Some have suggested that one of the dangers of the internet is that it causes people to develop fake relationships. I agree that it would be unhealthy for a relationship to exist solely in cyberspace, but I’ve been really pleased with some of the connections I’ve made through blogging. Some of those have led to opportunities to connect with other bloggers in person…Justin Baeder, Aaron Ogle, and Bob Hyatt so far. There have also been others who I feel like I could meet in person and we’d already have a great rapport just from the sharing of thoughts online.

Sherri and I had a day like that today when we were able to connect with Chris and Necole Marlow. I first met Chris through some comments on the TheoHacks site. Turns out they just moved up here. Today, they came to a Pathways gathering, and then joined our family at home for lunch. Chris, Necole, Bailey and Mackenzie — thanks for taking some time to hang with us. It is always good to share time with others on a journey similar to our own.

Our phone contracts with T-Mobile are just about to expire, and I’m heavily considering switching Sherri and I over to a shared Cingular plan with rollover minutes. I think we might be able to save $30/month this way.

I’m pretty fascinated with the Cingular 2125. If anyone has any experience with this phone, or any Window Mobile Smartphone, I’d love to hear it. From what I’ve seen, it might be ideal for me.

I carry my PocketPC less and less because I almost always have my laptop with me these days. When I do use my PocketPC, it’s for looking up contact info, using the Bible software, reading email, or handwriting a few notes. Going to a Smartphone is going to make it much easier to sync contacts with my phone, so that’s an upgrade. The Bible software isn’t quite as full featured for the SmartPhone, but it can still get the job done. Because it can connect to our Exchange server from anywhere, the smartphone will be a big upgrade for checking email. So, this will get me down to just one gadget, plus a small moleskine for scratching notes. Sounds good to me.

I couldn’t hold it any longer. I was hoping a break would come soon. I didn’t want to get up and leave the class in case I might miss something. Finally, I decided I couldn’t possibly miss that much, even if I did stop to wash my hands, so I went. I brought relief to my bladder and a smile to my face.

I walked back into the classroom just in time to hear Leonard Sweet say “…and that’s why I think semiotics are so important for us to understand.” Oh my gosh…I’d never even heard of semiotics, and now I’d’ missed out on them in only 120 seconds. I shouldn’t have washed my hands.

Thankfully, we discussed semiotics more during the week, and I discovered that it is the study of signs or images. Because both ancients and postmoderns think more in terms of images than we, it is important for us to not just exegete words when studying Scripture, but images as well.

I brought my rudimentary understanding of semiotics to preparation for a sermon I preached yesterday, and it was illuminating. I was preaching on day of Pentecost from Acts 2. I quickly found some common themes worth pursuing. Pentecost was a celebration of the giving of the Torah at mount Sinai. That story begins in Exodus 19 as God comes down on Mount Sinai in fire and commands the people not to come near the mountain.

The imagery continues as the tabernacle is completed in Exodus 40:34-38. God stations himself over the tabernacle, and the tablets containing the ten commandments, as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Similar imagery appears in 2 Chronicles 7:1-3 as the temple is dedicated. Again, the temple contains the tablets, and fire and smoke fills the temple to show that God is there. In both the tabernacle and the temple humans were not to enter except for the high priest once a year.

Now, we combine all this with Acts 2. The Jews are celebrating the day of Pentecost — the giving of the Torah. Tongues of fire come and rest on each of the apostles. The fire which people couldn’t approach before is now coming to rest on them. Surely the disciples understood the significance of what was happening. Pentecost is not some Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial gone horribly wrong , it is God’s very presence coming to live within his people. This is something I understood before, but never so fully. I imagine there are many more lightbulbs to be turned on as I approach the Scriptures this way.

If you want to hear the sermon, here’s an mp3. Please go to the bathroom before you listen.

I’ve kind of grown tired of leadership books because many of them say a lot of the same stuff. I feel like I end up reading a lot of repeat concepts to dig out one or two special jewels. I read Leadership and Self-Deception and it definitely doesn’t follow that trend.

It’s one of those books that you agree with what is being said the whole time, and deep down you already know it’s true, but you don’t like someone reminding you of it. It describes how most of the challenges we have in leadership, and in any relationship, come from our own self-centered thinking. (Although the book develops this idea far better than that.) The book is one of those leadership fable types (ala Lencioni), but the content of it is so good I was able to overlook my usual dislike for those. This will likely be required reading for any future ministry interns I have the chance to work with, and I’d encourage anyone who is in ministry, is married, or is breathing, to read it.

I haven’t kept up with all of Leonard Sweet’s books the last few years. I sometimes find all of his word plays tiresome, and I didn’t like Summoned to Lead, which is his only recent one I’d read.

When I took a class with him a few weeks ago, he gave us all a copy of his latest, The Three Hardest Words. I read it, and liked it. Even though the idea of the metanarrative is challenged on postmodernity, he explains that it is more important than ever for Christianity. He goes on to break down the Christian metanarrative as I Love You — “the Christian metanarrative offers people a new identity (’I'), a new integrity (’love’), and a new intimacy (’you’).” (pg 59)

Below are a few of the things that I underlined that are worth chewing on:
· When outsiders look at the ‘lifestyle choice’ of Christians, who spend their lives sitting in the same pew, singing the same songs, reciting the same words, smiling at the same people, listening to the same thoughts, and building bigger barns that all look the same, they scratch their heads in wonderment that anyone in her right mind would choose that kind of ‘life.’ (pg 29)

· Leadership is the art, not primarily of reaching people where they are, but of reaching people where they are not — but where God is calling them to be. (pg 38)

· But in worship, what are we really doing? We are flushing out that which is keeping us from abiding in The Presence, as we flesh out those things that keep us abiding in The Presence. Church is not here for us. We are here for the church, and the church is here for the world. The church is not a provider of religious goods and services. The church is a covenant community of people who together abide in The Presence. Worship is not all about the hour we’re together. Worship is all about the week we’ve been apart, and the week we’re about to enter. (pg 57)

· In the West, every child enters life legally defined as a separate entity. In the East, every child enters life legally defined by the network of relationships into which one is born. (pg 126) He goes on to describe how we give an individual birth certificate in the west, but eastern cultures add the child’s name to a family of record documents which ties the child to the family.

Tim Soerens gave me a heads up yesterday on some mp3s from Michael Frost. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find them.) Michael Frost is one of the co-authors of The Shaping of Things to Come and one of the leading voices in the missional church. I listened to two of them last night going back and forth to Safeco Field, and they’re worth a listen. (Bob Hyatt, it sounds like he mentions you, but not by name, in the second one.)

If you like them, give them a vote on inbreaking. There is also some older audio from him linked there, but it is only available in streaming audio format.

This year, I celebrated lent for the first time in my life.

I chose to not use any caffeine as a stimulant, though I did still have traces in decaf drinks. I wish I would have stretched myself a bit more. I thought that giving up caffeine would be difficult, but it really wasn’t. I never even had headaches. I found out shortly into lent that a double latte doesn’t have as much caffeine as a cup of drip coffee — I had thought it was the other way around. Ultimately, I think my body didn’t rely on caffeine as much as I expected it might.

On the other hand, even participating in lent was a great reminder of the season which lifted my soul. I found I was more in tune with the fact that Easter was coming. I work out of a coffee shop 3-4 days a week, and the days I’m not in one I’m usually making a latte at home. Daily, I was reminded that I was joined by millions of others in the midst of an annual rhythm. I was dialed in to an anticipation of the most sacred of Chrsitian holidays. As I blogged about here, I found new meaning in the timing of Easter in the spring, and this was a byproduct of lent.

I know that for many from my tradition, lent is seen as just an empty, non-Biblical ritual. That’s too bad. I found it to be incredibly meaningful and it led me to a fuller experience and connection with the Biblical narrative. I hope to embrace it even more fully next year.

Pathways celebrated our first Easter together this week. I think my favorite story was a much older couple that came in — boy, did I midjudge them. I assumed they were lifelong church goers who probably wouldn’t like our less than traditional style. After the service, the husband explained to Dean that he really enjoyed the service and it was the first time he’d been to church in 70 years.

That’s cool.

Recently, I ran across metroblogging:

With almost 50 active sites, Metroblogging is the largest and fastest growing network of city-specific blogs on the Web. From San Francisco to Bangkok, from Karachi to Toronto, Metblogs are a hyper-local look at what’s going on in the city. Our hand-picked core of regional bloggers give each site a new perspective on daily life; less calendar listings, more friendly advice. With Metblogs, you can read about life and times in your neighborhood, your favorite places to visit, places where you’ve never been, or get a feel for them all with the daily “best of” blog on the hub at metroblogging.com.

It’s an enlightening way to hear about what is going on and to get the pulse of whatever city you are near. (If you find this site as useful as I, go vote for it on inbreaking.com.)

Through Lifehacker, I found this site that lets you spell words with letters from flickr. It’s fun to play with and has great results. It is so well thought out, that if you don’t like the look of a particular letter, you can just click on it and it will be replaced.

I put together this slide (click on it for a larger image) for Pathways in about 10 minutes using letters created from the site.

After reading Brian McLaren’s latest, The Secret Message of Jesus, I have to agree with Jason Clark. I really liked the book, but I hated the title. The book is about the message of Jesus, and he tries to justify the use of the word secret, but I think it is really just to help the book stand out…as if a McLaren book needs that at this point.

The book is a helpful summary of Jesus’ teachings, especially regarding the kingdom of God. I enjoyed it a lot more than A Generous Orthodoxy because it is easier to read with less parenthetical and apologetic statements in it. McLaren is known, maybe even a bit unfairly, for opening up questions and never really stating where he himself stands. Though far from dogmatic, he is more defining of his own views in this book, and I find it helpful.

It is a book that I could recommend to anyone and I hope a lot of people read it. It could be a helpful introduction to someone who is new to trying to understand who Jesus is, but can also be a good summary to someone who is trying to understand how the theology of the kingdom of God fits into Jesus’ mesage.

Google Calendar apparently went live tonight, because I just logged into it for the first time. I can’t wait to get into it and play around to see how functional it might be. They are well on their way to completely create an online version of an office suite. They won’t be the first to do it, but I bet they’ll be the ones to bring it to a functional level for the masses.

One of my least favorite things in the world has been trying to figure out how to hold a book open while I type quotes from it using both hands…until now!

I’ve discovered the ipod book hack. It does require that you have a rubber skin on your ipod, but it is perfectly weighted to hold even a 700 page book open when properly balanced. The rubber skin keeps the ipod from sliding off the book and crashing on the floor.

Just another of life’s simple pleasures that makes me smile.

I finished The Jesus Creed, by Scot McKnight tonight. Great book. McKnight shows how Jesus’ core teaching of love God and love others is developed through all aspects of his ministry. I always enjoy the crossover between a book that is written by a scholar, but is very accessible to the average reader. You can sense the depth of McKnight’s understanding of the Scriptures without getting bogged down in details that most might find to be tedious.

I’ve already ordered the companion guide and another copy of the book for Dean. We want to explore the possiblity of using it within Pathways as a personal reading/small group study/weekend gathering combination. 40 Days of Jesus… or something like that.