wow

I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our band here at Clovis Hills. Here's his audition tape.

my bad

today, a little birdy told me that I have some links that are no longer accurate and that I had not fully spread around the link love that I should of. This thoughtful reader and relatively new blogger indicated that something seems missing from my blog by not having him there. So I offer this blog as a formal appology and ask that you all check out the newest addition to my "friends" section, Mike. Aside from being the guy that deserves the most credit for teaching me how to be a Christian, he also married Jenn and me. He and his wife, also named Jen, have been actively involved in my life and my growth. So to not have him in my link list is to not do justice to the entire linking system. I appologize. So without further delay, I give you (long dramatic pause)... Mike.

nice

Finding it hard to keep track of all of your remote controls?

Can't afford one of those swanky, touch-screen universal remotes?

I have the answer to all of your problems...

The Remote Wrangler!

Weight loss update

as of Monday, I dropped another 3 lbs! I have lost a total of 38 lbs and am on the verge of hitting my next major goal of 40. So let's practice, "Paul would you like a snickers?" "No thank you."

weight-loss update

sorry I didn't post about this, earlier in the week, but I have not had great access to my blog this week because of the aforementioned computer problems.

I'm back on track with this fat ragamuffin thing and kickin' my weight-loss goal (80 lbs!) in the b-hole! I lost 5 pounds last week (the first week that I've been really hitting it every day in a while) and am feeling good. I'm on to stay this time (I hope) cuz the race for the cure is just around the corner!

updates my booty!

so Sunday morning I strolled into my office at 7 am in an attempt to get everything ready for the services that lay ahead, when I noticed that windows had installed an update. "well great!" I said to myself. "I like updates, who doesn't like updates?"

So the geniuses at microsoft set it up so that my computer would restart on its own and that everything would be ready for me when I got there. Awesome. Except that now I can't connect to the internet, iTunes or our network at the church, from my office. Thanks a crap load Mr. Gates!

So I've spent the last couple days floating around and using the office of our Women's Pastor while she's at a conference and apparently this thing is getting fixed.

I am unable to burn CDs for my choir or access some of the files on my network. To sum it up, Windows has not made my life easier.

don't worry though, my five year plan to convert the entire office to Macs is in effect. In the mean time, maybe I can find a typewritter that works around here.

Jesus Camp

Jenn and I watched "Jesus Camp" last night. It's the documentary about Pentacostal Christians and the indoctrination (the word of the Children's Minister in the film) of their children. These are the words I would use to describe it: wow. weird. umm? sad.

go go gadget beatbox?

The big goal

I have set a goal for myself that I may not meet until I make it public. I've told a couple of people about it and now it's time to make it official. In October I am going to run in the "Race for the Cure" here in Fresno. It's a 5k and I know some of you are thinking, "what's so big about a 5k?" to which I will respond, it's hard for me so back off! sorry about that. My mom will celebrate 5 years cancer free in June and so I want to run to raise money for a cause that's close to my heart. The other reason is that I've hit a new low in the weight loss struggle and slipped back to only 30 lbs lost. I was losing fairly consistently, then we moved and I've maintained at around 30 to 35 pounds for and now with my birthday, the super bowl and Valentine's I have officially been heading in the wrong direction. I'm back in action now and this is the big goal, to be in good enough shape for this run. I'm not a runner. in fact, I get tired driving 3 miles so I'm not really sure how this is going to work, but I'm doing it. The buzz phrase for the next few months is "think pink."

What's your blogging personality?

I saw this on Rhonda's blog and thought it would be cool, though I'll be honest it looks a little girly. It asks 4 questions and tells you the type of blogger you are. Gotta be honest, mine is pretty right on, especially the part, well no, all of it. What can I say?

Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful

You've got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog. Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights. A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time. You blog for yourself - and you don't care how popular (or unpopular) your blog is!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Funny Shirt

I love t-shirts! I was in a t-shirt store in a mall in Sacramento earlier this week with my brother in law and I was reminded about how much I love them. You can communicate profound truths or put a smile on someone's face, which is why I share them with all of you. So in honor of this renewed love affair with funny t-shirts, I give you... Lice is Nice!

My new addiction

I was a little skeptical about stepping into the blogosphere, I'll admit, but as I'm sort of hitting my stride after almost a year of doing it I can say confidently that I love blogging. I love the community and the conversations that have developed. I love stepping into the world of other people and seeing what makes them tick. For so long however, I was a blogging elitist. While the rest of the world was trolling for pictures of 12 year old girls who like like they're 30 on MySpace, I have been a writer, an artist, a thinker. I didn't need the message boards or the pop up adds, I was fine sharing my thoughts with the world. I'm not sure what happened between then and now, but I am full on addicted to MySpace. That is my confession. I have a page and I friggin' love it! Though I go in stages of checking or updating it is this world of tunnels and trances that can make even the most efficient person lose all track of time and spend hours listening to music, reading blogs and searching for friends from high school. So I now give you permission to call me a loser and welcome me to the myspace era. I feel so lame saying this but, will you come and be my friend?

My Valentine

I am not an attractive man. I can admit it. Let's not get carried away here, I mean I'm not horribly disfigured either, but the point is that because I'm not an attractive man Valentine's Day is all the more special. It's special, because there is a woman who loves me anyway. Through the course of the day I'll get cutesy emails and voice messages, we'll have dinner and see a movie all the while, she's giggling away over me (and me over her too). I love it! It's the only day of the year where I really look forward to the lovey-dovey (I can't believe I just typed that), mushy, over the top displays of affection. It wouldn't be Valentine's day without it! So here's my over the top display of affection... I'm in love with a woman who... is smarter than I know what to do with, is more beautiful than I deserve, is a better person than I am by far, is funnier than people give her credit for, cares about others, has decided to spend the rest of her life with me when she could have gotten someone a lot better and lastly (here it comes) is my best friend. Call me lame, call me a cissy, I don't care. I love my wife. Happy Valentine's Day Sweetness.

Living with Envy

So on Sunday afternoon Jenn and I took off to hang out with my sister and brother-in-law. They are now the only members of the immediate family who do not live in Fresno (which is probably a sad commentary on my family, though I'm not sure if it's sad for them or sad for us that we all still live in Fresno). Anyway, because I have developed into an amazing "iVangelist" I have converted my sister, brother, and mother-in-law to using macs. There's even a rumor floating around that my dad (a die hard PCer) is dipping his toe into the mac world. Now, I'll make this short because I am not nearly this dorky to post about computers two days in a row (no offense to anyone who may love these posts or have their own blog dedicated to macs. I love you and think you're great, but I'm just not that guy). The trouble is that while my family is living in this beautiful world, which Steve Jobs has created for them, I am forced to sit and enviously play with their toys until I get one of my own. I call this, "Photo Booth in Envy."

The end of the line?

so my iBook G4, which is almost 4 years old is officially toast. I have tried everything in my power, which admittedly is not much and I have come to the end of the line I'm afraid. Que the sappy music... We've had many good years, the iBook and I. We've gone cross country and back, shared pictures, music and blogs with the world, and we've even frolicked through a meadow or two (okay that's not really true). I believe that it's time to say goodbye to my beloved machine. There are those of you who may take this as a sign that macs are not durable and some how are not as good as PCs. Do not be fooled my friends. That's the devil talking, for I am not deterred. I'm looking forward and Jenn and I are going to buy a fantastic machine when Leopard comes out. So for the next few months, I may be mac-less, but in no time, I will be up an running again, better than ever. I am still hoping for a miracle, so if any of you have any thoughts or suggestions, I would be happy to dialogue. let's now have a moment of silence for this beloved computer who was a friend to many...ok. Now I'm going to go get some dinner.

Apple store coming to Fresno?

So I nearly wet my pants yesterday as my brother told me some exciting news. There is talk that an apple store will be heading to Fresno. Now, my brother "knows everything" so I felt compelled to check this out for myself and believe it or not, I found this article: Holy Crap! The aparently are already hiring apparently. I believe the song goes "'tis so sweet to trust in Steve Jobs (now would be a good time to read the disclaimer in the top right corner).

life in the middle

I was reading a buddies blog the other day and it got me thinking that I have a hard time hanging out in extremes. Politically, theologically, methodologically, etc. When it comes to life, I tend to hang out in the middle. Particularly on this whole emergent church thing. I'm going to a conference in June where Brian McLaren is speaking and though I want to write him off as some nut job, I really dig a lot of what he has to say. I've heard some talks from him and he gives a call for the church to be community focused, to be missionally minded and to jump in the ring on social issues. Can't argue with that right? The more I hear him talk, though, the less I hear him talk about Jesus and though, giving him the benefit of the doubt as a pastor and Christian leader, I assume that he is passionately in love with Jesus. I sometimes feel like he leads with Christ-like principles rather than leading with Christ. I have friends on both sides of the how- do-we-do post-modern ministry debate, whom I love and respect, and while I admire their passion and convictions on much of these issues, I still find myself somewhere in the middle. What do I know anyway right? I wonder if McLaren would have lunch with me at this conference. That'd be pretty cool huh? I probably couldn't understand a lot of what he has to say though (he's pretty smart. I'm not that bright). I think I'll just stick to loving Jesus, leading others in worship of Him and care passionately about people and things that God cares about. What do you think? Maybe these will explain both sides: Chuck Colson Emergent - The group Brian McLaren is very involved with

Tell me who you are

I've been blogging now for about 9 months with varying degrees of frequency and I have a very consistent group of people that comment. I love comments. They encourage me to blog more. I try and make people laugh, think or just update them on my life and so comments are great, because they let me know who's stopping by and enjoying what I'm writing. For those of you who comment, thank you. There are, however, two other groups of people who read my blog and I have no idea who you are or what you think. The first group is those who read and then tell me face to face that you read it and liked something I had on here, or they post annonymously. What's up with that? Blogging is supposed to be an online community. I comment and link all the time, so where is the love. The second group is more sneaky. You are the ones that sneak in, stay a while and then leave without a trace. I can see you on my site feeder, and know where you came from, yet you force me to guess who you are. I assure you, it's safe to publicly proclaim that you are my friend or that you have read my blog. So I'm issuing a challenge. If you read this post, you must comment. Even if it's just to tell me that this challenge is stupid. I'm coming up on a year of blogging and I need to know who my peeps are. Come on, take the challenge.

Funny shirt of the semi-regular basis

There may be nothing more enjoyable to me than funny t-shirts. Especially shirts that are of the cheesy Christian variety. Even more especially when they are severely out of date. I give you, the greatest evangelistic tool known to man. Air Jesus

Cool churches and their lame brothers and sisters

So a lot of the blogs that I check out are of other worship leaders. I like checking out what other "regular joes" like me are doing at their churches. As I was perusing one of my favs, I was turned on to another discussion about churches being relevant, that was started by this guy. I usually like these discussions about what works and what doesn't, and what the church should and should not be, but in this case I think it spun about out of control. The writer of the original blog, Andrew Osenga writes about churches being sketchy, and though he did his research about doctrinal beliefs and sermon content he's still pretty erked that churches are "lying to people to tell themt he truth" and maybe rightly so. My real problem comes when people started making comments on this guy's blog. There's like 17 comments weighing in on whether or not churches should play secular music as a gimic or change logos to be about Jesus instead of the product they were initially selling and everything in between. Who cares!? My call is here in Fresno/Clovis, to reach people with the gospel of Jesus, and God, the creator and innovator of all things has given us art and film and music as tools to reach a lost and dying world and to glorify Him, so that's what I'm going to do. Are these conversations beneficial? Sure. Should we spend time evaluating our methods and our effectivness? Absolutely. But I worry that we can fall into the trap of raggin on other churches and how they don't do it right instead of being focused on the gospel. After all, non-christians aren't having discussions about whether or not churches are being effective. If they come, they should see Jesus. If it takes U2 or Jack Bauer to do it, then let's go for it.