university of durham audio

thought all of you might want to check out Durham Audio-- especially the two-part "evening conversation" with wright and dunn.

feeling a special panera bond

found THIS on pagitt's blog, and it is fantastic. he wrote it while sitting at panera bread, which makes me feel linked up with him in some way, though i wasn't offered any free cookies.

i killed the ninjas by the way. all of them. they are gone.

new computer, new book, and a new book

while we were at home for thanksiving, i read the second half of alister mcgrath's new book The Twilight of Atheism. his analysis of the birth of atheism as a response to the protestants' divorce of the sacred and secular is excellent-- and the chapter on madalyn murray o'hair as a test case alone was worth the price of the book for me. he also has a great section on "religion and the cultivation of community." once i get everything set up on my new laptop, i'll post a short review.

also, be looking in january for the release of malcom gladwell's new book blink.

on rednecks and mp3's

so katie and i went to taco grill tonight for dinner. while we were there, i see this man wearing a sleeveless black t-shirt and some fresh white high tops with velcro on the top. his mullet was well groomed beneath his hat. however, his hat was unable to conceal his shiny new headphones...which trailed down to his back pocket where i saw...a creative zen mp3 player. now mind you, had i not seen the mp3 player, i would have soon heard it, for he had it blaring while he ordered, and felt no need to turn it off while he sat down with his girlfriend to eat. they actually tried to talk during the meal...which impressed me.

now, in case you were wondering what he was listening to (like i was), he repeatedly yelled at his girlfriend throughout the meal to tell her what was spinning. i heard travis tritt, shedaisy, and a few other clearly country bands that i have never heard of (they argued about the identity of one).

this was a complete paradigm breaker for me. i had no idea that rednecks even used computers, let alone ripped their collections of pallid country music to mp3. i guess there will be happy rednecks shopping at truckstops for their cousins this christmas...i'm sure i'll see them all when kate and i go home for christmas.

it just keeps coming

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the fall is officially over...

i can't believe that i was wearing flops yesterday-- and today it snows 6". my anger knows no bounds at this point. my only consolation is the pile of books i have next to the chair, and my seemingly limitless episodes of seinfeld on dvd which i purchased today after work. excited to go home in the morning and see the family. happy thanksgiving to everyone

from alan roxburgh's blog

found this while i should have been doing the dishes...but alas i am without a wife for the night as she saves lives and stamps out disease. i will do the dishes tomorrow. in the meantime, read this instead of doing whatever it is you should be doing. "Crossing" Our Emergent Divisions: An Invitation

fantastic small group spoofs

i found these videos on the site of an acts 29 church in raleigh, nc. as someone involved in a cell based church, i feel the need to not only try to constantly re-evaluate the what/why/how of what we are doing, but to be able to chuckle at the situation as well.

check these out if you are also in need of some giggles:

Small Group One

Small Group Two

Rolling Stone Magazine Top 500 Songs

Kev just called and told me about this. read the list here

Wild At Heart review

i read this book while i was living in minneapolis and took issue with it at several points. i started a review of the book, but, like all the books i review, i never finished it. just thought i would direct your attention to someone who has the acumen to actually finish a book review. my uncle sam reviews the book on his site and it is excellent-- though a bit more gracious than i tend to be. check it out, and let me know what you think.

Quinn's Bachelor Party

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i'm back from minneapolis and collin and lisa's wedding was fantastic. was great to see people again, and to witness sampson's rage of revenge. the eberhards put on a great show for us. have a ton of thoughts i want to share...more from the drive than from the wedding, but i'm in desperate need of sleep

interesting article from Washington Post Jan 17 2000

mark kozelek

ok, so i'm supposed to be reading and working on my regent application...but i just ate a big meal and i'm in no mood to read for another 10-15 minutes. so, i decided to take this moment to ramble about my current favorite mucisian-- in hopes that you will pick up his stuff. while i really dig his solo albums, and sun kil moon, my current favorite kozelek is his work with red house painters-- particularly songs for a blue guitar. the arrangements are tight, even in the midst of being rough around the edges. the songwriting is especially brilliant and kozelek's vocals are intense. everything i have heard that kozelek has been involved in is passionate, dark, innovative, and shockingly genuine (though he has been labeled "the emperor of californian downer music). even his covers (The Cars, Paul McCartney, Genesis-- and yes, a whole album full of AC/DC covers) recast the songs in such a way that they seem to grow out of his own context. ok, i'm not a music reviewer by any stretch of the imagination-- but i'm definitely setting up a long playlist of some of my fav kozelek for the trip to minneapolis tomorrow.

be back monday

Shaped By God's Heart

just finished reading Milfred Minatrea's book, Shaped By God's Heart. i thoroughly enjoyed it. it is too late and i have been up too long today, but i just wanted to commend the book to you and tell you that i think he has some great thoughts on this critical period of church history we find ourselves in. personally, given the situation we are in with membership in our church right now, i think his chapter on membership alone is worth the price of the book.

the one thing that i think bugs me-- though not sure yet-- is this concept that "missional" is some sort of model you can implement in a church. this is the same thing that typically bugs me with all the talk of "emergent" (my mom is brining me the CT this weekend by the way-- which i'm anxious to read). it seems to me that you are either being contextual and incarnational in your specific context, or you're not.

"are you emergent?"
"no, i'm missional"

i have long loved the language of being "missional", but if it begins to take up the baggage that "seeker-friendly" and "emergent" have carried for the past years, i'll have to invent a new word. furthermore, i have long thought that people more often than not simply pick up new lingo to describe that which they have always done.

annyway, tomorrow i begin my application to Regent-- and start reading Stormfront. i'm hoping that i can glean a bit more from this book about what some are calling a "missional hermeneutic"-- something i would like to do a dissertation on possibly.

tiny gets into town tomorrow, and dooley will be singing the blues at ballydoyle

from Packer, Knowing God

“We come back, then, to where we started. The question is not whether we are good at theology, or ‘balanced’ (horrible, self-conscious word!) in our approach to the problems of Christian living. The question is, can we say, simply, honestly, not because we feel that as evangelicals we ought to, but because it is a plain matter of fact, that we have known God, and that because we have known God the unpleasantness we have had, or the pleasantness we have not had, through being Christians does not matter to us? If we really knew God, this is what we would be saying, and if we are not saying it, that is a sign that we need to face ourselves more sharply with the difference between knowing God and merely knowing about him”
(J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 27).

something i found in Minatrea...

"America will not be won to Christ by existing churches, [or] by establishing more churches like the vast majority of those we now have...We should give attention to multiplying congregations among all the social and cultural segments of society"

Charles Chaney, Church Planting at the End of the Twentieth Century

only in america

, originally uploaded by slimninja.

i totally forgot about this picture. i think rick sent this to me during the summer. i need (in the hunter/gatherer sense of the word) a camera phone and that is all there is to it.

if people who affirm prosperity theology are right, i'm far from redemption. pray some victory my way (especially since i'm trying to talk kate into letting me buy a new laptop)

new cd

i will be the first to admit that most of the music the vineyard has been pumping out for the past several years has been just a shade below par. however, with the release of dwell last year, my hopes were piqued. now, neil has given me a cd that has restored my faith in vineyard worship leaders and the label as a whole. the newest winds of worship (16, i think?) is called Holy-- and it is fantastic. the music, the songwriting...excellent. he also gave me a new vineyard uk cd that sounds good as well (hold on)-- though i haven't had a chance to listen to it.

pick em up if you're in the mood for some good new worship albums

bookster

alright, i have to tell you that i have found the greatest software in the world. next to accordance and itunes on my computer, this one may get some of the most rigorous work.bookster. super easy to catalog books (you can drag pics from Amazon, or scan bar codes with your iSight). and, if you are super geeky and want to browse your library while your listening to Mark Kozelek's latest album on your iPod, well they have that for you too.

the countdown for quinn is on...

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katie and i will be leaving this week for collin and lisa's wedding. we're looking forward to some good time in the car with bbrown and sammy. lisa still has time to back out. this would be a wise move for her...

Nurse Katie

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this is a pic of Katie at the Quaker Haven Camp in southern Kansas. We had a great time hanging out there with the kids from Metro East Baptist Church