A quick little video – RSSers may need to hit the blog.

You can check the site here – www.guitarforbeginners.com/onlinetuner.html

I’m feeling like I’m in a bit of a creative funk and I know that the best way for me to get out of it is to use some helpful suggestions that will assist me in getting over the hump. I’m not the kind of person who needs time away or a nice, relaxing break to recharge my creative juices – I need to be creating.

I had some extra time the other day so I went over to PSDtuts.com and found a Photoshop tutorial that looked manageable in an hour or so. I’m by no means a Photoshop expert but I can follow instructions pretty good :)

So – here’s the beautiful, professional finished product from their website -

And here’s my rushed-but-still-fun-by-my-standards result -

What’s your creative kickstart?

This was sent over to me today – what do you think?

Click on the photo and check it out in full size. I know that at various times in my life and with various aspects of technology I fall in to every one of those categories.

How about you? Where do you fall in the innovation spectrum?

Okay so this was posted on one of my favourite new(ish) blogs – Free Idea Factory – and I love it!!

Watching the Olympics, thinking about that guy or that woman running dead last in whatever event and simultaneously wondering how the hell they can be so slacker as to be last and how awesome they must be to even make it to the Olympic finals. What does that feel like, to be so amazingly good and in last place. A book with interviews with last place finishers in world class competition could record those feelings.

There you go, Michael Hyatt. You can thank me when it hits #1! :)

Yesterday morning was pretty amazing. I’ve commented about this a couple of times but we are in the midst of a fairly busy season here at the church – expansion project as well as renovations, our Sr. Pastor is on sabbatical, some changes in how we operate, etc etc – and this weekend seemed to be the perfect storm of all of that stuff culminating. I said to one of our A/V guys last night that I hope this is the busiest weekend we have here for a long time.

But..

It was busy with good stuff including an awesome service on Sunday morning. We had the chance to hear from a student ministry team that went down to Jamaica last month AND we also baptized six of our high school students. Baptisms are always special here and I think part of the reason is how we do them – we have the person give their testimony of how they came to faith and why they’re getting baptized and then someone close them (a parent, mentor, small group leader) briefly shares some encouragement as well as one or two verses that are meaningful to that person. They get in the tank, get dunked and then everyone cheers – it is pretty awesome!

Yesterday was the first time that we had an opportunity to use our new portable baptism tank. Part of the renovation project is re-working our stage area – removing our old, elevated tank at the back of the stage and now going with this new portable tank and placing it basically front and centre for everyone to see. By moving our tank from the back of the stage to the front created some new excited about the event but also some logistical issues which were handled beautifully on Sunday morning.

We got our tank from the guys at The Portable Baptistry and the setup, use and teardown of the tank was pretty much as easy as they said it would be. The thing fits together like Lego pieces, gets covered with pre-cut foam and then a black vinyl liner is pulled over the whole thing. (No, sorry, we didn’t go for the Lydia or Galilee look!)

With the pump and heater included we had the thing unpacked, setup, filled and heating in about two hours. I think our setup and fill time will be cut down to about an hour and a half the next time we do it. It came up to a good temperature within a couple of hours but we let it warm overnight. By Sunday morning the thermometer was reading close to 100° and we were all making jokes about coming back later that night with some adult beverages and a nice TV. Maybe another time!

When all was said and done, this is a great solution for us. It allows us to get baptisms right to the front of our stage area and gives people the chance to really see what is going on. It communicates that we really value baptism as a step of obedience and will go to great lengths to make the experience great not just for those being baptized but for our congregation as well.

If you’re a portable church and need a solution that is quick to setup or even if you’re a traditional church and want to have the option of doing an outdoor baptism, then this is definitely a solution you should consider!

Check out this video – RSSers hit the blog!

I don’t understand much of what the guy is saying but I like what I’m seeing! I think these guys are going to be making lots of money pretty soon and we will be seeing their system put to good use by amateur video folks everywhere!

Okay. So Twitter and blog-world are exploding today with news that the latest church worship celebrity, Mike Guglielmucci of “Healer” fame, has been a total liar, fake and fraud when it comes to his claim of beating life-threatening cancer. His story and the song which is supposedly inspired have been the talk of the worship world for the last month or so – especially with the news that Hillsong had recorded it and were including the song (along with the powerful live video) in their latest release, “This Is Our God.”

Here’s a quick recap of Mike’s story -

• Diagnosed with cancer
• Comes home, sits at the piano and begins singing
• The melody and words of “Healer” pour out in this incredible time of worship

The song was then recorded by Planetshakers on their latest album and apparently caught the ear of the Hillsong folks who decided it would be great for their album. Once the promotion for that record started, Mike’s story was front and centre – including a promotional video that was released with Mike telling the world his story interspersed with shots of him singing the song at the live recording, oxygen tank, nose tubes and all.

So word breaks this morning that none of Mike’s story can be verified. Here are some links -

• Adelaide Now
  “Michael has confirmed that he is not suffering with a terminal illness and is seeking professional help in Adelaide with the support of his family.

  “We are asking our church to pray for the Guglielmucci family during this difficult time.”

• The Australian
  It appears Mr Guglielmucci, who was a pastor with one of Australia’s biggest youth churches, Planetshakers, may even have deceived his own family.

  “This news has come as a great shock to everyone including, it seems, his own wife and family,” Hillsong general manager George Aghajanian said in an email to his congregation yesterday.

Crazy. Idiotic. Foolish. How can someone even DREAM of something like this?? What kind of sick, deranged person lies in their bed at night trying to think of ways to gain fame, notoriety and recognition while perhaps lining their pockets with some extra coin based on sales of a song that might be inspired by such a tragedy?? This is a total disgrace and another black eye on the modern evangelical church.

So. How do we respond? Some say stone him! Some say blacklist him! Some say he just needs a swift kick in the ass! How about you? What do you say?

What do I say?

I don’t know.

Part of me is so tired of this. I’m so tired of trusting people and their stories of God doing amazing things only to be once again disappointed. I’m so tired of having to defend a church that wants to hold these people up based on their lies and deceit. I’m so tired of having to explain to friends why I would even associate myself with an institution that allows people like this to get famous. Nevermind the fact that I’m so tired of an institution that is making these people famous in the first place!

Part of me wants to stand on the rooftops and shout “I AM NOT ONE OF THEM!! I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE LYING, CHEATING JERKS WHO IS SELLING YOU A FALSE GOSPEL!!” I want so bad to distance myself from these idiots and their garbage lies and their cheating ways. I would scratch their name from history and have them never heard from again if it was up to me.

And then I wonder.. What does God say?? What does He think of all of this?

..

Ugh.

Why wouldn’t He turn His back on the whole lot of us and just let us all go down in flames? Why wouldn’t He just give this world a little nudge and send it spinning off in to the darkness of the universe? Why wouldn’t He just hit the cosmic reset button and start this whole damned thing over again?

And all I’m left with as an answer is “grace.” Because of grace. The only reason we are still living and breathing and spending a single moment on this planet is because of grace. God has every right to squash every last one of us and laugh at our stupidity – thinking that we have anything more to offer than Mike or Todd or whoever the next one will be. God has every right to stand on the rooftop and yell “Don’t listen to them!! I am not like them!! I don’t do things the way he says I do them!!” while pointing directly at.. me.

Cause that’s the truth, right?? We’re all Mike. We’re all Todd. We’re all messed up, screwed up, broken, deceitful, lying, sinful people. Now we may not be as devious or as scheming as those who are exposed and exploited but does that make us any better or any worse? Not at all. At the end of the day we are broken, sinful people in need of grace. Only God’s grace. And I need just as much of it as Mike does.

Could you imagine if all of your crap was exposed for the world to see? What if your Twitter account really detailed everything you were doing? everything you were thinking? Uh oh. We wave the “authentic” flag as though people are getting to know the real us if we post a little of our family struggles or about our issues with this sin or that, imagining that if people are given a littel glimpse in to a bit of the hard side of my life they might give me a little pat on the back for being so honest. And really it’s just misdirection – let’s give them a bit of what’s behind Door #2 so they don’t want to look behind Door #3, cause if that door was opened it’s game over.

Right?

I don’t know. I’m not suggesting that we all have stories like Mike’s. I’m not suggesting that we’ve all cooked up schemes like his. But if it was YOUR song that Hillsong was releasing and YOUR name being used to promote it and someone uncovered ALL of YOUR baggage and garbage, don’t you think it would be the talk of the town? Yeah. Sure it would.

I have nothing to say about whether or not you should play the song. Some will say that the song is born in the heart of the writer and there is no way to use the song to lead people in worship. Some will say that the song – not the writer – is anointed and if God can speak through a donkey he can certainly speak through a deceiving, lying songwriter. Some will say that the song is worthless and not very good and shouldn’t be used in congregational worship anyways. So take your pick :)

So there you go. You’ve heard my thoughts. I’ve read lots of yours. I’m sure this will be talked about for a while. What’s next? Where do we go from here? What do we do with the famous ones in our church culture? Let’s hear you.

Check out these posts talking about this -

• Carlos
• Alex
• Rich
• Joshua
• Batsirai
• Fred
• Gary
• Joel
• Jordan

Someone sent me a link to this site – Cool ideas

There’s some good stuff here – check it out!

Order hot tea in any Western-style restaurant, and it will be served to you in something with a handle, usually either or . Order the same cup of tea in any Eastern-style restaurant, and it will almost always be served in something without a handle, perhaps or . The Western mind thinks, “The handle is useful; it keeps me from burning my fingers.” The Eastern mind thinks, “The handle is dangerous; if the cup is too hot to pick up, it’s too hot to drink from.” These cups represent an interesting compromise; they have the aesthetic quality of Japanese tea cups, but the insulating utility of Western mugs.

This is the “Toro” tissue ring, designed by Scott Christensen, available through the Museum of Modern Art. It not only solves the tacky cardboard tissue-box problem, it does so substantially (unlike a tissue-box cover, which is only a superficial treatment) and minimally. The weight of the ring secures the stack of tissues in place, while the shape of the ring allows the tissues to be withdrawn from the stack one at a time.

This coffee-height table, designed by Keith Kaar Ckayton, features a large refillable pad of paper as the top surface. Draw, doodle, or eat on the thing; a clean surface is only one torn sheet away.

What’s your cool idea?

I’m not an avid reader but in keeping with my stereotypical artistic brain I usually have at least a couple of books on the go. This summer I’ve been reading some good stuff including one of the classics that I go back to every couple of years.

G.K. Chesterton is a favourite author of mine – I love his seemingly casual style of writing that almost conceals these deep, hard-hitting truths until the very last second when they jump off the page. I find myself reading a passage that he’s written, not entirely sure what point he’s trying to make and once the point is made (and made strongly!) I need to go back and re-read the whole setup. Chesterton is a master at convincing the reader to agree with something they would have disagreed at the beginning of the page.

Orthodoxy is a book I’ve read several times but I’m sure it will be a book that will be part of my library for my whole life. It is a quick read but the material is not light. Here is Chesterton’s description of why he wrote the book -

This book is meant to be a companion to “Heretics,” and to put the positive side in addition to the negative. Many critics complained of the book called “Heretics” because it merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy. This book is an attempt to answer the challenge. It is unavoidably affirmative and therefore unavoidably autobiographical. The writer has been driven back upon somewhat the same difficulty as that which beset Newman in writing his Apologia; he has been forced to be egotistical only in order to be sincere. While everything else may be different the motive in both cases is the same. It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it. The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer. It deals first with all the writer’s own solitary and sincere speculations and then with all the startling style in which they were all suddenly satisfied by the Christian Theology. The writer regards it as amounting to a convincing creed. But if it is not that it is at least a repeated and surprising coincidence.

With all of the new ideas, new resources, new songs and new opportunities that come along every day sometimes it’s good to go backa few generations and spend some time with the thoughts of a man who had great impact on his culture at a time when the role of the church was in great decline. Hearing some of the things Chesterton says gives me new energy in my walk with Christ and also re-energizes my conviction that communicating the gospel through art is one of the ways our culture will be transformed.

Think they’re sisters?

Avery – born October 7, 2005

Emerson – born April 28, 2007

Isabelle – born July 31, 2008