Some of the books I’ll be reading/re-reading this summer
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From the monthly archives:
May 2007
After speaking for about a combined five hours in church and in workshops this weekend, a few thoughts…
No matter how many times I’ve done this before, it seems I always need to pee at least times five before speaking.
Preaching in a church context is an odd thing, because you’re given a mic, the spotlight, the attention of hundreds, and somehow asked to be humble at the same time.
I think the humility part comes naturally when you realize you have no right being there in the first place.
The thing with presenting anything in a formal context is that it’s assumed that you’ve put a lot of time thinking and reflecting on the topic and should be at least some form of an ‘expert’. The scary thing is knowing that you can present your very best, and people can walk away thinking, ’so that was all you had’? or even worst, leaving zero impact at on their lives.
People often tell me I seem extreme laxed and comfortable on stage, and I really am on many levels, but there’s always a part of me that’s a nervous wreck throughout.
Half of this is I’m probably more self-conscious than I care to admit, the other half is I know people are naturally more judgmental than they would admit to me.
Someone once said that when you speak, you light yourself on fire, and people come to watch you burn. I think I resonate with that a bit.
When I begin thinking that what I’m doing is more important than it really is, I can easily get crushed by the weight of not being able to ‘deliver’
There are very few things that excite me and challenge me more than this; to be able to connect to an audience regarding things that really matter in life is such an extraordinary honor. I would do it regardless of any results, but If I can just connect with one life, and even make one single degree of shift in a person’s heart, I’m blown away every time.
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I will no longer be updating posts here.
For updates on my life, family, photos, and other rants see http://onelife.voxtropolis.com
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Peace!
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I’m visiting family in Ottawa this week, and I really should be relaxing, but unfortunately I’ve been busier than I’d like to be.
I’ve got a huge church planting project due next week, and I double booked myself this weekend. I’ll be speaking at Campus Challenge 2007 for a workshop on campus / postmodern evangelism on saturday and sunday afternoon, and I’m also preaching at my church Sunday morning.
This should be interesting.
My voice usually gets destroyed after speaking for an hour or so. A couple times when I worked at IBM I presented for seven to eight hours straight and it felt like I was never going to be able speak again.
fantastic.
I’m completely stoked about preaching at church though. I still believe in the church, and the church is somethin’ special.
Just hope i don’t choke.
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testing, testing. I’ve just upgraded this blog to the latest release of wordpress v2.2
I’m hoping this stops the theme from reverting back to the default theme at random times.
Technology can be such a pain sometimes. I’m still figuring out how to make the most of it without it bogging me down at the same time.
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Continuing our Creativity & Spirituality series.
When it comes to creativity quantity quite often must preside over quality, at least initially. Yvz always tells me how the kids that she teaches always struggle with spelling when they are writing stories. She continuously encourages them to just make it up and simply get their ideas down and write their stories, but they still seem to get hung up on spelling.
So often many of us are just like that. We lose incredible and imaginative ideas and fail to truly hear God’s voice because we’re stuck on the details.
Everyone was asked to spend 8-10 minutes brainstorming and jotting down what heaven would be like (This portion was inspired by David Arcos at Humana 2.0).
We took this exercise a step further and did some rapid prototyping. A large banner was laid out and everyone was asked to think of items on their list that they wanted to personally be involved with bringing to earth. Everyone was invited to paint and draw their commitments in this communal artistic exercise.
Maybe when we pray “Thy kingdom come, on earth, as it is in heaven”, we’re actually suppose to be doing something about it? Maybe Maybe the subtle hints of heaven in the Scriptures and our capacity to imagine this heaven might be so that we could make it a reality here on earth? How might you make God’s invisible presence into a physical reality?
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Some recent favorites.
Yvz stocked up big time on baby food. Here’s stellar’s name with jars.
Stellar’s name with baby food
The whole family
A portrait
All smiles
stellar’s vomit
bath time
and a special friday treat. A short video clip of Stellar’s many wacky faces.
If the link doesn’t work you can try it on youtube here.
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