Interesting concept.  Much like The Dip by Seth Godin.  The secondary title is “A little book that teaches you when to quit (and when to stick).”

There are times in our lives when we simply need to “go for it” no matter what!  I think the most difficult time to continue on is when you feel like giving up.

I love what the back cover of The Dip says:

what is the dip?

It’s the fifth job interview where they never even call you back.

It’s the garage band playing to an empty club in the middle of nowhere.

It’s the seventh time you fall on your butt while learning to snowboard.

It’s the middle of the marathon, when the excitement of the starting gun is a dim memory, and the joy of the finish line is a distant dream.

It’s any rough patch you have to get through before achieving your big goal . . . if in fact you’re chasing the right goal.

What else?

Oh yeah, it’s also the key to your career, your company’s future, and maybe your ultimate happiness.

We are at that place (possibly) at FP Carthage.  We have been here in Carthage for a couple of years and some of our team is tired and feels like needing a rest.  Things just aren’t like it was “in the beginning.”

It reminds me of the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980 when the USA Hockey Team beat the Russians in the semifinals of the Olympics to eventually win the gold medal.  Part of the backstory of the 1980 Olympics is the coach, Herb Brooks, was cut from the USA hockey team that eventually won a gold medal.  He came back 20 years later and led a group of college players to beat the best hockey team in the world. I love these kinds of movies that bring a group of people together to do amazing things that were though never possible!

I pray that we would “go for it” and “dig deep” and all of those other sports cliches and see amazing things happen in all of our lives.  Paul said it this way  in Philippians 3:12-14 “¹²Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Here’s the trailer for the great movie “Miracle.”  Enjoy!

Vince Antonucci: Dont Punt.

Aaron Stockton, Kevin, and myself were doing some brainstorming the other day on Google Docs and love the whole real time experience.  When one person writes a sentence, it shows up on the other two people’s screen—amazing!!  Well, from what I can tell, Google Wave is like Google Docs on steroids!! It is also similar to some of the applications our staff has tried before at 37signals.com like Basecamp. We loved Basecamp, but it was a pay service and we are a ministry.  Any time we can save money on administrative costs, we can use that money in the ministry or for missions–for the Kingdom.  I am looking forward to experimenting and implementing Google Wave with our team.  Now off to look at the LOOONNGG Version.  You can check out the short overview in the meantime!

YouTube – Google Wave Overview.

Check out the video we showed in the beginning of our service yesterday!  I hope that this begins to make us think of creative ways to show God’s love to others!

AmeriCANs: Family’s Mission to Serve – ABC News.

Taylor’s Pumpkin…

Do It Yourself Pumpkin Carving – 10 Easy Steps to an all New You!

and Jeff’s spooky spoof…

For Halloween, here is an article I wrote for the satire site, Fair City News. If you’re from out of town, there is a legend regarding a spooky place called the Albino Farm north of Springfield.

ALBINO FARM TO OPEN TANNING SALON

Springfield, MO—Legendary spook site, the Albino Farm at Springlawn Farm, has a brand new surprise for the area, a tanning salon. Albi-No-More is set to open this Saturday, the 31st. The so-called Albino Farm has for years been notorious in legend for being haunted, by either an albino ghost caretaker, or an albino ghost family, depending on who is telling you the story.The present day owner of the property, Jerry Overholser, thought it was time for a change. “I’m plum tired of teenagers sneaking around on the property,” explained Overholser. “I figured if I can’t get the teenagers out of the albino farm, I’ll get the albino’s out of the albino farm.”Overholser is hoping to begin a different perspective on the property.

Albi-No-More is planned to have four standard beds, one Mystic spray-on tanning room, and one super powered machine designed specifically for modern day albinos called Burnt Toast. The interior is decorated with inspirational before and after pictures, with a picture of an albino on the left and a picture of the same albino glowing red on the right. Albinos, by the way, will get a special punch card for one free tan after enduring nine. At the grand opening they plan to give away Oreos, with the cream licked out to the first 100 customers.
Standing near the newly asphalted parking lot, teenager Troy Spelster, is not in favor of the new plan. “I’ve had some of my best times on the Albino Farm. Ain’t nothing scary about a copper bronzed ghost chasing you.”
According to Overholser that’s exactly the idea, “A brand new, well lit steel building with office furniture, a wide variety of oils, and watts and watts of UV rays won’t scare off anybody. Well, unless you’re scared of cancer I suppose.”

I Spilled Miracle Whip on my Vest « The Mystery Hour.

All I can say is, “Wow.” Pretty unbelievable considering all of the issues with the KJV and the reliability of modern translations.  The problem with this kind of thinking is that it puts into question all of the translations, especially for recent converts who go to a bookstore to look for a Bible to use.  Many people will call in and ask if we are a KJV only church.  We are not.  We use many different modern translations because we believe they communicate better to a modern audience.  The reason why we use them is so that the Gospel can be communicated clearly to lost people.  We don’t have to explain what Old Shakespearian English means in order for people to find Christ.  There are several great, readable translations that we use here.  Probably the most common versions used around here are: NIV (New International Version); ESV (English Standard Version; NIrV (New International Readers Version–great children’s translation); NASB (New American Standard); NKJV (New King James Version) and of course, there are several KJV (King James Version) floating around.  The Message, by the way, is a paraphrase, not a translation.  It is much like the Good News Bible that I grew up with as the only option for a modern english Bible.

We have some family friends who are Bible translators that have for years risen above this kind of stuff.  They are better people than I am at times. Their heart is to translate the Word of God into a translation that speaks to the heart of the reader.  Having taken eight semesters of Greek and four of Hebrew, it is an unbelievably difficult task to translate these ancient texts into modern language so that people can read it, hear the Gospel, and respond to Christ’s invitation of salvation.

Moral of the story…keep reading whatever translation you have and I believe that God will speak to you!

What translation do you use and why?

Book Burning.

We “got a good deal” on our house here in Carthage.  Don’t get me wrong, we are totally blessed and very thankful for everything we have.  However, we moved into the house and it is about 20 years old and everything seems to be breaking.  The house inspector’s report was like a broken record on everything…”make plans for replacement. End of life cycle.” or something like that!

The first thing is/was the wall paper…it is/was everywhere!  There were only two rooms in the whole house that didn’t have any wallpaper in them! Second, the cabinets are getting old and breaking…I am getting pretty good at making repairs to keep them together. The final straw was our air conditioning.  We have a heat pump because we don’t have gas for the furnace.  So…last winter we simply turned on the “furnace” and had outrageous electric bills!  Come to find out, there is a refrigerant leak in the air handler under the house that is causing the unit to run on the electric heat strips 100%–not just to supplement on those below zero nights.  Needless to say, after I learned a little about heat pumps, I knew we were going to need to do something before the winter came again.

Enter our church family at Forest Park Carthage!  Some “little birdies” told some other “little birdies” about our situation and they wanted to bless their pastor and his family.  Boy, did they bless us!  Take a look at this brochure!!  This thing is being put in our house this week!

Absolutely blown away by the gift that our people sacrificed to give to us!  If you look closely on the picture…they gave me the brochure and it says “Paid In Full” across the front! It was a really cool time last night telling the boys about what our church family did for us!  They are really excited and thankful for our church family.  What is really cool is the technology increase in this unit compared to our old unit.  Our old unit is about a 5 or 6 SEER and this one is a 14 SEER.  So even if the old unit was working properly, we still are going to have a substantial energy savings cost.

Thank you doesn’t even cover what we would like to say to our church family!  You all are the best!

Here is another example of a great email that Pastor John got this last week…

Yesterday, as Race Coordinator of the Maple Leaf 5k, all my volunteers showed up. Much to my delightful surprise, they were all Forest Park Carthage members. How fun was that to get to know my fellow members just east of us? I think they had a good time, protected the runners, stayed to the end, showed incredible positive attitudes, and exuded pure joy. Hats off to David Stone and his reaching out to the community emphasis!

Glad I could join in them in the mission field. There are truly no mere coincidences in this life.

Best

Cathleen

Taylor Orr took a bunch of pictures of the parade…you can take a look at them here.

Here are some of my favorites!  A huge THANK YOU to all who helped us out this week of Maple Leaf!!

Man, what a great afternoon of helping with the Maple Leaf 5K and Duathlon!  We had a blast helping out racers from all over the area.  I am so proud of our church family who stepped up and volunteered their time and energy!  You guys ROCK!  I had a ton of the racers who were so thankful for the kind words and encouragement from our people.  Belinda Shores (#330 in the pic) is a triathlete and serves in our Kids City children’s ministry every Sunday  She did an amazing job in the Duathlon (5K run/15 mile bik/1 mile run). She is standing in-between Trisha Fisher and Jessica Ensz, two other Forest Park(ers)!  They decided to run the 5K together and did an awesome job too!

Check out an email that Jenny got this morning from Belinda…FP Carthage, you guys are awesome and it really shows!!!

Hey Stone Family and church family!

Just wanted to tell you how much your help was appreciated at the Maple Leaf Run and Duathlon.  What a great response from our church and what a unique way to reach out to our community!  You all did a wonderful job of protecting the racers from oncoming traffic and giving directions.  Thank you!  Those of you who were serving the water were a refreshment to the thirsty.  Thank you!

Matthew 10:42 “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”

Joyfully,
The Shores Family

By the way, Taylor your a great runner!  I could tell you trained hard, because you ROCKED the run!  Also, Patricia and Jessica what a great run!  Your run times were spectacular!  Way to go girls!

Thanks again to all of our FP Carthage folks who really made a difference yesterday in our community!  AWESOME!

Here are some pics from my iPhone…random, I know…forgot the “real” camera in the truck!