I was very surprised to see this
in my news feed when I logged onto Facebook this morning.
Dr. Wood, you are officially awesome. I previously suspected that you might be, but now I know with certainty.
Category: Of Random Interest
Great Bumper Sticker
Living the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ve seen just about every anti-Bush bumper sticker you can imagine. It’s rare that I see a fresh one.
Today while driving around I saw one that actually made me chuckle.
I want a president who can talk gooder.
Regardless of your political leanings, that’s funny.free girl next door the
1,825 miles and 841 pages later…
Yesterday I flew 1,825 miles and read 841 pages. Yikes.
The last few weeks have been a blur. On Father’s Day I watched an astounding group of graduates celebrate as they received their degrees from Stanford. As I sat in the hot summer sun listening to Oprah Winfrey pontificate at commencement
, I thought about their lives and what God might do through them. I also got sunburn.
The day after graduation I hopped on a plane to Springfield, MO to teach at Chi Alpha’s Reach The U institute (that trip wound up being 2,278 miles due to weird routing — I didn’t think to keep track of the pages I read, but I will tell you that Augustine of Hippo
is a dense read). Training a new generation of leaders is fun, but exhausting. On the two worst days I taught 6 hours! I’m amazed I didn’t lose my voice.
One cool thing — I shared a bathroom with fellow instructor Pete Bullette, someone I had trained at this same conference years ago. He now leads a ministry of 250 students at the University of Virginia download the invincible iron man dvd . While I don’t think I can take credit for what he’s done there, I was happy that he mocked me for some of my actions those many years ago — it means I made an impression. 🙂 Who knows what the new ministers I trained over the last few weeks will go on to accomplish?
All that to say, I have one of the best jobs in the world. I get to help the amazing students at Stanford come to and grow in faith, and I get to train ministers who will multiply this on campuses around the world.
By the way, you can read about one of the aforementioned grads in “The Rhodes Scholar” download ocean s thirteen online (the article was published on Father’s Day, in case you’re wondering about the huge fatherly emphasis).download lars and the real girl movie
Earth Day, Jesus, and Christian Environmentalism
I’m in Springfield, MO at a Chi Alpha conference where I’ve taught approximately 12 hours in the last two days.
Yes, that’s as grueling as it sounds. It’s been fun, though.
Anyway, while here I got to hang with Darrin Rodgers
, an old seminary buddy who is now a historian. He told me something that blew my mind: the founder of Earth Day (the first Earth Day, I should say — there are two) is a Pentecostal Christian. His name is John McConnell. If you are a pacifist you will find his story especially interesting — read some reviews of his biography.
I’m encouraged that a follower of Jesus was at the forefront of the early environmental movement. It is easy to grow disappointed in Christianity if you focus on the inactivity of the institutional church and forget that the faith, ultimately, is expressed in individual lives. But when you remember that the church’s business is to not to engage in activism itself but rather to release Christians to serve God’s purposes in the world, you can actually become quite giddy. We still have a long way to go, but we’re doing far better than the world or the church seems to think. When I peek deep into a positive situation I often discover a Jesus-follower (or even a few) at the heart of it.
So if you’re a fan of Earth Day (the original), then remember to thank God for it. And keep your eyes open — God is at work in unexpected places.
Unexpected Perspective on Worship
I’ve been preparing to teach some sessions at Reach The U (a conference for new campus ministers) and I just read one of the most unexpected little paragraphs while digging through some research:
Across the United States, Asian American groups are pioneering a revival of a cappella singing. On West Coast college campuses, Korean American evangelicals are known for their cutting-edge praise music. Students of other ethnicities commonly note, “Oh, the Koreans have a great worship team.” Indeed they do. Although Asian American evangelicals’ praise is largely similar to other evangelicals, it is often more cutting edge. They use the latest praise music coming out of the United Kingdom as well as the United States—before the other campus ministries do the same. They tend to use more modern musical instruments like electric pianos, bass, and guitar than some of the other traditionally white-dominant campus ministries.
Source: Rebecca Kim, “Asian Americans for Jesus: Changing the Face of Campus Evangelicalism download dragonheart divx
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This isn’t a thought I’ve had before. Interesting.west side story online
Fifteen Minutes and Counting
One of our worship leaders, Awa, has some of the most quotable lines of anyone I know.
As exhibit A, I submit the following excerpt from an email to our group last week:
It’s spring quarter people, time to procrastinate so you can enjoy the beautiful warm weather and the beautiful peeps of Chi Alpha. I mean, we are a good looking bunch…I say that in truth and with humility…
How magnificent is that language?
Anyway, at least one reporter at the Stanford Daily agrees with me: Awa was quoted not once but twice in a recent article as was Chris, another of our students.
For context, the article is about a Hawaiian Lu’au on campus.
…kahlua pig … is traditionally prepared by filling the pig’s abdominal cavity with hot stones, then placing the pig in a pit containing hot stones.
“But I’m sure Santa Clara County wouldn’t have been too open to that idea, so we hand-shredded the 40 lbs. of pork ourselves using forks,” said Lu’au Co-Chair Awapuhi Dancil ‘10. “The hardest part was figuring out how much of each item to buy. People at Costco kept staring at us since we had 40 tomatoes, pineapples and pounds of salmon.”
And then later on,
“The members of the Hawai’i Club poured our heart and soul into this event, working at 100 mph,” Dancil said.
And the contribution from Chris:
Perhaps the most interesting side dish was the poi, pounded taro root that is kneaded into a smooth paste, traditionally meant to be eaten by scooping it out of a bowl with one’s fingers.
“I still haven’t made up my mind about the poi,” said Chris Olivares ‘10. “But everything else is absolutely delicious. I came last year and had to come again to support friends and watch the great dances. And how often do you get to have authentic Hawaiian food that’s really good?”
So a big shout out to you both for your 15 minutes of fame.
Although next time you’re talking about slaughtered pigs and root paste try to figure out a subtle way to work in “Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship meets at 7:30pm every Wednesday school is in session in building 300–300.” I’m not quite sure how to do that elegantly, but there must be some way. Maybe something like “Of course, slaughtered pigs cannot atone for our sins. They are merely tasty. However, there is one sacrifice
that has already been given on our behalf, and we’ll be talking about it this Wednesday… etc, etc”. 🙂trading places movie download
I Love The World
Looking for some inspiration in an unexpected place? Check out this Discovery Channel commercial.
Reminds me of an old Rich Mullins song With The Wonder download adventures of don juan dvd
Seminary Meme
Brian just tagged me with this seminary questionnaire. As I’ve mentioned before, seminary is great preparation for ministry. In fact, I think the ideal ministry trajectory is for someone to go a secular university for their undergrad and then to get seminary training. This is more common than many suppose — roughly half the students at my seminary came from secular universities.
Anyway, here’s the meme:
This Seminary Meme is part of a competition sponsored by Going to Seminary and Eisenbrauns. If you’d like to be entered, simply answer the 7 questions below and tag 5 other people. You’ll also need to post this paragraph (links included) with your answers as the links will be tracked back to your blog and will count as your “entry” into the competition. On April 30th, 2008, one blogger will be selected at random to win a $100 gift certificate to the Eisenbrauns online bookstore.
- Where did you attend seminary?
- What class do you think has most impacted your spiritual life?
Effective Leadership with Mel Ming.
- What seminary professor was most influential while in seminary?
Tough call. Remarkably tough. Every prof I had at AGTS rocked my world one way or another.
- What was the greatest challenge you faced in seminary?
Not coasting.
- What was the greatest reward you experienced in seminary?
Graduating.
- What did you do after seminary?
The same thing I did while I was in seminary — I ministered to students at secular universities.
- While in seminary, how many times were asked what you’d do after graduating?
Almost never — I telegraphed my intentions pretty clearly.
I’m supposed to tag five people. The amazing Mr. Zickafoose has not participated, and I don’t think Earl Creps
has either. Nor have Lane Douglas download monkey shines online nor George P. Wood nor Mark Batterson. Prediction: probability of any of them participating is less than 5%.trade download
This Just In: George Wood is on Facebook
It’s truly a new day in the Assemblies of God. George Wood is on Facebook. For those of you from another world, he’s the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God. So he’s kind of like our Pope. Just with a lot less authority. And without the cool wardrobe. Or a Popemobile. He’s basically in charge, though.
I noticed it by accident earlier today and I thought it had to be a mistake. Once I realized it really was him and not some Bible college kid playing a joke, I emailed him to ask if it was okay to share this publicly — I thought perhaps he had accidentally left his privacy settings too open.
It turns out he’s available on purpose. He accepts friend requests from peons like me (and presumably you).
And on top of that, Dr. Wood has been podcasting like crazy with two separate podcasts: interviews with leaders and studies in the book of Mark
.
And he’s not the only one savvy to the digital age. The General Secretary, John Palmer, has a blog
. Not only that, his blog is hosted on an official Assemblies of God installation of WordPress MU supergirl online download : who knew we had come so far?
Not to be outdone, the new (as in beginning his term of office today) General Treasurer, Doug Clay, has been blogging on Blogger for quite a while.
My head is spinning. I don’t know if I can handle all this digitization of our leadership at once.download legionnaire dvdrip it s pat dvd
When We Live Like Jesus Told Us To…
A pretty amazing story from NPR: A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.
“He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,’ ” Diaz says.
As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”
Remind you of anything? I don’t know if Julio Diaz is a follower of Jesus or not, but the Lord approved of his actions. See Matthew 5:38–40
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ” But I tell you, “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.”
The story has a great ending I won’t spoil for you: read the whole thing
(found via kottke