Reaching out through Pop Culture

Our Church does a tremendous job reaching out and one of they ways that they do this is through Pop Culture. I recently read a book by Tim Stevens, Executive Pastor of Granger Community Church title Pop Goes the Church. In this book Tim talks about how Jesus used the pop culture of his time to relate to the people around Him and teach the Good News. Tim uses these founding principles to explain how today's modern Church needs to continue reaching the world through pop culture instead bashing pop culture. Tim maintains a very interesting and up-to-date blog, worth checking out: http://www.leadingsmart.com

Leveraging today's pop culture and the popularity of movies our Church does an annual series entitled "God at the Movies" and before a sermon, which used the movie Enchanted they played the below video. All I can say is that we have the most talented and best production team, who used a green screen to film this intro - it is hilarious. The stars are from our Pastoral team and church. The guy in the headphones is our teaching Pastor. This vid is well worth a couple of minutes to watch, enjoy.

Go Green - Get Cash for those old Gadgets

Go Green and get rid of all those old gadgets hanging around the house. http://www.gazelle.com promises to

"...provide an easy, fast, and safe way for you to sell electronics and recycle electronics. When you sell cell phones, mp3 players, laptops, or other gadgets to us, you'll earn cash and help save the environment by keeping old, used gadgets out of landfills. You get green while being green! The bottom line is you want to sell electronics and we want to buy electronics.
A perfect match!"

Even if you have an old gadget, that is broken,
outdated, or you just plain want to get rid of it this
site may NOT pay you money for it but they will still
take the device and they WILL pay for shipping.

What a Deal!

Summer Fun

Katie and Kassie had sooooo much fun at VBS this year and the final presentation for the parents was amazing. It wasn't amazing because of the production value (although you could see how hard those kids worked), of for the wonderful venue, or even for the professional singer brought in to lead the kids in music. It was amazing to see all of these kids so fired up for Christ. There was a ton of energy in the room and like I said before, VBS has a lot of special memories for me.

The fund raiser this year was for a couple and their family, who decided to give up everything they have here, and become missionaries to the kids in Cabo San Lucas. They needed $6000.00 to build a house and the kids brought in more than $8000.00 after the final count - just amazing.

Will Humans Eat Anything Covered in Cheese?

When checking out one of the many blogs I subscribe too, Stuff Christians Like Prodigal Jon had a post about Jessic Simpson. In his blog he talks about Jessica Simpson coming back to Christian music and uses scientific analysis to answer the question, "Should we take her back?" In the blog entry he talks about Jessic's Pizza Hut commercial and refers to a comedy clip (below) that he ran across. Most notable quotes from the clip: "Humans have a genetic predisposition to eat unhealthy foods from other unhealthier foods." and Prodigal Jon's "Best line of the whole piece was "Dr. Moore said he initially had moral issues with conducting the tests on humans but has since come to see the subjects as quote 'cheese and sauce consuming beasts.'"

The Liberal Brain

Saw this pic and thought that it was rather funny but someone spent way to much time and thought putting it together. Notice the global warming panic center and the raise taxes reflex center? Put these into proportion to say, the sense of humor cell.

Happy 45th Wedding Anniversary Mom and Dad

Wow 45 years of marriage! Today is my parents 45th wedding anniversary (the year of the sapphire) and I am so proud of the incredible family foundation my parent's have built and continue to maintain year after year. When I was younger my Grandparents seemed to be that central hub the family revolved around but since my Grandmother passed away my parents have silently, yet willingly, excepted the responsibility of always being there when needed.

As a son who appreciates the warmth, love, humor (check out my Dad's face in the pic), loyalty, and the list of attributes goes on, there is nothing more comforting (even for an adult son) than to see the love and caring shared between your parents.

Dad, just in case you needed to know,">According to Wikipedia, "Sapphire is any gemstone-quality corundum that is not true red. (The red variety of corundum is also known as ruby.)" :-0 I thought you would like to know that Scoring 9 out of 10 on the Mohs scale, sapphires are second only to diamonds in hardness, and they're out of most people's price range for 45th anniversary gifts, so take the money and buy Mom a tank of gas instead!

Summer Blast

For the first year my two youngest will be attending Vacation Bible School for the first time. Shadow Mountain is doing their Summer Blast program starting tomorrow and both Katie and Kassie are looking forward to going. It is hard to believe that we are already past the midway point of the summer season, with the month of August looming on the horizon.

As I kid I remember the summers and how they seemed to stretch on forever - when you grow up on a working farm that is self-reliant there is a tremendous amount of work to do, even more when there is no school. I do miss haying season sometimes, not for the hard work, sweat, being covered in hay chaff, or forearms that looked like they went through cheese graters but for the bonding. Not too mention the self-sense of pride of being able to work a 14 hour day slinging hay and feeling good at the end knowing that I accomplished something. Or maybe it was for those late night dips in the lake to cool off before going to bed.

VBS has a special place in my life as I spent several summers attending VBS and in the summer of 1977 I became saved. I still carry my VBS card, from that year, in my Bible - My 'Stand-up and Shout' card.

Video Games

Last night at our small group study a couple of us guys had a talk about video games and the addictive nature of them. Today my wife, while looking through the fliers, found an ad for a t-shirt (pic on the right). The small print reads, "It was the worst 15 minutes of my life!" There are so many studies and surveys done about gaming and to the left is survey from the AP that shows an amazing 69% of American heads of households who play computer games. Wow! WebMD has a great article about the whole video game phenomenon: http://www.webmd.com/content/article/124/115554.

I have never been much of a gamer but there was a time when my son and I would play hours of the original Command and Conquer game. Now I have more fun building operating systems and scouring the net for the latest technology advances, which can be quite addictive as well. My son still games on a regular and consistent basis that at times seems to interfere with his life. The Bottom line is that there are a lot of theories and speculation on why one becomes addicted but medical science still is wondering about the why and how to cure the obsessive gamer.

House Hunting

To the right is a picture of one of the houses that Jenny and I made an offer on. With the housing market pummetting, lenders scrambling to keep people from forfeiting, and interests rates still halfway decent we have decided to start actively finding a home. This home is now bank owned (by indy mac) and is being offered well below market value. It is in a nice part of town and there are no neighbors across the street, or to the right of us. Very nice for a San Diego suburb. We have been comfortable renters for years, especially since the housing market has been so costly for a single income family and the one upside to renting is that the cost of any major repair goes to the owner.

Let's beat constipation

Wow - now I have seen everything. On occasion I check out various news sources that basically create an aggregate of stories in one place to save me from having to go to a bunch of different sites to see what's going on in the world (e.g. http://www.drudgereport.com). One of my favorite sites that I subscribe to is NEWS of the WEIRD (http://www.newsoftheweird.com/) where the motto is, "Proof that true stories are weirder than made-up stories." Proof of this is in the below summation from a News article that ran, not only on CNN but on AP, BBC, and most of the major outlets.

* Dozens of spas operate in Russia's Caucasus Mountains region, exploiting the mineral springs in the area, and apparently colonic treatment is a specialty. In fact, in June, the Mashuk-Akva Term spa in Zheleznovodsk unveiled a large monument to the enema (an 800-lb. brass syringe bulb held aloft by three angels). "Let's beat constipation," read one banner. Said the sculptor, "This device is eternal; it will never change. We could promote this brand, turn it into a franchise with souvenirs and awards for medical doctors." [CNN-AP, 6-19-08]

Legoland

What a great week we have had - it started out with a decision to just take a mini-vacation this year and do something local. We were really bummed not to make it back to Maine but the rising cost of air fares is just to prohibitive. It has been more than a year since we were last at Legoland and my youngest is now tall enough to do most of the rides and attractions. We treated ourselves to three days at the Legoland resort in Carlsbad. This is a very new hotel, which opened earlier this year and is probably one of the nicer hotels I have ever stayed in. One of the perks of staying here is that the hotel has its own private entrance to Legoland! It was a wonderful three days of just hanging out with the family, enjoying some entertainment, spending time relaxing, some good eating, and even some reading.

We finished the week off watching the El Cajon Fireworks show with family and a couple of friends. Of course, after the long week, both of my girls were pretty tired by the time the fireworks started and were more interested in going home than the show.

After severing in the military for almost 24 years holidays, like the 4th of July, hold a special meaning, as I have been at the 'Tip of the Spear' forward deployed, defending our freedom, like so many young men and women are still doing today. I am proud to have served but even prouder of those who are still serving and sacrificing so much that I am able to retire and enjoy the freedom they provide for us all.

Below are two items I have posted from the vacation, the top is a link to my online photo album with a few pictures from the vacation. The below that is a short (~30 sec) video of Kassie's first driving experience. That girl sure did have the look of concentration and was very competitive!

Legoland

Summer is Here!

This morning while getting some breakfast for the family I was listening to a local radio show talking about the more than one million folks who will be visiting San Diego beaches this 4th of July weekend.  During the dialogue the DJs starting talking about sunscreens and a new study that has come out from the Environmental Working Group stating that 4 out 5 sunscreens do not work as expected.  Living in San Diego and the sun my wife always has sunscreen on hand, it is just a way of life, and most of the things in the study she knew but we were still amazed by the fact that the brands we use were way down on the list (#159).  To check out the study go to this link: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/special/sunscreens2008/summary.php.  Along the top navigation bar you can also click on find your sunscreen to see where your sunscreen ranks.

Hayes Gray and Underway

Wow - after 24 years of being in the Navy and serving in various capacities, including four shipboard deployments, has given me a great respect for the sailors that deploy onboard US Navy ships.  I recently spent 12 days underway on the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD6), http://www.lhd6.navy.mil/. However, the difference this time is that I am now retired, and went as a civilian.  It brought back a lot of memories and gave me an opportunity to share some 'sea' stories with some of the younger sailors.  I do not miss the shipboard life though, even with today's standards and advances in technology, it is still challenging to communicate (on a regular basis) with loved ones.  There is email and they do have the ability to place phone calls underway (when the system is up), which is much better than the 'snail' mail (a.k.a letters) of my generation.

If you are interested in seeing a few more photos from the trip click on this link