Looking for Digital Camera Information

I want to buy a new digital camera for Christmas this year. My desires are…

1. 6 MP or higher
2. 6x or higher optical zoom
3. Multiple flash options
4. 2″ or larger LCD viewing screen
5. The ability to snap pictures quickly

If anyone knows some things about cameras please leave me a comment. I am not looking just for personal opinion, but for consumer report stories and experiential anecdotes. Thanks!

Dear Blogger…

Dear Blogger,

How do you make money giving away this wonderful blog service for free?

ESV Online Reference Tools

I have started to really enjoy using the English Standard Version (ESV) Bible. The ESV website has some very helpful tools (2 of which I have previously previewed for you).

This morning I used the online search feature to look up a couple words in the Biblical text. I found the ESV online tools very precise and simple to use. The ESV folks have also included an option to compare the ESV text to other translations by linking to Bible Gateway.

Check this site out. It is a great reference tool that anyone can easily use.

Headbands, Arrogance, the NBA

I know this is a blanket statement (there are certainly exceptions to be found, i.e. Dwyane Wade) but in my estimation the NBA is mostly a collection of thugs who think the whole world revolves around them because they can dribble and shot a ball.

Ben Wallace is just the most recent example of an NBA player who thinks that he is more important than anybody else. Can you imagine a hockey player saying something this arrogant?

“If you know the rules and break them, you expect to be punished. I can’t try to put myself above the team or anybody else and wear a headband like I did. I’m man enough to take the punishment. But I’m not sorry.”

So why did he do it?

“I just felt like wearing it,” he told the Tribune.

The Power of the Mustard Seed

Every time I eat corn dog nuggets at work I think about the parable Jesus told when he described the Kingdom of God as a small mustard seed which is planted in a field and becomes the largest tree around that all the birds come to nest in.

I like to mix in a little mustard with my ketchup for dipping. The problem is that the taste of the mustard is so powerful. Even if I just put in a dab of it, almost all I taste is mustard.

What an amazing analogy Jesus uses. The small little seed that packs an enormous punch! If I can just be a little Kingdom mustard seed in the midst of the ketchup world around me everyday I can make an impact.

Voyeurism and Exhibitionism in Culture

Great article by Tim Challies on the increasing levels of voyeurism and exhibitionism in culture. Here are a few highlights..

This weekend a friend sent an article to myself and to a list of other people. He was outraged at a story that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He is no doubt right to be outraged. Here are some excerpts from the story.

Just how far will people go to get their hands on a new PlayStation 3? Just ask KDWB-FM, 101.3’s morning show host Dave Ryan, who on Tuesday morning asked folks if they were willing to give up their baby for 24 hours in exchange for one of Sony’s highly coveted video game consoles. More than a dozen people called to offer up their kids, but only a few realized it was all just a gag.

“We got more calls than we could handle,” said Ryan, who referred to the practical joke as a “social experiment.” “They were lined up willing to turn their kids over to strangers for a freakin’ PlayStation.”

KDWB morning show executive producer Steve “Steve-o” LaTart said he was surprised how many people were interested in the bogus swap, which consisted of handing over your child to LaTart for 24 hours in exchange for a PS3.

“There were a lot of phone calls that we didn’t even get to, and I would say three- quarters of them were serious,” said LaTart.

People with babies of all ages — including a 2-day-old and a 1-week-old — made it on air. One of the more serious sounding calls came from a woman named “Katie,” who agreed to give up her 1-month-old for three days. She wanted to sell the PS3 on eBay to make some extra money for the holidays.

“In a way it’s flattering that we’ve built up 13 years of trust and that’s great … yet at the same time, hey, we thought we knew Kramer too, you just never know,” said Ryan referring to Michael Richards, who played Kramer on “Seinfeld,” and his recent racist comments.

After announcing that the contest was a prank, “Katie” called the station and asked “does that mean I don’t get the PlayStation?” She was clearly more than willing to give up her child to get her hands on this year’s top gift. It seemed to her a small price to pay for a Playstation. It’s sick.

Challies goes on to say…

And yet for some reason it didn’t surprise me a whole lot. This is the kind of behavior that is only too common in our culture. We live in what is now an voyeuristic, exploitative society. We love to see into other people’s lives and because of technology, this is easier to do than ever before. But there is more. As voyeurism has increased, so has exhibitionism….

We, the consumers, feed this frenzy. When we turn on the television we want to watch celebrities, both new and old, living out their lives before the cameras or learning to dance or cook or crochet. We want to watch families whose spending has spiralled out of control try to fix their broken finances. We want to watch families whose kids are overweight learn how to eat healthy food or adults who are fat lose weight or couples who have forgotten the joys of sex to rediscover intimacy or normal people slurp down blood, guts and bugs. We want to see people learn what not to wear, to see people with rolls on their stomachs get liposuction and funny-looking noses get the perfect Hollywood nose job. We want to escape our own problems by wallowing in other people’s problems which somehow always seem so much worse than our own. We want to see the sad, pathetic, tragic details of their lives, their personalities, their bodies. The more detail we get, the happier we are.

I think its true. I get caught up in some of the ‘reality’ stuff on television. There is something about watching other people that hooks you in. In the article Challies gives some interesting insight into a show that I really like: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. He points to an internal memo from ABC which details the kind of stories they are looking for. The most tragic the better. Because more tragedy equals more viewers.

Good stuff to think about. What role do you play? What role do I play?

Einstein on Problem Solving

Albert Einstein once said,

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

Special thanks to Mark Howell for the quote.

(HT: Church Relevance)

18 Word of Mouth Boosters for Churches

I have had this post saved on my Bloglines for quite a while and since I am doing some Bloglines cleaning I decided it was time to post it here.

So without further ado here is my list of Word of Mouth boosters for churches. Some of these are taken directly from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association list (link via Brand Autopsy) as they apply in both instances. And some are originals. I whittled the list down from 43 to 18 as I felt some of theirs were redundant or did not apply.

1. Identify the Connectors (see Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point) in your church and encourage them to do what is natural.

2. If you train your congregation in the ways of evangelism, they become better recruiters. Teach them about servant evangelism, enable them to make friends in the world, make evangelism easy. Bring it back to the way that Christ modeled.

3. Make it easy for people to find you (i.e. yellow pages, signage, website, free advertising sources, paid advertising sources).

4. Use interesting stories or testimonials to bring your ministry impact topics to life. Whether it be on your promo materials or on your website or in your services, oftentimes this has more impact than the sermon.

5. Encourage your church marketing evangelists to tell two friends about you, not just one.

6. Do something unexpected and generous for your congregation–send a free item (include an extra one for them to pass along to a friend) just for being a valued member of the church. This can include T-Shirts, Sermon CDs, Books that the church finds foundational, etc.

7. Do something unexpected and generous for your visitors. The visitors bag should not be a boring place. Your printed materials should be of professional quality. In the very least they should be printed in color and not just on colored paper. The material should be informative and positive in tone. And there should be a gift of some sort like a gift certificate to Starbucks or Chick-Fil-A

8. Create experiences. Your services should be experiential.

9. Be an evangelist for your evangelists. If there is someone you know who is making a difference in bringing people in to your church then point them out so others can learn from what they’re doing. You would also do well to praise them in front of others. Make them feel special, as they are.

10. Give your congregation business card holders packed with referral cards.

11. Ask–just ask your congregation to talk about you. (Duh!)

12. Leverage the content your church creates to make it talk-worthy. This includes PowerPoint slides, the bulletin, touch cards, visitor bags, outline sheets etc. If it can be used in multiple places then do so (i.e., web site, visitor bags, etc). And make it memorable.

13. Put your marketing collateral in something noticeable that gets people talking.

14. Make it easy for people to easily spread the word about you (Create a button for their blog or web site, a card or CD they can pass along to a friend)

15. Create clever 30-second viral videos and post to your home page. Poke fun at yourselves. Do something fun. Spoof a popular TV show. Talk about something in current culture. Engage the audience.

16. Let your congregation create ways to make it easy for members to show off their creativity. Use artwork by church members on Thinking of You cards, post cards, church bulletins etc.

17. Let your marketing evangelists know you’re listening. Comment on their blogs, invite them to marketing planning meetings or to your office for a VIP meeting to hear their ideas.

18. Join in the conversation (and start one if needed).

(HT: Church Marketing Sucks)

Unclogging the Heart

A couple nights ago I had a dream; maybe it was more like a vision. I woke up earlier than usual and so I decided I would try to pray a little bit. But soon I fell back asleep.

At some point, I saw myself at the A&W restaurant I manage. In my dream I was trying to unclog a floor drain that had become filled with gunk and garbage. I was using an electric snake to try and pull all the slime out of the way so water could begin to flow freely again.

As I woke up I realized God was speaking to me. I feel like he had given me the vision as a picture of what he was doing in my own heart. I have accumulated a lot of junk in my heart over the years. And now God is in the process of removing the slime build-up so that his love and Spirit can flow freely into my life and then out of me into the lives of others.

Forced Prostitution in Thailand

Last night Stephanie and I watched a horrific documentary about Burmese girls and young women who are being forced into prostitution in Thailand. The stories of the women interviewed made me feel sick and heart broken. Hearing these young girls recount bearing beaten by drunks, used by men (including the rotten police), sold as sex slaves made me so upset.

One lady told how pleased she was that her 6 month old baby was aborted after she took pills to kill it. She was happy because she didn’t really consider the baby hers, and besides, her woman pimp had told her she would raise the child until it could serve men like its mother. How tragic!

At first I was very upset with God. Why in his sovereignty would he allow something like this? How could he sit back and watch atrocity like this as some part of a greater plan? But then I thought, “What should my response to this be?” It is easy to just be mad at God and then go on with my own life. To put the responsibility on God takes it off my conscience. To blame God and do nothing is convenient for me but it is wrong. So here is what I can do, and how you can join me.

We Need to Realize!

Many men (including Christians) think pornography is no big deal. They think they can just look once. They think what they view on the internet doesn’t hurt anyone. But I want to plead with you to consider something else.

One look, in many instances, leads to another and another. Along with this comes diminishing returns on the pleasure, so more and more sexual stimulation is needed. This leads to dirtier and dirtier images being viewed. Next comes more substantial experiences and more distorted and sinful thoughts. Eventually the sexual sin addict becomes so perverted that animals and children get involved. Sometimes violence is included.

This ultimately leads to little girls (along with women young and old alike) becoming nothing more than objects used for men’s pleasure. They are stripped off all their God given dignity and worth. Women become property to be sold and used and later discarded.

What I/You Can Do!

Next time you are tempted to view pornography or think about a woman sexually, please remember that you are contributing to the worldwide slavery, prostitution, and desecration of young girls and women.

• Think about the wonder and beauty of your daughter, wife, niece, or grandchild.
• Think about the girls in Thailand (and worldwide) who are forced to ’service’ hundreds if not thousands of men each year.
• Think about the pain and abuse and fear and hurt they endure daily.
• Think about the thousands of girls being kidnapped from their homes, robbed of their childhoods, and exploited around the globe.

Then make a decision to stop feeding the sexual sin beast. Choose purity as your first step of contribution to the rescuing and saving of woman from sexual sin. This is a very serious issue and we all need to help change the tide.

What We Can Do!

1. Please pray everyday for these girls.
2. Next, if you read my blog and have a blog yourself, please link this post. Join me in spreading the word about the plight of young women and help start a movement to convict and motivate people towards purity. Little girls you will never know could be saved from a life of hell.
3. If you don’t have a blog, please email the url of this post to everyone you know and ask them to read it and consider who they could pass the word on to.

Thank you.