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Things I love about PCs. Really, for real.

1. The start button. If you can’t figure out what else to do, click a button that says “Start.” The only thing easier would be a big red button that said, “If you don’t know what to do, use the mouse, hover over this red button and click it so we can begin.”
2. Whatever is driving the file system in Windows is so much faster than the mac. I don’t know why Apple hasn’t figured out how to fix the Finder and make it faster like Window Explorer.
3. Customization. With a mac, you’re fairly locked in to what Apple is willing to sell you. The options are endless on the PC side.
4. Gaming. PC gaming is still brilliantly better than Mac gaming. Even though Apple is making huge strides, it still falls so far behind the PC world.
5. Sync. You want to believe that someday, Apple is going to make this easier. But syncing devices other than Apple branded devices on a Mac still sucks. PCs are so much better. 

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Innovate 08 – 10 Takeaways

Ten takeaways from Granger Community Church’s Innovate 08 Conference.

1. Balance is static. Who needs balance? You have to lean into progress. – Mark Beeson
2. The Gospel is Good News for Right Now. Stop Talking, Start Doing. Mark Beeson
3. Stuff=how we tell the story. Spoken, Sung, Printed, Visualized. Brand Schizophrenia = When we fall in love with the stuff instead of Jesus. – Shawn Wood
4. Leveraging Technology for Ministry is all about engagement. It’s not about toys, it’s about tools to reach the increasing population and their shortened attention spans. – Bobby Gruenwald. 
5. We forget the promise and forfeit the payoff because we faint in the process. We need to understand that the process is the point. The payoff of God’s promise comes in the processes we go through as we’re faithful to act on what we hear from him. – Steven Furtick
6. An organization is the reflection of its leadership. Leaders must be willing to “get naked.” The difference between where you are and where God wants you to be is the pain you’re unwilling to endure. Accept the pain of the journey and enter in to God’s kingdom here on earth. – Life Church Directional Leadership Team
7. Pop Goes the Church. Harness pop culture in the church to:
   - Package events to attract a crowd.
   - Get people to Think or Laugh
   - Provide a new interpretation of a pop cultural element
   - To encourage people in their service. 
   WHY do all of this? It’s all about engagement. – Tim Stevens
8. Better off going 30 ft deep in 3 places than 3 in deep in 30 places. Don’t confuse the great commission with the great commotion. – Rob Wegner
9. Social Media allows people to fulfill their human desire to affiliate, associate and belong on a smaller scale. It’s also an environment where trust and relational collateral is developed at levels as shallow or deep as you want.  - Kem Meyer, Zach Montroy, Tim Schraeder and Jeremy Scheller (Ha!)
10. Changing the course is good. Be confident in knowing who you are and what you want to do and then you’ll have the space to be creative in how you do it.  - Mark Beeson

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A Few Ways Twitter has been useful…

Twitter.com is not just fluff. There’s a fair share of “Making a sandwich” and “drinking my seventh Starbucks,” there’s also a lot of useful ways to use Twitter.

A few ways i’ve seen Twitter be a useful little web app.

1. Comcastcares – Comcast has a person on twitter who scans twitter for complaints about Comcast. I’ve done my fair share in the last 3 months. Comcastcares actually responds, and apparently is a customer service big wig who can make things happen and get problems resolved. This is a great customer service tool, even if you’re usually pissed with the service by the time you make a post on twitter (tweets as us nerds call them)
2. I put up a post on twitter about how I love getting food from our CSA share (community supported agriculture – we own a share with some friends and get a bag of veggies straight from the farm each week). One of my twitter friends was interested but had never been able to get connected to a farm before. I was able to quickly pass on info to her and hopefully she’ll be supporting a local farmer soon too.
3. A while back I posted on twitter that I was working on some new web strategy ideas. A twitter friend, and well respected authority on the issue, responded that she would review my strategy docs and give feedback. It was very helpful in framing this new project. 
4. Had a friend who needed a recipe for chicken breasts. Hit reply, great dinner.
5. Book suggestions
6. Music suggestions
7. Software suggestions
8. Idea sharing
9. Link sharing
10. Useful work-related connections

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New Recipe: Pasta with Summer Veggies and Chicken

I’ve got a new homemade recipe over at Tastyplanner.com
Sarah said it’s one of the top recipes I’ve ever made…I loved it too.

It’s easy, but I do suggest slow cooking the chicken. I came home for lunch and tossed it in the oven, then just took it out when I got home later in the day.

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Audience Participation

The impact of your message is far greater with audience participation. If your audience doesn’t have to interact with your message, they probably won’t.

The World Wildlife Fund put together this brilliant PR campaign that forces the audience to be the message. When you take the towel, you see yourself as part of the problem. You can’t help but pause and think about how in the world can my impact be minimized? I don’t want to be responsible for that!

Forcing the audience to interact with the message leaves a mark and carries the message farther.

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This week in Prefab: Enovo House

Totally enamored by the enovo house. It’s unbearably beautiful. I love the clean lines, the use of different textures (wood, metal, glass) on different planes, and the amazing use of outdoor space in this model (car port, upper balcony/deck, pergolas).

The brilliance of modern prefab comes down to a few factors:

The use of largely sustainable materials.
The speed of build time.
Designing for energy efficiency.
Re-imagining what living space can be.
Configurability

The enovo house is all of these.

If you don’t get Dwell magazine, you should. Even if just to push you towards new ideas about our shared future. We have little choice but to change our footprint. When will we start?

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Let's try that again…Amazing work in North Minneapolis

Sanctuary Community Development Corporation

Sanctuary Community Development Corporation from Sanctuary Covenant Church on Vimeo.

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Apparently, Vimeo, killed my video…I'll try again…

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My New Corner Office.

To prepare for another family of 4 to move into our 5 bedroom house as we attampt to live “in community” together, I gave up my bedroom-size office and the boys gave up their playroom.

Now, I’m sporting a brand new corner office. In the corner of my bedroom closet that is…

there’s no longer my stuff on one side, and sarah’s stuff on the other. No we have one wall for the clothes (significantly pared down) and one corner for the office. I’m really liking it. It’s made entirely of scrap wood and a few “parts” I picked up at home depot.

In the process of making this transition, I had to purge a lot of stuff.

Here’s how it happened:

• Two large lawn size garbage bags of throw away stuff.
• Donating about 300 books to a friend’s organization that does great work with St. Paul youth.
• Reused screws, boards, and scraps from previous projects.
• Measured, measured wrong, then remeasured, then settled.
• 3 Trips to Home Depot. 2 trips to Target.
• From 2 extra long file cabinets, down to 1 small one.

This is a big change. It required giving up a lot of space, a lot of stuff, and a lot of aesthetic. I look forward to the gains of living in community with others. Pics below.

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Observations from France

While in France, these are things I’ve been noticing…

• Whether you are a bike, scooter, motorcycle or a car, you can park anywhere. Sidewalks and “In the way” included.
• There is very little brand building here. Minimal advertising, very few chains. Other than Ikea, I haven’t seen a big box store yet.
• Apparently it rains every day. 8 of 8 so far. 
• TV is a little behind. It’s a bit sketchy. 
• There is a fascinating mix of the ancient and the modern.
• Laptops seem to be a scarce item. I’ve seen less than a handful at coffee shops and cafes so far. 
• Gravel is often used in place of grass. 
• The Bordeaux Tram must be free, because people rarely pay.
• There is almost no American fast food. A few Mickey D’s. Instead, everybody eats baguette sandwiches and pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants).
• Coke is still best served in glass bottles. I agree.