Shepherd’s Notes

Pastoring from a Zip Line…

Words fail me…

HT: Vitamin Z

April 05 2013 | Blog | No Comments »

I Miss George Bush!

Politics seems to be going from bad to worse these days. Fiscal Cliffs, Government Health Care Mandates, Tax Policy, Gun Control, sometimes it just feels like the whole world is falling apart. Times like these can make you long for simpler days when life wasn’t nearly this complicated, like the days when George Bush was our president.

Of all the things that I miss about President Bush the one thing that stands out above all the rest was his facility with the spoken word. His soaring rhetoric could take you to the heights of joy and walk you through the depths of despair…although more often than not it just brought a bewildered look to your face and a chuckle in your belly. Here’s an example.

HT: Todd Bolen

January 25 2013 | Blog | No Comments »

Holland vs the Netherlands

This year Amy and I will celebrate our thirteenth year of marriage. She has brought so much joy into my life through her friendship, her tender care for me and the family, and her beautiful spirit that I consider myself to be a remarkably blessed man.

When we met in 2001 I have to admit that there was a little bit of culture shock due to the fact that Amy is Dutch and I’m…well…I’m kind of a mut. In any case, if I’d had this video in 2001, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference with the culture shock, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

HT: Challies

January 04 2013 | Blog | 2 Comments »

How Not to Kill a Spider

This is one of the funniest things that I’ve seen in a LONG time!!!

You have to wait to see his face at the end and listen to him cry for his momma

HT: Gizmodo

December 21 2012 | Blog | No Comments »

Tim Hawkins on Multitasking

I can so relate:

December 06 2012 | Blog | No Comments »

“Alone Together”

If you’re thinking about getting an iPhone or if you have one, this is something you should watch for a few laughs and a quick reality check.

September 14 2012 | Blog | No Comments »

I Love Chick-fil-A!!!

Be sure to go to your local Chick-Fil-A today!

August 01 2012 | Blog | 2 Comments »

How Does a “Cool Pastor” Keep His Family Cool?

You can go ahead and file this post in the completely “random” category, but I’m pretty excited about this, so here it goes.

I am one of a very select group of men who can honestly call themselves “Cool Pastors”. As far as I know, there are less than 10 men who have ever been able to call themselves “cool pastors” without sounding goofy. The reason that I belong to this elite group of men is because I am the pastor of a Cool Church, Cool Community Church to be precise.

While I do live in a Cool town and shepherd a very Cool flock, the sad truth is that it isn’t always cool in Cool. In fact, sometimes it’s downright hot here. That’s why it’s important for me to keep my family cool, which is what this post is all about.

Now for most people the question of how to keep their family cool isn’t worthy of a blog post, they just turn on the A/C and magically they are kept cool. But, things are different here in the country. Some of the “high fluting” folks in our community have those fancy shmancy A/C units, but the rest of us have to stay cool the old fashioned way with a swamp cooler (by the way, that last sentence was meant to be a joke, almost everyone I know here in Cool has an Air Conditioner).

In my war with the heat, I have found two powerful weapons that have kept my house at under 77 degrees all summer long (even on 102 degree days). The first is what I call my secret weapon, and the second is what I call my super weapon. Here’s the run down:

1) Secret Weapon – It took me over a year to learn this so in the hopes of shortening your learning curve should you ever become as Cool as I here’s the secret. Learn your swamp cooler on over night. It’s true that a swamp cooler can’t do a whole lot of good against a blazing 100 degree sun, but if you’ve got your house down to about 62 degrees over night then it’s got a lot further to go during the day. This has been the single most effective thing that I’ve done to keep cool.

2) Super Weapon – In the worst case scenario, where the secret weapon doesn’t work I pull out my super weapon in a last ditch effort, before I pack up the kids and go to the church sanctuary for an all night movie marathon of Pixar films. The super weapon is ice! I climb up on the roof (where the swamp cooler is at) and put a frozen jug (usually a used milk carton) of water right in the pan. The ice cools the water, which cools the swamp cooler pads, which cools the air being pumped into the house…at least that’s the theory, I haven’t actually had to try this since my secret weapon is so unbelievably AWESOME!!!

Neither of these things do anything to keep rattle snakes away (rattle snakes love to come out when it’s hot), but that’s what I have this for:

July 30 2012 | Blog | 3 Comments »

12 Signs You Attend Church in Suburbs

Living in the country, I thought that this post making fun of suburban churches was hilarious. Here’s an excerpt:

If you’ve been wondering whether or not you attend church in the suburbs, allow me to help.

You might you attend church in the suburbs if…

3. You forgo Starbucks on Sundays in order to support the “coffee ministry” at your church’s on-site coffee shop, which is probably called either “Javallujah!” or “Heavenly Grounds.”

4. Members under the age of 50 use the Bible apps on their iPhones, iPods, and iPads, instead of the pew Bible.

5. The older members spend the entire sermon iJudging the younger members for “playing” on their iPhones, iPods, and iPads during church.

6. The “poor” among you is the person without the iPhone, iPod or iPad.

7. Your church is within walking distance of at least four other churches. You could realistically get coffee from one church’s coffee bar; drink it at the mid-size church that really “gets” worship, and then hop on over to the other mega church for the sermon because the preacher is more “dynamic.” (Translation: the chairs are more comfortable).

8. Your church is less cool because it doesn’t have a fountain pond.

9. Your church has a fountain pond, but it is still less cool because all the ducks chose to fellowship at a different pond-church.

10. A non-Caucasian family joins your church, thus doubling the number of “ethnic” members, and you now consider your church a diverse body.

June 20 2012 | Blog | No Comments »

Looking Back on 2011

Dave Barry has a really funny piece over at the Wall Street Journal looking back on what he calls the “2011 Festival of Sleaze”. Here’s an excerpt:

It was the kind of year that made a person look back fondly on the gulf oil spill…

I’m not saying that the entire year was ruined by sleaze. It was also ruined by other bad things. This was a year in which journalism was pretty much completely replaced by tweeting. It was a year in which a significant earthquake struck Washington, yet failed to destroy a single federal agency. It was a year in which the nation was subjected to a seemingly endless barrage of highly publicized pronouncements from Charlie Sheen, a man who, where you have a central nervous system, has a Magic 8-Ball. This was a year in which the cast members of “Jersey Shore” went to Italy and then — in an inexcusable lapse of border security — were allowed to return.

But all of these developments, unfortunate as they were, would not by themselves have made 2011 truly awful. What made it truly awful was the economy, which, for what felt like the 17th straight year, continued to stagger around like a zombie on crack. Nothing seemed to help. President Obama, whose instinctive reaction to pretty much everything that happens, including sunrise, is to deliver a nationally televised address, delivered numerous nationally televised addresses on the economy, but somehow these did not do the trick. Neither did the approximately 37 million words emitted by the approximately 249 Republican-presidential-contender televised debates, out of which the single most memorable statement made was, quote: “Oops.”

As the year wore on, frustration finally boiled over in the form of the Occupy Various Random Spaces movement, wherein people who were sick and tired of a lot of stuff finally got off their butts and started working for meaningful change via direct action in the form of sitting around and forming multiple committees and drumming and not directly issuing any specific demands but definitely having a lot of strongly held views for and against a wide variety of things. Incredibly, even this did not bring about meaningful change. The economy remained wretched, especially unemployment, which got so bad that many Americans gave up even trying to work. Congress, for example.

January 01 2012 | Blog | No Comments »