Quick Hits

  • Last night we attended the CEF Banquet. This is the group granting us funds to do our fall marketing campaign for Echo. Dick Alexander, from Lifespring Christian Church here in Cincinnati, spoke and did an excellent job. His message alone was worth the trip.
  • We had seven people come with us to the banquet, by far the youngest demographic in attendance. Case in point: the main course was hamloaf. What is hamloaf? Do a Google of it and find out. I'll give you a hint: Spam is the main ingredient. You don't serve hamloaf to people under sixty-five. It's just not right. Rhonda, who attended with us, emailed me a recipe for it today. And that's yet one more thing to put on my "never make this" list. The food in Jordan was less scary.
  • I had to get a background police check done on me today. I really want to let you know why, but it'll take a week before I can say publicly . But if you're really curious, watch America's Most Wanted tonight for details.
  • I have to wake up really early next Sunday for the Flying Pig Marathon. Am I running? Yeah, right; like I have the desire to beat up my body like that. If I want the marathon experience, I'll go play in traffic in front of the condo and wait to get hit by a Metro bus. No, I'm going to be doing a devotion for all the interested runners about half an hour before things get started. If you're going to be down there, it'll be in a parking lot near the starting line, off Mehring Way, between 5:30 and 5:45. Yes, that's AM. We'll see how it works out, but I'm going to have to start training to wake up that early.
  • Getting ready to wrap up our series on Genesis at Echo. Looks like we'll wrap it up with a little more than seven months of messages. I might write more on this later, but I'm glad that we're doing it this way. It might seem like a long series, but I think our people have benefited from seeing the entire book within its context. After this, we're moving onto Romans and will most likely hit one of the four gospels this fall.
  • Added a few new recommended links to the side of the page. I now have a separate Echo line-up, in addition to a new section I call "Tracking Cincy." It's critical that I stay up-to-date on Cincinnati issues and these are sites I frequent to help me do so. I'll warn you that I don't defend all the ideas [or language] found in these sites, but I do find them helpful for doing ministry in our context.
  • I know this is internet 101, but I've been meaning to post this tip for awhile. If you frequent a lot of blogs and websites that post new content and aren't using an RSS reader, you're wasting your time. On most sites [and almost all blogs] you can subscribe to an RSS feed [stands for "Really Simple Syndication"] so you only have to go to one place to do your reading. I use Google Reader, where I get all the updated content I'm subscribed to. It's Really Simple, Stupid [just keeping with the acronym, people]. I'm able to scan the content from 50 sites in minutes as opposed to having to click bookmarks or enter in url's. I know this is really basic for some of you, but many of you are missing out. Let me know if that tip was helpful.
  • Tomorrow it's off to Lexington for yet another baby shower. Who doesn't like this kid?

All for now.