Tag: Church

Ten plagues for all your houses…

One of the other things I may miss out on this Sunday if pain persists and I’ve seen the doctor is my role in our puppet driven kid’s talks at church.

That would be sad. I have been enjoying being Ernie. As in Bert and Ernie. Children like puppets. It’s a fact.

Children also need to learn about the plagues in Egypt. Because that’s important. Sadly this has been difficult to achieve with puppets. Until now. I give you the “Plague Puppets” courtesy of some Hebrew children’s resource site (perfect for your Old Testament needs)…

How open source songs might work

Debate rages at Simone’s blog. Well not really. I just keep writing long comments one after the other as new ideas strike me. This has kept my hippocampuses firing all day.

Simone doesn’t seem to think an Open Source model would produce quality songs.

Every open source product in existence would seem to disagree – but she’s also not sure how it would all work.

I had the following thought.

Open Source companies make money by offering support, some by performing specific development tasks and extensions for companies that request them. Here’s an article about how open source companies make money.

Basically it moves from a model where a product is provided to a model based on service.

I believe Open Source, when applied to computer software, produces better products than proprietary software.

So, an example of how a gifted song writer could make money/produce quality songs under the Open Source business model would be to produce songs upon request (and upon payment) by a particular church for a particular sermon series that they’re working on. Once it is used for that purpose it would then be added to the pool of songs for other churches to use.

Any other ideas?

WWJS

Some churches just don’t get it. Particularly American churches – or at least in the case of the American churches I’m about to write about…

Just over a week ago a prominent late term abortionist was shot while attending his church. Those who are anti-abortion will no doubt not be grieving this loss as much as others – but most churches have been quick to condemn the killing (or at least to distance themselves from it).

Not these two…

The first, a church in Kentucky, is having an “open carry celebration day” – they want parishioners to bring their guns to church. Here’s what their “pastor” Ken Pagano has to say:

“As a Christian pastor I believe that without a deep-seeded belief in God and firearms that this country would not be here.”

Speaking about those objecting to his planned celebration he said:

“I understand their concerns and I applaud them for their expression because the whole point of this is to promote the First and Second Amendments.”

While he may not have made the link to the shooting directly – the journalist did – a link from the story’s intro takes you to the story about the killing.

Then there are those that have glorified in the killing…

I’m sure this is not the sort of commentary the church should be making about current events… nor the kind of mission Jesus gave us in the great commission.

But I propose, in order to take money out of the hands of these dangerous people, that we launch a range of Christian merchandise in the WWJS line – who/what would Jesus shoot… the money raised can be redirected to appropriate organisations like the Red Cross.

Calvin and bobs

It’s Calvin’s 500th birthday this year. Not the comic character – the predestination guy (for all you Arminians out there).

To celebrate this milestone our church is putting on a Calvin Conference – at which I am presenting something as yet undetermined about his interactions with government. Exciting times. To get me in the mood I’m thinking I may purchase one of these John Calvin Bobble Heads.

Mens Camp Reflections: Intro

I’ve got a few things that I thought of and jotted down while on Men’s Camp on the weekend. Rather than mash them all together in one big post I’m going to approach each issue separately. Starting now.