Yearly Archives: 2008

Crash Course Learning

Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, wrote an interesting piece called “What are You Destined to Be?” on his popular Blog Maverick blog.

“Going to college should be about experiencing as much academically as you possibly can, but more importantly, it should be about learning how to learn….Once you have learned how to learn, then you can try as many different things as you can….”

Upon reading that, I realized, “Hey–I’m good at learning.” Which is something I hadn’t really considered before.

In my work, I continually confront new learning curves, usually computer-related. (Lots of people do, so I’m not claiming any great uniqueness.)

I remember back around 1983, I returned from Christmas vacation in California to find an AT&T MS-DOS computer (2 floppy drives, no hard disk!), an Okidata dot-matrix printer, and several unopened software packages sitting on my desk. I’d never used a computer before. But I dug in, and a month later was producing the denominational magazine on that computer (actually, just putting the text on a floppy, which a printing company turned into long strips of typeset copy, which I laid out over a light table). Remember–this was MS-DOS, for goodness sakes! The entire user interface consisted of Courier text on a green monitor!

In 1988, when I got a Mac and a laser printer, I gave myself three weeks to learn Pagemaker and crank out the next issue of the magazine (this time, with little need for the light table).

The truth is, I enjoy conquering learning curves. And I enjoy the crash-course route. That love-of-the-last-minute may not be a good trait, but it’s most definitely an aptitude.

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One of Those Pictures

Observed: a 40-ish man standing outside the YMCA, dressed in his warm-up outfit, either concluding or waiting to start his workout. Smoking.

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A Fellow American Citizen

One of Pam’s tax clients is a young mother who immigrated from South America. She married an American guy, and they have two kids. Nice family. They are among Pam’s tax clients, and came for an appointment one afternoon this week.

Earlier that day, this woman had become an American citizen. She was beaming, so proud. Puts things in perspective, for those of us who tend to take our American citizenship for granted.

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Spinning Our Christian Wheels

clooney_darfur300.jpgThe March 3 Time magazine featured an article about George Clooney. I like him a lot. He’s got journalism roots, which brings a degree of open-mindedness, of considering both sides of an argument, plus a heavy dose of cynicism. Legions of celebrities think they’re smart, and flaunt their actual ignorance (Hail King Sean Penn!). Clooney is, indeed, smart, but he’s sufficiently wise to avoid over-using his celebrity platform. He views himself with realistic self-depredation.

This article (by the hilarious Joel Stein‚ÄîI always read his articles) mentions “Not On Our Watch,” an organization Clooney founded to help Darfur ($9 million so far). He had recently returned from Darfur. But instead of trumpeting his adventures and good deeds, Clooney mused about the futility of using celebrity to spotlight world problems. “I’m terrified that it isn’t in any way helping. That bringing attention can cause more damage. You dig a well or build a health-care facility, and they’re a target for somebody.”

Then he said this: “A lot more people know about Darfur, but absolutely nothing is different. Absolutely nothing.”

Think about the church. We regularly hear sermons and attend Sunday school classes in which we are reminded of the importance of prayer, of Bible reading, of witnessing, of not gossiping, of serving, of giving sacrificially. And yet, look over your fellow parishioners, who have dutifully absorbed these messages year after year. Is anything, truly, different? And if anything is different, is that a result of the abundance of words, or because of other dynamics?

There are certain causes I tackle on this blog–the plight of poor people, factory farming, US-sponsored torture. My mindless harping might bring a tiny bit of awareness to the six people who visit my online abode. But even if thousands of people tuned in, would anything be, in reality, different? Harping doesn’t work.

Barack Obama says the US keeps electing the same people to fight the same problems in the same way. Or something like that. It seems that we in the church spin our wheels in a parallel way, without behavior changing. Great things are happening in some churches, indeed. But it’s, sadly, not the norm.

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Exalting Suburban Christianity

Today I received an email about a “Good-Time gospel Jubilee Show” coming to Fort Wayne next month. It sounds pretty neat. One line describes it as “family friendly” and “affordable,” at only $12 a ticket. By today’s standards, for a special event like that, $12 is a bargain.

And that got me thinking about how much our culture is geared to the middle-class and above, and disregards low-income people. Christian pop culture, like everything else, is geared to suburbanites. The Christian concerts that come through town, Christian workshops and conferences, even some of the ticket-required Christmas programs and dinner theatres that local churches do–they all require discretionary money. And that’s what Christian suburbanites have in abundance.

I once resided in that world, and saw no problem. Now I attend a church populated by low-income people for whom $12 is out-of-bounds. Take a family of five to an event like that, at $12 a pop? No way. Maybe you splurge once a year. But it’s not discretionary money. You’ll miss that $60.

And so–is this event truly “affordable”? Is the Third Day concert affordable? The Living Christmas Tree? Only if you’ve decided that you are absolutely not attempting to draw poor people. And I guess we (yes, we) suburbanites are generally okay with that.

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A Few Thoughts About Apples (Not the Computer)

pacificrose_200.jpgI grew up loving Golden Delicious apples. Our family preferred the Delicious family, whether Red or Golden. Jonathans also had a following in the Dennie clan, but always secondary to Delicious. I personally have always preferred Golden.

In recent years, my preferred apple has become the Fuji. I like the consistency, the taste, and the juiciness.

But now along comes the Pacific Rose apple, which Scott’s has had for the past two weeks. Sweet, juicy, a pinkish-red hue–absolutely splendid. The best apple I’ve ever had. And evidently, they are becoming popular.

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Most Powerful Hollywood Christians

Beliefnet lists the “12 Most Powerful Christians in Hollylwood.” There is a page for each person, along with info about why that person is included in the list. I raised my eyebrows a few times as the next page appeared and I saw the name. But the descriptions were quite interesting.

  1. Mel Gibson
  2. Denzel Washington
  3. Patricia Heaton
  4. Tyler Perry (writer and director)
  5. Ralph Winter (producer)
  6. Angela Bassett
  7. Martin Sheen
  8. Martha Williamson (producer).
  9. Kristin Chenoweth (actress)
  10. Philip Anschutz (producer)
  11. Howard Kazanjian (producer)
  12. Scott Derrickson (director)
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Evangelicals and Politics

Greg Boyd has become one of my must-read bloggers. He’s a pastor and intellectual-type guy who voices, with solid rationale, many of the views I hold but can’t articulate in any convincing way. He recently participated in a debate on “Evangelicals and Politics” with Chuck Colson and Shane Claiborne (author of the incredible The Irresistible Revolution). On his blog last week, Boyd recapped some of the exchanges from that debate. Interesting stuff.

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Preaching Vs. Blogging

An interesting piece called “Preaching vs. Blogging.” It compares the two mediums (media, whatever) with a chart. For instance: preaching includes voice inflection and body language, but blogs have a delete button and audience feedback.

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Larry Norman: RIP

E0CA39BC-3BDC-4AD1-A3B7-9C0AA9D52AB3.jpg

Larry Norman died Sunday morning. He and Randy Stonehill were kings of the Christian rock scene during my college days. I never heard Larry Norman in concert, but I know his music well. Songs like:

  • Why Should the Devil Have all the Good Music?
  • Shot Down
  • I Am a Servant
  • Why Don’t You Look into Jesus
  • The Six O’clock News
  • Sweet Song of Salvation
  • The Great American Novel
  • I Wish We’d all Been Ready (bet you didn’t know that Norman wrote that classic)

A while back, I bought the CD, “One Way–The Songs of Larry Norman.” A variety of contemporary artists cover some of his best-known songs. Rebecca St. James rocks out on “Sweet Song of Salvation,” and Larry Howard absolutely kills with “The Rock that Doesn’t Roll.”

There is a message from Norman’s family on his website, and gobs of messages left on his message board.

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