- Part 34

Categories: random stuff

By the time this posts, I’ll be on the road. The fam and are going up to Denver for a few days. We’ll spend some time with friends, do some sightseeing…and I’ll be leading worship for a friend’s congregation on Sunday.

So I hear that you’re not supposed to put this kind of stuff on the Interweb, so people won’t know they can rob your place while you’re gone. So in the unlikely event that you happen to know our address…we have an able housesitter, watchful neighbors, and a dog. So fugghedabboudit.

🙂

This is a preview of On Vakayshun. Read the full post (152 words, 1 image, estimated 36 secs reading time)

August 5, 2009 by Wayward Son

Marketing Slogans Doomed to Fail

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Categories: fun, What the heck was THAT?

Okay, readers, this is totally random…but time for a little game. Let’s use our imagination…(put on your widdle pwetend hats…)

Let’s pretend we have this mediocre product to sell–say, a brand of sugar-free gum. Our gum came in 4th place in national taste tests.

We’ll call it–Smackers.

Smackers® Sugar-Free Gum.

Now…we’re the advertising crew. And our job is to come up with a slogan for Smackers® Sugar-Free Gum. But the fact is, we suck just as bad as the gum does. So we come up with all these slogans that are doomed to fail.

That’s the game, folks. Come up with a slogan that will make people run away from Smackers® Sugar-Free Gum.

This is a preview of Marketing Slogans Doomed to Fail. Read the full post (285 words, 2 images, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

August 3, 2009 by Wayward Son

Note to Church: You Don’t Have to Put EVERYTHING on Video

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Categories: food for thought, media, Rantings

Cartoon Copyright Gospel Communications International, Inc – www.reverendfun.com

(In an indirect way, this ties in with my recent post The Rape of the Media…)

By now, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s Christianity (and Pentecostal) roots are well known. We know this primarily because of YouTube. Someone shot video of some prayer times and something Sarah Palin said in church about the war, and thanks to YouTube, that stuff can now go all over the web. When Palin became the VP candidate, and it came time for the press to do its dirty work, they didn’t even have to dig for it–the video pretty much came to them.

This is a preview of Note to Church: You Don’t Have to Put EVERYTHING on Video. Read the full post (923 words, 2 images, estimated 3:42 mins reading time)

August 2, 2009 by Wayward Son

My Changing Views on Worship

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Categories: changing mindsets, creativity, Meanderings (look it up), music, worship

So lately I’ve had worship on my mind, and have been observing a shift in my thinking about worship in the past couple of years. Seems I did some of this before, in a blog series called Re-Thinking Worship. But I’d like to revisit this from a different angle, less from just tossing around ideas, and more about how those ideas are reshaping my whole approach and belief system about it–sort of comparing how I used to see it, and how I see it now.

This is a preview of My Changing Views on Worship. Read the full post (1375 words, 1 image, estimated 5:30 mins reading time)

August 1, 2009 by Wayward Son

I Dig My Kid’s Music (or, Dude, Satellite Radio Rocks)

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Categories: music, random stuff, What the heck was THAT?

So this week, I took my car into the dealer for some maintenance work. Due to delays, they ended up keeping it three days. So they gave me a loaner car.

The loaner was a white Chrysler PT cruiser. I think PT crusiers sort of look like small, old-timey gangster cars. But when a PT cruiser is white, it looks more like a small, old-timey ambulance.

Anyhow.

This PT cruiser was equipped with satellite radio. It was the first time I’d ever had satellite radio in a car. It wasn’t until I got to listening to that satellite radio that I realized just how crappy our local radio stations are.

This is a preview of I Dig My Kid’s Music (or, Dude, Satellite Radio Rocks). Read the full post (420 words, 2 images, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

July 31, 2009 by Wayward Son

Blurring the Lines (excerpt)

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Categories: food for thought

Here’s an excerpt from my post today over at Communitas Collective…

Sometimes blurring the lines can be a bad thing. Usually when we hear a phrase like this, we’re thinking of ways people compromise truth, violate boundaries, bend the rules, normalize sinful behaviors…things like that. Scripture says, “Do not move the ancient boundaries.” Boundaries are helpful and needful at times; so blurring those lines can be a bad thing.

This is a preview of Blurring the Lines (excerpt). Read the full post (197 words, 2 images, estimated 47 secs reading time)

July 29, 2009 by Wayward Son

Why I Haven’t Backslidden (I Think)…Er…Why I Think I Haven’t Backslidden

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Categories: Meanderings (look it up), Rantings

Let’s just dispense with the diplomacy for a moment…I’ve seen more than my fair share of crap and hypocrisy in my church experience. Actually, being in or near the inner circles of ministry leadership for most of my life, I’ve probably seen more than most. Televangelists hospitalized under assumed names for drug abuse, prominent pastors fabricating medical records for insurance purposes, ministers who turn out to be compulsive gamblers or pedophiles. And then there’s the stuff that happens closer to home. Staff meetings that turn into shouting matches. Church members who engage in power struggles with one another, and sometimes with the pastors. Church boards who mutiny against a pastor with new ideas by tossing his belongings out into the parking lot, and changing the locks on the building (I’ve seen that happen in two different churches in two different states). Pastors who lie through their teeth, gossip, and back stab; pastors who manipulate their people emotionally to keep the advantage, just because they can. I don’t know if you have ever looked in a pastor’s eyes and seen malevolence and evil intent toward you, as if Satan himself were staring you down. I hope you never experience that; it isn’t pretty. In fact, it’s completely deflating, because it leaves you wondering who there is left to trust.

This is a preview of Why I Haven’t Backslidden (I Think)…Er…Why I Think I Haven’t Backslidden. Read the full post (655 words, 1 image, estimated 2:37 mins reading time)

July 28, 2009 by Wayward Son

Fifty

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Categories: fun, random stuff, What the heck was THAT?

Here’s a little puzzle for you to solve. (Yes, it’s THAT kind of a post.)

Can you guess why the number fifty is significant to me today?

A little help narrowing it down:

It’s not the number of posts I’ve written (shoot, I’m almost to ten times that many)
Today is not my birthday (not that old)
Nor my anniversary (puh-leaze)

So…any guesses?

(Immediate family, church family and mother of the blogger are not eligible for the prize–if there was one, that is. So don’t give it away.)

I’ll update later today with the answer….

This is a preview of Fifty. Read the full post (149 words, 2 images, estimated 36 secs reading time)

July 27, 2009 by Wayward Son

Book Review: "A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church" by Warren Cole Smith

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Categories: books, current issues, theological questions, TheOOZE

I have to say, I had a pretty complex reaction to this book. I selected to review the book because its title and description suggested to me that it was an unflinching look at some of the issues of the modern church. (And for the most part, it was.)

I thought the book would give an honest assessment of the lasting fruit of the evangelical movement, and tackle issues like greed and corruption. (And for the most part, it did.)

This is a preview of Book Review: "A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church" by Warren Cole Smith. Read the full post (762 words, 2 images, estimated 3:03 mins reading time)

July 26, 2009 by Wayward Son