Great Video

I love this video and the respect he commands.

Batter Blaster

How is it that I've only just heard about this today? I'm going to stop and pick some up on the way home tonight! Thanks to Seth Godin I came across it today.

Vacationing

I've been Virginia for the past week. My family makes an annual pilgrimage to the east coast to visit family. We are history family, always interested and investigating the history of the areas that we visit. This year we made it to Gettysburg. Wow, what a place and what a visitor center! They have truly done it up right. It is just over 146 years since the great battle took place. It seemed rather poetic that it rained most of the day we were there, a rain that is both gloomy and cleansing. It reminded me of my youth living in the mid-west. When the rains would come they would bring a melancholy, but they would also bring nourishment to the ground. The same seemed true at Gettysburg. We visited the 20th Maine monument on little round top. It was a meaningful place for me having seen the most recent Gettysburg movie. Orders were given to hold the line there at all costs. With great tenacity and ingenuity the line was held. Gettysburg became the turning point in the Civil War, even though it cost more than 6000 American lives, plus wounded.


It is important to me to visit these sacred places of our collective history and to pay honor to those who served and died there. In the place where Abraham Lincoln gave his Address there is a great monument. Surrounding the monument are the grave markers of many of those who died at Gettysburg. They are laid out in a half-round facing the place of the speech. I could almost hear Lincoln consoling a nation and the dead giving their attention.

Throughout the bible we are told to remember, both what God has done and what those who came before have done. Remembrance is an important thing - for we remember the good AND the bad of the past. It is not just the history of our nation that we need to remember, but also the our personal histories as well. All aspects of our history need to be addressed if we are truly to be healed. After all we do serve the God of the wound. Jesus is the God who took the pain of the world and transformed it instead of transmitting it. Jesus, naked and battered on the cross, is the one who said "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." The God of all creation does not throw the anger, fear, and hatred of the world back at the world, but instead transforms it by His love. Even more than that, he calls us to follow in his way. As we learn by following in His way we become able to transform the pain and brokeness of our own lives into love and compassion for all of God's creation.

Penn Jillette

My favorite magician / illusionists / pain in the butt recalls a recent interaction with someone who was telling him about Jesus. (HT: Bob Hyatt)

A Couple of Weeks With Britekite

OK, it's been a couple of weeks playing with Brightkite. I thinks its a pretty cool and app and from what I can tell it seems to have a strong devo group working on it. If social-networking is in it infancy, then location-based social-network is still in the zygotic stage. Loopt seems to have made big inroads with the iPhone crowd, that they are a selling point in the Apple's new commericials shows which basket they are putting their eggs. Back to Brightkite: a cool app and lots of potential. I like the idea of being able to see not only who is near me at any given time, but also what is happening around me, events and other stuff. The challenge that I see with BK, like all such apps, is the user base. The user base with all such apps will always have resistence from "Digital Immigrants" but will grow exponentially with "digital natives". Right now, BK simply doesn't have a great user base here is Los Angeles. Perahps it will grow, and I'll continue to work with it for a while, but right now I'm not getting too much out of it. In fact, the only comments I've gotten so far is from by Facebook community asking "Dude why are you always telling us where you are?!?!?" For the mean time, I'll take updates off from Twitter and FB.
Note to BK develpment team: keep it up and get the G1 port completed!

BrightKite

I've been playing with the website for a week or so now. I'll write a full review next week. They've ported it the iPhone with plans to port to Android (G1) soon. It has a lot of potential, but like all social networking sites it all depends on the # of users to be useful.

Brightkite for the iPhone from Brightkite on Vimeo.

Google's New Phone

T-Mobile G1 Android Walkthrough from Gizmodo on Vimeo.I'm thinking about making the switch.

The 'Stache is Where it at!

Enjoy the next two minutes.


Wicked Mustaches from kevin ely on Vimeo.

(ht: Tony Steward)

Spam, Bac'n, and email Oh My!

We've all started to get it. Now it has a name. Every day I get a facebook or myspace friend request. Linkedin does it too. These are the notification that you get that you want to read, but not any time soon. They are call Bac'n. When they came once in while, it was not problem, just like a piece of real bacon. Once in a while is not bad, but 4-5 slices a day will soon clog your arteries. The same is true for Bac'n on line. Looks like its time to start another email filter. Here's a related story.

Billy Graham at TED

I watched this today. It was Billy Graham speaking at TED in 1998. All I can say is that I love Billy Graham. Now I must say that I am not found, nor have I ever been, of the giant-event-driven concept of evangelism. It's never been my thing, even though my kids participated in the last Billy Graham Crusade at the Rose Bowl a few years ago.

What I loved about this video was the way in which this elder statesman can enter into a realm that he has very little contact with and talk to a potentially hostile crowd just like he was talking with them over tea sitting on his porch in North Carolina. Simply amazing the way he is able to adapt and speak the gospel in so many places.

Wedneday afternoon diversion

Here is a fun time-waster!
This one is my favorite. Look at the dot in the center and move your head forward and back.`

I'm In Geek Heaven!

My friend Shawna just sent this to me. There is going to be a nationwide one-day re-release of the 1983 classic movie War Games. I can't begin to tell you how excited this makes me. I was in high school when this came, it was the beginning of the personal computer revolution and Apple still had the lead. I must have seen this movie a dozen times when it first came out. I used to have much of the dialog memorized (I've forgotten most of it by now). I love this moved. I knew a lot of guys who where like the two main geeks in the movie and all of my geek friends lusted after and Imsai computer. But I digress. War Games came out during the height of the Cold War and scared the carp out of a lot of us: it might be that our own wost enemy was us (thanks Pogo). But that is not what I loved about the movie. Sure it is a bit cheesey, but the "geek-kid beats the government system by calling the jaded old-guy to action" was a powerful message to my adolescent mind...and still is today. So, if you have a chance go and see this movie (and try not to laugh too hard at me for loving it!).

Let's play Global Thermonuclear War.
Wouldn't you like a nice game of chess?

Another Church Attacked!

Another church in Sri Lanka has been attacked by a mob led by Buddhist monks. Pray for the safety and strength of the churches in Sri Lanka. This is not the first time. There has been an on going and systematic persecution of church in Sri Lanka for many years. More pictures are available here.
This post is not done to inflame anger against anyone, but rather is a call to prayer and a fuller living of the Gospel where ever we find ourselves.

New Member on the Blogroll

I've added a new member to my Blogroll. His name is Pete Wilson (no not the former Governor of California!).I've been reading his blog on an off for a while. I first came across it because he posts regularly at Ragamuffinsoul for Creative Chaos. Make sure to check out his blog! It's very stimulating, plus Pete is now the unofficial pastor to Poison!

Creative Chaos 15

Here's my entry for this week of Creative Chaos. It is a flyer I put together for our Motown Worship night. We are taking a bunch of old Motown songs, redoing them ever so slightly, and inviting our community in to hear and have a great time.

Time for a Good Laugh

OK, this is worth it for a good laugh.

Thanks Los!

Common Craft on Social Media

Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo. This new video from Common Craft is a must see. Many of you have been asking about Twitter and other social networking tools. This video is worth watching to get the idea. (HT: BA).

Creative Chaos 14

Here is my entry for this week's Creative Chaos over at Ragamuffinsoul.com
The first Sunday of each June we call Celebration Sunday. It is a time of reflecting back on and celebrating what God has done in the life of our church: physical and relational healing, salvation, marriages, births, and more. It is also the anniversary of our senior pastor and his wife coming to the church, 24 years this year! A collage artist in our congregation, Kari Bower, creates a collage for this event each year. This year I shot a time lapse video of Kari making the collage.

Creative Chaos

It's been a busy month around here, so I haven't had much time to participate in Creative Chaos at Ragamuffinsoul for a while. But, here is the video we showed for Mothers Day. We posted these online so that our dads could have them printed out and framed for the moms.

The Internet and the Computers

The other day I was working on my computer and my internet connection went down. Periodically I have to reset my DSL modem. I don't know if my provider has a time restriction or something, but this happens, only this time it took a while to reconnect. What I found was that my computer was pretty useless. Sure, I could still defrag my hard drive or play solitare, but without my connection to the internet there wasn't a lot I could do with my computer. This is due, in part, to the fact that I blog, I Twitter, I'm on Facebook, and more, not to mention email, online videos, etc. etc. etc. Being disconnected from the internet was an unsettling experience.

In John chapter 15 Jesus gives part of this farewell address to his disciples. Jesus is the master story teller. He consistently framed the truths of God in a fashion that his listeners would understand. He consistently contextualized the message of God for his hearers. That is what he did with the parables. That is what he did with his scripture quotations. That is what he did when he spoke personally to various people. When we spoke to the first disciples he told them he would make them fishers of men, but he did not say that to everyone. He did not tell Zacheous the tax collector that he was going to make him a collector of men. Instead, Jesus' message to him was that he needed to stay with Zacheous and eat at his house.

Hence, my thinking about computers, the internet, and John 15. In this chapter Jesus tells his disciples (his closest friends) that if they(the branches) are not connected to him (the vine) they cannot bear fruit(do anything eternal). In our context it would be safe to say that if we(computers) are connected to Jesus(the internet) then we cannot doing anything beyond the walls of the room we are in. Jesus goes on to say that if we abide in him, stay connected, then we he will abide in us. Furthermore if we are connected to him we are connected to each other. I've really come to love Twitter and other social networking sites. Through Twitter, blogging, and more I have made friends, learned, and grown in ways that I never could have if I was not connected to the internet. Being connected to the internet has allowed me to be connected to others and to learn from them, build friendships with them, be challenged and encouraged by them. The same is true as I have been connected to Jesus. In being connected with Jesus I am also connected with others who are connected to him and that has made all the difference in my life.
I don't want to push this metaphor too far or it will break down. My point here is that being a follower a Jesus, a Christian, member of a church, or whatever descriptor you would like to use, opens us up to a reality greater than we could ever imagine. Being connected to Jesus means, well, being connected to Jesus. But it means more than that. It also means being connected to each other.