Hey guys,

This Spring Break I’m hopping in a van with 150 other college students to love and serve the city of Boston, Mass. I get to lead a group of 7 as we love on some elderly Northerners for the week and I’m so excited. God has done some pretty cool stuff on these trips in the past, and we’re praying for more on this trip.

Mk, So the cost is $300 ($270 + $30 in food), money I simply don’t have. I’m looking for 12 people to invest $25 as I go.

1. If you’ve got $25, I would really appreciate your help. You can make a tax deductible donation to Vineyard Community Church, 1377 Palmcove Drive, Charleston SC, 29492 Memo: Spring Break Boston. Or the quicker way is Paypal. My paypal username is stephenbateman@bellsouth.net.
2. Either way, the stakes are higher this time, since I’m leading more than just myself. Please commit to pray for me March 6-11, and let me know if you do! Thanks!

After the trip I’ll blog a video about what we did. It’s going to be fantastic I think.

Hey friends, Batterson’s book “Primal” was finally released today, which you of course can’t get before Christmas (Kindle Edition!), but I really recommend grabbing it by the new year.

Batterson goes through the four ways that we love God: Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength. He really digs into each of them, using the metaphor of stairs descending down into the catacombs of our hearts. My favorite line is that we ought to be “great at the Great Commission,” a stirring statement for sure.

At first I thought, “He always writes about animals and ‘animalistic’ themes” but really, that’s what we need a lot of times! I’m pretty sure I *know* enough, probably more than many generations of Christians who took a stand and went for it. Perhaps we just need a forceful, primal reminder to get back to the basics and not make it terrifically complicated.

Well grab this book, it’s in stores now or from the Publisher

(Legally speaking, I have to mention that this book was given to me to be reviewed…)

Right now I’m in process of apply for International Business. One of the questions asks you to discuss career objectives and international issues. I also just read Made to Stick, great book, which talks a lot about stories. So I combined the two. Tell me what you think:

Every morning, Anna carries two buckets of water up from the stream for her family. She is 19 years old and wants to go to school, but her mother can’t afford the pay the $20 for books. Eight months ago, Anna’s friend told her about LearnHope International, an organization that teaches business and computing skills to poor Ugandans at no charge. Anna enrolled in the program and her potential was clear. The school taught her that poverty is a mindset, change is possible, and her future could be bright. After completing the program, she started a business selling chickens grown by her family and even hired two employees who will one day start their own businesses.

Unfortunately, LearnHope doesn’t exist.

1 billion people live on less than $1 dollar/day. But I care about Anna, the girl faithfully carrying water to her family. Poverty is not my issue. Anna is my issue.

So the questions are:

1. Lame or effective?
2. Does “LearnHope” exist?

My friend Andy just posted about the schism that’s been happening as a result of differing musical tastes in people. Suddenly we have Hip Hop church which is different from Rock Church who think Country Church is abysmal because they just wish they were Bluegrass Church. I’d like to add a bit to what he had to say:

• Is Blended Worship a real option or a sad compromise from traditional to contemporary.
  Yes and no. Redone hymns can be *incredible.* But sometimes “Blended” is like going to Steak-n-Shake and finding they “shook” them together. Bleh.
• Should Music Style Be a Church Growth Strategy? (Or at least part of strategy discussion)
  Music can definitely get people in the building. But isn’t it secondary at best? Relationships grow churches, not flashing lights. But since people are now professional consumers of music, virtually everyone can tell when the music “isn’t right” and needs improvement. Excellence is important, but authenticity is better.

Good corporate worship should:

1. Communicate Jesus
2. Be theologically sound
3. Maintain some standard of aesthetic excellence.

I’m concerned that we miss the first two in pursuit of the third.

Last week a free blog design giveaway was announced here.

The winner is Jay Caruso. He recently gave away his photographic services for Help-Portrait, and I want to return the favor in blog design. Like karma. Except karma doesn’t exist. (yea that was corny…)

Thanks to everyone that applied, I’d like to work with all of ya’ll, and if time permits I will. Soon the completed product will be done!

I was looking for a good web design project, and realized that a few of you could use a “bloglift”.

So for Christmas this year I’m offering a free blog upgrade. If you’ve been stalling on making your blog look good, now is your chance to jump in! What you’ll get:

• A fresh custom design
• Some plug-in suggestions for even more functionality
• a little Christmas cheer

The super-quick application is available here. If your blog is just the way you like it already, awesome, surely you have a friend who’d be interested. Winners will be selected December 14th.

There are two kinds of people in art: Creators and Producers.

These roles stem from God, all the way back to creation. He starts out doing all the work himself, the epitome of “creator.” But then, a switch happens, and God sends us to “be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it.”

Creator God is also Producer God.

For a while I was convinced I’d be responsible for doing work, creating so to speak. So I spent a lot of time learning about better design, and felt competitive when someone else was more talented (which was kind of a lot). But it’s possible that God’s role for my life extends more to enabling others to create awe rather than doing it myself. How about you? Creator or Producer?

Just found this interesting website: Jesus 2020.

It’s basically what would’ve happened to you if a Baptist walked up to you in the 70’s-90’s and wanted to save your soul. What’s the inherent problem?

He didn’t introduce himself.

Of course that’s the smaller issue in a bigger problem: I don’t know him, and so how can I trust him?

P.S. I don’t hate it, I just don’t think it’s effective…

BTW: for the rest of the semester, this blog is focused on my thoughts about life and God…come Christmas we’ll get focused…

Other note: Suffering is very hard, and I want to point out systemic issues, not act like suffering shouldn’t exist.

At church yesterday, the pastor says: “everyone bow your heads, and close your eyes” which as a preachers kid, I quickly learned meant “squint your eyes enough that he *thinks* they’re closed, but they’re still open enough to see all the people who raise their hand.” Don’t hate.

He then says: “everyone who is suffering, raise your hand so I can pray for you as we begin.” and without any qualifications to what that means, half the room shoots up their hand. HALF? there were about 200 people in the room, so that’s 100 suffering people, and 100 not-quite-suffering people.

Right now, I have no solutions. But if in the family of God, half of them are suffering, is that broken?

Or how about this: I *thought* there were about 1/4 suffering people, before the poll. Is that broken?

Love ya.

I follow a very specific philosophy of connecting with people on the internet. That means I want to connect, but not everyone does. As far as I can tell, my breaking point is following 300 people. Beyond that, Twitter is *only* a tool for publicity and random narcissism for me.

But not everyone agrees. Some people follow 16000, 25000, or even 100,000 twitterers. To me, it’s like this: we’re on the phone, but instead of a conversation, I just sit and listen to you talk. It’s one-way communication in a two-way age. “follow *everyone* who follows you.” The problem is, they don’t want to know me, and I don’t want to know them. So it’s mutually assisted narcissism.

Not only that, *my* tweets go from valuable to them, to spam as well! Can you see how good content becomes spam so quickly? Spam is quietly threatening Facebook, Twitter, and basically all of social media. But unlike email, you can actually fix it!

Ok, that’s the end of my three post rant on spam. I really just think it’s valuable to clean up your digital life.