Griping Works.....

About a month ago, I was supposed to go to the Titans game, we were trying to get a demo done at Digital Dog, so I passed up the opportunity to go. I was angry about it and I wrote this post at the time. My good friend Tara knew of some tickets available for the game today and gave me the opportunity to buy them. Kathy and I talked about it, I bought them as part of my Christmas present. I offered Sarah(doesn't understand football) and Kathy(hates to be cold) the opportunity to go with me, both declined, Chris was jumping at the chance so we went. I took some pictures with my camera phone. It was fun, it wasn't a very exciting game, but the Titans won. Cleveland lost like we needed them to so now as Chris said "All we have to do is beat Indy in Indy and we go to the playoffs"...Oh boy...

We had to go to Goodlettsville to get the tickets, its about a 25 or 30 mile drive, some highway miles...I thought it would be a good drive for Chris to make. He did very well, we went to Rivergate afterwards, he drove there too, a few rough spots, but he's doing well. I can't get over the weird feeling of putting my life in the hands of someone whose diaper I used to change. See Tara's post about Ethan's first drive

I'm not sure which is tougher, Chris driving with me in the car, or me driving with him in the car. He loves to point out the cases where I just might be a skosh over the speed limit....or if I forget to use my blinker...or whatever infraction (minor I assure you) I commit while driving. He seems to think he caught me going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit, I introduced him to the concept of parallax which affects the perceived reading of a needle based instrument (such as a speedometer) based on the position of the observer (I didn't mention that a speedometer would read slower when viewed from the passenger seat). I assured him that his dad was a good driver and that the policeman that pulled us over on the way to soccer practice (when he was 5) was just having a bad day....

Has anyone seen my Ebenezer?

I am not a cook, I enjoy fixing food for my family, but cooking is not something I do regularly. The one thing that I do cook is breakfast. Last weekend, I decided to make pancakes. I got everything together, when they were finally ready, I called out "Pancakes Are Ready" and this little voice in the back of my head finished the old hymn by singing "...Come to the feast...".

That got me to thinking about the old hymns that I grew up with. A few years ago, I went on a men's retreat to see a baseball game in Atlanta. We stopped at a small local Church on Sunday Morning. One of the first songs they sang "Bringing In The Sheaves". It was a little bit jarring, I had not sung that particular song in a very long time. I can remember thinking as a kid, "What's A Sheave?", if we are bringing them in? where are they?

Even today one of my favorite hymns is "Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing", here is verse 2:

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

So what's an Ebenezer anyway? (answer here) Do I have one? Why am I raising it? I loved the song, but did it really speak to me? not really.

My point here is....Jesus spoke to his time, I am amazed that whatever setting he was in, he was able to teach. On an open hillside he uses birds and flowers to speak of God's love and care. When speaking to farmers, he uses the concepts of planting and harvesting. When talking to fishermen, he talks about sorting a catch.

Christians now must speak to our time. Singing songs that use King James english will not speak to this generation. Many of the normal tools that Churches use to teach and communicate, will not speak to this generation. We must keep up with the times, we must adapt.

Here are some examples:

In my day, the big thing was to have a phone in your room. Today it must be a cell phone. However, phones are not to be talked on, they are used to text. How many youth groups are using this technology to communicate? How many Churches still have a phone tree?

Churches spend thousands of dollars in postage to mail bulletins to members. There is a certain segment of the population that will always expect a weekly bulletin. However, a growing group doesn't want information once/week, they want it as soon as it becomes available. Sending an email everytime an event occurs is complicated, however, RSS (the format used by Bloglines and Google Reader to 'subscribe' to a blog) would allow members to view the Church's information very inexpensively and quickly.

Churches are still struggling with putting together websites. Don't get me wrong, web sites are good, (I build them for a living) but the traditional Church web site is difficult to manage and goes out of date quickly. Using pre-built technologies like blogs or Facebook is much easier to maintain and keep current.

It's not just about Churches, individual Christians can do a lot using technology.

Blogs are cool, even though I've only been blogging for a short period of time, I've been able to see the readership grow. The thing I get most excited about is when I see that someone has reached my blog through some random internet search. This post that I did last August has gotten several hits from people searching for information about Euler's Identity. It is exciting to me that they found my post that said that it was proof that God exists. Did it have an effect? I won't know until the last day, but in my mind, the seed was planted somewhere.

Social networks are becoming very popular with young people. I have an account on Facebook and MySpace, I'm looking for people that I grew up with, there are not many, but, there are thousands and thousands of young people, college age or younger are Churches using this technology to speak to this generation?

Yeah, I'm a technology guy, I'm probably a bit myopic as far as this topic goes, but gracious, are Christians struggling to communicate the message in this day and age? Twelve guys were able to communicate the message with the whole world on foot. With what we have today, we should be able to tell the whole world instantly.

The most condemning item on this topic is...Satan knows how to use technology. (Click Here for some statistics).

This post has not turned out the way that I had planned. I really meant to just talk about the songs that we sing....how do we speak to the younger generation. It's got me thinking now though....hmmmm....

I need a job....

This is what happens when programmers have too much time on their hands...

A Nashville Tradition Revisited...

A Nashville Tradition Revisited...
Originally uploaded by DonnieHall

Hello gang....sorry that it has been so long. Between keeping a job and finding a job and hair-raising rides with a new driver, its been tough to get time to update everybody on what is going on.

So...let's see...
the job hunt is going pretty well, I'm getting a lot of interest from companies. I should have good news on that front pretty soon (hopefully).

I had a strange experience last Friday evening. We went to the FCS basketball game. This year the team is young, very young. Mostly freshmen and sophmores. It was almost surreal to me to see these boys on a varsity basketball court. I've been watching most of the play since they were 8 or 9 years old. It just didn't seem right for them to be out there.

I've been driving the truck pretty regularly....I love it. Something about driving a 5 speed pickup truck reminds me that I'm not all geek ;-)

Here's some pretty cool news. Chris (who at times is quite a ham) is doing live online play-by-play of the FCS basketball games. He loves sports, but didn't really latch on to playing basketball. But somehow, he got involved in doing the play-by-play. It's pretty cool. The web site is http://atwsportscast.com. I'll let you know when they are broadcasting. I'm just waiting for him to do his Waterboy impression during a broadcast...

We've been having some mobile phone troubles as a family, last weekend, we added a new phone to the mix which meant everybody switched around. I knew that was going to happen and was looking forward to it because I knew that I would get a phone with a better camera. Many times I've seen funny or interesting thing that I wanted to photograph and share. The camera on my previous phone was terrible, but now I have one that is pretty good. Blogger + Flickr + a good camera phone is cool for a blogger. (see comments)

Last night, I had to go to Nashville to install a new version of software at one of my client's office. I talked to Kathy before I left and she said that I needed to take the loop around Nashville because they had a sign on the old American General Building. It took me a while to get to where I could take a picture, but I thought I would share it.

For those of you who "ain't from around here", this building was originally the home office for American General Insurance. When they were based there, they always had a sign on the building. As a kid, it was always exciting to drive around the loop at night to see what it said. Several years ago, American General built another building and moved to Brentwood. The office building was bought by the State of Tennessee. They don't put messages on the building much any more...but it seems like they do around Christmas.

If you don't stop by this way again before Christmas....Merry Christmas to you and your families.

An Angel in the Post Office

I've added Craig's List to my list of places to check for job postings. I had heard of some company's that post jobs there, I checked it out, it's pretty interesting. I found a couple of opportunities that I'm looking into. Anyway, Craig's list is a very simple posting service, some use it as kind of a community blog (if you will) to post messages to people that they don't know. The better posts appear on the 'Best of Craig's List'. I was reading through some of them (warning some are PG-13 or worse) but I ran across this post that was pretty touching. I thought that I would share it with you.

This is one of the kindest things I've ever experienced. I have no way to know who sent it, but there is a kind soul working in the dead letter office of the US postal service. Our 14 year old dog, Abbey, died last month. The day after she died, my 4 year old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I thought we could so she dictated these words:

Dear God, Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick. I hope you will play with her. She likes to play with balls and to swim. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her you will know that she is my dog. I really miss her.

Love, Meredith.

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it. Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office. A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet. I told her that I thought He had.

Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, 'To Meredith' in an unfamiliar hand. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, 'When a Pet Dies.' Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey & Meredith and this note:

Dear Meredith,

Abbey arrived safely in heaven. Having the picture was a big help. I recognized Abbey right away. Abbey isn't sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don't need our bodies in heaven, I don't have any pockets to keep your picture in, so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by. Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you have. I picked her especially for you. I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much. By the way, I am wherever there is love.

Love, God

Have a blessed day.

Woo! Hoo!

Sorry that I haven't posted in a while, I've been getting cranked up on a new project and trying to get caught up on some work that had been building up.

Anyway, here's what's going on...believe it or not, my pickup truck is road legal. Taxes, tags and everything. If you don't know the whole story, you can read about it here , here, here, here and here .

Chris' birthday was Monday. He's 15, you know what that means, that's right, learner's permit. Got it yesterday. We've been tooling around the church parking lot for several months, yesterday was the first trip on the road. We have some work to do, but he did pretty good. For those of you who know me, the red zone is about a 3 block radius around my house from approximately 3pm until 9pm. I'll update you when we venture further out.

Job update....I've been shaking bushes, waiting to hear from folks, Nothing definite yet. I've got some contract work lined up for a while. But I've got to get cranking on something permanent.

My friend Tim told me about something that I was really excited about. There is a restaurant in East Nashville called the Family Wash. It used to be a laundromat, but they converted to restaurant with live music. On Wednesdays, during December, they have a jazz ensemble that plays the music from a Charlie Brown Christmas. If you remember the music from Charlie Brown, it was always some jazzy piano licks. It was written by Vince Guaraldi. Several of the peanuts songs, particularly Linus and Lucy and Cast Your Fate To The Wind are now jazz standards. Kathy was a trooper and said that she would go with me, we got there, the place was packed. Kathy avoided the whole jazz thing again.

Well, I've got some work to do this morning...if you have some room on your prayer list, please put my job situation on there. Thanks.

The thrill of hope...

If you have even the most basic appreciation of jazz, you should buy this Christmas album (yeah, I still call them albums). I look forward to Thanksgiving every year because that's when you can start listening to Christmas music without feeling like a toad. This CD has one of the most stirring versions of O Holy Night ever.

Amazon has samples here.