My Worship Revolution

Comment left by Ben on recent post, "The Good News":

You are tempting me. I’m up for a new pc in October. I will need some
strong convincing though Bobby. The thought of learning a new OS just
doesn’t sound like it’s worth the trouble. Convince me.

OK…with some help, I’ll give it a go.  Here are a couple of the reasons, after making the switch last year, I’m glad that I did and am not turning back:

• Stability.  I know some people have claimed to me that they have a new PC and haven’t had any problems with it.  That just hasn’t been my experience.  I got a bit tired of the whole CTRL+ALT+DEL thing.  Now granted, I won’t lie.  I did have a few problems with an iMac I got at Revolution.  But overall it was still better than any PC I owned, and the customer service was better as well.
• Virus Protection.  I guess this could have gone along with stability, but I think it’s deserving of a bullet all it’s own.  With your PC you MUST have some serious virus protection or you’re screwed.  Even with it, you’ll probably have a problem somewhere along the line.  Not that it hasn’t happened, but I have yet to hear of a Mac getting a virus.
• Media.  Part of it has to do with what I use it for.  I guess PC’s are better if you’re doing lots of accounting and spreadsheets (or so I’ve been told), but I’m using my computer for music, photos, graphics, video, web, etc.  Fact of the matter it, Macs are becoming the industry standard in most of these areas…for a reason.
• Compatibility. Not as much a reason, but a response to an excuse I guess.  People keep saying they need a PC because of the programs they need.  I have Microsoft Office for Mac on my laptop.  It has Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, fully compatible to share with PC users.  A large number of programs are available now a days for Macs.  And if it’s not, you always have the option of running Windows with Boot Camp or Parallels.
• iChat.  Small feature, but I must admit, I love the ease of being able to video conference with friends and ministry colleagues via my built in iSight.  Also makes me look forward to our parents getting Macs now so they can see Caleb more often now that we’re further away.
• They’re Sexy.  OK, not a real good reason to switch over, but when all the other stuff is going for it, it’s kinda icing on the cake, ya know?  It’s the best looking hunk of electronics you’ll see.  And their ads are pretty entertaining too. 

Anywho, that’s me.  Sure, when I switched over I felt like an 80 year old grandpa on his computer trying to figure out the ins and outs of this new-fandangled operating systems, but it aint really that tough.  Within a week or two I was fine and wishing I had made the switch sooner.

So there’s a response for you Ben.  And how about the rest of ya?  Help me out.  Own a Mac?  What’s your favorite feature?  Don’t own one and don’t want to?  Why not?  Go ahead and let me know.  This is an equal opportunity blog.

Here it is.  A bit earlier this week.  Check out my hood.  Enjoy.

***WARNING/DISCLAIMER:  You’ll notice that I catgorized this post under humor.  After talking with several people, I discovered that the story isn’t quite outlandish enough to realize that it’s satire.  It’s a joke.  Now, read and laugh a little.

Blogging.  A place to be authentic and share my life with you.  Here’s the next step.  All you pastors out there, here we go!
[HT: Lark News]

Pastors go live 24/7 on Internet

LEWISTON, Maine — Recently, several
hundred members of Holy Trinity Church watched pastor Jeremy Woods eat breakfast,
work on his sermon and make a Starbucks run. Woods had just joined a growing group
of pastors who are broadcasting their lives 24/7 on the Internet.

    "When I first heard of going live I thought, ‘This is
the future of pastoring but I’m not sure I like it,’" Woods says. But after
a month he says he "totally digs it."

    "It’s the next step beyond blogging or even live blogging,"
he says. "It’s about sharing life."

    The trend is believed to have started in 2004 when Rick Givens
of New York’s West Side Church decided to make himself "more accountable
and accessible" by webcasting every waking moment live. But his pioneering
effort has forced other pastors into awkward decisions. Donald Taylor, 37, of
Nebraska didn’t want to go live, but relented because of pressure from his board.
He hated his first week.
[READ MORE]

Alright peeps.  It’s time to give away somethin free.  This is really for all you SoCal people down there.  I have one free ticket for Six Flags Magic Mountain.  Bummer is, it does expire on April 30th, so you gotta use it soon.

So, if you have time in next few weeks, and you want it, leave a comment.  If there’s one of you, it’s yours.  Two, I’ll flip a coin.  Three or more, we go into raffle mode.  And it’s only if I hear from you today.  Then I’ll pop it in the mail tomorrow.  Hope someone wants it!

And Oh yeah…I also have 18 of the "buy one get one free" variety, and those ones are good til the end of May.  Stamps aren’t cheap though, and I don’t feel like mailing 18 envelopes.  Rachel will be in SoCal the first week of May, so maybe if you’re a friend in the area there that might see her, and you want em, shoot me an e-mail.

**UPDATE:  So far, it looks like no one can make it before the end of the month.  But it also looks like there are a pair of free tickets now.  So, first person to let me know gets em both.

**UPDATE AGAIN:  They’re gone.  Ended up someone here in Santa Cruz is going down there to Magic Mountain and wanted them.

I am not a morning person.  Once I’m up, I’m pretty good to go, but getting out of bed is probably the toughest chore I have to accomplish all day.  I hate mornings.

But twice a week, I get up when Caleb does now, giving my wife a few mornings to get a couple extra Z’s.  When I hear Caleb begin making some noise around 6:15am (or earlier at times), I slowly come to and lay there dreading the idea of stepping out into the cold world away from my covers.  I’ll usually, finally, get myself to move somewhere between 6:45 and 7.  For some of you that’s no big deal, in fact, it’s late.  Again though, for a night person, it’s torture.

But then I walk into Caleb’s room.  I pick him up and see the smile on his face and my day is all of a sudden a million times better.  Those mornings are some of the greatest times hangin out with my son.  We play together.  We laugh together.  Until I can tell he’s getting a little hungry and I get to feed him.  Here’s some pictures we took on the Macbook Pro this morning while we were hanging out:

I mean, just look at that face!  It makes waking up on Tuesdays and Fridays, two of the earliest mornings in my week, two of my favorite mornings in the week.

The Macvangelization has begun!

That’s right friends, my brief stint back in the underworld of PC is once again all over.  And it made me all the more appreciative of my friends at Apple.  After a couple weeks of CTRL-ALT-DEL and random freezing, CLC blessed a brother with a brand spankin new Macbook Pro! 

So yester day I drove "over the hill" (NorCal speak for "to San Jose") to Oakridge Mall.

I made my way to the Apple store.

And I returned to my office with my 15", 2.33 G processing, 2 GB RAM, wonder of technology.

So c’mon people!  Join me!  If you’re still using one of those inferior PC’s, what’s the deal?  Come on over.  I fought it for too long and I’m glad I finally crossed.  just wish I had done it sooner.  Don’t make the same mistake.  Today is the day!  If you got hit by a bus today, do you know…

When I was at Revolution Church, I kept everything on my laptop…everything!  Actually, it was the churches laptop.  So before leaving SoCal to come to CLC, Rachel and I bought a 500GB external hard drive so I could transfer all of my stuff onto there to put on my new computer eventually.  (Yeah…you can probably see where this one is going.)

And so I’ve had it plugged into my PC here at the office using things from it as I needed them, intending to soon either transfer it all onto this computer or a laptop if I was able to get one.  So on Monday, after putting a capture card in the Vaio and putting it back together, I have the hard drive turned on and on top of the tower.  I’m fixing something on the PC, bump it a little, and the hard drive falls about six inches and hits a small pipe going to an electrical outlet.  Hard drive failed.

Yup.  Thousands of songs…gone.  Hundreds of pictures…gone.  Lots of chord charts…gone.  Papers from all of my classes at Vanguard, dramas I had written and others I’ve picked up along the way, rosters with phone numbers and contact info, videos I created at Revolution, and more…all GONE!

The hard drive is being replaced under warranty.  But after a bit of research, I’ve discovered that recovering the data off the drive could easily cost $1500-$2000.  I guess I can use this as a reminder.

1. Back up the data.  Although it wouldn’t help much here as I was transferring it, it’s a good reminder of how quickly it can all disappear.
2. Maybe some things aren’t as important as I think they they are.  There’s nothing on there I really can’t live without.  Hey, I guess our "fresh start" up north will just be a little fresher.

So yeah…that’s the bad news alright.  But!  The good news should be coming in a soon to appear post…

It’s a few days late, but you didn’t think I was gonna let it go, now did ya?  Here’s a little talk through from Sunday night.  Lighting kinda sucks, but you get the point.

I was doing my daily RSS check this morning when I came across a post at Ragamuffin Soul.  Every so often I come across something as a result of someone’s blog that really hits me and effects my day, my outlook, makes me really think.  The post directed me to check out this message.

It’s a message from this past Sunday morning from a church that is in serious crisis.  It was one of the best messages I’ve heard from a church dealing with a moral failure that I’ve heard.  It was also one of the most heartbreaking, scary, and encouraging messages I’ve heard in a while.  Strange mix…I know.  If you haven’t yet, go listen/watch.  The reasons it raised those emotions in me:

• Heartbreaking.  I don’t know any of the pastors at this church.  I don’t know any attenders at this church.  I am only somewhat familiar with a blogger who attends the church.  Yet I still felt like I had to choke back a tear or two as I heard the news.  I guess I just imagine the amount of pain in the lives of those directly involved as well as the entire community in and outside of that churches walls.
• Scary.  Scary on 2 counts.  1)  I know that as time goes on there will come crisis that I cannot control.  It’s just a fact of life.  I’ve had a couple, but I’m reminded that I probably have my fair share ahead.  I know I have Jesus and can make it through, but I still don’t look forward to them.  But I loved the reminder that God is not nearly as concerned about my comfort as he is about my character, that I be shaped and formed into the image of Jesus Christ.  2)  I have within me the potential to mess up.  I know myself and that I am just as jacked up as the next guy, and the next pastor.  We all have the capacity in us to sin.  It may not be in the same way as this pastor, but we all screw up.  I will keep on clinging to Jesus and trusting that he can keep me from the big stuff.  I hope my fear of falling hard will be just one of many factors to help keep me from that.
• Encouraging.  The best part was the reminder that God still uses jacked up peeps like me.  I often wonder if I can truly be effective in ministry because while I know my strengths, I am probably doubly aware of all my weakness.  I fear that those weaknesses will keep me from being an effective leader and pastor, and I tend to focus on them.  But it’s great to know that it really isn’t about me!  That’s something I think I needed to be reminded of this morning.  God can and will use me and the way He has uniquely formed me to radically impact peoples lives for Christ.  That being said, I’m gonna go make a difference with the rest of my day now.  I invite you to go and do the same.

Sometimes this kid cracks me up.