These are a few of the things I’ve recently found interesting, but don’t have the time to properly blog on. I don’t necessarily like or agree with the links here, I just think they’re interesting. And just in case you do, too, enjoy. (You can view past Del.icio.us links here…
Del.icio.us links for August 7, 2006
These are a few of the things I’ve recently found interesting, but don’t have the time to properly blog on. I don’t necessarily like or agree with the links here, I just think they’re interesting. And just in case you do, too, enjoy. (You can view past Del.icio.us links here…
Del.icio.us links for August 6, 2006
These are a few of the things I’ve recently found interesting, but don’t have the time to properly blog on. I don’t necessarily like or agree with the links here, I just think they’re interesting. And just in case you do, too, enjoy. (You can view past Del.icio.us links here…
New year, new design.
Since we’re a year older here at the BlogRodent’s bolt-hole on the Web (I use the royal “We,” of course, any blame accruing from this blog is entirely mine–my wife happily observes), I thought it’d be a good time to effect a complete redesign. My WordPress install has gone from…
Del.icio.us links for August 5, 2006
These are a few of the things I’ve recently found interesting, but don’t have the time to properly blog on. I don’t necessarily like or agree with the links here, I just think they’re interesting. And just in case you do, too, enjoy. (You can view past Del.icio.us links here…
BlogRodent turns one: top 10 posts, plus top ten lessons.
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 made sure to moderate the comments and track the 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—so June 20 passed without a mention. 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 CE 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.
Pentecostal Sin
Over on my post, “Charismatic Heresy,” inspired by the egregious charismatic excess highlighted by Charisma editor J. Lee Grady, reader Lynn asked some questions that deserve more attention than a comment reply merits. Lynn writes: I go to an A/G church, but have very Reformed views. It has been a struggle for years.…
Da Vinci Code Conversations, Redux
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…
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Da Vinci Code Conversations
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…
Subscribing to BlogRodent by email
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…
Del.icio.us links for April 25, 2006
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…
The Apprentice: Ten Leadership Lessons I Learned
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 …
Debt unpayable, representation needed
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…
BlogRodent’s Personal DNA
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…
One good shave deserves another: My bald son.
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…
Fatal Sincerity: Our complicit silence when heresy speaks
Some of these televangelists may be sincere people (I’m convinced many are not), but they are sincerely, fatally wrong. The shallow, selfish, emotional gospel preached in these circles is not going to stand up over the long haul in this culture. Good grief. In the NT, even the local church deacons had to understand and hold fast to the deep truths of the faith. Local church elders/pastors had to do the same, and be able to teach these truths to the building up of the local church. Today, even prominent “ministers” are so ignorant that they are completely clueless as to the mere fact of their ignorance, let alone its depth….
The Gospel According to Tim Sanders: Be a lovecat, dude!
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…
Eichenwald blasts bloggers. Is that a fact or is he reporting again?
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…
God is dead? And I am he?
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]
The A/G feed trough and a new Pentecostal journal. Whee!
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…
Telling lies for fun and profit: The Tooth Fairy
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…
Cheap Grace: Pimp my gospel!
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…
Latest on Golden Murder
On Wednesday, February 15, WSAV News reported that Eric Brian Golden, the 35–year-old Southside Assembly of God youth pastor who killed his wife, was formally indicted on several charges in Chatham County, Georgia (in Savannah). According to the Chatham County Courhouse website, the case was filed on the 15th, and the next event will be a conference hearing on April 20. Hon. Perry Brannen, Jr., is the judge, and Golden is being defended by attorney John P. Sugrue.
Are three odd numbers evidence of a Creator?
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 NumbersCoincidence and random mutation are not the most likely explanations for some things.by Charles Edward White The article summarizes the evidentiary value…
Carlton D. Pearson: The Charismatic Bishop of Heresy
Update (07/14/2007): “Carlton Pearson: The closest to God you’ll probably ever get“ On Heresy What is heresy? The textbook definition is simply: An opinion or a doctrine at variance with established religious beliefs … or A controversial or unorthodox opinion or doctrine. And right alongside that definition — at least on this…