The Monday Funday: Bible edition

Every morning when I wake I have about 472 twitters from people I "follow" quoting a bible verse or two that they've read that morning and were kind enough to share with the rest of us.

I like this. In fact I often retweet an inspirational verse or two for my own followers to enjoy with their morning coffee.

But while the Bible is chalk full of awesome inspiration it also contains some other verses that are not so... shall we say "Max Lucado" friendly. For every 10 verses talking about the love of God, there's that one talking about how much the author REALLY enjoys the sight of his wife. The kind of thing that makes grow ups blush and jr highers giggle.

In fact the Bible has all kinds of crazy verses in it. And so today for our Monday Funday lets look at some of the more obscure and hilarious verses in the bible (and ponder maybe how each of these God-breathed nuggets are "useful for teaching and rebuking")

1. Genesis 25:30 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)"He said to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red stuff, because I'm exhausted." "

Sounds more like a quote from the Simpsons than the Bible.Technically this verse labels Esau as the official first redneck (they called him Edom which meant "Red"!)... so I guess the quote makes sense after all....  

2. Proverbs 25:24 says that it is "better to live on the corner of a roof than to share a house with a nagging wife," 

I wonder if the "pain in the butt" connection is actually a coincidence? I'd like to think not.

3. And I'm thinking of using this next method for my kids when they whine...

Numbers 11:18- "And tell the people to purify themselves, for tomorrow they will have meat to eat. Tell them, 'The LORD has heard your whining and complaints: "If only we had meat to eat! Surely we were better off in Egypt!" Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will have to eat it. And it won't be for just a day or two, or for five or ten or even twenty. You will eat it for a whole month until you gag and are sick of it. For you have rejected the LORD, who is here among you, and you have complained to him, "Why did we ever leave Egypt?"

"Whats that Justus? You'd rather eat a Fruit Roll Up than your dinner? Fine have it your way... you'll eat Fruit Roll Ups every meal, every day for a month!" ... hmmm, on second thought I think he just won that battle.

4. 2 Kings 9:20 The lookout reported, "He has reached them, but he isn't coming back either. The driving is like that of Jehu son of Nimshi--he drives like a madman."

Next time you get cut off in traffic roll down your window and tell that jerk he drives like a "Jehu".  Not only will you feel better, but the bewildered look on their face will  make it a double win. (Disclaimer: I'm not responsible if they go all road rage on you and wrap your mini-van around a pole. Use this tip at your own risk.)

5. Here's the international junior high girl verse... Job 13:5 "If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom."

6. And lastly here's one I've actually used:

Proverbs 27:14 "If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse."

 In college we had a guy in our dorm hall named Johnny who we affectionately dubbed "Decibels" since he was indeed the loudest person on the face of the planet.  We posted this verse on his dorm room door. No, it didn't help at all. 

What other verses have you run across that make you smile, laugh or do a double take? Do share and lets all enjoy a little Funday in our Monday!

Monday Funday (Colombus Day edition): The Greatest Accidental Discoveries of All TIme!

In 1492 Columbus set sail to discover the riches is India. His navigational skill were about as good as mine and not surprisingly he got lost.  Unlike me, when he got lost he ended up discovering a new world (I usually only discover new ways to yell at my iPhone's horrible map app).

So In honor of the greatest accidental discovery of all time I decided to list a few other totally awesome accidental discoveries!  Enjoy the day off and have a little "Funday" with your "Monday"!

1. Chocolate Chip Cookies
According to Nestle, Mrs. Wakefield (owner of the Toll House Inn) was making chocolate cookies but ran out of regular baker’s chocolate, so she substituted it with broken pieces of semi-sweet chocolate, thinking that it would melt and mix into the batter. It clearly did not, and the chocolate chip cookie was born. Wakefield sold the recipe to Nestle in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate chips (instead of patenting it and making billions!) Every bag of Nestle chocolate chips in North America has a variation of her original recipe printed on the back (margarine is now included both as a variant on butter and for those people who want to pretend it is healthy).

2. Popsicles
The Popsicle was invented by an 11 year who kept it secret for 18 years. The inventor was Frank Epperson who, in 1905, left a mixture of powdered soda and water out on the porch, which contained a stir stick. That night, temperatures in San Francisco reached a record low. When he woke the next morning, he discovered that it had frozen to the stir stick, creating a fruit flavored ice treat that he humbly named the epsicle. 18 years later he patented it and called it the Popsicle.

3. Microwave
Percy LeBaron Spencer of the Raytheon Company was walking past a radar tube and he noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket melted. Realizing that he might be on to a hot new product placed a small bowl of popcorn in front of the tube and it quickly popped all over the room. Tens of millions of lazy cooks now have him to thank for their dull food!

4. Potato Chips
The first potato chip was invented by George Crum (half American Indian half African American) at Moon’s Lake House near Saratoga Springs, New York, on August 24, 1853. He was fed up with the constant complaints of a customer who kept sending his potatoes back to the kitchen because they were too thick and soggy. Crum decided to slice the potatoes so thin that they couldn’t be eaten with a fork. Against Crum’s expectation, the customer was ecstatic about the new chips. They became a regular item on the lodge’s menu under the name “Saratoga Chips” and a large contributing factor of the Western world’s obesity problems.

5. POST-IT NOTES
The invention of the humble Post-It Note was an accidental collaboration between second-rate science and a frustrated church-goer. In 1970, Spencer Silver, a researcher for the large American corporation 3M, had been trying to formulate a strong adhesive, but ended up only managing to create a very weak glue that could be removed almost effortlessly. He promoted his invention within 3M, but nobody took any notice.
4 years later, Arthur Fry, a 3M colleague and member of his church choir, was irritated by the fact that the slips of paper he placed in his hymnal to mark the pages would usually fall out when the book was opened. One service, he recalled the work of Spencer Silver, leading to an epiphany – the church being a good a place as any to have one, I suppose – and later applied some of Silver’s weak yet non-damaging adhesive to his bookmarks. He found that the little sticky markers worked perfectly, and sold the idea to 3M. Trial marketing began in 1977, and today you’d find it hard to imagine life without them.

6. SUPER GLUE
More sticky stuff, though this one was famous for its high adhesive value, unlike Silver’s Post-It Notes. Superglue came into being in 1942 when Dr Harry Coover was trying to isolate a clear plastic to make precision gun sights for handheld weaponry. For a while he was working with chemicals known as cyanoacrylates, which they soon realized polymerized on contact with moisture, causing all the test materials to bond together. It was obvious that these wouldn’t work, so research moved on.
6 years later, Coover was working in a Tennessee chemical plant and realized the potential of the substance when they were testing the heat resistance of cyanoacrylates, recognizing that the adhesives required neither heat nor pressure to form a strong bond. Thus, after a certain amount of commercial refinement, Superglue (or “Alcohol-Catalyzed Cyanoacrylate Adhesive Composition”, to give it its full name) was born.
It was later used for treating injured soldiers in Vietnam – the adhesive could be sprayed on open wounds, stemming bleeding and allowing easier transportation of soldiers; adding a delicious layer of irony to the story in that a discovery made during an effort to improve the killing potential of guns ended up saving countless lives.

7. Vulcanized Rubber
Charles Goodyear had been waiting years for a happy accident when it finally occurred.
Goodyear spent a decade finding ways to make rubber easier to work with while being resistant to heat and cold. Nothing was having the effect he wanted.
One day he spilled a mixture of rubber, sulfur and lead onto a hot stove. The heat charred the mixture, but didn't ruin it. When Goodyear picked up the accident, he noticed that the mixture had hardened but was still quite usable.
At last! The breakthrough he had been waiting for! His vulcanized rubber is used in everything from tires, to shoes, to hockey pucks.

8.  Pacemaker
This list wouldn't be complete without at least one absent-minded professor. But it's not flubber clocking in at No. 2, it's a life saving medical device. That pacemaker sewn into a loved one's chest actually came about because American engineer Wilson Greatbatch reached into a box and pulled out the wrong thing.
It's true. Greatbatch was working on making a circuit to help record fast heart sounds. He reached into a box for a resistor in order to finish the circuit and pulled out a 1-megaohm resistor instead of a 10,000-ohm one.
The circuit pulsed for 1.8 milliseconds and then stopped for one second. Then it repeated. The sound was as old as man: a perfect heartbeat



And there you have it, eight awesome discoveries that happened totally on accident!

The moral of this story? Keep your eyes open today, you never know when a "chance" encounter may lead to the discovery of a new idea, dream, relationship or opportunity.  God's ways are higher than ours and if we stay open to His lead we may find ourselves (not unlike Mr. Columbus) in an unexpected new world, full of possibility we never knew existed. 

God bless and enjoy your Monday! 

(Special thanks to Listverse.com, and science.discovery.com for the ideas...)  

The Monday Funday: WTF church- Relevance gone awry?

Want to know if your culturally up to date with the next generation? Check out this picture...  what do you see?  A church using banners to advertise their core values? Or something much more provocative?

WTF church? I have to admit I laughed out loud when I first saw this.  How could a church be so out of touch to not notice this?  I shook my head and lamented how culturally naive some churches could be.

Turns out I was dead wrong.  This isn't a case of a culturally naive church, but rather just the opposite: a church intentionally using a controversial cultural abbreviation to create buzz for their core values and their church.

Read this blog from ChurchMarketingSucks.com (a blog who is no stranger to a provocative marketing as you can see) and let me know what you think: http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/2010/09/wtf-church/  Has this church gone too far or are they reaching those who are far away? Are they cutting edge or cutting corners spiritually?  

How does a church balance the line of the necessity of relevance and set apartness of holiness?  Jesus hung out with sinners but walked sinless. He crossed the religious leaders "set apart" line many times and yet called us to be set apart.  Paul quoted heathen poets in his worship of the one true God and yet blasted traditional views on what is took to be "saved" (grace vs law). 

What do you think? How do we as the church walk that fine line of communicating the timeless, holy word of God in a ever changing, sin warped culture that doesn't speak the language of traditional church?

Where would you draw the line?

Wednesday Update: Approved!

Happy Humpday!

Many of you are tracking along with us as we endeavour to plant this church in Brookside.  I've tried to keep up with many of you and let you know whats been happening, but things happen so fast that I can't seem keep everyone in the loop. Thus the birth of the Wednesday Update! (Or Humpday Update?)

Every Wednesday I'll post an update on where we are at in the church plant process and share some prayer requests and praise reports as well.   I hope you enjoy the read and have fun walking with us along the process!

Whats New!(Praise):
    
     -A Name: We finally settled on a name for our church. Rockhill Community Church.  Rockhill is a street that runs through Brookside and the name of an area here.  It also has a great connection to our purpose which is "Helping people find their way back to God." 
     In Matt 5:14 it says "You are the light of the world. A city on a HILL cannot be hidden."  We desire to be a light in this world, build on the solid foundation of Christ that helps people find their way back to God.  It's a great feeling to settle that and move forward.
    
     -We are approved!: Christina and I drove to Springfield yesterday and spent the day being tested and interviewed.  It was the final step in a  six month process to get approved to church plant in the Southern Missouri District. Things went very well and we got the official green light to move forward as church planters!  Thanks to all of you who were praying with us, God's good and we can't wait to see what He has in store!!

Whats Next! (Prayer):
  
     -Now the real work begins. We are currently looking at several different locations to start meeting as a small group in the Brookside area. We've looked at schools, coffee houses, churches, etc.  We have some very good leads, I just want to be careful choose the best local for the growth of this launch team.
    
     -Fundraising:  Whew. I'll be honest, this one is a challenge for me.  My goal is to raise enough funds to pay my salary for one year.  I hope to free our young church of the weight of that cost as we get started and  allow us to really hit the ground running and focus all our giving toward ministry.  If you're interested in helping with this please let me know! (And don't be surprised if I send you a letter asking for support. I don't want to be an annoyance, but I'm trusting God will call people to partner with us.)

     -Recruiting: I believe God has people who he's been calling to be a part of this church.  My prayer is that we would be able to connect with them and help them get involved.  We put together a list of all the areas of ministry we'd like to start with day one and then looked at how many people it would take to staff each of those ministries: The result? 74 people!!! oh Lord. ; )  The point being we have a ton of opportunity for people to serve God and partner with us to pioneer a new faith community.  Pray with us for the workers so we can reach a harvest of hurting and disconnected people with the love of Christ! 

Getting Personal:
    
     -Here's our new family picture! (Special thanks to Jeremy Ellsworth for being an awesome photographer)
As you can see we've got our hands full.  All the boys are doing great.  God has truely blessed us with amazing kids. Christina is a superhero to keep all us boys in line!

(Left to Right: Levi, Christina, Dante, Justus, Me, Judah)

Thanks for reading and thanks for caring! We've been blessed to be a part of such a great family of friends. We love each of you.  

The Monday Funday: Whats your "go to" move?

Ok so I'm going to try and organize this blog thing and mix it up a bit.  So far my blog has read like a Sunday School devotional and while there's nothing wrong with that, I need a little diversity in my life.

Mondays are officially renamed. Who needs another Monday? No one that's who. But who couldn't use an extra dose of Funday?! That's what I'm talking about!  (ok so that's about as cheesy as it gets. I know, but it's my blog so deal.)  

From now on every Monday will be Monday Funday.  I'll scoured the the interweb for things that tweak my fancy and make me lol or rotflol or lmbo. Then I'll post a link and you can all rotflol with me.  

I have to start with this link: http://stuffchristianslike.net/2010/09/3728/

Stuff Christians Like has to be one of the funnest blogs in existence. Who else would be brave enough to take on hard hitting topics like "Getting abandoned by your worship leader" and "deep v-neck syndrome"?

Need a little "Funday" in your Monday?   SCL has you covered like a crew neck at the Catalyst Conference.

One question for you though: Whats your "go to" worship move? 

Me, I prefer the "Statue of Liberty"  Bow your head with an intense look on your face and raise a fist to the sky, then bob your head with the bass drum beat. Has a rock show feel with out being over the top. ; )  

Happy Funday!

A wordle of my devotions today...

I've been hanging out in Luke 4 for a few days now. And when Mark Batterson cued me in to wordle.com I had to try it!

 Wordle takes any text you enter and makes a word cloud out of it.  They put words that are repeated in a larger font.  You can see the points of emphasis in such a unique way, and it looks very cool!  

Try your favorite chapter and if you can post it so we can see what it looks like!

So here is my wordle of Luke 4:

Ain't no vally low enough

Some short thoughts on Luke 4… Part 1.

I’m going to do something a bit different here. Instead of writing a few paragraphs about what I’m learning, I’m going to throw out some bullet points about thing that jumped out at me and let you come to some of your own conclusions. I’ll add more about the following verses to this as the days go by. Let me know how you see God applying this stuff in your life.

Luke 4: The Temptation of Jesus

1. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert,

-The Spirit led Jesus into a desert. How often to we mistake our desert seasons for a work of the enemy and try to avoid them rather than asking God: “What are you trying to teach me during this time?”

-We learn more in struggle than in success. Learning to live Godly in the dry seasons teaches us that God is trust worthy; He will come through for you as you follow Him. You’ll never truly understand that God is enough until He really is all that you have.

-The desert seasons often follow great spiritual moments. Expect it. Prepare your heart for it.

-The desert seasons are not always punishments for wrong living. Often they are a testing and a completion of what God gave you in the spiritually intimate season you just walked out of. Trust in the night what you learned in the light.

-Often when God seems to pull back is when we tend to realize our need for Him and press in. Absence make the heart grow fonder, but only when we persue a commitment to love in the (seeming) absence of our loved one's presence.  Do we love Him enough to love Him faithfully even when we don't seem to "feel" His love?

My Thoughts:
It’s nice having a safety harness as you climb. But my guess is you’ll never truly climb with out fear until you’ve fallen and that safety harness catches you. You can know in your head all the details about the strength of that harness but you won’t full trust it until you’ve been caught a few times.

I think we are like that with Christ. Most Christians can talk about their faith in Christ. The question is what do we do when he say’s “Let go, trust me.” How do we react when He seems to pull the blessing back and we walk a season of living with seemingly nothing more than the memories of the things He did. No emotional reward to our worship. No physical reward to our sacrifice. No substance to feed our hunger.

Do we shrink back? Do we question His love? Do compromise our faithfulness in response to our questions about His?

Or do we trust. Do we endure. Do we seek Him all the more diligently. Reality is, he said he would never leave us or forsake us. He never said we wouldn’t feel forsaken, but feelings are a poor judge of spiritual realities. Our deserts aren’t always a lack of God in our life, but often our greatest opportunities to show our trust in Him.

Have you ever been through a desert season? What did you learn? What brought you through? What happened in you life as result?