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Skin and Ink gave the Sacred Ink website nice props mid-article and included our web address. They also mentioned my article on Tattoo and the Bible and even noted the article I wrote for Billy Graham’s Lausanne World Pulse Magazine called Christian Tattoos: Sacred Ink or Unholy Blemish? This should cause some fresh traffic from folks who wouldn’t have seen the site. Pray with me that God uses this fresh attention to the site and related works to draw people to Himself.
1. LOST is back on the air tonight, Lord help me I am addicted to a TV show. Next Stop = This place...
2. Even though there's bad news in the air, there's good news in the air--> Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, will be with us in truth and love. - 2 John 3
3. The Police could be be reuniting and touring this summer, not to mention rumors of some new- fangled orchestral punk rock disco band called Led Zeppelin taking flight again...
4. Logos Bible Software brings DeepTruth to the non seminarian masses – it's a must-have for ministry (or just spiffy if you want to impress people with cool Greek words)
5. New intravenous extra strength Prosaic is available for Elton John ( talk about generalizing people...)
6. Andrea loves Chuckk (yep that was 6… but since I'm the Space Pope I can tell you 6 items on a list = 5 when I’m speaking ex-cathedra)
On the iPod: The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
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Today I'm rolling down to Ventura County in Southern California. I'm going to spend time with some good friends who I really love, trust and value. It’s a wonderful thing to simply sit with some the best humans you’ve stumbled across and enjoy just being with them.
The official approved Space Pope verse for today is:
Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel. -Proverbs 27:9 NIV
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Here is an idea that deserves replication for certain. StreetChurch; outdoor services for the homeless - a beautiful incarnational expression! I smell Jesus all over this.
On The iPod: Djam Karet - Suspension and Displacement
I spent part of last Friday night with some friends in a Ventura bar / lounge called HUSH. Hush is owned by a friend of mine, Jared Williams. I met Jared when we were shooting photos for the Sacred Ink website :: Jared is one of the tattooed Christ-Followers featured in Sacred Ink.
Jared and his wife Regina own and operate the Hush Lounge and the adjacent restaurant. Hush is a very classy high end velvet rope variety lounge in Ventura California. Friday night I stopped in at Hush to visit with Jared and ask him about what God was doing in his life and ministry (there’s not a real division between the two for Jared).
Jared is a missional follower of Jesus and his establishment is a great place for him to incarnate into the clove-smoke scented world of well dressed lounge lizards and lizardesses, many of whom don’t yet know Jesus. Hush is also opened monthly as a meeting place for the unique church Jared is a leader in.
Incarnational ministry is not a new idea…
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. - John 1:14
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death- Philippians 2:5-8
Incarnational ministry places the place in its place: it makes the location of reaching people secondary to act of loving the people in the location. It’s a joy to see a God-filled young guy like Jared loving and engaging martini-holding Ventura-ites. Most people having martinis don't have the good fortune of being loved in Jesus’ name during the cocktail hour.
Interestingly, Jesus did some cocktail-hour incarnation: check it out in John chapter 2
If the concept of Incarnational / Missional ministry is newer to you, check out this great book:
The Shaping of Things to Come - Michael Frost and Alan Hirsh
After an eternity of stasis I updated the photos on my MySpace page, I must be bored. If you are on MySpace drop me a "hello" over there. My page on MySpace is HERE
The whole concept of temporary tattoos is an odd one. The basic idea of a tattoo is that is it not temporary, a tattoo is indelible. One of the common things I heard while audio recording the subjects for Sacred Ink was that they had emblazoned themselves with Jesus-Ink as a permanent statement. "His love is permanent". Temporary tattoos are an oxymoron akin to "The Marijuana Initiative", "Microsoft Works" and "tight slacks". Anyhoo, waaaaayyyy up the pantheon of oxymoronic jesus-subculture-forsale-items are these... Christian Temporary Tattoos... HT for finding these gems - Rachel TannerFor the not so wild: slap on some of these bad boys, buy yourself a lime green moped, don your bright yellow sweater-vest and “head out on the highway – looking for adventure'. I’m jesting, but these would be a strange item to spot out on an Awana table on Wednesday night, no? Here's one more jab at temporary tattoos... You can actually get fake tattoos put on at some motorcycle events... In other news: I'll be taking off again this afternoon. I'm heading up to Hume Lake Christian Camps with my beloved band of maniac high schoolers for our annual Winter Camp Extravaganza. On The iPod: ZZ Top – Tres Hombres PureTexas Throb
Some times I only hit on three cylinders -I just figured out that I could put one our Sacred Digital Videos on my own site very easily... Duh
So here's one that we filmed that even has a segment from the Sacred Ink Project slipped into it's guts. This video gave me the opportunity to do lots of things I love: the art direction on the Sacred Ink images and flash timings, recording, writing and playing all the music for the segment, shooting and editing the video with Smittie and teaching the Bible - all in one project. Man, if we could have included riding my Harley in this shoot I would have died and gone to Heaven.
To quote The Right Reverend Steven Tyler, "just push play".
Note: This is the lo-fi YouTube version, you have to go to The Vault to see them in hi-res. - - - P.S. The next episode is in the works.
On the iPod: Siouxsie & The Banshees - A Kiss In The Dreamhouse
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James Cameron, the Hollywood movie director who brought you The Terminator and Titanic says he has the ossuary (bone box) that Jesus' bones were laid in. This is convenient since he's promoting his new documentary called The Lost Tomb of Jesus and a book -The Jesus Family Tomb. I smell big money and BS Hollywood-style.
The idea here is Jesus died and was buried but didn’t literally resurrect from the dead three days later. In fact according to Cameron he had a wife and kid named Judah and lived around town in Jerusalem until his death. Hmmmm. I guess the fact that the archeologists and historians don’t think the ossuaries could be connected to Jesus of Nazareth doesn’t really matter… Lights, camera action! Read the Jesus Bone Box article here
I'm pretty sure that the big comeback thing is important to the Jesus movement:
1 Corinthians 15:14 … if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.1 Corinthians 15:20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Are there any reasons to believe that Jesus actually did come back from the dead? Look HERE or HERE
On the iPod: Death Cab For Cutie - Plans
Well, no. Here is a GREAT artical that goes beyond the Hollywood money making machine hype and gives you some cold hard facts. Read The Truth Behind The Lost Tomb of Jesus
...and here's yet another neat Tomb Facts site this one is written for teenagers. HT: Tiffynoodle.
And this is a great simple site too HERE
You are snatched from your current church (or other current job) and put at a church in the suburbs where you have to start all over again. There are five kids there. Two are the senior pastor’s kids. There are three boys and two girls. Two are in High School and three are in Junior High. You are asked to build a ministry that will continue on after you leave. You have one year to do this. You have a limited budget. Where would you start? How would you grow this group numerically? How would you help it grow spiritually? Two even more important questions... -How would you make sure that what you did there would have a lasting impact on those students' lives? -How would you make sure you left a ministry that would last?The eBook was officially released today. If you are unfamiliar with the eBook concept an eBook is a full book but is available only through download as a .pdf file this means they can be offered for less since there is no printed paper, cover, stocking or shipping costs. It also means you get the book now, faster than the guy at Starbuck’s can steam milk for a latte. You can print the book out for yourself if you enjoy paper reading. The book is truly worth reading, there are many solid insights, each of the 14 of us wrote about 4 or 5 of the 64 pages! Career Change Moment: I'm now trying to decide if I should get a calabash pipe, velvet smoking jacket, leather slippers and start a writing career or keep working on my career change dream of dancing for the Bolshoi ballet; it's hard to know how to best use one's life... If you are a youth worker, swing by the official site and pick up a copy, it's great stuff and all proceeds go to fund the great church planting life-work of Scott Aughtmon so you get blessed and double build the Kingdom too!. Here’s my official testimonial for the book!
Reading Scott Aughtmon's new Ebook, Lasting Youth Ministry is akin to sitting 'round a table with a band of well-weathered youth ministry veterans as they share their various views on assembling a student ministry with real eternal impact. You'll find great insights through the steams of convergence and divergence in their thinking and praxis. The combined years of youth ministry experience of the ministers Scott pulled together is in the hundreds of years. These folks have more to share than just a really good crowd-breaker involving balloons, chocolate sauce and a live gecko!Click here to visit The Official Lasting Youth Ministry website
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One of my favorite books about how things could be is The Celtic Way of Evangelism by Dr. George G. Hunter III. It is a brilliant work that leans back deep into history to learn from the amazing St. Patrick.
It's a book about hospitality, incarnation and missional lovelife. If you haven't read this book, it's a big recommend. If you’d like to get a taste of it here is an excellent interview about the Celtic Way with Dr. Hunter
On The iPod: The Allman Brothers - A Mixed Playlist
This page contains all entries posted to Sacred Digital: Chuckk Gerwig in February 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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