Risk Takers/History Makers

My freshman year at York College I had the honor of taking a class by Tim McNeese. He was THE BEST history teacher I ever studied under and had such a living view of history. Tommorow night on the History Channel he will premier on Risk Takers/History Makers at 7:00 PM Central Standard Time. If this series is as enjoyable as his classroom you will be privileged to learn about John Wessly Powell from his ability to bring the past alive.

I had the privilege of working for him at a Church youth camp in the summer 1995 and he was an advernterous director and a great leader in that setting as well.

I encourage you all to check out this special.

Real Live Preacher

In a post on orthodoxy and homosexuality Real Live Preacher states his opinion on the issue of homosexuality despite the result to his name or reputation. I think his basic premise is correct and this issue always leads me to verses on justice and compassion.

This is not however my point. My point is to answer for his reader why the church attacks Homosexulaity so viciously. I have said it before and will again. It is easier to attack the sexual sin of 3% of the population than the far greater problem that was prevelant in the entire church. This makes people feel like they are dealing with the problem of sin, instead of dealing with their personal problem of sin.

Cornbread Pie For Mission USA

On Tuesday, I and a team of my friends will be serving dinner at the Bridge a service for inmates and recently released prisoners attempting to correct the direction of their lives. After volunteering to do this, without the financial support of a church to underwrite the project, I came to realize how costly it would be to feed 85 people.

The question became, how do I feed 85 people food that is delicious and affordable. I tried many of my best recipies and decided that none of them were optimum considering the food temperature issue associated with feeding 85 people without catering equipment.

I went home at lunch to try my hand at a meal that can be served room temperature and it still delicious and unique. I am calling it cornbread pie and I made it in a Full size catering pan.

CORNBREAD INGREDIENTS (x2 batches)
4 Cups of Cornmeal (x2) ($1.99- used 1/2 package)
1 QT Buttermilk (x2) ($1.99 - half gallon used all)
4 Eggs Beaten (x2) ($0.99 4 remaining)
4 TBS Corn Oil (x2) ($2.09 lots left over)

Vegetable Mix Ingredients
1 Can Rotel Mild ($1.09)
1 Can Yellow Sweet Corn ($.59)
1 Can Pinto Beans ($.59)
1 Can White Hominy ($.59)

REMAINING INGREDIENTS
2 lbs Ground Beef ($4.25)
1 Pkg Taco Seasoning ($.99)

2 Lbs Shredded Cheddar ($7.98)

RECIPE INSTRUCTIONS
Brown the beef using the taco seasoning
Open, drain, and mix all the canned vegetables.
Mix Cornbread in 2 Batches
Pour the first batch of cornbread across the botoom of the well oiled catering pan
Mix the vegetables into the cornbread batter
Top the batter/vegetable mix with the beef and 1.5 punds of cheese
Pour the second batch of cornbread over the top
Bake uncovered for 50 minutes on a middle rack
Top with remaining cheese and let bake for 5 additional minutes.

All together it cost about $20 a pan to make this and 1 pan should comfortably serve 10 people.

Compassion and Justice in Christian Community

Thanks to Audible, I started listening to Jim Wallis' God's Politics as I work today.

The following quote caught me as the essence of the transformation I have made in my personal life in the last year.

Recovering the faith of the biblical prophets and Jesus is not just about politics, it also shapes the way we live our personal and comunal lives. How do we live a faith whose social manifestation is compassion and whose public expression is justice, and how do we raise our children by those values.That may be the most important battle of spiritual formation in our times. Our religious congregations are not meant to be social organizations that mereley reflect the wider cultures values but dynamic counter coultural communites whose purpose is to reshape both lives and societies.

Seeing my daughter grow up this year from a baby to a child (year 3.5 to 4.5) has made me realize a lot of things about the difference between what I claim to value and what I truly value. I am now transforming to be a person who lives out my understanding of James 1:27. That is the kind of community I want our home and our church to be for her. A place where purity comes as a result of living out the mission of Jesus.

I will comment more as I continue to listen.

For those who might have been following along the conversation, I have not finished listening to Anne Rice's Christ the Lord, but that is for in car listening and I have about 2 of the 8 hours left. I started God's Politics because I can listen to it less intensely as I am working.

I Wept After Preaching This

Back in August I was preaching at a youth rally and had one the most moving moments I have had of my entire life. When I finished preaching this sermon I went out and wept. I was so overwhelmed. A person caught exceprts of the sermon on a Camcorder being used to record parts of the weekend. I wish for my own sake I had the whole sermon but I do not. I have embedded here, one exceprt from her video.

My Apologies

I apologize to anyone who reads this blog via RSS for the history spam you recieved. I am working on a full history export of my blog and forgot to tell Blogger not to change my site feed.

A Plethora Of Post

You might be wondering where I went. I have posted a few web links in the past 2 weeks, but as for substance I have produced nothing.

I have thinkers block. It is a serious case. I have a plethroa of ideas sitting as drafts, half written mangled thought processes which I am unable to mold into coherent enough thoughts to publish.

I have some serious things I have been thinking about.

• I have been thinking a lot about what Deepak Chopra has to say on the "7 stages of love."
• I have been thinking a lot about why Jim Wallis' conclusions are wrong though his thesis "Budgets are moral documents" is correct.
• I have been thinking about my own attempts to create positive brand awareness for Jesus.
• I have been working on a critique of "Black rednecks and white liberals" by Thomas Sowell.
• I have been working on this "children's story" of a rock star (Bono) as on a Don Quixote like crusade that demonstrates the merits of his work.

A few quotes that have started posts that did not make it to publish:

"Not all the Bible may be fact, but it is all TRUTH" - Rob Bell

"But this chocolate thing goes to a whole different level. -
Children are being sold as slaves, being beaten and killed for not working fast enough, just so I have ninety-seven inexpensive candy options when I step up to the register at CVS. Kids are dying for candy.
What in hell are we doing?" - milton brasher-cunningham

"These teenagers don’t feel as though their sexuality has to define them, or that they have to define it, which has led some psychologists and child-development specialists to label them the “post-gay” generation. But kids like Alair and her friends are in the process of working up their own language to describe their behavior. Along with gay, straight, and bisexual, they’ll drop in new words, some of which they’ve coined themselves: polysexual, ambisexual, pansexual, pansensual, polyfide, bi-curious, bi-queer, fluid, metroflexible, heteroflexible, heterosexual with lesbian tendencies—or, as Alair puts it, “just sexual.” The terms are designed less to achieve specificity than to leave all options open." - Alex Morris

I have decided I am never coming back to any of these posts. I am deleteing the draft and moving on. Please stick around, I know I will be able to formulate a cognitive post again soon.

Girl jumps through basketball hoop. - Google Video

Girl jumps through basketball hoop. - Google Video

4 Adult men - 1 Teenage Girl...

This video is great, other than when one begs the questions of what these responsible adult men were thinking!

Conversation Starters

I think Chrsitian Tees should invite a conversation more than anything else. So based on an Ooze thread about Church signs, I take the following 2 quotes laid out for a tee.





Ready for a conversation?

Do Not Boycott Google

Over on the Ooze forums some user posted a message about the evil of Google and their agreements with the Chinese government. I made some comments about why I thought Google made the right decision and was attacked (as I expected) using the argument that Google claims to not be all about the profits.... I am posting my response because I think it is darn well thought out and written. If you would rather read it in context. Here is the thread on the Ooze. Otherwise my response is quoted below:

If you are refering to "Do No Evil" the unofficial company motto I think that is different than saying "were not about dollars." I believe Google's success has been built on the golden rule. When Evan Williams (founder of Blogger) left Google he prasied the company for how well they had cared for him and his staff after their purchase by Google. Blogger has to be one of Google's most profitable properties, and they integrated it into a part of the Google family, the way any entrepenuer would want himself and his staff to be treated.

I believe there are other not as high profile examples that could also demonstrate how Google lives into theit "Do No Evil" pledge while still focusing on profits and market growth.

So as to an agreement with a foreign government... I do not consider their agreement to be evil in the least. Aquiring market growth under the terms of the host government is just sound business. It would not be sound business to open a retail store in Illinois and refuse to pay sales tax because a portion of that tax goes to pay Jesse White (our crooked sec of state) salary. It would not be sound business because the state would close me in no time, and I would have no retail income. Just as IL says if you want to operate a retail store in IL use must pay sales tax on your IL sales, China says, if you want to operate a search engine in China you must block these search terms on your Chinese searches. This is not evil it is compliance.

I think it is arrogant of American's to think Google should have not entered the Chinese business market because their standards and policies differ from our standards and policies.

If you personally want to boycott Google based on this arrogance, please boycott ALL companies who do business in China, since all companies make concessions to Chinese authorities. In fact you should boycott all companies who do business outside the US since, since each makes concession with all local authorities (Even the bastian of Americanism McDonalds french fries are prepared differently in some nations to comply with local law).

A few days ago my brother linked to a PC Magazine article where Dvorak argues his defense of Google.

Lazy Sunday - Mars Hill Style

One more Google Video and I am done here. A few weeks back the SNL skit "Lazy Sunday" made it's way around the net. Well here is the Mars Hill (Think Rob Bell and Nooma)take on Lazy Sunday.



I am unclear if this is *OFFICIAL* Mars Hill production or not!

How To Ruin Your High School Social Life

So Nikki Neal had sent a video across the world using My Space and Google Video. You have to watch it to see the demise of one young ladies entire social life.

Support Celiac Research

V7ndotcom elursrebmem for Celiac Charity
- don't let
Black Hat SEO win the $7,000 contest!

Celiac disorder is an auto-immune disease that I, my brother, and my oldest daughter all suffer from. This simple contest is just a way to help further that research. Please embed the backlink from his site in your blog or web page until May 15, 2006 to help raise $7000 for research against this disease.

A Superbowl Ad Review

I am amiss to admit that it is Tuesday and I have yet to comment on any Superbowl ads. That is because their quality was so poor and uninspiring. I blame my fellow people of faith over at the AFA and Parents Televison Council for bullying ABC and the NFL into a situation where this kind of lame advertising is all they feel safe enough to air.

Enough about my soap box. A few of the meager highlights in my opinion.

FUNNIEST AD: Hummer (Monster) - This was one of only 3 ads that had in my opinion the level of twisted humor one expects in the Superbowl of Ads. I actually think extreme Kudos go to the people at Hummer who produced an ad that was incredibly bizzare, roll on the floor laugh out loud funny, edgy and somewhat distasteful, and yet completely clean enough to get pass the ad Nazi's.



MOST MOVING AD: Dove (Beauty) - As a husband and father of two girls I think that there is a real need for us as a culture to recapture the true beauty of girls and women. Our over sexualized girls had made young women feel unworthy of the over produced under real stars of film, televion, and internet pronography. A company embracing reedeming this trend in my opinion is a goal worthy of praise.



BEST OVERALL MARKETING: Go Daddy (Offer) - After all the controversy and stink made over the 2005 Godaddy ad I think they made a perfect PR decision to make a spectacle of their efforts to get an "approved ad" for this year's superbowl. Press Releases, Web Only versions, and lots of commentary on the process made Go Daddy's ad not about the actual content of the ad, but instead about the journey to get the ad there. This could be the only company in the whole bunch that got their 1/4 of millions worth.

BEST OVERALL AD: United (Dragon) - Craig Frazier's animation first caught my eye with his piece "Pipe Dream" shown inflight on a United trip I took. He does the cover art for Hemisphere the inflight magazine and I assume he directed the animation on this wonderful story of childhood imagination and the world of a global business market. This ad deserves recoginition for the wonderful piece of art that was.




A Few Dis-Honorable Mentions:

Ok, That was Funny? - Michelob (Open) - Wow that was weird!
What? - Motorola (Pebble) - Asteroids and cell phones... yeah that makes sense...
P.S. Until you get us the new MotoQ nobody cares about any new prodcuts you've got!!!
Disturbing Usage of A Muppett - Ford (Kermit Ad) - No!!!!!!!!!!!!!