurd. Yet we apply that to choosing presidents. It blows my mind.”






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Labels: Fun, Technology

Being a "Red Shirt" on the USS Enterprise is one of the most dangerous jobs in any (imaginary) military. Don't believe me? SiteLogic founder Matt Bailey crunched the numbers: 13.7% of Kirk's crew died during their three-year televised mission. 73% of the deaths were Red Shirts.
What might save Red Shirts' lives?
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Labels: Church, Fun, Movies, Systems Thinking

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Labels: Consulting; youth ministry consulting, Friends, Fun, youth ministry
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"Please: Take time today, quietly, and think.Try to block out the hustle-bustle of modern life.
Be settled. Be silent. And consider this:
1) You are, once again, placed in an arena the size of an NBA court.
2) You have no weapons.
3) You are sprayed down with female deer scent.
4) It's mating season.
How many bucks could you fight off? How long would you survive?
A friend of mine -- a wise, older brother, spiritually, and a deer hunter -- after quiet consideration, turned to me, looked up, tear in eye, and said -- and I'll never, ever forget this: "Zero".
He also shared with me, "About 20 seconds."
I appreciated his vulnerability. But what say you, friend?"
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