Junk Drawer Spirituality

The 12 Most Annoying Types of Facebookers

I just read this article on CNN.com.  Thought it was pretty clever.  And I'm pretty sure I've violated almost every single one of this guy's facebooking pet-peaves at one time or another, so that makes it even more entertaining for me (except for the one on on being a "chronic inviter"  I NEVER do mass invites, nor do I respond to them).

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/20/annoying.facebook.updaters/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Does Church Online Work?

One recent phenomenon that we're beginning to see at a few churches around the country is the use of the internet to broaden the church's reach to folks who might not be interested in physically stepping inside the doors of a church.  Now days, you can create a live streaming video of an entire worship service with professional quality camera work and audio, and at the same time operate within a chat room where people sharing the same experience can chat back and forth about the message and service, pray for each other, and even participate in an online small group later in the week.

I am not 100% sold on the experience.  I think time will tell how valuable of a service an online campus really is in helping people love God and people well.  I'm glad churches are trying it, but I continue to have trouble with the idea that a person could watch an online service, enter a chat-room, never meet a single person from my church face-to-face, but we would somehow be OK with that and not push them to experience "real" church.  On the other hand, I do truly believe in online community.  I think real community DOES happen through internet technology (blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.).  I suppose the question is whether or not "church community" can happen online where people are somehow loving God better, loving people better, and finding their way back to God.

Well, today, I came across this video that put another plus in the column for online community (if you're keeping score).  Check it out.

http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2009/08/13/why-church-online/comment-page-1/#comment-165763

The Most Popular Games You've Never Heard Of

I have now lived in three different regions of the United States.  I grew up in Texas (the Texas panhandle to be exact), I lived in Denver, Colorado for five years, and I have now lived in Chicago for more than two years.  I love observing the differences in cultures between the various places I have lived. . . the accents through which people speak, the foods people eat, the sports teams for whom people cheer.

But one thing that has been an interesting discovery in my various moves around the country is the differences between the games people play from region to region.  People in Texas don't play the same games as the people in Chicago, and the people in Colorado don't play the same games as the people in Texas.  I have a hunch that one could go to any state in the United States and find one regional pastime that is mostly unique to that region, that most people in that region understand and play, and that most people outside that region have never heard of.  And understanding and competently playing these games is perhaps one of the most important steps in assimilating into any new environment.  

So I thought I'd begin a list of games that are often played in certain regions, but rarely played in others.  If you'd like to add to the list leave a comment below. . .

Mexico Trip 2009

Late last night I returned home from Tijuana, Mexico, where myself and a group of nine others spent a week building a home for a Mexican family.  It was Waterfront's first official mission trip.  We went with Amor Ministries, an organization based out of San Diego, CA who have built thousands of homes for families such as these for the past 30 years.  About 4 years ago I led a similar trip to Juarez, but I think every time you go on a trip like this, it's unique.  It's hard to talk about everything so let me just hit a few of the highlights.

The Most Impressive Part of the trip:

The family:  On my previous Mexico house building experience, the family was not very involved with our team, and so we never really had the opportunity to get to know them.  What a difference it was with our family last week!  From the first day of our build the mother and her two children interacted with us, joked with us, played with us, worked with us, and became part of our lives.  I couldn't believe how hard this family worked.  Their 10 year old son followed us around all week with his hammer and tool belt helping us build his home.  Rosario, his mother, spent hours with us that first day, filling buckets of sand with a shovel and carrying them up a hill so we could mix them with concrete.  They were so personable and so appreciative, getting to know them really made the whole trip for me.

The Funnest Part:

There were a few moments during the week that we set down our hammers and shovels and just enjoyed ourselves.  Here are the my top three:

1.  Soccer:  Late in the day on day 2, with a brand new soccer ball in hand (given by one of our team members), our Mexican family's daughter asked us to play soccer with her.  So I and two other fellas from our group headed over to a near-by field where a bunch of neighborhood kids joined us for a game of soccer.  We played for about half an hour, and I was pretty whipped by the end, but it was a blast.

2. Water Balloon fight:  On our third day, we brought a bunch of water balloons and had a water balloon fight with a bunch of the kids.  It was alot of fun.

    

3.  Taking our family out to lunch:  On the second day, we decided to go out to lunch with our team to a local restaurant and we invited our family to come with us.  It was awesome.  The food was excellent.  Great tacos, quesadillas and home-made guacamole, and we ate A TON of it.  And we had a fun time visiting with our family.  They talked about that experience for the rest of the week.  The mother was telling all of her neighbors "They just kept ordering food!"    

The Hardest Part:

Day one of the build:  On my previous Mexico experience, I had a team of about 17 or 18 people and we used an electric concrete mixer to make the concrete for the house's foundation.  I still remember that day being really, really difficult.  On THIS trip, we had only 10 people, and we mixed the entire slab of concrete (22 X11) by hand with garden hoes.  It was really hot, it was hard work, we were short-handed by about 2 or 3 people, and it was pretty darn miserable.  We all came home after that first day saying, "That sucked."

But, the following days were easier, and overall, the trip was great.  There will be more to come, but here are a few pictures from the trip. . .