BlogRodent: Pentecostal Rumination & Review

If you're just interested in the top ten lessons, skip ahead.

Yowie, it's been a busy couple of months. Since I went on vacation in early June my life has been very full. I've had a lot of video editing to do, and I've been taking work home to do it on my laptop — since it seems so hard to get anything accomplished at the office. (Is it ironic when your boss agrees that the worst place to do work is at the office?)

Meanwhile, I've been wringing my hands over my blog. I've been too … absorbed in everything else to dredge up the energy to post anything substantive, but over the past couple weeks I've at least made sure to moderate comments and track stats. So, BlogRodent hasn't really fallen off my radar. It's just that I've fallen off the face of the Earth. In fact, I'm waiting for video to finish rendering right now … so with a few minutes on my hands, I thought I'd post a retrospective.

I think milestones are important. I'd been waiting for the one-year anniversary of BlogRodent so I could celebrate it with an anniversary post. Naturally, because I am time-insensitive — my employers would say I'm time-comatose — June 20 passed without comment. I'm about to rectify that.

What happened on this blog on that day one year ago? My first "Hello World" post, nervously titled, "This is easy," and a throw-away mention of the adult Christian education class I was teaching at the time, "Do Heaven and Hell exist?" Frankly, there's nothing to recommend either post for your reading pleasure. But lot has happened since then and I hope I've made some improvement.

Let's talk about what's been good, bad, and what I've learned as a newbie Pentecostal blogger.

After two weekend-long video-editing sessions we finally went live with the new online training course anticipating the Da Vinci Code film opening next week on the 19th. It’s called “Da Vinci Code Conversations,” and it's intended to give viewers a brief, birds-eye-view of the major contentions in Dan Brown's novel and — presumably — the film.

Not having screened the film, everybody is guessing as to how much of the book’s more controversial elements made it into the screenplay, but we’re pretty sure it will involve the major highlights of this course since the plot largely depends on it:

• Emperor Constantine was a lifelong pagan who fabricated Christ’s divinity at the Council of Nicaea in order to further his political ambition.
• Virtually everybody knew Christ was a mere mortal until Constantine cooked up this divinity myth at Nicaea.
• Christ was married to

I haven’t been blogging much of late because nearly every waking hour for the past three weeks has been focused on the imminent launch of the latest online training course I’ve been tinkering with (no—more like beating myself senseless against) at work.

I’m responsible for selecting and preparing content for one of ChristianityToday.com’s websites: CTCourses.com (short for ChristianityTodayCourses.com, natch). So far, since our launch in early January, 2006, we’ve managed to push two courses out the door, one on how to host small groups, featuring Brett Eastman, and another free course on managing email overload, featuring Kevin Miller (my supervisor at CT, freshly ordained Anglican priest, and also author of a book on managing information overload).

Tomorrow, if all goes well, we’ll be launching the third course, and we

I just realized that my subscription tool for subscribing to BlogRodent by email was dysfunctional. So, I’ve fixed it and wanted to let you know.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog and don’t use a feed reader to monitor the site, you can still catch all the blogalicious stuff right in your inbox by just subscribing to BlogRodent by email.

And, here’s something I have failed to mention before about this: You can get the notification in HTML format--but only if you register first (not my decision--it's a function of the plugin I'm using).

[tags]BlogRodent, subscribe[/tags]

I’ve been running a new tool on my site for a couple days that hasn’t broken (yet) so I figure it’s time to announce it in case you’re interested. Enter: BlogRodent’s Del.icio.us Stuff. You’ll find my list of interesting things on the left (see, there?) and you can click from there, or go to the full page (link above) and see the brief comment I wrote for each item. If you’re silly about it, you can even watch my passing fancies in your favorite newsreader by subscribing. 

One of the things I hate about many weblogs is the insanely recursive and self-referential nature of many (if not most) of the posts out there. Blog A points, to blog B, which points to Blog C, which points back to

I’ve been watching NBC’s Trumpfest, The Apprentice, since it began four seasons ago. At first I watched because it was a Burnett production, and my wife and I were enjoying Survivor. So, we figured since Mark Burnett was the wunderkind of unReality TV, it would be worth a watch. Now in its fifth season, my wife has stopped watching, but I still catch it on Tivo.

I’m not a particular fan of Donald Trump, conspicuous consumption, materialism, the almighty dollar, cut-throat business dealings, white-collar back-stabbing, greed, jealousy, petty rivalries, or getting fired. Its not entirely schadenfreude—the joy of watching others experience pain—it’s more like the fascination of seeing justice served when incompetent workers get axed mixed with cheers for the scrappy underdog I want to win. Whatever the source of my fascination, I’m surprised my date with Donald has lasted into the fifth season. But it’s not about Donald. Not for me. I couldn’t care less how financially successful he is: his opulent lifestyle alternately bores and sickens me. And I just don’t “get” the awe these Trump-ites hold for him. No, it’s not Trump. I watch each episode with horror thinking, How can the head of any corporation possibly think these knuckle-draggers have what it takes to run a food pantry, much less a major enterprise? Each week is another slow, sweaty train-wreck, and I can't look away.

I think, of all the seasons so far, the only one where I really cared about the finale and who won, was last year, when the scary-smart, charming, Southern Baptist, Randal Pinkett, was chosen to be the apprentice. I had been pulling for him the entire season, seeing in him a young man with great emotional intelligence matched with good practical intelligence as well. That he was charming, handsome, affable, and a natural leader with clear integrity were all pluses. I thought he might be a believer, and when it was confirmed I was intrigued. What would motivate a brilliant young Christian to follow after a materialistic, ego-driven, business superstar? I rooted for him, but I also admired his finale competitor Rebecca Jarvis. In the end, Trump hired Randal—and when Randal was given the unique opportunity to bring Rebecca on-board as well, he balked. “This isn’t The Apprenti.” Apparently, there can be only one, in Randal’s book—despite his three predecessors. My respect for him took a temporary nosedive, and I was confused (but see Randal’s blog entry). So were others.

Values are a tricky thing and it’s hard to judge, from a distance, through the lens of selectively edited video, anything that was going on there. But, strangely, it's no easier figuring out what's going on in my own office. Working with normal, everyday people is fraught with misunderstandings, presumptions, biased conclusions, and misperceptions.

Throughout the five seasons I have watched each episode, taking mental notes. Note to self: don’t bad-mouth coworkers; I never know when they’re going to turn out to be an ally, a friend, or a motivated enemy, and it’s just plain mean. Or, Note to self: life doesn’t always come in binary yes-and-no, “hired” or “fired” dichotomies. Sometimes everybody wins. Sometimes everybody loses. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the two apart. In each season I saw a microcosm of the workaday world, with rivalries, jealousies, pettiness, and ego writ large. For me, The Apprentice is a little more than a reality game-show … it’s also a weekly lesson on what makes good leadership.

To that end, I offer ten lessons I’ve learned, in no particular order. These are not the only observations I’ve had, but I gotta draw the line somewhere. So these are the ten you get.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Yahawa Wahab recently? Mr. Wahab lives in Malaysia, and he’s looking forward to his day in court: He owes $218 trillion dollars. If Mr. Wahab paid off his debt by one dollar every second of every 24-hour day, he would need 68,770.28 years to pay down his bill--or 1,058 lifetimes with 65 years of earning potential ("How Big is a Trillion?").

I stumbled across an interesting personality test today (PersonalDNA — link below). As a fan of the old Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (based on Jungian types, but updated from his mythical worldview—I'm an INTP), I enjoy taking useful and interesting personality tests once in a while. However, I never get far from my suspicion that most people would self-identify with almost any random sampling of evaluations from most tests.

One reason I like the MBTI or it's non-professional offspring, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, is that when I read the other 15 types, they don't fit me (except, on a few occasions I've come out of the test as an ENTP or

So, a couple weeks ago I decided I had enough of the receding hairline thing. I also woke up that Saturday and looked in the mirror and decided I didn’t like to look like Crusty the Clown. When hair thins, it doesn’t have fellow hairs to hang on to and cling to. Lonely hairs stand out, stand up, and wave about. It’s not pretty.

And I got tired of the wind, having to carry a comb everywhere, and just generally tired of managing dying hair.

So, I shaved. Not all the way, just enough to feel like I was shaved. I left a wee little bit of hair behind. I wasn’t totally serious about baldness yet—besides, it’s still cold here in Chicago. I need a little bit of warmth left.

A week later, AJ followed

Some of you may have heard of Tim Sanders. He was the Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo! from 2001–2003, before that he ran an in-house think-tank for Yahoo! Lately he’s been serving as the Leadership Coach there, while also hitting the leadership conference tour, and authoring a couple books along the way. His two main messages appear to be learning to love (in business), and learning how to be likeable. Conference attendees say his message is life-changing.

His first book, Love Is the Killer App, was a slender 214-page tome—that started out much larger. He cut 140,000 words from the first draft (my kind of guy … write long, cut short!), and the nut of his first book

You may remember how New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald discovered the seedy world of teenage webcam porn, and how his investigation became personal when he encouraged the subject he was interviewing—Justin Berry—to give up his sordid life, turn State’s evidence, and kick drugs. Eichenwald has since been in the hot seat for violating traditional journalistic ethics in that he became part of the story. Some claim he lost his objectivity and tarnished his legitimacy as a reporter not a story-maker by becoming personally involved and influencing the story. Eichenwald’s response is straightforward and direct: journalism doesn’t mean “we are required to check our humanity at the door.”

So, being in the eye of the ethical storm he can, presumably, objectively report on the conditions there. He recently gave an ethics lecture at Marquette University, titled, “A Delicate Balance: Objective Journalist, Engaged Citizen.”

Apparently, at

Okay, just out of curiosity, why is my picture associated with a farcical, offensive, "God is dead, Obituary?"

God, comedian, religious and actor, born December 1 1940; died December 10 2005.

Sometimes the Internet and the weird connections it facilitates boggles the mind.

[tags]BlogRodent, weird[/tags]

There’s a new academic journal on the block, and it’s from one of the A/G’s premier seminaries (I say “one of” because we have other great seminaries not on American soil, such as Asia Pacific Theological Seminary and West Africa Advanced School of Theology). It’s called Encounter: Journal for Pentecostal Ministry.

More later, but first, allow me to get a couple new feeds out of the way.

Last night I enjoyed one of those moments of fatherhood I never thought about before we had kids: pulling teeth. Twice now I've gotten some dental floss from the cabinet, tied a knot around a loose tooth, and pulled, to reveal a bloodless tiny kernel of dentition in a tangle of nylon twine. AJ has now lost his front two lower teeth, and he's already got the tips of the new one poking through the gum-line. (Those were the easy teeth. I worry about the others now.)

Before Jennifer and I married, we discussed what we would do about Christmas, Halloween, Easter, and other childhood stories. I was adamant: no myths. No lies. No Santa.

No. Tooth. Fairy.

I would not lie to my children for the sake of

The editors of Leadership journal have posted another incisive commentary on the state of the Church today in their Out of Ur weblog. It’s about how we (in the Western church) have turned the gospel into a pimping enterprise. There’s nothing really new here, it’s the same complaint Bonhoeffer had about “cheap grace.” But the language is, well, provocative. From church planter Jonathan Yarboro:

Short post today. I just wanted to point to a brief and fascinating roundup of arguments for the existence of God from a cosmological/mathematical viewpoint:

God by the Numbers
Coincidence and random mutation are not the most likely explanations for some things.
by Charles Edward White

The article summarizes the evidentiary value of three numbers in mathematics that seem to point to an intelligent designer of the universe:

Looked at my traffic logs a couple days ago...

Who died and left me all their traffic? It’s not like I blogged on Britney Spears or Anna Kournikova or anything lately. Did I?

Oh … wait … It’s gotta be Berry.

Since I blogged about Justin Berry (the former "camwhore," now believer, now States' witness, now media sensation) a while ago (here and here), I already had pretty good search rankings for my post, and it's been a steady, popular page. But yesterday our local Chicagoland media-mogul diva Oprah Winfrey blew the roof off my blog just by inviting two guests on her show, Justin Berry and Kurt Eichenwald—the reporter who outted him, saved him, and now “handles” him.

Look at the graphic at the right. This insane Mt. Everest of traffic spikes is entirely due to increased visitor traffic via Google from searchers looking

Yesterday my blog stats tripled. Nay: quadrupled. With six new random comments on my previous Justin Berry post (“Justin Berry: From ‘camwhore’ to water-baptized witness for the State”), I figured there’d been another major media piece on Berry’s recent lifestyle change and cooperation with the Feds. Little did I know that both Justin Berry and Kurt Eichenwald had appeared on the local media-diva’s talk show: Oprah. And I didn’t even Tivo it.

The links to the Oprah show content follow my comments.

“She can not take it any more, Captain!”
One thing concerns me, even more now that I’ve seen Justin’s hollow-eyed, thousand-yard stare in the Oprah.com screenshots: Justin is ripe for a meltdown-burnout-crisis. There’s a scriptural injunction against “laying hands” on anybody suddenly—it’s not a proscription against Pentecostals praying for strangers, and it’s not advice about

For some reason, my weblog became the target of hundreds of referrer spam hits from pornographic websites over the last week or so. I keep an eye on my referrer logs (a record of URLs that generated traffic to my site), and lately a bunch of URLs showed up which had no business being there. Some URLs are obviously pornographic, but there were one or two that looked innocent enough that when I clicked through to see who had linked to me, I got an eyeful. I really, really, don't need that.

So, I did some research. I didn't want to get into a trap of having to hand-modify my .htaccess file or a whitelist or a blacklist file for obvious reasons: the universe of porn and poker sites is potentially infinite. I waste enough time on this blog anyhow!

Angsuman's Referrer Bouncer looked

Updated: See, instead, a live list of plugins, here.

For any who care, here are the plugins currently in use here on BlogRodent. I turned off BAStats for a while to improve performance, but then installed WP-Cache and performance improved so dramatically I’ve turned it back on for a test. However, if you use BA-Stats, yourself, you should know that there are serious performance hits as your database grows larger and larger. I may still have to turn it off as traffic here grows. We’ll see.

Akismet 1.12
“Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use this service.” (This has caught a ton of comment-spam since I installed it, however, there have been some concerns raised lately that spammers could be using Akismet themselves

I thought I’d take a look back on the last six months, since I began blogging here, and see which of my posts received the most attention from you, my patient readers. The results are in, and I am dutifully sharing them, despite the fact that this post will only serve to draw more attention away from my other, equally deserving but under-noticed, blogerature. (Yes, I know. It's not a word.)

The Global Language Monitor recently published some interesting lists of word and phase usage for 2005. Here are my hand-picked faves:

Best top ten phrase is #9: “Jumping the Couch. Apparently losing complete emotional control; made popular by the escapades of Tom Cruise on the Oprah television show.” (Others: Out of the Mainstream, Bird Flu/Avian Flu, Politically Correct, North/South Divide, Purple Thumb, Climate Change, String Theory, The Golden Quatrilateral, Deferred success.) (See the entries for “Jump the Couch” at the Urban Dictionary and at WordSpy.)

Best top ten word is #4: “Chinglish: The new second language of China from the Chinglish formation: CHINese + EngLISH.”

Best Bushism—sounds like blogging:

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

So, Farris Hassan wants to be a journalist. More: he wants to be an immersion journalist, the kind of writer who fully enters the story he’s covering, risking becoming part of the story, and hoping to craft something fuller, with more texture, with greater narrative scope than traditional journalism. (Some traditional journalists are uncomfortable with immersive journalism because of the ethical issues raised in becoming part of the story. Recently, I blogged on Kurt Eichenwald’s story about teen pornographer Justin Berry, and Eichenwald crossed a fuzzy ethical line in traditional journalism by becoming part of and influencing the story itself, and he took some heat for it. But he did the right thing, and Eichenwald’s a big boy. He’s handling the criticism nicely.)

Problem is, Pine Crest private school student Farris Hassan is only

I’ve added a page of RSS links and email newsletter links for official Assemblies of God news outlets (and a couple unofficial). This includes links to the AG-News newsletter, Dan Betzer’s “ByLine,” and several new Women’s Ministries newsletters that look good.

If you’re interested, see:

Assemblies of God newsfeeds

It’s also linked it in my sidebar under “God,” in case you need to find it again.