The are just not as exciting in this context are they? Almost hard to believe that over 30 years later kids are still dressing up like them, quoting their lines and pretending they had real Light Sabers to battle with!
Question: Can you name the character each of these actors played? Post your answers here!
(HT: ReflectionOf.Me)
Here are my notes from Sunday’s message at Fellowship. Powerful message from Lee White, Elder & Men’s Life Group Leader
Toxic Thoughts – Lee White
It’s the THOUGHT that counts!
- Romans 7:15
- Proverbs 4:23
The Big Idea: Identify & reject toxic thoughts and replace them with God’s truth.
Five type of negative thoughts:
1. Negative - Will attack you directly in the place where you are called to serve!
2. Fearful - What’s going to happen if…
3. Sinful - Lust, envy, gossip
4. Critical – Judgemental
5. Discontented - I want better house, clothes, kids, spouse
Toxic thoughts have toxic actions!
Genesis 25:29-34 Esau sells his birthright to Jacob for some stew.
Matthew 1:1-2 - The impact of trading his birthright because he was hungry.
This is a powerful story… think about what Esau gave up for a very temporary gain. If we don’t learn to treat our toxic thoughts we will make the same tragic mistakes in life.
Poison Control:
1. Identify toxic thoughts
2. Reject toxic thoughts 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
3. Replace toxic thoughts with God’s truth. Philippians 4:8
If you haven’t had enough of the Angry Birds yet, just wait – they are to appear in a Super Bowl ad and are headed to Rio!
[Email and RSS readers can watch clip here]
Question: Have you played Angry Birds? Is it your favorite current game or do you have another? Post comments here.
I love this image. In an online and ever connected world like ours, social media and even email can become huge distractions. How do you know if your productivity is getting lost in this Bermuda Triangle? Do you constantly feel the tempting urge to check for new status updates, tweets and email messages that demand your attention? Do you tend to drop everything else every time you get a new DM, @ reply, a post on your wall or new email message? Maybe it is time to let go (for a while).
When I was growing up and in school, the main distraction was the phone. Not not a smart phone but a regular-old-corded-attached-to-the-wall phone. Oh yeah, and the only thing you could do with it was talk on it – no texting, surfing or playing games. I’m not sure how I would have dealt with all of the competing distractions that face kids today. But it’s not just kids that have to learn how to balance all of the new ways of social interaction with other responsibilities. Adults need to as well and perhaps even more so. Like so many things, it might be even harder for adults to learn how.
I am not saying that social media is a waste of time. It can be a very valuable and important communication and connection tool which gives us inroads and insights to people, customers and potential clients but it must be balanced. The same can be said about email and texting. While social media (and even texting) is a relatively new medium, email has been around for a long time and there are many who have become slaves to their inbox.
The definition of our “inbox” changes as technology changes. Think about it, an inbox used to only be a physical box sitting on your desk or wall where mail and papers that you had to look at, work on or respond to would go. Now the inbox has become digitalized in many different forms, but just like with the physical one, we must learn not to become slaves to it, else we will find ourselves “busy” but not necessarily working on the right things or the best things.
Question: How do you balance social media, email and work? Do you have a different three points on your triangle? Leave your comments here.
(HT: Ministry Best Practices Image: Fuchsia Macaree)
Gus did a great job yesterday talking on the subject of “Toxic Religion“. Below are the notes I took from his message.
Toxic Religion – Gus Sareyka
Toxic religion eats away at our spiritual lives.
How do we know when our behavior is toxic?
- There are over 1000 organized religions in the U.S.
Definition: a practice, behavior or activity that tries to EARN God’s love.
What motivates or drives us to do what we do?
- Why did you come to church today?
Selfless living eliminates trying to earn God’s love.
Galatians 3:1-2 Paul reminds them of what their religion is supposed to be like.
- Christ’s love (and responding to it) should be our motivation.
- Nothing we can do will earn us God’s love.
The rest of our lives & the culture we live in teaches us to earn things. We must not approach our spiritual lives this way.
We often get too obsessed that we are not doing enough for God or we get complacent and point out all that we have already done.
Toxic religion eats away at our relationships with others.
- We become critical, judgmental, and condescending to others.
Take Aways (poison control):
1. Be Thankful & appreciative (what God has done)
2. Have a Teachable Spirit (open mind)
3. Be Obedient
4. Put Others First
I have been using Google Voice for several years now. It is THE mobile number that I give out. During that time I have changed from using a personal mobile phone on Verizon to using a company issued Blackberry on AT&T, but thanks to Google Voice you could still reach me without ever knowing I changed phones and carriers. I can also set up my GV number to ring not only my mobile phone, but also my office desk phone, and / or home phone. If someone leaves me a voice mail message, I it is transcribed and sent to me as an email message. I can also block numbers and setup call screening.
The biggest downside to using Google Voice (and kept many people from using it) was that you had to pick a new number which would be your GV number. If you already had lots of people using you existing mobile number, this would mean informing everyone of your new number (pain). Now for $20, you can actually take your existing mobile number and port it over to Google Voice. This means no need to give out friends, family and business contacts a notice about a new number and you can enjoy the many features that come with Google Voice.
It also used to be that you had to have a regular google account (@gmail.com or @googlemail.com) in order to have GV. Now that Google Apps accounts have been expanded, you can actually set up GV with your Google Apps domain account!
Not sure what Google Voice is all about? Watch the short clip below.
[Email or RSS readers can watch here]
An interesting and eye-opening perspective on our planet reaching the 7 billion population mark by National Geographic who is doing a 7-part series on the subject.
The project website says,
There will soon be seven billion people on the planet. By 2045 global population is projected to reach nine billion. Can the planet take the strain?
The popular questions to ask about such mind-blowing numbers are usually environmental related. Can the earth handle it? Will we deplete our natural resources?, etc. But for me, the question that comes to mind is how are we going to reach all of these people with the life saving message of love and grace that comes from Jesus? How will we address the growing issues of social injustice as the population continues to grow? How well will we harness technology help? Time is short, but Jesus told us to GO into all of the world. And it doesn’t look like it is getting any smaller!
[RSS and email readers can watch the short clip here]
The start of a new year is often a great time to get oneself reorganized, set goals and do some planning. Planning and goal setting are great things to do but it is easy to become discouraged if we don’t achieve or accomplish them. As a result, many people (I’ve been guilty) give up setting goals (or making them very low) because they feel they won’t achieve them.
Medium to long-range goals are often derailed by a lack of short-term focus to get things done. Life is full of distractions and competing priorities. If you try to get everything done at the same time you’ll get nothing done. If everything is a priority, nothing is.
Instead of giving up or setting the bar too low, I’m looking for tools and methods that will make for a better plan of attack on achieve the goals I set and the immediate tasks I need to accomplish at work, at home, at church and in my own business. It is definitely a work-in-process and often a challenge to my sanity! Sometimes I try something, only to find it doesn’t work or only works for a short while. But I have found the key is not to give up, but to keep trying.
I am currently trying out a few things that I hope to share over the next few weeks. In the mean time, I’d love to know how do you stay focused? Do you have any methods, tools or tricks that you have found that work for you?
Email is probably the oldest “app” in the tech business that is widely used by the masses. But that doesn’t mean you should have to settle for a bad experience. While web-based mail like Google and Yahoo have come a long way in their development, there are still a large number of folks who prefer a native desktop application to process their email.
If that is you, you might to check out Postbox 2. It not free, but it does have a free 30-day trial. One of the many features it offers is a unified inbox, able to bring multiple email accounts together in one place.
So what is your current email client of choice? Are you happy with it or thinking of a change?
