A funny political ad

I laughed out loud.

AK-47

My friend Chris is in the Middle East. His posts are good to read. His last one is a prayer that he would be able to "empty the clip of an AK-47". I thought I'd share it with you. Enjoy.

Link

Eikon's Blog

The community I lead in tulsa now has a blog.
You can check it out here.

or

http://eikontulsa.blogspot.com/

Your Story

Everyone has a story. Our stories are connected to each other. Our stories are connected to folks we find in scripture. They lived into their story. It's really all the same story with God. Under the same sun, on the same earth. A continuous journey of days one after the other connect us to David, Paul, Peter, Isaiah and Ruth. Their story is somehow our story as well. We find ourselves in their story with God.

Are you living a story worthy of telling? or are you playing it safe? Keeping your cards close to your vest? Take a chance.

Imagine that one day in the future as an old man or woman you will have an audience of friends and family sitting around you. What stories will you tell?

It means sometimes you have to Jump, before you have all the facts.
It means sometimes you have to ask a question that makes you uncomfortable.
It means sometimes you have to step in, when no one else seems to be.
It meas risk, danger, adrenaline, it means overcoming fear, and it means faith.

Live your story and others will see it.

More than I can do today

Blogging has been lite because I've got more to do than I have time in the day.
So here's what I'm listening to today.

Gnarls Barkley - Going On
Alanis Moressette - Flavors of Entanglement
Weezer - Pork and Beans
Khrusty Brothers - the album
Jon Foreman- Season's albums

Water

Thanks to Kyle

The Dark Knight

Saw Batman last night.
Lucked into a ticket. Thanks Blake!
Completely worth seeing more than once in a theater.
Heath Ledger carries the movie to me. Everyone else does an above average job, Heath was mezmerising. A performance in the same league as villians like claudias in Gladiator or Deniro in Heat.

When he's on the screen, you can't wait to see what he's going to do.

It was a well written movie. Well shot.

Good luck getting a seat at a big theater this weekend.
My favorite theater was sold out thru Sunday Friday at 6pm (with only 40 seats left on sunday).

I'm not a movie reviewr, so I won't go on. But it's worth seeing. more than once.

15 years today

Today is Pam and my 15th wedding anniversary. 15 years! wow! It's been a great journey and I feel like I'm just getting to know her. Three amazing kids to boot!



Pam I love you!

Church Basement Roadshow

The Church Basement Roadshow is coming to Tulsa this Tuesday (July 15) at Braden Baptist Church at 7:00 pm.

The Roadshow appears to be a cross between a book tour and period theater for the three 'players' - Pagitt, Jones and Scandrette.

Everyone is welcome to join us to experience, share and connect. There's a $10 suggested donation.

Almost here

Teen Gun give-a-way at Church Cancelled

Here's the text:

OKLAHOMA CITY -- An Oklahoma church canceled a controversial gun giveaway for teenagers at a weekend youth conference.

Windsor Hills Baptist had planned to give away a semiautomatic assault rifle until one of the event's organizers was unable to attend.

The church’s youth pastor, Bob Ross, said it’s a way of trying to encourage young people to attend the event. The church expected hundreds of teenagers from as far away as Canada.

“We have 21 hours of preaching and teaching throughout the week,” Ross said.

A video on the church Web site shows the shooting competition from last year’s conference. A gun giveaway was part of the event last year. This year, organizers included it in their marketing.

“I don’t want people thinking ‘My goodness, we’re putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn’t respect it who are then going to go out and kill,'” said Ross. “That’s not at all what we’re trying to do.”

Ross said the conference isn’t all about guns, but rather about teens finding faith.

“You make a lot of new friends down here,” said Vikki Goncharenko, who attended the conference. “You get to meet new people. There's a bunch of things that are going on. It's just, you have a wonderful time.”

Friday evening, Ross said the gun giveaway had been canceled. Pastor emeritus Jim Vineyard, who ran the event, injured his foot and wouldn’t be able to attend. The gun giveaway was also removed from the church Web site.

Ross said the church would give the gun away next year instead. He said the church spent $800 buying the gun for the promotion.

Cancelled? Come on! How could someone get upset with this? I mean don't semi-automatic assault rifles and Jesus go hand in hand?

Link

Naked Pastor on Fatigue

Money Quote:

Years ago I read a book by Easum and Bandy called Growing Spiritual Redwoods. I don’t recall anything else about the book except one declaration that the future church would not support codependent relationships. I remember how radical and dangerous an idea that was because that would pretty much empty most churches. Imagine if you stopped supporting codependence in all your relationships. Do you wonder how lonely you’d become? Most of what we do is fulfill other’s expectations of us. We grant other’s their desires.

Link

read it and let me know what you think?

God's Children - McCain

Still more thoughts on T Boone's idea

I'm a bit intrigued by something over the past few days.

Very few people are talking about it. T. Boone is talking about it. a lot. the guy is everywhere. on all the stations. but i haven't heard any commentary, real commentary on it. obama, mccain, and all the other politicians are all silent.

crickets.

even the radio folks seem to be silent.
it may be that i just haven't been listening well.

but the most interesting thing about this, aside from a business man fronting the money, time, resources into almost single handedly turning the us toward a new energy in a significant way, is that it is as if no one knows what to do about it.

no one really knows if T Boone is right. or wrong. or how right and how wrong.

am i missing something?

Isn't this the kind of thing environmentalists have been talking about?
Isn't this an answer to both the right and the left?

I'm guessing the "wind lobby" isn't too strong, (again i could be wrong) so the presidential candidates may be left wondering if they should support it or not.

i'm certain that people will find holes in it soon. probably in the next couple days.
we'll see the people really interested in getting us off foreign oil, and those intrested in oil. there will be naysayers etc.

but right now, it's as if the world doesn't know what it should believe about this idea....

to me... that's fascinating.

More on T. Boone's Plan

I confess I know little about the systemic implications of his plan. I'm sure he'll benefit from it. I'd love to hear your thoughts and incite. Here's more on his plan.

Photo in need of a caption

Post your caption in the comments.

I dig this

Fredrick Buechner on Patriotism

I read this Sunday night and thought I'd share it with you. Tell me what you think.
All "isms" run out in the end, and good riddance to most of them. Patriotism for example.
If patriots are people who stand by their country right or wrong, Germans who stood by Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich should be adequate proof that we've had enough of them.
If patriots are people who believe not only that anything they consider unpatriotic is wrong but that anything they consider wrong is unpatriotic, the late Senator Joseph McCarthy and his backers should be enough to make us avoid them like the plague.
If patriots are people who believe things like "Better Dead Than Red," they should be shown filmsof Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively and then be taken off to the funny farm.
The only patriots worth their salt are the ones who love their country enought to see that in a nuclear age it is not going to survive unless the world survives. True patriots are no longer champions of Democracy, Communism, or anything like that but champions of the Human Race. It is not the Homeland that they feel called on to defend at any cost, but the planet Earth as Home. If in the interests of making sure we don't blow ourselves off the map one and for all, we end up relinquishing a measure of national sovereignty to some international body, so much the worse for national sovereignty.
There is only one Sovereignty that matters ultimately, and it is of another sort altogether.

Brandon Grissom

If you haven't heard of Brandon Grissom, it's time for you to pay attention. He's a good friend, musician, song writer, worship leader and pastor in Chicago. (On loan from Oklahoma.)

Check this video out and then go buy his album on iTunes.

Book Cover

I'm pretty stoked about the final book cover for "Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors"
Due January 09.

Make a mental note that your pastor and youth pastor need one of these for 2009.