December 2011
21 posts
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Minding the Edge What I learned about leadership...
Those who are versed in the age old art of shaving with a straight razor are well acquainted with a common and necessary practice known as stropping. One takes one’s razor and runs it spine first along a taut piece of leather (prior to and immediately following a shave) because the very fine edge of the razor needs to be realigned at a very minute level, so that one can avoid cuts and get the...
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Ecclesiastes 3.1-13: An exposition on divine...
In Ecclesiastes 3.1-13 the Teacher declares: 1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: 2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, 5 a time to...
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My Top Ten Reads of 2011
10. The Paraclete Psalter: A Four-Week Cycle for Daily Prayer 9. Common Prayer Pocket Edition: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals 8. The Pastor: A Memoir by Eugene Peterson 7. Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire by William Cavanaugh 6. The Sound of Hope: Learning to Live in the Promises of God by Ed Love 5. Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its...
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My 5 Least Favorite Books of 2011
I read A LOT of books this year. Some were fantastic. Many were mediocre. And, inevitably, some could best be described as “underwhelming.” What follows is a list of the five books that I expected great things from, but in the end was left wanting. 5. The Seraph Seal by Leonard Sweet and Lori Wagner I desparately wanted to like this book. I’ve had class with Len and greatly...
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All I Want For Christmas...
Lately, I’ve been inundated with statements of what my children want for Christmas. Quinton’s three, which means that those statements vary daily, and sometimes from moment to moment. In similar fashion, I’ve found that I’ve been given all manner of suggestions as to what I might want for Christmas each time I tune into the radio or flip on the television for a brief bit...
Early Methodism and a discipleship that works
September 01, 2011 by Charles White John Wesley’s Church Planting Movement: Discipleship That Transformed a Nation and Changed the World When John Wesley was born in 1703, four million out of Britain’s five million people lived in absolute poverty—unless they found enough food for that day, they would begin to starve to death. When John...
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Do your part to kill SOPA
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Straight Razor Shave Kit
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3 Times a Loser: What we can learn from the...
Photo by fireflythegreat Earlier this evening I received a tweet with a link to the Mashable article “13 Tech Companies and Products That Went Under in 2011.” Curiosity aroused, I clicked the link interested to view the carnage that was about to unfold before me. Not surprisingly, Qwikster and the HP Touchpad were among the wreckage. I was shocked, however, to see that almost a...
“Well rounded gives you plenty of opportunities to shore up mediocrity...”
– Seth Godin (via tonysteward)
“Consider any vibrant group - political activists, nonprofit volunteers, or brand...”
– Tribes (Seth Godin)
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Amazon Wireless: A Review
Earlier this year, we were forced to switch phone carriers. Our carrier at that time (Nextel) had splotchy service in our area. While I greatly appreciated their pricing and customer service, at the end of the day, we needed to be able to make and receive calls in the area surrounding our home. For that reason we ended up searching for carriers. We considered switching back to AT&T, but saw...
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Pictures from the York Rescue Mission
See the full gallery on Posterous We spent the day preparing and setting up the new children’s area.
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Do you get the point?
Do you get the point? Or does the point get lost in the details?
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The Christmas Story: as told by children
While looking for a video to share at our mid-week Children’s ministry, I stumbled across this video. Certain aspects of the video are cheesy, but there’s something visually stunning and captivating about this video… The Christmas Story from St Paul’s on Vimeo.
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Sound bite: "dark nights are not problems, but...
One lesson we learn from the ancient mystics is that dark nights are not problems, but opportunities. Grasping this reality moves us beyond the question “How do we fix this?” to the question “What might I learn in this? Chuck DeGroat over at Christianity Today
hope
> **[…] if God’s Spirit is among the people of God, wherever they are (including in congregations), then these are the places where it is possible to incarnate a missional life. As with the struggles of Israel, this kind of missional transformation is costly and requires hard work. > ** Fred Romanuk and Alan Roxburgh, *The Missional Leader (SanFrancisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), 19.
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What are you reading?
Another semester is drawing to a close. That means that I will have greater freedom (for a month or so, at least) to read some of the things that I want to read. With that in mind, I’m looking for some book recommendations. What have you been reading? What ‘must’ read would you recommend? Which of your recent reads did you find to be most thought provoking? Which of your...
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'the Word spoken in Bethlehem echoes...'
That for which we prepare during Advent is not simply ane event that is done and forgotten, relegated to the storybook shelves or the historical archives. Instead, like a wedding vow that is spoken at the altar but resonates throughout the rest of the couple’s lives, the Word spoken in Bethlehem echoes — it literally re-verb-erates — throughout human history and into eternity,...
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The many paradoxes of life and ministry
Life and ministry are full of paradoxes. Judson Edwards, in a refreshingly short and delightfully easy-to-read text, The Leadership Labyrinth, explores just a few. If your a pastor, leader, or an average Joe — you should pick up this book and check it out. It won’t take you long to read, but it will cause you again and again to stop and ponder the paradoxes and what it means to...
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Let's talk money...
In the church when it comes to discussing money, especially the topic of tithing, we tend to do a pretty bad job. We often tend to one of two extremes: we either talk about it all the time (and in a rather obsessive way) or we don’t talk about it at all. The folks at 12Stone Church have taken a slightly different approach. (Don’t believe me? Take a few moments to watch the videos...