MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Today’s Buzz: Handling Tantrums, Church’s YouTube Contest, Best Simpsons Episodes, and &

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Sun, July 29, 2007
Viewed 49
(7) comments so far

ATM Gives Out $20 Bills Instead of $5 Bills
“An ATM at a northwest Louisiana truck stop gave out (US) $20 bills instead of (US)$5s, but authorities say they know who used it and plan to purse the extra (US) $7,000 the machine spit out. DeSoto Parish sheriff’s Lt. Toni Morris said the automated teller machine has records showing who the 26 people are who received the extra cash during five days in late June and early July.” Did you catch that? It took them five days to figure out the mistake. No one came forward and told anyone about the error. I’m no MENSA member, so you’ll have to help me with the math, but that’s around 450 $20 bills handed out instead of 5s. And if you divided the kitty evenly among the 26 people, the average take home was $260 (that’s 13 twenty dollar bills). Wow. More here.

Willow Creek Group Life VodCast with Randy Frazee and Bill Donohue
Bill Donahue interviews Wilow Creek Teaching Pastor Randy Frazee about small groups and Neighborhood Life at Willow Creek. Want to know about the rewards and challenges of moving to place-based ministry? Interested in learning how the Table has connected people to each other and spawned new small groups? In a little over 12 minutes you’ll get an overview of what’s happening. To see the Vodcast click here.

“I Didn’t Raise 5 Kids Without a Little Experience in the Area of Handling Tantrums.”
That’s part of what Ingrid Schlueter from Slice of Laodicea said in a “Slice Announcement” last week. This was in response to recent comments by this guy, who ‘punked’ their comments section. Ingrid continued:

“The snarling, bestial rage of commenters who are denied a forum on Slice are merely making my point about the new vulgarians in the church and America at large.”

Whatever. Actually, I think they are more making the point that Slice is consistently guilty of two things:

1. Posting things on their site (that are either untrue or are too over the edge), then pulling them with no explanation. See here and here. And

2. Posting comments about people and then not allowing them to defend themselves. Here’s a good example.

And the sad thing is, most Slice readers have no idea.

Church Featuring YouTube Contest
The Greater Boston Vineyard is having a YouTube video contest for their fall kick-off service. It’s certainly an interesting way to harness the power of web 2.0 and mobilize church members outside of church walls. (HT ChurchMarketingSucks.com) From the church’s website: We thought it might be fun to experiment with some new, grass-roots, technology-enhanced “word-of-mouth” advertising techniques. Thus… we’re having a “Cheesy YouTube Video Contest” for our fall kick-off this year. This year’s fall kick-off is happening September 9th at both sites. Here’s how it works: Make a video that promotes the Vineyard’s September 9th service in some way. Submit your video to our YouTube group: http://www.youtube.com/group/vineyardvideocontest. Get lots and lots of people you know to watch and rate your video (YouTube has a built in rating system of 1 to 5 stars). This is a REAL contest with REAL prize money! If your video winds up with the highest rating, then you could win $500!

Obesity is Contagious!!!
A study out today shows that obesity is contagious. If your best friend gets fat, your chances of gaining weight more than double. Obesity can spread among a group of friends like a contagious disease, moving from one person to another in an epidemic of fat. The effect is so powerful that distance doesn’t matter — the influence is the same whether friends live next door or 500 miles apart, according to the report in the New England Journal of Medicine. More here. HT: Seth

Top Ten (Plus One) Religious Episodes on ‘The Simpsons’
In 18 seasons of “The Simpsons,” nearly 20 episodes of the award-winning animated series have focused almost exclusively on faith, religion, and spirituality, while similar subplots, jokes, and images are scattered throughout 150 other episodes. Beliefnet has put together a top ten list for Bart and Homer fans.

That’s it for today… have a great week!

We'll talk about one of my favorite quotes of last week: "I didn’t raise 5 kids without a little experience in the area of handling tantrums." Find out who said it, and why. Also: Willow Creek releases a new vodcast; a church featuring a YouTube contest; and if you're friend is fat, there's a good chance you'll get fat too!

Comments

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Peter Hamm on Mon, July 30, 2007

First, I hope it’s also possible that people who hang around physically fit people might become physically fit. That’s a scary study. Was Homer Simpson in it? http://www.mondaymorninginsight.com/images/smileys/wink.gif

As far as Ingrid, my own brief experiment in dialoguing with her and her readers on her site is now officially over as well. She has repeatedly shown, to my mind, an unwillingness to exchange in dialogue (she has said as much in a private email to me) at all. She is obviously only interested in posts which agree with the opinions she allows to be posted there, although she lets the occasional ridiculous comment pass through. (As I said before, evidently, iron no longer sharpens iron.)

I grow very weary of Christians who consider all other Christians who disagree with them on matters of practice and doctrine to be heretical. I don’t find, in such cases, a desire to “live at peace with everyone”, nor to follow the dictates of the Love chapter. Love is, after all, not rude, bearing all things, patient, kind… you get the picture.

There is a lot of well-meaning but misguided zeal in that camp, and after trying a bit to dialog with it, I think it’s best just to ignore them and hope that at some point they will wake up to the love of Christ and the love of His Church in all it’s amazing diversity.
Bryan on Mon, July 30, 2007

I really hope no one wastes their time with the Simpsons. the only thing they consistently do is undermine the Biblical instructions we’ve all been given to live by. Do you really have time enough to waste the half hour or hour watching a show that is not just unproductive, but counter-productive. It works against the moral values, mindset and purity of heart that we are supposed to be cultivating in our lives and challenging those around us to live by.
Kerrie on Mon, July 30, 2007

i have to say - this SLICE thing is the first i have heard of it! I must just be not paying attention enough. On a serious note though, I went onto that site today and it’s disgusting to me her rant. It’s people like Ingrid that made me want to give up on God’s church all together. But God has chosen to continue to draw me into His ministry, so Ingrd just let people serve and stop tryng to manage the process. It’s the people who fear who cause such anger and hatred towards each other. God isn’t going to make you change everythign - just trust Him and walk the journey He has for you. We have had to learn as a emergent generation to be who we feel we are called to be in a society that does not always embrace it. So suck it up and do the same. Be oen who stands out in a crowd and let your character and convictions speak for you quietly and not on some blog where you get to make more christians angry and not be open to the movements that God wants to do in their life. Let me use the old cliche’ which i hate to use - but What would Jesus do???? Not this barraging of anger and calling out people’s names on internet. To all you out there, i am sorry. It does come wth the territory - i have had it happen to me, but i do know she can’t hurt anyone who is honestly seekng Christ in their life…but man i wish we could shut her down, so she couldn’t fuel more unhealthy fires.
Kerrie on Mon, July 30, 2007

And just a second thought - why do Christians even think they need a news and comment (COMMENT COME ON) on the contemporary church. Is this a movie review of our lives - come on - get over it!
adam herod on Mon, July 30, 2007

I hope the authorities plan to pursue, not “purse”, the extra $7,000 http://www.mondaymorninginsight.com/images/smileys/grin.gif
reGeN on Mon, July 30, 2007

my thoughts and prayers go out to ingrid’s children…eventually, you get what you give…

Jesus came not simply full of truth and not only full of grace but rather full of grace AND truth…i want to be a follower who lives the same way…i have found it much easier to minister to people caught up in false teaching by loving them where they are and communicating in word and deed the truth of God’s Word…a person i dealt with on that level was caught up in a campus cult…it took two years, prayer, and her building relationships with godly, grace-n-truth believers but it worked…she walked away from the group…
sonny s on Tue, July 31, 2007

The first time I visited Slice was when I linked to it from MMI and I thought that it was a parody site like lark.com. Its too bad that it wasn’t. I find comfort in one thought: Anyone can have a website and anyone can support it. the good thing is that there are still a lot of motivated evangelicals who are reaching people and making a difference, despite all of the negative we see everyday. So keep working, and stop caring what other people are saying. Did not people dispise Jesus in much the same way? What do you think people will do when we resemble him? Love us, or hate us? Do ministry, build relationships, and make God’s Word central to your life and all the vile websites won’t matter.