Church Relevance has a great post today about blogging and how to get going on it. Check it.
Mattie was Viloet Beauregard--the bratty girl who loves bubble gum. Her suit even inflated when she was tasting the gum. It was priceless.
he kids did and outstanding job. Theater is big here in our town. It starts early and keeps on going. Way to go cast of Wonka!
Don't ever let anyone tell you that having 3 kids is easy on the family calendar. All three are very involved here in our family- golf, tennis, drama, and sports. It would help if 2 of the three were interested in the same thing, but they're not. So, it seems like we are constantly taking that one, picking up this and seeing one of them in action.
I wrote almost a year ago about my fascination with crayons. It was the earliest instrument of creativity that I can remember. Who could forget those colors and those names. It always amazed me where they came up with those names and it certainly wouldn't be PC to call "flesh" the face color today--wonder what they call it?
I've got to tell you about our visit to the nursing home this afternoon. We go every month to one of the two homes here and our Sr. Adult Choir sings. We sing the old hymns and some of the special music that we sing in the early service. It's enjoyable and we certainly have a great time ministering to these folks.
All the networks are a buzz this morning about the members of Congress Twittering during last night's State of the Union.
You won't believe the email that I received this morning. The title caught my attention given my time yesterday trying to settle my account with Projector Lamp Center.
Opening Minds Through the Arts (OMA) is a student-achievement program that uses music, dance, and visual arts to teach skills used in reading, writing, math, science, and other subjects. The curriculum, based on brain-development research, is designed to engage specific skills targeted to each grade level. Independent research demonstrates that OMA has dramatically improved test scores and teacher effectiveness. Launched as a pilot program in 2000, OMA now thrives in more than 40 Tucson, Arizona, public elementary schools.What was your favorite Arts program in school?
Blue Ridge Community Church in Forest, Virginia is one of the most creative churches in their use of visuals. Andrew Hunt, Todd Foster and Colin Harman are the amazing team that conceptualizes and implements the designs for their stage.The above is a time lapse of their latest stage build. Here are some more pictures of the stage.
We are plowing through Ephesians in a series called ROOTS. We're just now concluding the 1st chapter and we've come to the verse where Paul prays one of his first prayers for the Ephesian church.One of the exercises this morning in our devo was to list out the people who had great influence in my life. I started the list from when I became a Christian (1985) until now. That will humble you! To see whom God has put in your path these many years really makes you grateful. I can look at stages in my life and know exactly what I was going through and observe the people God placed there to minister to me. Some of them have made the JIM DRAKE Hall of Fame! (ask me about that).17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength,
It's production week around here as our middle child participates in her final Junior High production of Wonka.
We've just finished reading "Churched" in our staff time. It is a hilarious, whimsical and biting look at the serious business of church and the perceptions of Matthew Paul Turner growing up in an INDEPENDENT FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST CHURCH.
This message popped up in my reader today:
I got this message yesterday while I was away for my Prayer/Planning Day:
I'm away for a couple of days praying and planning for: Easter 2009, including our prayer stations and Maundy Thursday services; planning for the rest of the ROOTS series (or at least getting a little further down the road).
So--protect yourself. I changed my Facebook password this afternoon. And if I ever ask for anything less than $1 million dollars...it's not me!
Have you ever seen anything like this? Of course you have. Most of our children (and remember, even us) made something very creative out of something very common at one time or another. Most creative stuff comes out of a sense of play and we must admit that as we become older we lose that sense of play (because it's childish!)
A post tonight on Clayton Bell's site listed tonight all of their congregation who was on Twitter. So I thought I would the same thing for our congregation here. Here goes:
There's something new and exciting happening among ministers and ministries today. I believe that God is doing something new as connections are made not only locally, but regionally and even globally among parts of the church who have never communicated before.In days past local ministries partnered with local ministries and on occaision got together with state and maybe national like-minded ministers. All of this was very informal and very sporadic--maybe seeing each other at local events or organized gatherings of these bodies. And that was the extent of the connection between these partners.
One of the leaders in visual arts in the church is Willow Creek Church in South Barrington, Illinois. From the beginning the arts have been a core value of the church as they use them to reach their community.
If you've been reading my Tweets and my Facebook updates over the weekend you know by now that Diane (my better half) has the Flu. It was confirmed in a visit to the Dr. this morning.
Churches are constantly looking for resources for visuals and interactives in their worship services.
The final strength I'll highlight here is LEARNER. It's the strength that popped up in the last test of Strengths Finder.
Diane and I had a date last night---they are becoming more frequent as A) the kids are beginning to have their own social schedules B) they no longer need a baby sitter. I think I'm beginning to like this.
As part of our Recreate Conference last week we had a mini-film festival (where participants submit their best video work from the previous year and are ajudicated by a panel). The videos were great. Some of them were funny and some of them were serious. The quality of them rivaled anything that you would see coming from a national TV campaign or such.
This strength has to have the most peculiar names--WOO. When it first came up on my results, I thought "What is that?" WOO stands for Winning Others Over--and I discovered that most extroverted people have this gift. It means that you meet people well--be it first impressions and such--and make people feel at ease. Yeah, I think I do that. Here's what else is included in WOO.
When I first took Strengths Finder Ideation was my number two strength. When I took it again 4 years later--it was number 6 and as I read it is not uncommon for secondary strengths to move up and down in your scores. Still, I beleiver that IDEATION is one of my key gifts. I do identify with the description below as I love to think conceptually and mull over small ideas and see where they lead.
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