Brian Miller

Rocker Switch for QSC Audio RMX 2450

2010-05-01T16:46:00.001-05:00

http://www.qscstore.com/520048260.html

Haitian Creole Primer

2009-07-29T08:51:00.001-05:00

In Love, A throne will be established

2009-05-23T22:11:00.000-05:00

5 In love a throne will be established;
in faithfulness a man will sit on it—
one from the house of David—
one who in judging seeks justice
and speeds the cause of righteousness. -- Isaiah 16:5

Ricoh Aficio 450 Add Toner Copier Problem

2009-05-21T09:25:00.004-05:00

Our copier says add toner, even if you do add toner. Looking online for links on how to repair.

copytechnet

Parts - Precision Roller

Fix Siding Video

2009-04-17T17:41:00.001-05:00

Fix Siding Video

Camera to send Sermon to Nursery

2009-02-17T15:44:00.002-06:00

Color 1/3" CMOS with audio - $129

CMOS Sensor; Format 1/3"; Array Size NTSC - 510 × 492; Resolution 310 TV Lines; Lens 4.3mm, f1.8; Scanning 2:1 Interlace; Video Output 2 Vp-p, 75 ohm; Auto Shutter 1/60 to 1/15,000 sec.; Gamma Correction 0.45 - on/off; S/N Ratio >38dB; Minimum Illumination 10 lux; Supply Voltage 8-12 VDC (optional); Power Requirements 30mA @ 12 VDC; Operating Temperature -10°C to 55°C; Humidity Limits 0 - 95% Humidity; Sensor Package 48 Pin LCC;

Color 1/3" CMOS with audio - $89.60

* Single chip 1/3" format camera * 310 TV line resolution * Built-in audio * Focusable lens * Automatic gain control * Auto white balance. The V-X0097-SE is a low cost color video camera in an enclosure with a built-in microphone. The unit outputs a standard composite video signal and produces a quality color picture in various light conditions. Its spring-loaded, self-adjusting clamp makes it ideal for any quick installation application. Its unique housing also allows the camera to be snapped out of its cradle and snapped back in any position while its swivel hinge allows the camera to be pointed in any direction. The camera comes with a 60 ft. cable with RCA connectors for video/audio and coaxial connector for power. Specifications: * Resolution: 310 TV lines * Pick-Up device: 1/3" CMOS * Light sensitivity: 10 Lux * Lens: 4.3mm * S/N Ratio:>38dB * Power: 8-12VDC, 30mA (9VDC adaptor included). Note: For applications using coaxial "F" cables, this camera's output BNC connector can easily be adapted to "F" with item, sold separately.

Alleluia (More Than Worthy) chords

2008-10-08T10:02:00.000-05:00

A Reasonable Video Conferencing Option

2008-10-02T09:08:00.001-05:00

I saw this at Shapevine. They have a $9.95 day pass for up to 5 users.

Please take a poll for my daughter's health class

2008-09-23T16:12:00.001-05:00

If you would go to http://healthproject-inhalants.blogspot.com/ and read the info, then take the poll on the left sidebar, I'd appreciate it. It will take you less than a minute.

Drupal Shortcuts

2008-09-17T14:00:00.001-05:00

/user
/admin
/node/add
/logout

Drupal Websites with Tutorials

2008-09-11T08:41:00.002-05:00

www.scribd.com
www.drupaltherapy.com

Grass Roots Podcast

2008-09-10T08:54:00.001-05:00

The continuing archive of Grass Roots Podcast can currently be found at emergingcggc.blogspot.com

Mac boot option

2008-08-27T21:09:00.001-05:00

I'm trying to fix my buddy's mac book. It won't boot. I don't know what I'm doing. Anybody?

Fran's Blog

2008-08-19T11:31:00.000-05:00

Fran's Blog

Tommy Walker Instructional Video

2008-08-10T20:31:00.002-05:00

Tommy shows how he plays I Have a Hope.

Tommy teaches some chords that are unfamiliar. This website has some better notation.

Grassroots Healthy Church Podcast - Episode 3

2008-07-31T17:10:00.001-05:00

I thought this was the best podcast by far. Is anyone listening to them? If so, give us some feedback.

Issue for Discussion: The Shift From Church Growth to Kingdom Growth

Download: Podcast Episode 3 - The Shift From Church Growth to Kingdom Growth
If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Quotes from Reggie McNeil's The Present Future:

"There were several things wrong with the church growth movement. A lot of 'growth' was merely the migration of Christians moving from one church to another. The most notable trend was the closing down of the mom-and-pop operations and moving to the mall and, even later, to the supercenter. … With rare exception the 'growth' here was the cannibalization of the smaller membership churches by these emerging superchurches." – p 22

“More energy expended on the church's survival or success is misplaced.”
“Churches that understand the realities of the present future are shifting the target of ministry efforts from church activity to community transformation.”
“The North American church culture is not spiritual enough to reach our culture.”
“The Pharisees' evangelism strategy sounds eerily familiar.”
“Religious people have always been a problem for God.”
“The consumer church sees resources plowed into community transformation as ‘diverted’ from the church.”
“We will see more and more people, in the church and out, who have the call, the ability, and the finances to resource their own ministry passions in the community.”

Babylon 5

2008-07-30T21:12:00.000-05:00

Brian Miller For President

2008-07-17T21:33:00.001-05:00

Grass Roots Healthy Church Podcast - Episode 2

2008-07-16T12:09:00.002-05:00

Guests:

Fran Leeman, pastor of the Lifespring Community Church in Plainfield, IL, a growing suburb of Chicago.

Lance Finley, Director of Youth and Family Ministries for the Churches of God General Conference, a denomination based in Findlay, OH

Bill Sloat, pastor of Faith Community Church, in Denver, PA, a small town in Lancaster country, PA, who also has a doctorate in church history, specifically revivalist history of the 1700’s and 1800's.

And I'm Brian Miller, pastor of The Crossover Church in Mattoon, IL, a town of about 20,000 in East Central Illinois. (I was around last week)

Lance, Bill and I are going to be in Findlay, OH on July 23rd to 26th at IMPACT, and Bill and I will be talking about the kinds of things we’re talking about here. So come and join us there.

Issue for Discussion: The Collapse of the Church Culture

Download: Podcast Episode 2 - The Collapse of the Church Culture
If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Healthy Church Questions:
What's happening in people's lives around here that is significant and real?
Tell me what your passionate about? What makes your heart beat? What do you wake up in the middle of the night that is excited about your faith?
What breaks your heart in your community?

Revelation 2-3 - Seven letters (assessments) from God to John.
1. Ephesus - You've lost your first love. What do you love? How much do you love? Who do you love?

A new "The Crossover"

2008-07-16T09:15:00.001-05:00

I've been getting some emails for Sean, who I don't know, because senders have been leaving the dash out of "The-Crossover.org". It seems a Calvary Chapel in South Carolina recently changed their name to "The Crossover." It is good looking site.

Jesusgeek.info

2008-07-14T18:51:00.000-05:00

I want to listen to this podcast.

GrassRoots Podcast - Episode 1

2008-07-12T07:26:00.001-05:00

Welcome to our first installment of the Grass Roots Healthy Church Podcast. It's our first one, so be forgiving on quality and content. There are a couple of reasons for doing this Podcast. One is that I just wanted to be able to have some good conversations with some sharp people who understand God's kingdom and how it grows. Another reason is that these kind of conversations help us focus on what is important in the Kingdom. It's easy to get distracted, easy to get discouraged, easy to become defensive and protectionist rather than expanding. And the final reason, and the way I hope to end each podcast, is to gain a few ideas about what a pastor should be doing to keep a church moving strongly into the Kingdom of God.

Guests:

Fran Leeman, pastor of the Lifespring Community Church in Plainfield, IL, a growing suburb of Chicago.

Lance Finley, Director of Youth and Family Ministries for the Churches of God General Conference, a denomination based in Findlay, OH

Bill Sloat, pastor of Faith Community Church, in Denver, PA, a small town in Lancaster country, PA, who also has a doctorate in church history, specifically revivalist history of the 1700’s and 1800's.

And I'm Brian Miller, pastor of The Crossover Church in Mattoon, IL, a town of about 20,000 in East Central Illinois. (I was around last week)

Lance, Bill and I are going to be in Findlay, OH on July 23rd to 26th at IMPACT, and Bill and I will be talking about the kinds of things we’re talking about here. So come and join us there.

Issue for Discussion: What is the model of the church?

Download: Podcast Episode 1 - What is the Model of the Church?
If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Links:
Glenn Smith
Adrian DeVisser
Bob Roberts
Reggie McNeal - The Present Future - Video of McNeal

Possible resource for upcoming teaching

2008-07-07T07:51:00.001-05:00

BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) - Growing a Church

2008-07-05T15:06:00.003-05:00

Let's say 50% of people in Mattoon go to church. My guess is this is too high, but conservatively, let's say 50%. (We should probably do a study to find out -- how many are in church on a Sunday? What is their frequency? Do people usually attend every week or every other?)

With a population of 20,000 people, that leaves 10,000 people not in church. Let's further say that these people are identified as not having been in church for one year. Is this true?

Let's let our immediate goal be to get 1% of these unchurched people into the Crossover. That is 100 people. Our attendance at the end of this goal should be at least 125 per week. They won't come every Sunday.

What if our secondary goal was to get 10% of these unchurch people into a Crossover ministry? That is 1000 people. Just 10%. Just a fraction of them. Now note I changed the phrase to Crossover ministry. I don't think our goal is to have an attendance of 500 or 750. We want our worship services to feel like a known community. This might mean that we need three more Crossover type churches or maybe it doesn't mean they are Crossover churches at all. It is just our goal to expand the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ with this 10%.

So this breaks down into three areas.
1. Identify who is in church and by that figure, figure out how many are not in church.
2. Attempt to bring 1% of that unchurched population into the Crossover church as it is.
3. Attempt to bring 10% of that unchurched population into a medium sized congregation (125-200), starting new congregations as needed.

Geeks and God Recommend Hosting Sites

2008-06-15T22:12:00.002-05:00

mediatemple.com $20/month
dreamhost.com $9.95/month
hostmonster.com $7.95/month

Think Before You Speak

2008-06-12T11:09:00.002-05:00

Mustard Seed Geek Podcast

2008-06-11T16:21:00.003-05:00

http://www.mustardseedmedia.com/podcast

Also

http://www.superaveragepodcast.com/

Building a Band Site in Drupal

2008-06-06T12:38:00.000-05:00

http://www.gomediazine.com/tutorials/create-a-killer-band-site-with-drupal-introduction/#more-44

Teleprompter

2008-05-20T10:59:00.002-05:00

We use a make-shift teleprompter for our KidStuf productions. I was looking for a more professional telemprompter. This one looks pretty good and costs $44.

Crossover RGB colors

2008-05-13T17:14:00.002-05:00

Brown 6B3B15
Blue 15626B
Red ??????

From Color Schemer

I entered #6c1e15 as my color for the Crossover Logo to build a scheme upon. Then I darkened it twice.

Red #3F120D
Green #213F0D
Purple #3F0D3A
Blue #120D3F

Drupal Modules for Muddyrivermedia

2008-05-02T11:56:00.002-05:00

imagecache - resize photos well
bueditor & imce - standard wysiwyg setup
pathauto - creates friendly paths
Do not use category module!
taxonomy menu
embedded media field
hierarchical select
Location - links to maps
Invite
Legal
Profile - Doesn't love it, doesn't usually use it, but no one would see it in this one
Bio
Quickmenu - drop down menu of nodes
Simplemenu

EQ

2008-05-01T14:47:00.002-05:00

From geeksandgod.com Audio processing II Podcast.

Always better to pull EQ's down rather than boost up.

20-20,000 hertz - human hearing

60 - Electrical cycle

Under 80, more can be felt than heard

100-500 (usually 200-250) is the "muddy" range - take this down to get rid of muddy

1k-5k - annoying guitar sounds

5k - magic number for human voice ("Presence")

7k - syballance - "ssss"

10k - "shimmer" - adds "pretty" but can get harsh

above 12k - not much there

Implementing Drupal Video

2008-04-14T13:51:00.000-05:00

MP3 Tag Tool

2008-04-03T14:51:00.002-05:00

Now that I'm using my cell phone as an MP3 player, I have found that the tags on my MP3's have lousy information. If they had more accurate titles, albums, artists, and genres, I could find what I'm looking for much easier. Hopefully this program will help.

Update: I didn't like it. I downloaded MediaMonkey instead and it does a good job and allows me to update the tags powerfully.

Would you like to waste 2 1/2 minutes?

2008-03-28T22:30:00.000-05:00

DVD Ripper

2008-03-27T20:53:00.002-05:00

Handbrake converts a DVD chapter to an MPeg-4. This could replace copying a video scene with Pinnacle (which I don't like) and then putting it into Adobe Elements (which I like).

The Pose

2008-03-12T22:14:00.005-05:00

Evan Courtney challenged people to do "The Pose." Here's my shot.

Sin vs Standard or Ideas vs Individuals

2008-03-12T09:00:00.004-05:00

Since I lured two readers with my notes on the Large Hadron Collider, which will likely end life as we know it in May, let me solidify my readership with some a post about sex.

"I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas, the public good, and doing what is best for the state of New York. But I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expect of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family."
-- Governor Spitzer of New York

I'm torn about whether to write about the first two sentences of the quote about Ideas vs Individuals or to write about Sin vs Standard.

I added the label "theology" to this because this is one of those questions where you have to frame it in a universal understanding of God and humanity.

Large Hadron Collider

2008-03-10T21:41:00.002-05:00

Wikipedia:

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator and hadron collider located at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland (46°14′N, 6°03′E). Currently under construction, the LHC is scheduled to begin operation in May 2008. The LHC is expected to become the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator.

When in operation, about seven thousand scientists from eighty countries will have access to the LHC, the largest national contingent of seven hundred being from the United States. Physicists hope to use the collider to test various grand unified theories and enhance their ability to answer the following questions:

Is the popular Higgs mechanism for generating elementary particle masses in the Standard Model realised in nature? If so, how many Higgs bosons are there, and what are their masses?
Will the more precise measurements of the masses of the quarks continue to be mutually consistent within the Standard Model?
Do particles have supersymmetric ("SUSY") partners?
Why are there apparent violations of the symmetry between matter and antimatter? See also CP-violation.
Are there extra dimensions indicated by theoretical gravitons, as predicted by various models inspired by string theory, and can we "see" them?
What is the nature of dark matter and dark energy?
Why is gravity so many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three fundamental forces?

Not to worry:

Concerns have been raised that performing collisions at previously unexplored energies might unleash new and disastrous phenomena. These include the production of micro black holes, and strangelets. Such issues were raised in connection with the RHIC accelerator, both in the media and in the scientific community; however, after detailed studies, scientists reached such conclusions as "beyond reasonable doubt, heavy-ion experiments at RHIC will not endanger our planet"

TED Developing Countries

2008-02-23T12:53:00.001-06:00

American Idol Blog

2008-02-19T17:30:00.001-06:00

I need a hobby. Check out my American Idol Drama blog.

PC to TV

2008-02-06T10:03:00.000-06:00

Jolene Moore Haiti Blog

2008-02-02T09:38:00.001-06:00

http://newlifeforhaiti.org/MooreBlog.html

Response to Dan's Post on The Simple Church

2008-01-17T09:36:00.000-06:00

Hey Dan,

This book did change how we are doing church. It surprises me to say so. I read it by accident. I'd never have picked it up on my own. Here's a quick summary:

1. Each month is themed from a Classic Scripture (one everyone knows about and should read for themselves). And all themes fit into our four basic mission pieces -- Love God, Love People, Serve Locally, Serve Globally. This month's theme is Blind Obedience and the story of Abraham. Next month is Forgiving Abuse and talking about Joseph. March is The Cross. These are simpler stories than I have been using. These are the basics, though they are tremendously deep.

2. Twice a month - home groups meet. We started three. I think this is the actual key to the whole thing. Not so much that home groups are the key, but that the three people I would pick as reproducible leaders all said "yes" to leading a group. They meet with me weekly and are both the leaders of the church and the leaders of dynamic home groups. Two of them are also highly involved -- one locally and one globally. The other is an older man who provides maturity and stability and encouragement to our leadership.

3. Monthly Community/Global Focus -- this month it was our New Life for Haiti Banquet. February is a Men's conference on Fatherhood that one of our guys has put together. March is a fundraising for a scholarship for a graduate of the high school for behavior disorder kids. I highlight the daylights out of these events.

4. I've made bookmarks with specific Bible readings for the congregation. They need to read 10-20 chapters per month. Very doable was my goal.

5. The first Sunday of the month is followed by a potluck lunch.

6. The youth groups have picked up on these themes as well. I suggested it to them, but also told them it may be too much to ask.

I'm writing this more for me than for you. In other words, I'm not telling you how to do it, rather I'm reflecting on what just happened. I'm as amazed as anybody.

A couple of questions arise.
1. Why didn't I do this earlier? I don't know. I think its too simple.

2. What was the key to it happening this time? I don't know. I would say the three leaders being available. I've invested in leaders since the beginning, but I've seen little to no reproduction. Could be right place, right time.

3. Could this work in other churches? I don't know. I think a lot of things can work if you have reproducible leaders and you put them in a position to reproduce.

New Life For Haiti

2007-12-27T16:46:00.000-06:00

Brian Miller and Michelle Donnell were interviewed on the WCIA noon news show concerning the upcoming fundraising banquet on January 12, 2008 at the Walkway in Mattoon, IL. See www.newlifeforhaiti.org for more information.

New Life for Haiti is an organization that was founded by three Church of God churches in the Midwest Region. We are working with missionaries Steve and Jolene Moore (whom some of you may know). The work is in southwestern Haiti, south of Jereme, in the Grande Anse River Valley. All of our work so far has been in Marfranc.

This year, we expanded a primary school. Next year, we plan to build a Medical clinic, a secondary school, and a guest house so that Steve and Jolene and our teams can be closer to the work. If anyone has any interest in working with us, please let us know.

This work came about because of an encounter we had with Pastor Bob Roberts in Keller, TX. We had asked him how we could be more successful in planting churches since his church plants more churches in the United States than anyone else. He said, "Boys, if want to plant a few churches around Chicago, don't waste my time. Find some place hard in the world to work. Work there 20 years. And then you will know what to do around Chicago."

Buechner on Incarnation

2007-12-25T11:51:00.000-06:00

The Word become flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not touching. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God... who for us and for our salvation," as the Nicene Creed puts it, "came down from heaven."

Came down. Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms. It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast.

Via Danno from Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter's Dictionary.

Web Hosting

2007-12-24T10:10:00.001-06:00

Noticed a link from blogger help to Bluehost.com. This looks like what I'm looking for to host my websites. It's cheaper. I can host all the websites I want on this one account. So it's even cheaper.

Dick Staub Podcasts - The Kindlings

2007-12-22T07:59:00.001-06:00

Also, Fuller Youth Ministry interviews, including Mark O??? talking about brain development of teenagers.

Dick Staub Podcasts - The Kindlings

On TV

2007-12-18T10:16:00.000-06:00

On Friday, Michelle Donnell and I should be interviewed on the noon show on WCIA in Champaign for our New Life for Haiti banquet. Neither one of us are very excited about being on TV, but we are excited about New Life for Haiti.

I didn't test the wcia.com link, because it wouldn't load. I suspect this is because Mattoon won the FutureGen site today and WCIA covered it live. Its a billion dollar clean air coal driven electric plant. It should bring much needed economy to our town. It will be interesting to see what effect it has on our church.

Also, if you want to come to our New Life for Haiti banquet on Sat, January 12, in Mattoon, please sign up at www.newlifeforhaiti.org. There is no cost, though we do hope for generous donations. There will be a wonderful catered meal, a top notch presentation about our work in Haiti, and Amy White and the Ace of Clubs will perform from 9-11. It should be fantastic. Please join us.

Convert Quicktime to MPEG

2007-12-18T10:15:00.000-06:00

This should convert Quicktime to MPEG. We use videos from KidStuf (www.252basics.com) and it comes on QT format. SongShow Plus doesn't play QT, but it does MPEG. This would be a real time saver.

The Golden Compass

2007-12-15T08:19:00.001-06:00

The Chicago Tribune has a good article with the author Philip Pullman. I saw this at Scot McNight's blog - Jesus Creed. (I've started reading blogs with Google's Reader. I like it except you can't see comments, but for many blogs, I don't read the comments anyway.)

Q The book also forwards the idea of a "Republic of Heaven," religion run by humans. Is that republic any better? Because it's still run by humans, who are fallible and seduced by power.

A Yes, but who have the democratic means of changing those in power. One of the founding principles of a Republic of Heaven is it's got to be a democracy. The trouble with the old [system] was that the authority came from above and was not to be questioned. [It] puts humans in temporal power, secular power, running the lives of others. And that's the bad thing.

When I first read this, I thought he might make a good protestant. I once heard Brian McLaren (I think) say "We aren't protesting anymore." I quoted that a few times, then thought, "No, I think I am still protesting, or at least I've moved on rather than back." I wouldn't consider Catholicism at this point because of the hierarchy and I don't believe several of the doctrines. In most of our churches, you can vote the bum out. (Ours is one of the exceptions at the moment.) And there is a feel at first with this story (which I haven't read or seen) and DaVinci Code (which I both read and saw) that they are at odds with the power of the church.

But is Pullman going farther than that? Is he wanting to vote on God himself? As an atheist, he is asking the kind of questions we would want him to ask as a seeker. (read the interview for more). And I don't mind at all the exploration of these questions in fiction. My only concern has been about the fact they are children's books. The other day my daughter brought home the Left Behind for Kids which she got at her public school library. I gave her the same talk I would have given her had she brought home Dark Materials (the trilogy which includes Golden Compass). "Honey, feel free to read it, but understand that may not be exactly how we believe." (Or at least how her father believes.)

Friday

2007-12-15T07:55:00.000-06:00

Morning - I started with a planning meeting for the New Life for Haiti Banquet. It is going to be unbelievable. Great food, great prizes, great music, and a great presentation of what we are doing in Marfranc, Haiti. If you'd like to come, let me know. We want you there!

Noon - On Fridays at Noon, I help out at my Kindergartener's centers. My center is always a craft, and the same 5 kids (including my son) come to the center. Yesterday we made a paper stocking and a clever Santa. It is so refreshing because even the kids I don't have each week love to see me and want to catch my eye to say "hi." It amazes me how the teacher has control over the whole class room even when everyone is scattered about.

Evening - My 12 year old daughter went to a dance. While it makes me a little nervous for her, she's great. She doesn't get all caught up in the drama and she just tries to have some fun. She's fantastic.

Preaching - Sometimes writing a sermon is easy. Sometimes it isn't. I really like to tell a story. That is how Jesus preached and it is easier to remember and there isn't a better way to get people to think. Two weeks ago, I preached about Zechariah, father of John the Baptist. Last week, I preached about Mary. They both had these great interactions with the angel Gabriel. This week is Joseph. I'm focusing on the early chapters of the Gospel of Luke and there is no angelic visit for Joseph in Luke. But there is in Matthew, though it doesn't have the same flavor as the visitations in Luke. And we know almost nothing about Joseph. We know he was a carpenter, the angel convinced him not to leave Mary, and then he disappears.

So I find myself this week wanting to focus on mud. Figure that?

Chuck Norris Endorses Huckabee

2007-12-14T19:53:00.001-06:00

The Golden Compass

2007-12-07T20:35:00.000-06:00

The Golden Compass is a new children's movie based on a book trilogy called "His Dark Materials" by Phillip Pullman. Normally, I don't like warnings about books or movies. It was interesting to read the Davinci Code. The holes in the logic seemed obvious, not necessarily the history or the plot, but that sex is at the core of life as opposed to God. It seems the same is true in The Golden Compass.

In a telling and pivotal moment in the series, a former nun named “Mary Malone,” who is a central character, poignantly reflects upon her realization that God does not exist: “There’s no one to fret, no one to condemn, no one to bless me for being a good girl, no one to punish me for being wicked. Heaven was empty. I didn’t know whether God had died, or whether there never had been a God at all.”

...

Still, like so much else in our culture, Pullman’s aversion to God would appear to boil down to sex. Mary Malone explains that her desire for sex was her primary purpose for abandoning the God in whom she no longer believes. “And I thought: Am I really going to spend the rest of my life without ever feeling that again? And I took the crucifix from around my neck and I threw it in the sea. That was it. All over. Gone. ... So, that was how I stopped being a nun,” she recounts.

The problem here is that these are children's books. I might let my teenage children read them, but they would need to know what they were getting into.

I have a feeling (and I haven't read the book nor seen the movie) that the movie may just be very adventuresome. I have heard that it is the least offense of the three books. But it does feel like an odd place to be placing our children's thoughts. I wish they would have made a better Eragon movie.

Book suggested by Fran

2007-12-06T10:04:00.000-06:00

The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good [BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover)
by William Easterly (Author) "UNITED KINGDOM CHANCELLOR of the Exchequer Gordon Brown is eloquent about one of the two tragedies of the world's poor..." (more)
Key Phrases: homegrown development, postmodern imperialism, possible reverse causality, World Bank, United States, Latin America (more...)

Lunch

2007-11-20T13:26:00.001-06:00

I had lunch with Pastor Jim Rhea, the new minister at First United Methodist here in town. What a refreshingly good relationship! I look forward to meeting with him again.

New Christmas Songs

2007-11-19T20:42:00.000-06:00

I like to do Christmas songs at Christmas time during worship. But we need a couple of new ones. Scanning Itunes, here a couple of possibilities.

-The Christmas Hope - NewSong
-Savior Christ the King - Hillsong
-O Rejoice - Hillsong
-Offering (Christmas version) - iWorship
-Bethlehem Calls - NewSong
-Mary Did You Know - Rescue
-We Are the Reason - Avalon
-Born in Bethlehem - Third Day
-Jesus, Light of the World - Third Day
-Christmas, Like a Child
-Merry Christmas - Third Day
-Feliz Navidad - Raul Malo
-Holy Emmanuel - Terry Scott Taylor
-Child of Love - Sara Groves
-Manger Throne - Third Day
-

Not Christmas
-Tunnel - Third Day
-Mountain of God - Third Day
-Communion - Third Day

Community Thanksgiving Service

2007-11-19T10:13:00.000-06:00

Last night, I spoke at the community thanksgiving service. It was actually well attended. It was an interesting service. Brad Brown, a local young (early 20's?) man, led the congregational singing of "I'll Fly Away," and other upbeat choruses. He plays piano like Jerry Lee Lewis (seriously), just bangs it out and appears to feel it at his core. Four or five others sang specials of various kinds.

I was pretty nervous speaking to this large a crowd, especially knowing how diverse it was. I had planned to use a clip from Astronaut Farmer, but as the singing progressed, I thought "Not the right crowd for it." So I skipped it.

My sermon was "When did we stop believing that Jesus came to change the world." People listened. I can at least tell you that. When I was done, I went and sat with my family in the back. As people came out on my side, they shook my hand. That wasn't my intention. It will be interesting to see if I get any more feedback. One of my wife's fellow math teachers was there because "he had never heard me speak." I thought that was an interesting comment.

Along my "weird" post, I think that sermon message is one that needs to be heard and it is the one God wants me to speak whenever possible. So I did. But Danelle made me wear a tie. It may have lost it's effectiveness.

What If? 24 was based in 1994

2007-11-17T13:17:00.000-06:00

Found this over at Brant's Blog.

Weird

2007-11-17T08:08:00.000-06:00

The opening of the Astronaut Farmer shows Billy Bob Thornton riding a horse in his astronaut suit. He then goes to the elementary school and speaks to the children, who are really excited to ask him all kinds of questions. The teacher pulls him aside and says how wonderful it is that he plays such extravagant dress up. It's good for the children's imagination. Billy Bob just smiles and is polite even though she doesn't get it at all.

I think I'm going to have to embrace weird. One thing I haven't wanted to be is weird. But it's time. I don't mean weird as in blue hair, or even an earring (which isn't so weird anymore). I mean weird in that I'm not conservative nor am I liberal. Weird in that I am an open follower of Jesus Christ, and not worried what others will think as I walk the path Christ has set before me. And usually my worry is centered on what conservative will say, rather than non-Christians.

Perhaps everybody already knows I'm weird. I've never been good at hiding.

Sick

2007-11-15T09:22:00.000-06:00

This week, it's my daughter's turn to be sick. She's been in and out of school all week. It's a flu bug that just hangs around. I'm proud of her; she's been toughing it out and going to school anyway.

My son bought Katamari for the Playstation 2. You don't kill anybody, shoot anybody, or even beat anybody. You roll up stuff. Yet somehow his brother still seems to find a way to argue with him about it.

Sunday night, I speak at the community Thanksgiving Service. At first, it seemed like an honor. Then I kept hearing how pastor after pastor won't be able to make it. Now I think maybe I was the only possibility. Oh well, I'm preaching about the Kingdom of God.

The Astronaut Miller

2007-11-12T14:02:00.001-06:00

Charles Farmer: When I was a kid, they used to tell me that I could be anything I wanted to be, no matter what... and maybe I am insane, I don't know, but I still believe that.

The Astronaut Farmer is the latest movie we watched. It is the first in a while that we watched all the way through in one sitting. Danelle and I tend to watch half a movie after the kids go to sleep and then the second half the next night. It isn't so much a "page turner" and in fact moves a little slow. But it is about having a dream. It is about the sacrifice for the dream. It is about being doubted and even doubting yourself.

I would recommend it highly.

Veterans Day

2007-11-11T21:18:00.001-06:00

Today was Veterans Day, 11th month, 11th day, 11th hour. Weird, I always thought it was on a Monday. But Mattoon celebrated with a parade today. At our church, we didn't debate the issue as in the editorial link. Since our church is on the parade route, we sang a song, then went outside and cheered on the veterans and JROTC and a few Shriners and a couple of political candidates. Then we came back in and sang seven or eight songs and let people share some words of encouragement, as well as honoring our own veterans. It was a pretty cool morning and had mostly to do with the fact our church building is on the main street. How disrespectful would it have been for the parade going by and I tried to preach over it? I'd have had to ask, "Are we even paying attention?"

A Day at Home

2007-11-09T09:57:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, very early in the morning (around 12:30), our middle son started vomiting. He doesn't get sick very often but when he does, he's clockwork. By the end of the day, he had been sick five times. This morning he looks a lot better. Between restroom breaks, he slept.

So it was a slower day around the house. Today, Danelle had scheduled a day off. She has turned it instead into a sick day for our son.

I was still able to get a lot of work done at home.

Christmas Gift Ideas

2007-11-08T13:37:00.003-06:00

I just noticed in looking at cell phone upgrades (which I'm eligible for), that this phone has a 4G MP3 player and a GPS navigator, which I can use for $2.99 per day. (I don't use it that often so that wouldn't be bad at all for a trip or vacation.

CNET rated it very high. It is a free upgrade for me, but I would have to buy the 4G card and a bluetooth headset. These items aren't the cheapest, but compared to an IPOD and a GPS, together they are cheaper than each.

Kid's Worship

2007-11-08T08:57:00.000-06:00

Last night, we were asked to play worship music for the younger youth group (4th-7th grade). We brought in most of the worship band -- drums, bass, electric guitar, and my acoustic. We did some songs we liked -- You Are Good, Hope to Carry On, ... and some they liked -- Lord I Lift Your Name on High, Romans 16:19, Celebrate Jesus... and then I tried a new one for me -- Cartoon Hallelujah. The first song the kids looked a little overwhelmed. We sing three songs each week, but they weren't into it. One of the youth leaders, Tammy, had brought some instruments. So before the second song, I said, "Bring those instruments up here." Most of them took a rhythm instrument, but one boy took a recorder (flute). Then they started to have fun.

The drummer gave my 8 year old son a cow bell to play. Shyly, he held it down and tapped it. We were in the middle of a song, Romans 16:19 I think, and while the band played, I said let me see that cowbell, and did a little Saturday Night Live Will Ferrel Cow Bell. Getting the bell back, my son was still pretty shy but he kept the beat loud enough to hear. Good time.

People

2007-11-07T08:42:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was people intense. The morning was constant with people. But it was good. I say "But it was good" because sometimes (often) a people intense day wears me out. My introvert side gets drained. But yesterday was good. I met with three guys who have been coming to my house every week to study the Sermon on the Mount. These are three great guys who really want to get what God is doing. Refreshing.

Then I met a man who was dropping off a bicycle for a young man who is getting out of prison next week. I had never met the man but I was a good place to drop stuff off. We talked for a while and share life stories. I live in a bubble. So far, nothing traumatic has ever happened to me. At least not that I remember, not that I live with, not that I carry around. On one hand I am grateful, on the other, I remember to be gracious with people.

In the evening, I just wanted to play some Spades on Yahoo. That isn't as easy as you'd hope.

Prison

2007-11-06T18:18:00.000-06:00

I visited my first prison yesterday. I have been to county jail several times. Prison is different to visit. It's better. At county, you are behind thick glass. In prison, you are together in a lounge area. You can hug if you want. We did.

We didn't see anything except the lounge. It was described as several houses. Everyone's bunk is lined up in a row. They go to bed around 7:30PM and rise around 4AM. I think I'd go crazy with no alone time.

Jesus said to visit the least of these in prison. I plan to do that.

Christmas Gift Ideas

2007-10-31T21:10:00.000-05:00

The Nine

Heroic Conservatism

Apple 30 GB iPod Photo M9829LL/Aß(4th Generation) Used

Garmin StreetPilot i2 Vehicle GPS Navigator

VGA to Svideo converter

2007-09-20T08:34:00.000-05:00

http://www.svideo.com/vga2video.html

Petey's Revenge

2007-09-03T21:15:00.000-05:00

I wrote this game in Scratch, a programming language for all-ages from MIT. It is pretty cool and a great introduction to programming.

Jesus teaches us to build communities of grace

2007-08-24T18:08:00.000-05:00

This article was in the Journal-Gazette today. They have an area to comment as well. The link on the title will take you there.

By Pastor Brian Miller: the Crossover, Mattoon

Barbie was sitting upright with her perfect hair and her somewhat disturbingly happy smile pasted across her slender face.

Molly had placed her in a rectangular Tupperware dish. Her shoulders rose above the edge, and she wondered if she would be surprised to find out what was about to happen. Molly’s mom was on the phone in the kitchen. Before the phone rang, she had been repotting some plants on the dining room table.

Molly looked at her Barbie and listened to her mother. “I can’t stand that woman. I have to bite my tongue every time I see her!”

As Molly listened, she noticed the small hand shovel sticking out of a bucket of fresh dirt. The one side of the phone conversation continued. It seemed to only need one side at this point.

“She only has that job because of who she married. Marrying someone doesn’t qualify you for a job.”

Instinctively, Molly grasped the handle of the shovel. She stood on tip toes and looked down into the bucket. The dirt had a fresh smell to it. It was almost black, but something made it sparkle in the light.

Her mom took a quick sip of her coffee and went right back to dishing the dirt. “She isn’t perfect by any means. I went to school with her brother. I could tell you all kinds of stories.”

Very carefully, Molly lifted the handle, balancing a perfect scoop of fresh dirt on the blade. Slowly she brought it above the rim of the bucket and then turned her whole body to the right until the shovel was directly over Barbie’s head.

The tone of her mom’s voice told the point of the story. “Her husband’s going to get caught one of these days, and she’ll find out just how valuable she really is once he’s out of the picture.”

Molly’s action demonstrated the rest of the story. She slowly turned her wrist counter-clockwise until the dirt began to pour steadily on Barbie’s head. The dirt poured over her shoulders and piled around her waist.

Her mom continued to talk. Molly continued to pour, careful never to spill a drop outside of the container. When her mom was finished, Molly had filled the container evenly, burying her Barbie to just below her plastic, but perfectly molded arm pits. Her mom almost spilled her coffee.

“Why did you pour dirt all over Barbie?” Her mother was at a complete loss.

This is where Jesus finds people — buried in dirt. When the religious people brought a woman caught in adultery before Jesus (John 8), they wanted to stone her, bury her with rocks.

Jesus said, “If anyone here hasn’t ever had dirt on their face, go ahead and throw.”

Today’s religious people don’t throw rocks, but they do dish dirt and throw dirty looks. But Jesus tells the church not to condemn her. It saddens me that as they dropped their stones, they walked away. I guess that was a lesson for another day.

Jesus didn’t walk away. He came with grace and truth. But the grace comes first.

With no condemnation, Jesus tells the woman, “Clean up your life.”

It was an encouragement to live free and full. She had been living in fear. When you have something to hide, you don’t want community. It’s too risky. People might find out. People will make it harder.

Jesus teaches an amazing lesson here, about building communities of grace that can then find effective ways of helping people into the truth.

Special Effects Movie Maker

2007-08-20T09:07:00.000-05:00

This would give the ability to do special effects in my movies. It was recommended by Wired magazine.

Personality Test

2007-08-16T09:46:00.000-05:00

"INTPs live in the world of theoretical possibilities. They see everything in terms of how it could be improved, or what it could be turned into. They live primarily inside their own minds, having the ability to analyze difficult problems, identify patterns, and come up with logical explanations. They seek clarity in everything, and are therefore driven to build knowledge. They are the "absent-minded professors", who highly value intelligence and the ability to apply logic to theories to find solutions."
- Portrait of an INTP (The Personality Page)

* Abraham Lincoln - American President
* Albert Einstein - German physicist
* Ashley Olsen - actress (Full House)
* Blaise Pascal - French mathematician
* Bob Newhart - comedian, actor
* Brent Spiner - actor ("Data" on Star Trek)
* Carl Jung - Swiss psychiatrist
* Charles Darwin - English naturalist
* Gerald Ford - American President
* James Madison - American President
* Jeff Bingaman - U.S. Senator

* John Quincy Adams - American President
* John Tyler - American President
* Mary-Kate Olsen - actress (Full House)
* Meryl Streep - actress
* Midori Ito - Japanese figure skater
* Rene Descartes - French philosopher
* Rick Moranis - actor (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids)
* Socrates - Greek philosopher
* William Harvey - medical doctor
* William James - American psychologist

I know what you're thinking. He always did remind me of Meryl Streep... or was it Mary Kate. Yeah, he's just like Mary Kate. That explains a lot.

Wow, the 100% intuitive made me look further.
Sensing Characteristics

* Concrete
* Realistic
* Lives in the present
* Aware of surroundings
* Notices details
* Practical
* Goes by senses
* Factual
Intuitive Characteristics

* Future-focused
* Sees possibilities
* Inventive
* Imaginitive
* Deep
* Abstract
* Idealistic
* Complicated
* Theoretical

Accent

2007-08-11T10:24:00.000-05:00

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
The South
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Laptop Power Jack Repair

2007-07-26T11:28:00.001-05:00

North Carolina http://www.absoluteraleigh.com/power_jack_repair.html

Chicago http://www.dcjackrepair.net/ $125

Update: I sent my laptop to Chicago. They repaired it the day they received it and sent it back. I got it the next day. The power jack seems to be repaired fine. They also put a new end on the power supply, but I was disappointed that it was poorly wrapped with electrical tape rather than some type of shrink wrap. But since I had already bought a new power supply, I would have to say it was well worth the $125 and their promptness was great.

The Work of the People

2007-06-29T11:41:00.000-05:00

Looks like an interesting site.

Acoustic Guitars

2007-06-26T10:08:00.000-05:00

Fender F-210 - ebay has left-handed ones starting at $150 and one with current bids to $290.

Yamaha FG-460SA - $290 on ebay

Alvarez 5220 - ??? - No exact match on ebay. Definitely $250, maybe $500.

I have a feeling my Alvarez isn't as good a guitar as my other two except it has built-in electronics, which is why I use it.

Star Trek Test

2007-06-13T16:24:00.000-05:00

Eric Starkey Website

2007-06-05T11:30:00.001-05:00

Eric has a new blog.

UPDATE: I fixed the link.

XNA Game Studio Express

2007-05-10T10:06:00.000-05:00

Here are some free tools from Microsoft that let you develop your own games. If I had time in my life for something else, this would be it.

Sin Trek: Left Behind

2007-05-05T10:18:00.000-05:00

Google map directions to France

2007-04-20T07:26:00.001-05:00

My daughter sent me this. You should try this.

Okay.
try this, you'll laugh...

--Go to Google.com

--Click on Maps.

--Click on Get Directions.

--From New York, New York

--To Paris, France.

--And read line # 24.

Praise Song

2007-04-09T13:56:00.000-05:00

I put Chris Tomlin on my Pandora.com.

-"I Need You Now" by Portrait of Another
-"Can't Figure How" by Jason Boland and the Stragglers (rough country song)
-"Breaking My Fall" by Jeremy Camp

The only reasonable one here is probably "I Need You Now"

Ideas

2007-04-07T20:06:00.000-05:00

Setting up chairs on Saturday night before Easter, my mind was flooded with ideas. I just want to write them down before I forget.

-Pointless Church - once a month (or whatever we could do... quarterly), we have a Sunday evening Service that is completely drama driven. In a sense, pointless... that it isn't a sermon at all. My picture is that it is two guys talking about life, maybe other characters too.

-Music -- I still get that picture of people playing music here, developing their skills, and writing songs. Maybe we could record here.

-I would love for Crossover to become a place for dramatic arts, music, local needs, and global needs. Kid ministries rather than being separate, might become part of the whole set of needs.

-One Sunday evening a month has to become Vision/Finance Team meeting.

-For those who like to sing more worship songs, the band should start ten minutes early. I'm pretty sure we could put a Quick Message on Song Show Plus that says, "You aren't late. We just started singing early!" or something like that.

For some reason, I have more hope tonight than I've had for a while. It feels good.

S-Video to VGA

2007-03-28T19:17:00.000-05:00

http://www.s-video.com/svid2vga2audio.html

$79.

Seekers of God

2007-03-27T07:03:00.000-05:00

I did a sermon on prayer Sunday and would like to follow it up with a sermon on seeking after God.

Martin Luther's seeking after God led him to some conclusions about God.

Luther objected to a saying attributed to Johann Tetzel, a papal commissioner for indulgences: "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs";[23] and he insisted that since pardons were God's alone to grant, those who claimed indulgences absolved buyers from all punishments and granted them salvation were in error. Christians, he said, must not slacken in following Christ on account of such false assurances. (Wikipedia)

Henri Nouin as well.

In Return of the Prodigal Son, for example, Nouwen describes love and forgiveness as unconditional. Though this is not a novel idea, Nouwen's approach is arguably unique as we approached this theme from the angles of the younger son, the elder son, and the father. Each captures the unconditional quality of love and forgiveness in their own way. The younger son's life shows how the beloved lives a life of misery by thinking he can be loved only by meeting certain qualifications of the lover (which he fails to meet). The elder son's actions shows how the beloved can be depressed because he thinks he should receive greater love because he has done all the right things (i.e., that he has met these qualifications). The father alone understands how to love and forgive and is able to do so and be happy. Nouwen explains that we are the younger son at times (when we think we don't deserve the love or the forgiveness) and the elder son at times (when we think we deserve love or that another doesn't deserve it more than us), but that we are all called to be like the father (and that only by being like the father can we come closer to being loved as we should be loved). (Wikipedia)

"I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." -In the Name of Jesus, 1989

Dwight Schrute's Blog

2007-03-19T16:30:00.000-05:00

Dwight Schrute is blogging. I know I'm not blogging much, but some things just have to be noted.

TEDTalks

2007-03-09T13:43:00.000-06:00

I came across a TEDTalk on Jordon Cooper's blog. TED is a conference where they bring in the most interesting minds they can find and give them 15 minutes to talk. I checked... the registration is too high for anyone I know to go. But they have the talks online. One place is at Ted.com. Another is YouTube.

Here is Malcolm Gladwell suggesting "People don't really know what they want." In other words, you can't just ask people what they want. I have thought this for some time. Gladwell puts some expression to it in the form of spaghetti sauce.

A Lesson from Ted Haggard–and Henri Nouwen

2007-03-05T09:04:00.000-06:00

Taking a link from Cooper, I checked out this article by John Stackhouse. I'm not familiar with Stackhouse, but I found this short article very helpful to me, as I think we all feel like wounded healers and yet don't want to be hypocrites as we try to help people transform. It is a very quick read and worth your time, especially since I don't seem to be writing anything.

Nouwen gave us the lovely phrase, the “wounded healer.” Some have exploited this term–as all lovely things are vulnerable to exploitation–to suggest that you can be entirely comfortable with all manner of sins and still be a spiritual leader. You can be proud, you can be lustful, you can be greedy, you can wrathfully dismiss any staff members who disagree, and on down the seven deadlies–but hey, you’re a “wounded healer” and you are so darned popular, which is to say, “blessed in your ministry.” So it’s okay.

No, Nouwen teaches us to the contrary by word and by example. Serve, yes: offering your God-given talents to make God’s beloved world a better place. But serve out of consciousness of your wound, which means to serve in humility, in compassion, in patience. “There, but for the grace of God go I.” We must help others as fellow-sufferers, with genuine fellow-feeling–but also with a strong and clear sense of our limitations.

Gospel and Culture

2007-02-23T11:20:00.000-06:00

This material was suggested to me by Glenn Smith. I think this is the right place on the website.

Stage

2007-02-12T16:06:00.000-06:00

We want to build a stage in our church facility. I think we'll start by building the drum riser. I'm looking at the hardware to wire riser.

Here is a floor box with 2 xlr and 2 trs 1/4" female jacks. That should take care of the plug needs of the riser. This is $50.

Except I do have the odd need to run my acoustic out over to the drum in-ear monitor. That seems like an odd thing to hardwire into a stage.

At www.churchaudiosupply.com, they have much more expensive floor boxes, but here are some floor mounts. They are flush (almost) with the floor, so if you stepped on them, they could take it, but could break. This 3 1/4" stereo jacks could allow me to run a cable from my guitar to the drum riser. This is $10.75. Plus the dual XLR female is $12.50. About half the price of the floor box. I would think the drum riser would be less of a worry than perhaps the regular stage mountings, which we might want to protect more.

Then my thinking is to put some jacks on the underside of the stage. Then we run an M/M XLR cable or TRS or Monitor cable from the snake box to the stage piece. Otherwise, when we move the stage, the cables will be hanging. Will this cut into the signal strength? Maybe a bit, but I'm doubting it will cause much problem. Whether I bought the floor boxes or the above flush mounts, I think I would buy the flush mounts for underneath. kingdom.com has xlr flush mounts for $11.00. But I didn't see TRS 1/4".

Partsexpress does wall plates.

Reminder: Need to buy bulk cable. Also need to ask Steve about wiring stage monitor jacks.

Axis and Allies

2007-01-01T20:04:00.000-06:00

My nephew got Axis and Allies for Christmas and wanted me to teach him to play. Have I gone to heaven?! But the game was different. Bought by another company, it had more sea zones around England and more European countries and more Russian countries. It has two more military pieces. I think they probably have fixed the problem with the old game, making it much more dynamic and interesting. I may have to buy it.

My kids played Risk with me this morning. I don't think they liked it all that much. Alyssa said she did, but she just likes doing things with me. Cayden started to lose and didn't like it. He's pretty competitive. The thing is, he was winning for awhile. If he would really want to compete, he should definitely play again. He's a thinker.

Jesus-Brand Community

2006-12-29T08:59:00.000-06:00

My wife and I are hot on the trail of community. We have become hungry for it and have been relatively poor developers of it. This snippet is from Vineyard's Cutting Edge.

Hunger for community, of course, is a sweet spot for the gospel. You know that in the early church of the second and third centuries there were massive plagues that struck the Roman Empire. One of the reasons historians suggest the early church grew as fast as it did was that within the Jesus community people loved one another and nursed their sick, whereas among the surrounding pagans the death rates were so high that they would just leave the sick alone. The outward-focused people of the Jesus community would go to their pagan neighbors who were abandoned by their loved ones, and would nurse them. And those pagans who had been nursed back to health would become Christians. Therefore the gospel wasn’t left to rot in a Christian ghetto, but it went out into the community. So the combination of the plagues and the love of the Christian community created a sweet spot for the gospel.

I think we are at a similar place for the gospel in America right now. We are primed to make a difference. Putnam’s follow-up book (Better Together: Restoring the American Community, Simon & Schuster 2003) identifies Rick Warren’s Saddleback Community Church as one of the promising trends in restoring social capital. Interestingly, Putnam has a very high view of mega-churches, and says that they are one of the forces in the United States that is actually doing something to restore social capital. He calls the pastors of mega-churches “savvy social capitalists”.
The form of community, however, that we have to offer is Jesus-brand community rather than generic community. It would be very tempting for us in this age, with such a loss of community, to feel like “Gee, the solution is community, so let’s just throw community at people.” But what we have to offer is particular, not general.

The plagues are here again. The plague isn't viral; it is dysfunction. Offering a community for dysfunction isn't easy by it's very nature. It isn't just a matter of gathering. It is a matter of overcoming the dysfunction. Dysfunctional people get irritating when stressed. Teaching community is stressful to people. And they initially become irritating. A key for community has to be the ability to not allow irritation to cause problems for the community, but also not to assume there can be no irritation.

Community

2006-12-26T02:08:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been rereading an old Cutting Edge Church Planting Magazine. This article by Doug Pagitt struck me with some things that get to the heart of the church.

Here is a snippet:

Recovering True Religion
When we were first getting started with things, I had become very fond of using the verse from James, “Religion God our Father accepts as pure and blameless is this: to care for widows and orphans in their distress.” I used it as a counter to the evangelical line that Christianity is a “relationship” with God and not a “religion”. I wanted to reclaim the whole religion thing. A “relationship with God” sounds very individualist and personally beneficial, but religion tends to be something else. So that was part of our conversations with each other right from the beginning.

Soon after we moved into our house, my family and I found ourselves living right next door to a family caring for two foster kids named Ruben and Chico. So we had to decide whether the phrase, “We want to be religious people who care for orphans” was a metaphor or an actuality. We had to make a decision: is it “at some point” that we are going to help orphans? Or is it, “Two of them are living next door to you; what are you going to do with these guys?” Doing actions which matched my rhetoric meant I had to do something I wasn’t capable of; I had to develop the skills and competencies as I went. Figuring out when I could develop it and when we needed to get other people engaged meant that I had to be vulnerable with others. I had to say to them, “There is something I have to do—and that I can’t do. Would you help me?” So we adopted Ruben and Chico, which has meant I’ve had to learn a lot more dependence on other people. There’s a reason that most of us don’t ever want to end up like Christopher Reeves. It’s not just the fun we’re going to miss out on—it’s the fear that I’m going to have to have someone do everything for me! That’s been the hardest part of this whole thing. Interdependence is a daily negotiation. It’s not something you decide once. It’s an ongoing process of becoming the kind of person I never would have become otherwise.

The Church as Family
That’s true in the church, too. I don’t know how to be the pastor of an inner-city church and go talk to the guy next door whose twenty-one year old son was shot and killed last night in a gang-related incident. I don’t want to do that. I come from a church background that says, “The way you become a successful leader is to figure out the things you do well, and do those things, and don’t do the other things.” Sure, that makes you a successful leader, but it’s not the only part of the negotiation. There’s also the part where you have to ask, “How do I involve other people in my life so that I grow and change and become somebody different?”

The adoption of Ruben and Chico was really formative for us for awhile, and so it had impact on the church, as well. We told our folks, “This was not a choice we ‘decided’ to make; this was a reality that we had to figure out how to live with.” It felt more like a diagnosis than a choice. “If these are the kinds of people we are—or are wanting to be—how do we deal with this reality that’s living next door to us?” In our minds there was never a moment of choice; it was simply an ongoing process of coming to grips with it. The process was less about making a decision and more about figuring out who we are, given that we’re followers of Jesus.

I too have read lately: "Find the thing that you are the best in the world at and do that." But there are so many things that must be done that we don't know how to do, and most of them are about relationships.

Reminder for Spiritual Renewal

2006-12-23T22:55:00.000-06:00

As I prepare to go for my first consulting gig, I have no doubt that the place to start is spiritual renewal and the passage of Scripture is Isaiah 6. Due to sin, despair, even religious repetitiveness, we forget how present God is. When He shows up, when we recognize His presence, we are cut to the quick. Our sin and our doubt, once our blanket, are thrown off and displayed before us. Now naked, our shame pours out of crack in our soul, as we stand before the Greatness that is God. All of our senses, smell, touch, sound, sight, taste, and even more, as we sense something beyond even our physical senses -- all of our senses testify to the truth of God's exceeding glory, which takes us beyond sin and beyond despair.

Then as we suffer the death of our despondence, God asks, "Who will go for us?" We do not move until called. But we do not sit and wait. We beg for God's presence to drive away the darkness that has inhabited our lives.

Tomorrow at church, the question we have been asked is this: what do you give to the One who already has everything? My answer: We rise up and live free, throwing off all that we feel bound by but which has really lost its power over us. This is character, refusing to be bound, refusing to respond with fear, refusing to feel ashamed or small, and refusing to continue in sin.

Bob Roberts on Developing Leaders Part IV

2006-12-20T10:36:00.000-06:00

Fourth, you have to hold people accountable. Good mentoring doesn’t start by hugging, but by listening, observing, and then challenging. We generally hug too quickly and challenge too late. We should first challenge and then hug when they do it or at least attempt to do it even if they fail and want to try again. The question is what are you trying to produce and what does the person need? Often, we let our own emotional vacuums color relationships with people we are trying to mentor. I’m not afraid to say to a young guy, "Hey man, you gotta work on this" or "That ain’t gonna cut it" or "Why do you think you’re like that?" or "Wow, that’s incredible!" To do that, you have to critique yourself with your mentors and others. An example, I recently mailed a form that I’ve used for several years that allows church members, leaders, family, and friends to critique everything from my "performance" to my character.

"Good mentoring doesn't start by hugging..." Whoa. "We generally hug too quickly and challenge too late." I've been learning this. My thought was that the mentoring relationship needed to be more personal to be effective. The problem has been this hasn't been true. And then when the need for the challenge comes, I'm not sure it doesn't cause the person more pain than if you weren't so close. I'm not sure. But I am sure that 2007 is going to bring more challenges from me than hugs. But I'm sure there is a balance.

It seems like many of the best people ask for critique. Ouch. I'm sure Bob is careful about who he allows to critique. I wonder if it is anonymous.

Bob Roberts on Developing Leaders Part III

2006-12-20T10:28:00.000-06:00

Third, they have to be around you in your context. I used to not understand that--and it’s something I have to keep learning again and again. Whether we are in church, or overseas, or involved in a project or ministry, together is crucial. People who are busy doing don’t always have a manual or journal near them while they are working to write down everything-–and if they did--they wouldn’t stop and write it. They’re caught up in what they are doing and living it and it is their passion. I’ve always wanted to get more education in international relations. In fact, I’ve considered getting a degree in it. So, a few months ago, I was at a meeting in D.C and a prominent professor from Georgetown was at the meeting. At a break, I went over and began talking to him about getting a graduate degree to learn more and gain some "credibility" in a field. He stopped me and said, "You’re living it, you’re practicing what those guys I teach come to school for. You’d be wasting your time unless you want to be a professor." I think the apostles followed Jesus because they wanted to watch Him.

This is something I want to change in 2007. I want to create more times to be together with leaders. We've started a journaling group in our home. We are remodeling (slowly) to make our house open for people to come over in groups. I plan to start meeting with a group of young guys one morning a week to talk about pastoral types of ministries. My wife is talking about a starting a small group. We are considering opening our house up on Sunday nights for people to come over and hang out with us. The youth leaders have begun meeting once a month to hang out and plan together. That is one of the best meetings of the month! I had tried to set up these type of meetings on the first Sunday evening of the month at the church, but it has been very ineffective. If I could get more groups to meet like the youth leaders, that would be exceptional.

This also makes me think about whether I want to further my education. I've thought about it, but I absolutely want to make sure it is a benefit to my work. It isn't that I've ever wanted a title (Dr Miller) but I value education and have thought there about has to be an education that would truly benefit our work. George Fox?

Bob Roberts on Developing Leaders Part II

2006-12-20T10:25:00.000-06:00

Second, you teach first from what you've experienced. Anyone can write or talk on a subject and, yet, not be a "doer." Those who "do" and those who "talk" at first sound similar, but the deeper you go, the more you learn the differences and what may sound like semantics becomes key. Also, those who "experience" it will generally read more and more because they want to understand more. I’ve learned over the years there are two ways to gain influence, one is by what you know--people want to hear you talk about that. The other is by what you do--people want to hear the stories of what and how you did something. Teaching is passing on information. Mentoring is life-on-life and the more healthy experiences a mentor has, the more he/she has to share.

This is why I went to Haiti. This is why I want to continue to pastor as I start to coach. There are a lot of people who talk. There are much fewer who do.

Basra, Haiti

2006-12-20T10:10:00.000-06:00

I had dinner last night with Roy Lanham, director of the Newman Center at Eastern Illinois University. He mentioned that he is going to Haiti next week. They have made a connection with Barasa, Haiti that sounds similar to our hopes for Gatineau.