Category Archives: This or That

Plaxo and LinkedIn

At work, we’re well along in experimenting with Plaxo, an online resource for managing your address book, calendars, and other things. One of the founders is the Napster guy. It’s a very cool resource. If a minister is a Plaxo members and updates his/her Plaxo contact info, that info is updated in our records and filters back to the Address Book. When we added our address book (over 1000 names) to Plaxo, we discovered that 29 of those persons were already Plaxo members.

Plaxo works very nice with the Mac Address Book, and also interfaces with Gmail, LinkedIn, and many other popular sites.

Speaking of LinkedIn: I also have a profile there. LinkedIn is very cool, and enables you to build a thorough profile. There are 17 million members so far, putting it just behind Myspace and Facebook. But unlike those sites, LinkedIn is designed for professionals, and particularly for networking.

In LinkedIn, you can find connections with people based on colleges and high schools you attended, plus organizations you’re part of. In Plaxo, you can import your LinkedIn connections.

I invite you to sign up for either of these, and then link up with me.

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Jerry Garcia Lives!

A Google alert this morning tells me that Jerry Garcia is doing a concert at one of our churches. That brought a smile to my face. I imagine the guy jokes about his more well-known (and drug-infested) namesake. There’s a picture of him. Clean cut, no beard. Definitely not a wannabe.

It did make me think how “Grateful Dead” is probably a good term for a lot of churches. Happy to be keeping the doors open, but few life signs.

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Questions from a Bizarro World

I remember when I was talking to my grandparents about things happening in society, and my dear, godly Grandma used the word “condom.” It just didn’t seem right.

In our society, lots of things don’t seem right. When it comes to sexuality, we live in the age of the bizarre. I’m old enough to remember when divorce was highly uncommon in the church. But that seems tame compared to dealing with, and ministering to, gays and transvestites and transgenders.

I want to raise some questions. Just by raising them, people will think I’ve gone liberal or heretical. I don’t think I need to defend my conservative evangelical credentials. But I think there are questions which, at the least, are interesting to ponder. I’ll start with some dealing with the Bible itself.

  • Was polygamy ever something God approved of? Many of our Old Testament heroes had multiple wives. But did God ever sanction it? If not, then these heroes of the faith were living in sin, even though God used them to accomplish important purposes. What’s with that?
  • The only way for Adam and Eve to become grandparents was for incest to occur–siblings having sex with each other, or parents having sex with children. This was part of being obedient to God’s “be fruitful and multiply” directive. At what point did sexual relations with siblings become “sin”? Or is it, indeed, sin? Can I be idiotic enough to ask that question without people considering me demented?
  • What about hermaphrodites? How does God view a person who has characteristics of both sexes? Or what about the hermaphrodite who is raised as a girl, and later develops male sexual organs? Would it be okay for this person to begin living as a guy? This actually happens, so there must be a view that God holds on this. What is it? Would it be sinful for this person to begin living as a guy? Or would it be a sin to NOT begin living as a guy?
  • If a transgender person becomes a Christian, should the church force that person to revert to his/her previous sex (if, indeed, it’s possible to undo it)? Or is that something we say occurred during their “nonChristian” days, and therefore can be written off (like we write-off divorces)? Would it be okay for a guy to undergo surgery to become a woman, later experience a life-changing salvation experience, and then continue living and serving Christ as a woman?
  • A professor at a Christian college in Michigan underwent surgery to become a woman, yet continued living with his wife, who was fully supportive of the transgendering. Now there is the appearance of two women living in a marriage relationship. Is that now a lesbian relationship? Or, since God made him a him, is it technically still a male-female relationship? (Or, instead of trying to figure this out, should we just sum it all up as, “God disapproves of this situation”?)
  • All my life I’ve heard Christians muse about the true identity of Paul’s infamous “thorn in the flesh,” which he kept asking God to remove. It was most likely not an addiction to internet porn. But could it have been something else of a sexual nature? The Bible never mentions that the Apostle Paul was married, and despite much church tradition, Paul never said he was part of the Sanhedrin (which I understand was for married men only). What if Paul was gay? He says in 1 Corinthians 7 that he was celibate. But what if, in his sexual orientation, he was gay and celibate? I mean…isn’t it possible? Please don’t crucify me for heresy for raising the question.
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Train Vs. Car

The train sat, unmoving, about 20 yards back from the crossing on Hadley Road. It was dark, and it was time to get this long beast moving. The engineer knew that the approaching car couldn’t see the train, so he thought he’d have some fun. He waited until the car got just the right distance from the tracks–close enough that he would need to screech the brakes to stop. Wait, wait…now. The engineer blared the horn and turned on the headlight at the same time, knowing he had just scared the crap out of the hapless driver.

I was that hapless driver last Thursday night, coming home from music practice with my wife. Following the script, I stomped on the brake and came to a stop just a few feet from the tracks. Then the crossing guard lights began flashing, and I felt like they would come down on my hood.

The horn, the headlight, the flashing lights, the mere presence of that mighty train a few yards away–yeah, it was a multiple whammy. Enough to cause Post-Traumatic Stress.

The train moved forward, gradually gaining speed. As the engine passed, I nodded toward the man sitting in that darkened window and acknowledged, “You got me good.”

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Useful “Little” Mac Programs

I’ve been using the Macintosh since 1988, when I switched from an AT&T computer with two floppy drives (no hard drive) running DOS. Still makes me cringe. Suddenly I found myself with a huge hard drive (40 gigs!), a mouse, and a wonderful graphical user interface. In those days, the Mac was way way WAY ahead of the PC world (and still is, BTW).

While I’ve always used the heavy-duty programs (Photoshop, Pagemaker, Word, PowerPoint, etc.), a number of very useful utilities and miscellaneous programs have come and gone. Right now, here are some of the “little” programs that I find useful.

  • DefaultFolder makes quick work in dialogue boxes.
  • iTunesRating, a menubar item, lets me rate songs while working in other programs.
  • BBEdit, for writing and editing blog posts (I’m using it now), and writing and editing HTML. Will read most any text file.
  • Fetch, my FTP program. I’ve tried bunches of others, but always prefer Fetch. Especially the integration with BBEdit.
  • Databackup, for backing up my stuff.
  • Disclabel designs and prints DVD/CD labels.
  • Dragthing, a launcher, stays on tbe left side of my screen.
  • FontAgentPro keeps my zillions of fonts organized.
  • Microsoft Expression Media (formerly iView) for viewing gobs of photos (when I don’t want to import them into iPhoto).
  • SnapzProx takes my screenshots.
  • ThumbsUp (freeware) is great for making thumbnails.
  • Art Directors Toolkit continually helps me out in Photoshop and Dreamweaver.

Got any other little program that have stood the test of time for you?

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Random Monday Catchup Thoughts

  • On Friday I had lunch with Evan McBroom, who heads a Christian communications consulting firm called Fishhook, out of Indianapolis. It’s always fun talking with someone else in my field. I’ve spent my whole career working, basically, alone when it comes to people in my areas of expertise. Nobody with whom to talk shop. Evan’s a great guy with lots of expertise and what sounds like a first-rate staff.
  • I really like Bruce Springsteen’s new album. Downloaded it from iTunes.
  • The Colts are doing a lot better than I expected this year, considering all the folks they lost. But they’re humming right along.
  • Pam and I are watching the third season of “The Office,” which came out on DVD a few weeks ago. That is such a hysterical show. Last night I dreamed that I was working for The Missionary Church denomination, and that Jim (from the Office) was their bookstore manager. No sign of Pam the receptionist.
  • A terrible injustice occurred last week on “Dancing with the Stars.” The fellow who got booted, some model whose name I don’t even know, was among the best and certainly the most entertaining. And they kept Wayne Newton? He of the plastic face, the result of way too many facelifts?
  • On Saturday Pam and I traveled to Mason, Mich., to attend one of the Lay Training Events our denomination is holding in six different regional settings. Probably 40 people attended, plus another dozen in the youth tract. Pat Jones, our Director of Healthy Church Ministries, led the sessions, and he had lots of good stuff and superb stories.
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At MinistryCOM 2007

I’m in Nashville, Tenn., attending the MinistryCOM convention, which is for Christian communications professionals. About 300 people are here, and most work for megachurches. Good people, passionate about what they do, and highly competent. Seriously, these are some way-competent folks.

In one workshop, the leader asked how many of us were the entire communications staff. About one-third of the hands went up. He said, “Your job is difficult, because nobody else understands what you do.” That describes most of my career. Except for a couple years in the early 1980s, and six months in 2006, I’ve had no one with whom to “talk shop.” My coworkers and superiors appreciate what I do, but they aren’t conversant in my skills (writing, graphic design, web design). That’s the way it goes. I’m the only United Brethren person here, period. I’m not sure we have any communications fulltimers on staff at any of our churches.

But many of the MinistryCOM attendees come from churches with an entire communications staff. I ate lunch with a trio from a Wisconsin church–the woman communications director, the web guy, and a graphics guy. I enjoyed being able to converse knowledgeably with each one, since those areas are all strengths for me. That’s what happens after years and years of having to do everything yourself. You’re forced to accumulate additional expertise.

This is only the third MinistryCOM convention. There are quite a few first-timers this year, which is nice. I attended last year’s convention in Phoenix and profited tremendously from it. It took little time for me to realize, “This is a conference I must attend every year.”

As is the case at any Christian (or secular) conference, plenty of individuals stand around by themselves. They came alone, like me. We stand against the walls or in corners. Or, this being a group of communications people, open up a laptop and check email. It’s too easy to disappear into your computer, which is like erecting a big “Do Not Disturb” sign to fend off social advances. I tried to connect, but couldn’t. During the morning, I sat beside another Mac guy; he snagged a connection, but I couldn’t. Go figure. Probably too many people logging on. A number of people mentioned their inability to connect, though not in a complaining way. Church people are adept at complaining, but I haven’t noticed that here. Of course, I’m not exactly plugged in.

The break times are great. They have Nature’s Valley Sweet and Salty Nut granola bars. I tried one. Yum. I took another. In the afternoon, I took two more and ate them before the concluding session.

Now I’m back in my Ramada Limited hotel room, with my full-barred wireless signal. I called Pam at music practice, and now I’m ready to head out to the Nashville Table Tennis club, which meets on Thursday nights. Some southern rednecks are gonna get the chance to whomp on a Yankee.

Postscript three hours later: The table tennis club wasn’t what I expected. Of the 12 guys there, 9 were Asian, most of them very good. One guy had a 2500 rating, another was over 2000, and their US Top Ten player was absent (his wife was having a baby). Nevertheless, I played extremely well, and ended up with a 3-2 record. Very fun. Sure beat any alternatives I had for the evening.

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Email–The Scourge of Creativity

I’ve been trying something new regarding email, and I like it.

I’ve always kept my email program open, set to automatically check for new email every few minutes. When new emails arrive, I’m alerted by a sound and by a red number appearing on the icon in my Macintosh dock (the number tells me how many unread emails eagerly await my attention). Email is like a phone call, trumping whatever you’re doing. If you’re deep in prayer but the phone rings, you abruptly leave God without explanation and rush off to answer the phone.

This is bad for creative types, like myself. I read an article which talked about this.

“The problem is that when you go back to what you were doing, you’ve lost your chain of thought and, of course, you are less productive….People’s brains get tired from breaking off from something every few minutes to check emails. The more distracted you are by distractions, including email, then you are going to be more tired and less productive.”

The article said adverse effects are felt most by employees in creative jobs or in jobs that require long periods of concentration. That certainly applies to me. Whether I’m writing an article, editing a manuscript, or doing graphic design, I’m at my best when I immerse myself in the work without distraction. I imagine writing a sermon requires similar concentration.

I didn’t realize how much the constant bombardment of email detracts from my creative efforts, continuously pulling me away, every few minutes, from what I’m doing.

So I’ve been keeping my email program closed. As the article suggested, I set aside specific times for processing email, or maybe do it when I’m at some kind of natural break (switching from one project to another, returning from lunch, etc.). I launch Apple Mail, process my email, then quit the program and plunge back into my creative work.

What a difference it’s made! I’ve been doing this for a couple weeks now. And let me tell you–it’s been a huge benefit to my creativity. Just wish I’d learned this ridiculously simple principle ten years ago.

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The Incredible Rain-X

It’s been raining like crazy all day, something we’ve needed.

Amidst the downpour, I’ve not used my windshield wipers. It’s an experiment. I’d heard about this product called Rain-X: rub it onto your windshield, and rain will bead up and go away. We’ve not had enough rain this summer for me to really try it out, until today.

It’s pretty amazing. The water just beads up on the windshield and goes…somewhere, I don’t know where.

This doesn’t mean I’ll stop using windshield wipers. It’s just an interesting addition to my wonderful Dodge Dakota SLT.

[This has been a paid advertisement of Rain-X…NOT.]

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iChat and the Chinese Firewall

Two days ago at work, about 11:30 am, I received an iChat instant message from Erinn. Erinn is in China, working with a group from Huntington University that is teaching teachers of English in Zhuhai City, a major city in China. It’s a very neat opportunity. Erinn worked in my office until last November, when she accepted a high school teaching job.

Anyway, Erinn said some plans had changed, and she needed to do a presentation. But she was having trouble gathering photos for a PowerPoint presentation. She just needed some photos of typical American sports–basketball, baseball, football, soccer, golf, etc. She tried Google images, but the vaunted Great Firewall of China wouldn’t let her find anything. Evidently American sports photos are considered enemies of the state. She had been trying for a good while, but in vain.

So she was wondering if I could help her out. Could I use my graphics resources to send her some suitable photos. I have a good library of photos on my computer, and among them were some sports photos, which I quickly located. I dropped a football photo into the iChat window and hit the Return button. A few seconds later, the image having appeared on her screen, she responded, “Ooh, that’s a nice one.” Or something like that.

I dropped in photos of people playing other sports–basketball, golf, hockey, even skateboarding. All got through. Amazing. I drag a photo into a message field, send it, and almost immediately it appears on Erinn’s screen on the other side of the world. Sometimes technology can be radically cool.

“It’s been a pleasure circumventing cyber tyranny,” I told her as we ended our chat. And I imagined Chinese cyberspooks, frustrated by their inability to stifle iChat, scrambling black helicopters and dour sunglassed men in black SUVs to Erinn’s IP node.

Apple iChat. Think Subversive.

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