Friday, October 31, 2008

What Should I Do? Stay in the Ministry or HEAD FOR HOLLYWOOD?

I have been contacted by Disney for a new movie. To convince me to leave the ministry and head to Hollywood, they sent me a computer-generated "concept" video of the film they want me to star in. With the success of High School Musical 3 they are expanding the franchise to a new film due out in 2010 for an older demographic. It wil be Nursing Home Musical starring me and Dancing with the Stars sensation, Cloris Leachman! I'll let you know when the film's release date is. Let me know what you think my next move should be! Click below...but it might not be pretty!


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How I've Felt Lately!

One day I'll write a book about excuses for why I don't blog more often. For now, this video will have to do. My unofficial title is, "how I sometimes feel when I have too many things to do, and too little time to do them!" WARNING: Tell small children that this is not real and that "Mr. Andy" was NOT harmed in the filming of this video!!!!!

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One last thing...scroll down!













Guess what the monster said at the end? "Hmmm....that sure tasted FUNNY!"

A Break From the "Normal" Negative Political Ads!

Need a different kind of candidate? Check this out....

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DON'T FORGET TO VOTE THIS COMING TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4TH.
A lot of people throughout our history died to protect our freedom, including our freedom to vote!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Catalyst Round-Up

For the second year in a row, I snuck in to the Catalyst leadership conference last week. It's a leadership conference for those in their 20's and 30's, but they let some "gray hairs" from time to time. I go because of the wide variety of speakers they have, their innovative "extra" things they do, and because I enjoy it. To show you how strange this conference is, let's start with a mystery. What is this? The answer will be at the end of the post!





The theme was simple: TOGETHER. It focused on how we can do more together than separately. Over 50 denominations were present. The unofficial theme I saw was: generosity is powerful!

Highlights included:
Dave Ramsey, the Christian financial guru, who told us not to panic in the economy. He said that if we live by God's financial practices (i.e. avoid debt, don't love money, don't be afraid, and be wise AND generous), we may seem "weird" during times of prosperity, but now we seem very wise during times when the bottom falls out! He also spoke on the five enemies of unity in a church or organization:
  1. Poor communication
  2. Gossip
  3. Unresolved disagreements
  4. Lack of shared purpose
  5. Sanctioned incompetence
You can read more about it at this blog: http://www.chrismartin.tv/catalyst-2008-together-day-2-dave-ramsey/

Most churches are plagued by these "enemies." My ears perked up, though, when he talked about how intolerant he is about gossip. In his company, an employee is told upon hiring, "You'll be warned once if you are caught gossiping (i.e. talking about a negative situation to someone who can do nothing about their problem), and then you will be fired." Pretty clear-cut isn't it? The other thing was how churches handicap themselves when someone is not doing well in a position and we ignore it out of fear of hurting feelings. It always amazes me how people will opt for decades of talking badly about people behind their backs about their performance but will avoid helping them to grow out of this fear of hurting feelings.

Other highlights included Jeff Foxworthy and the Daraja Children's Choir of Africa (http://www.410bridge.org/daraja/). Jeff shared his testimony about how his involvement with the 410 Bridge organization and his experience in Kenya has broadened his view of God's work on the planet. It was excellent and to hear those children sing with such passion was great, too. Here's a video clip from the choir's website:



There was a tribute to Billy Graham, and Franklin spoke. Our church does Christmas shoeboxes through Samaritan's Purse, so it was good to hear a young lady's testimony who grew up in Bosnia, and was saved through receiving a shoebox and hearing the gospel.

Samaritan's Purse had a tent out front where we put together shoeboxes, and I also toured their disaster relief trailer since so many folks in my church are involved in it.

On the fun side, one of the object lessons had to do with the mystery picture above. That's a close up of FLOAM. They gave each of us (12,000) a piece of floam at registration and we were told to pass it down from the back attaching our piece to the growing wad...here is the final result....the lesson...we can do more together than by ourselves! Go have a great day!




I Like Living in a Small Town

Denmark has about 3,000 people....hmmmm, I wonder what it would be like if everyone in Denmark went to a wave pool. Maybe something like this...


Seems a little "too close for comfort" if you ask me!

Can Anyone Explain This

This illusion was part of America's Got Talent competition! Can you figure it out?

Thursday, October 16, 2008

How Do They Do This?

This video seemed innocent enough, but the ending surprised me. How did they do that? Go ahead, it takes 58 seconds...and my score was in the 2% abnormal range! Big surprise!


Test Your Mind..what Kind Of Person Are You? - Celebrity bloopers here

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Thanks for Your Patience

Once again I've been negligent in my blogging. I've been busy as usual (who isn't these days?), but that's not a really great excuse. The last two weeks have, as usual, been filled with significance... there have been the struggles of individual church members that are too private to blog about, and my our "Come Thirsty" series on Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings, which have yielded some great sharing times about God's provisions for our living a truly "significant" and "spiritual" and "abundant" life.

In a time of economic upheaval in our nation (and the world), it's been good to be reminded that there really is a well that never runs dry! This week I'll be attending a conference that promises to be a well of encouragement. It's called the "Catalyst Conference," and focuses on equipping and encouraging church leaders. I attended last year and was very "refreshed" by the end of it, and am looking forward to this year's conference. I'm sure I'll have some blogworthy news soon!

Until then....here's a new "demotivator" poster that I thought a bit "too" insightful!