Archive for Random – Page 3

Theologically Vacuous Christian Advertising

By Matt · Comments (2)
Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Got a packet of advertisements in the mail at church yesterday. Two stood out:

  1. On the outside of the packet there was a teaser from a sign company: “The first step in growth? A quality church sign.” Then, on the real advertisement inside, it said: “This is the sign that reached the family and brought them to church.” [Next to a picture of nice, white family with an SUV and quite large 2-story house in the background]. “Make the drive-by congregation of today the members of tomorrow.” At least the signs are vandal- and graffiti-resistant.
  2. Another one was an advertisement for custom-made folders you can hand out to visitors containing basic information on your church: “Church leaders agree: [XXXXXXXXX] Visitor Packets are the #1 choice for welcoming and enfolding new people. The reasons are clear: Unparalleled quality. Unequalled designs. Unmatched excellence.” I’m not even exactly sure what it means to “enfold” someone.
Comments (2)
Categories : Christianity, Random

I Think I Finally Have a Need for a Video iPod

By Matt · Comments (0)
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

I made a potentially time-consuming discovery the other day: TED.com. It’s pretty much one big happy convergence of brilliance. The ecclesiolgy pointed at in the video below makes it one of my favorites. Go to the site and enjoy. In the meantime, I’ll be trying to figure out how to get my hands on a video iPod so I can watch all these videos wherever I am.

[Booo, this theme doesn't like embedding videos. I'm either going to have to try to figure out what is wrong or switch to a new theme. Here's the link to the video I was talking about.]

Comments (0)
Categories : Ecclesiology, Random

I Don't Understand Twitter…

By Matt · Comments (2)
Sunday, May 4th, 2008

…but it’s finally starting to catch on pretty big.  I’ll have to give it a shot and see what I think.

Comments (2)
Categories : Personal, Random

Productivity Push

By Matt · Comments (0)
Friday, March 7th, 2008

Blah.  That’s pretty much where I’ve been lately. Just blah. Not sad, not happy, just blah.  And I think part of it is that I want to do so many things with my work, life, house, classes writing, whatever, and I look at the calendar and another month has gone by and I haven’t taken action on any of it.

So I’m going to try to be productive for a week.  I will:

  1. Not open an internet browser at home expect to pay bills (so no blogging for a week, which is pretty much a normal occurrence).
  2. Set a timer at work when doing internet research.  Reading blogs does not count as research.  When the timer goes off, I’m done.
  3. Reorganize and reevaluate my GTD system.
  4. Not play xbox.
  5. Not work on the website I am building for our synod. I’ve got plenty of time to finish it and actually need to wait some more before working on it. I’ve spent a lot of time on it recently and haven’t made a lot of progress.

Hopefully this will help free up some time to do things that are fulfilling, rather than just passing time.

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Categories : Personal, Random
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My Most Random Post Ever

By Matt · Comments (0)
Saturday, February 23rd, 2008
  • I haven’t been happy with myself lately. I feel like I’m not managing my time very well. I’ve got all these things going on and I feel like I’m doing all (well, maybe most) of them very crappily.
    • I’ve gotten a bit behind in my GTD system, which could be part of the problem. I skipped my weekly review for I don’t know how long, and it hurt. I got back on track this week, so hopefully I can make some good progress next week.
    • As a result of this poor time mangement, blogging has suffered.
    • I’ve lacked any creative energy lately as well. I realized it’s (probably) because I haven’t been reading much. Just picking up a book on Thursday made me feel better. Literally, picking it up, not even opening it. I plan to do some reading for pleasure today.
  • I have enjoyed watching college basketball, which is probably the one thing that is taking up more of my time than I realize.
    • I’m picking Tennessee to win tonight.
    • Duke disappointed me last week.
    • I want to go to the Final Four sometime in my life.
    • My friend from high school, Matt Kingsley, is the center for the Stephen F. Austin basketball team and was on Fox Sports Southwest Thursday. It was fun to watch him on TV.
  • I have become increasingly interested in the political race lately. I’m not so much interested in the candidates or the”politics” of politics (if you get what I mean), but with policy. It intrigues me the different ways that people want to try to “fix” the problems in America.
    • I have taken pride over the last few years that I had gotten past the conservatism of my youth and become more moderate. But now I think I really am a conservative. And I’m not talking about abortion, war, and federal marriage amendments. If I could sum up my position, it is “less government is better.” While I think many of the things politicians want to do are good things, just because they are good doesn’t mean that the government should do them.
    • I’d like to do some reading about some of this stuff, but don’t even know where to start. I need to talk to Noah, the political science major.
    • I think I’d like to run for some kind of public office some day. Well, scratch that. I think I’d like to be in public office some day. The schmoozing required to run does not appeal to me at all. Which means that you’ll probably never see Matt Cleaver in office. But who knows?
  • Speaking of reading more about political type things, I’ve decided I want to expand my reading to include new genres. I need to start some kind of reading program. I really enjoy reading theology-type books, but I need to expand past that. In an ideal world I would have five books going at once:
    1. One theology/ministry book for pleasure
    2. Another book for pleasure
    3. A book related to my ministry at Hope
    4. A book to review for ymexchange.com
    5. Reading for class
    • Yeah, don’t know if I can swing five books at once. I guess the key would be setting aside specific time in my week to read the appropriate books so two or three of them don’t sit on my nightstand for 3 months.
  • Speaking of class, I am taking my first online couse for my degree program. It is a survey of the prophets. Right now we are reading two books. I don’t like one. The other is okay. We’ll see how this online learning business works out.
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Categories : Personal, Random
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NCAA Basketball

By Matt · Comments (1)
Saturday, February 16th, 2008

I’ve been watching a fair amount of college basketball this season.  In the one game I watched of them this season, Tennessee has impressed me more than any other team at this stage.  My prediction as of right now: if Tennessee beats Memphis Saturday, they win the tourney.

My emotional favorite to win: Duke.

The 92-53 North Carolina vs. Virginia Tech game today was a snoozer for a national TV CBS match up.

Comments (1)
Categories : Random

123 Book Meme

By Matt · Comments (0)
Friday, February 15th, 2008

Jake tagged me for the 123 book meme.  So here’s the deal:

(1) Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating! (2) Turn to page 123. (3) Find the first 5 sentences. (4) Post the next 3 sentences. (5) Tag 5 people.

Me:

Joining a church-planting team is.  Standing with mothers in the middle of a busy intersection to protest the deaths of their sons is.  Why do our churches often miss the experience of communitas?

Umm, yeah, the rest of the book is much better, I promise.  The book is Exiles by Michael Frost.

I tag Sadie, Rusty, Brit, Noah, and Todd.

Comments (0)
Categories : Random

Lessons in Eisegesis

By Matt · Comments (0)
Thursday, February 14th, 2008

From merriam-webster.com:

Eisegesis – the interpretation of a text (as of the Bible) by reading into it one’s own ideas

On that note, watch this video on YouTube.

(I tried to embed the video, but it messed up my template for some reason. I’ll have to check that out.)

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Categories : Random
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Denominational Differences

By Matt · Comments (1)
Friday, January 11th, 2008

As someone who has been exposed to differing denominations (non-, Baptist, Lutheran, some 2nd-order Presbyterianism), I would like to burst the bubble of those who are lifelong adherents to a particular denomination. It is common across denominational boundaries that:

  • No one sits on the front row.
  • Coffee flows like milk and honey.
  • Food and pot-luck dinners are a theological virtue.

There are probably many more denominational “idiosyncrasies” that are actually common to us all. Feel free to add to my list.

Comments (1)
Categories : Ecclesiology, Random

Posting Hiatus

By Matt · Comments (4)
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

Chances are there won’t be any new posts until the Monday after Thanksgiving.  I’ll be busy visiting families, getting ready for our monthly Sunday night service, taking vacation, blah blah blah.

If I do post, just consider it a gift.

Comments (4)
Categories : Blogging, Personal, Random
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