Quote From A Pastor

“I was a Christian before I was a Pastor,

and when I become a Pastor before a Christian,

I’ve lost my identity”
-Jeff

Rob Bell // Everything is Spiritual

I saw this last night and had to post it, the everything is spiritual tour , impacted me big time, I can’t wait until it’s out of DVD, until then This is all I have to hold me over

Exhale

 

The last part of the Gravity of breathing, To see the slides click the picture

 

Creating A Church Culture

I had some thoughts about what a healthy church environment looks & Feels like.

People will not stay at your church if they don’t feel valued, whether it’s right or wrong it’s the truth. So Pastors have to realize how they treat their members effects their member ability to serve God.

Church culture starts from the top, it’s how Pastors view members. Are the members there for you, or are you there for the members. Our culture does a great job at turning Pastors into rock stars, the problem comes when Pastors start to believe it.

What is it about your church that people are willing to pass other churches to just get to yours. If your answer is programs or events, your in trouble. A newer church will come along with more bells and whistle. That’s like saying people like our website because it’s shiny and slick and we have the most buttons.

Your culture better not be anchored to features. it better the people, and if it’s not, you maybe in the wrong business.

Youversion // bible with a twist

there is this new site called You Version.

It’s a web 2.0 kind of bible study site, it’s being put together by the guys at Life Church.TV who know how to do things right. It’s still in the developing phase but I got a private access code to try out the private Beta testing.

This site is awesome. I can’t explain all the features who just have to go there and check it out for your self. But as somebody who studies his bible a lot, it’s freaking awesome. You have the ability to tag any version in the bible and then make a comment about that verse. It’s the digital equal of writing in the margins in red pen. It’s an easy way to track your thoughts.

You also have the ability to tag a verse with an image or video clip and then share those with the community of You Version peers.

When this site kicks off, I’ll people know.

Kill Your TV

With the new fall season on TV show set to start next week, It’s overwhelming for a person to try and schedule every show they want to watch. The solution from the media in recent years is DVR, or TIVO. The pitch from the media is TIVO can save you time because you only watch the shows you want, no commercials and you can watch when you want. Studies how shown DVR and TIVO only encourage you to watch more * *TV not less.

as one person said on a forum site when asked Do you feel you watch more or less TV than before you got your DVR?

One man said “More TV in much less time” *

There are hundreds of rumors about the effects of some of them are;

TV can increase attention problems, poor school performance, and increase violent behavior for kids who watch more then 3 hours a day *

one source even call TV’s Electronic Drug Dealers * because watching tv effects your brainwaves, and produces low alphs waves * that are similar to the waves found in a coma patient, or someone in very passive state.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t watch TV at all, I love LOST, and Boston Public. But the information about the effects of TV are staggering!

I think with this new fall season I am going to pick two or three shows that I really want to watch and that’s it’s. It’s going to be hard when I’m bored to just not sit in front of the TV and surf the channels.

This is something I’ll have to update in a couple of months.

Where’s My Change?

Like a lot of people I have a night stand next to my bed where I keep a lamp, my alarm clock, glasses, and I keep my lose change.

Well I went to set my alarm last night and I accidentally knocked it and heard the sound of change rattling. SO I picked up the alarm clock because I thought there was change under it. But there wasn’t.

As I moved the alarm clock I heard the change rattling back and forth inside the clock!

The problem is there are  no openings for the change to go in.

My 2 year old loves to go in my room when no one is watching and play with the change, I find it everywhere.

So thank you Emery!

I now have $1.50 in change in my alarm clock that I can’t get out.

Troubling Trends // Sports

There is no doubt that Americans love sports, all you have to do is go down high street on a buckeye home game to understand. You can now get ESPN on your phone, in your email and yes even through rss. I had to cancel my ESPN rss feed because they were sending me 28.2 stories a day more then google news at 7.2, more then CNN at 12.1, and even more then a local job search rss that I get 12.6 times a day. Are there really 28 sports stories a day that I need to pay attention to?

Every where you go people are taking time to check scores, find out the spreads, and update their fantasy leagues. I have seen doctors, and teachers, Managers at work, even Pastors 10 minutes before the Sunday service working on a last minute deal to get Ruben Droughns as his starter (last year).

I’ve had conversations at work of games and when they realize I don’t know Carson Palmer’s completion rating, or Alex Rodriguez Batting average, they give me this weird look.

37 Million Americans play fantasy football *. It’s so bad that even on ESPN they have a 8 or 9 minute segment on fantasy players “who to start and who to bench”. It’s out of control. I like sports, but I don’t worship sports. Did you know there are groups for people addicted to sports, but not playing them, watching them *

Maybe the biggest crime in America is that we pay football player $8 million a year, or top level baseball players making more than $20 million a year. Then when we catch them gambling and buying drugs we shake our fingers at them. Well what do you think happens when you give a 20 year old kid millions of dollars?

And then we are shocked when we hear that athletes are cheating, aka Bonds, and Landis, or coaches like Bill Belichick, or referees gambling like Donaghy. But we continue to worship these guys.

What would happen to our culture and society if men knew just as much about world events and history as they do about football, or they had more opinions about economics and politics then sports?

Troubling Trends // American Preferences

We live in a period in history where the average person has more opportunity and more information than ever before. We have more freedom to at least choose how we spend our time. And where you spend your time defines what your priorities are.

-As of 9.14.07 73 of the top 100 videos at google are sex related, including the top 17,*

-6 of 10 top shows are NFL including top 4 of the week of 9/9/07*

-The amount of Americans who say they read at least one book a month hasn’t raised in 20 years (96.2 million)*

-The TV is on more than 8 hours a day and kids watch over 4 hours a day*

-Americans spend and average of 14 hours a week on-line, and adults spend more time gaming online then teens* *

-5 of the top 10 Internet sites are social community based, an average of 23% of people go to these sites everyday*

Did you know that you can now get free! courses from Yale, UC Berkley, and MIT through itunes some are even video. Edward Bernays the father of PR said the greatest source of information is your local library. Despite opportunity and freedom Americans have chosen time and time again that the only thing we want to do with our freedom is to entertain ourselves, not educate.

I think this video proves my point, she doesn’t even understand the question!

This is what our entire nation is becoming.

Interesting Idea // Media

Dennis Miller was Bill O’ Reilly talking about the Brittany Spears melt down at the VMA’s.

Millers point was that if the media was going to take part in criticizing her personal and professional life, hence adding to the pressure of celebrity life. Then the media should be the first one to reach out it’s hand when they see someones life falling apart and say “We are not going to air anything you do until you can pull your life back together.”

It’s a beautifully simple idea that we will not reward or add to the weight of people who are out of control.

Just think if that was the way the media worked we wouldn’t even of heard of Brittany in the news for the last year, no knowledge of her rehab, or hair cutting, or any other event that put her in a negative light.

I wish that we were not interested in watch people fall apart.