Smart Pastor

Pastor Dan Kimball, like a number of next generation pastors, had been anti-building.  He, like many, saw it as a drain on resources that could be put to better use.  He has changed his tune and now is for them.

I respect this reasoning and think he may well be right but I have to disagree with his conclusion.  He states….

So, I have recanted from my earlier belief that buildings drain resources and create consumer Christians. I was wrong. Now I see them as missionary centers to impact lives for the gospel.  (Source)

photo credit: Edgar Zuniga Jr.

I guess I would argue that too many of the new ones are still centers for the egos of pastors and leaders.  I would also argue that many buildings go unused and are not missionary centers.  I think that buildings can be a center for such activity…it is not a given.  And I still think that churches should looks at ways to have spaces that is cheaper then the old buy land and erect a structure approach.

Perhaps Twitter will not revolutionize how we communicate after all.  From a Harvard study…

On a typical online social network, he said, the top 10% of users accounted for 30% of all production.

“This implies that Twitter’s resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network,” the team wrote in a blog post.

I guess that is consistent with my experience.  I find some interesting people out and about on Twitter, but don’t feel like I have any virtual friends through it.

Source: BBC NEWS | Technology | Twitter hype punctured by study

“You can’t be a smart cookie if you have a crummy attitude.”

- John Maxwell

Watched this last week from Ed Young’s blog and had three thoughts..

1.  Using words like crap, hell, etc are probably not the hindrance to outreach that he thinks they are.  That being said, I don’t think they help and can alienate conservative believers and as such are not really a good idea.

2.  Isn’t using your Flip Camera while driving chasing cool?

3.  Isn’t it a little bit ironic that they guy who promoted the 7 day Sex Challenge and went on the Daily Show to talk about it is bugged that other chase cool?

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”

- Ferdinand Foch

Read this today and thought it was full of good recommendations.  Check it out.

Lifehacker – Lifehacker Pack 2009: Our List of Essential Free Windows Downloads

I use many of them including Mozy, Itunes, Foxit, Firefox, Revo, Picassa, VLC, Spybot, and Dropbox.

Here we go again.  Dateline Arlington…

Drake…said June 2 on “The Alan Colmes Show” that unless Obama repents, he is praying that God will kill the president. Drake said he believes that is what happened to slain abortion provider George Tiller, who was shot to death while attending church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday, May 31.

Describing the interview on “The Wiley Drake Show” on Crusade Radio June 3, Drake said Colmes invited him on the program because someone had asked him about his initial response to news that Tiller had died.

“I’ve been a Baptist pastor for a long time, been in the pro-life fight, been face-to-face with Tiller, told him about Jesus, and I’ve seen many, many others tell him about Jesus over and over and over again,” Drake said. “And I’ve seen horrific things that go on in those death abortuaries — and that’s what they are — and so my initial response to those people, they said, ‘Well what was your response,’ and I said, ‘Well, in all honesty I have to just respond directly and say I am glad that he’s dead.’”

In the Fox interview, Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., called Obama “a usurper” and claimed he is “not an American-born citizen.” Challenged for referring to the president as “B. Hussein Obama,” Drake denied calling him that because it makes him sound like a Muslim. “I call him that because it’s his name,” Drake insisted.

Accused of holding views on the fringe of American culture, Drake acknowledged: “It is a fringe point of view, and I take that as a badge of honor. I am on the fringe.”

Drake said Southern Baptists have lost belief in “imprecatory prayer” — praying passages from the Psalms where the Psalmist is asking God to bring death and misfortune on his enemies — and need to regain the practice. (Source)

Here is my two cents.  Once again this strikes me as an unhelpful thing to say and for that matter, believe.  Thoughtful Christians can find much out of line with Scriptures in both the Democratic and Republican platforms.  If we were to stand outside of political ideologies, we might just find a prophetic voice.

“Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.”

- Robert G Ingersoll

Love this commercial.  Hope you find yourself motivated after watching it.

“All things are difficult before they are easy.”

- John Norley