Okay, so this has absolutely nothing to do with postmodern Christianity, but good lord… How awesome would it be to have an invisibility cloak? Sorry, I couldn’t help myself… everybody needs one of these.
My wife and I have been slaving away in the backyard of our new rented home for the last few weeks and now that sod and pavers are laid, it’s time for us to quickly get our raised bed garden planted before the springtime planting window escapes us. With that in mind I’ve been ripe with anticipation to reap the benefits of my home garden and have begun dreaming of the meals and dishes I plan to make with it.
Our buddies over at Church Marketing Labs (aka Church Marketing Sucks) have dug up a super neat-o presentation on mixing business and ministry. The CEO of Kanakuk Kamps has posted an interesting presentation on achieving the proper balance between non-profit servitude and tough business moxy.
Good God I’m starting to sound like some bleeding heart liberal tree hugger but damn it if sometimes they just make sense! Today I came across the web site called The Story of Stuff. Annie Leanord lays it all out and draws a very compelling picture of the state of consumerism and the world we live in. This is definitely worth a watch.
What’s better than hypermiling? What’s more fuel efficient than driving a gas/electric hybrid? How about a gas/human hybrid! That’s right folks, I’m building a gas power assisted bicycle to drag me along on my 10 mile daily commute. I’ve been hypermiling in the Four Runner these days and I have the MPG up to about 34 miles per gallon. But, for a $10 broken weedeater and a few miscellaneous parts from the local hardware store, I’ll be getting closer to 150+MPG in the very near future.
So, as many of you may have noticed lately I’ve been on somewhat of an environmentalist tear, ranting and raving about waste, consumerism, and green issues. The reason of course is because I love where I live, the earth. It’s awesome! God made it. It’s awesome. Did I mention it’s awesome? So anyway, when I read things that make sense from a “hey let’s use less and preserve God’s artwork for our kid’s kids to see” I like to point them out and if possible relate it to how we function as a church and how this makes use more relevant and credible to the rest of the world.
Church Marketing Sucks made an excellent point today that just because you’re a small church and light on cash doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to use technology to your advantage. There are a ton of free tools out there to help you run your web site and online marketing campaigns. I think though, that the question should also be asked; do big churches use expensive technology just because they have the money, or do the pay-for software tools actually work better than their open source counterparts? I’m not convinced.
In a recent post by Brian Jones titled “Should An Openly Homosexual Person Be Baptized? – Questions About Homosexuality (Part 3)
” he poses some difficult questions that the church has struggled with and continues to struggle. It amazes me how we respond to various types of sin and implement our own punishment on people, and then return home to our own well cared for basket of filth, acting like we’re so much better. He speaks of pastors who will refuse to baptize an openly gay person and compares that to refusing to baptize a smoker, drunk, obese, or otherwise enslaved person who although they feel their behavior is wrong, they still fall into regular patterns of misbehavior. Do we treat them the same way?
